Chinese culture values intellectualism. Pre communism, the Scholar Class was essentially the upper class. Chinese are superstitious but not religious. Essentially the opposite of MAGA. Keeping such a large country in check is difficult, so the government rules through fear. Fearful people do not go on to discover great things. I don’t trust research data out of China, too many studies are faked as there is enormous pressure on their scientists to be top producers.
Agast, I appreciate your insight into ancient and modern chinese culture, very helpful.
I do have a couple of thoughts. Regarding not trusting research data out of china, are you mostly referring to medical/biological research? or also the "hard" sciences of physics, math, chemistry, electric cars, aircraft engines, etc?
I agree that fearful people do not discover great things, however strong government interest and investment in science must pay some dividends, which I do expect will happen with China.
I spent a summer working at the American Medical Center of Moscow in the late 90s. It was staffed by mostly western trained physicians from US and Western Europe, but also two particularly intelligent Russian physicians. They told me that medical research had been greatly held back during all of communism, because a physician could never disprove the medical research of another physician who was higher in the party, and still plan to keep his/her job. So at that point the Russians were literally 40 years behind the rest of the world in medical science.
However, during that same summer I was also very impressed by the aptitude of a high percent of general russians for hard science. Math, chemistry, physics, engineering, etc. The communist schools emphasized science and math from an early age. Virtually everyone took college level calculus, chemistry, and physics well before college.
This contrasts greatly with our current american school system which is focused on woke BS, and feelings instead of the kids truly learning anything that matters.
And yes, there are plenty of pasty white nerdy innovators (the bill gates, larry page, steve jobs, Elon Musk types, etc) who are now being denied placement to MIT, Caltech, Stanford, and Harvard in favor of charity admissions to lesser qualified students who won the race/sex lottery.
Mark my words. American innovation and our economy will falter over the next 50 years compared to the previous 50, because the liberal part of america no longer believe in meritocracy.
Hopefully, some of this loss of innovation will be blunted by the recent supreme court's decision, which reflects the belief of the majority of Americans in a meritocratic society.
And duct, this poll link is for you 😉
Most Americans approve of Supreme Court decision restricting use of race in college admissions: POLL
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