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Originally Posted by kingsway
The Emperors of China held their country back for centuries, but see what has happened in a couple of decades once a level of freedom was achieved.
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You honestly think life is better for the average person, say your typical Foxconn worker? Plus you're skipping over the Maoist era.
I'll always remember the conference I attended at Brookhaven a few years ago: the speaker was talking about international cooperation in science, and urged everyone to go visit China by proclaiming "Yes, they have everything you'd want there: McDonalds, Pizza Hut (plus a list of fairly upscale Western brands that I can't remember offhand). They've got everything you'd find in New York." So why would a rational person subject himself to the expense & discomfort of flying halfway around the world in order to visit a place that is exactly like the place he started from?
(It was almost as disconcerting as the time I stopped in a pub in Donegal, to find they were playing American country & western.)
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The USA blossomed because it offered opportunity to the downtrodden masses of Europe. It seems to have worked quite well!
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Well, if you refrain from visiting Manhattan, the LA Basin, Los Angeles, California's Central Valley, Las Vegas, the former mountains of West Virginia... Or think about the fraction of the population suffering from obesity & other lifestyle diseases.
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I hope we won't make the same mistake of thinking that we are the be-all and end-all and that it's all downhill from now on!
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Nope, downhill started quite a while back. I really think you should meet an acquaintance of mine, by the name of Pangloss.