Will America be the next China in the end?

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Above us only sky
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Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Above us only sky »

There is a natural limit of population for any form of goverment. If we look at the world at large, we will find it really is the case:

In the splendid country of Switzerland with a population of 8.02 million, there is an institution called 'Landesgemeinde' where people there practice direct democracy.

Although India calls itself 'greatest democracy' on earth, its democracy actually has a very authoritarian taste, For example, there is a law in India which says cinemas MUST play national anthem before films, all the moviegoers should stand for anthem. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... fore-films .In a true liberal democracy, laws like this is totally unimaginable.
The 'Indian democracy' exists because under that system, the majority of Indians, the voice of poor people only matters on a peice of ballot paper .

Like many things in life, various political systems exist in this world for a reason. If India decided to follow Switzerland and ask indian people to practice their rights in the Indian Landesgemeinde, India will likely collapse into many very small countries each with a population of 8 million, because a political system for 8 million people can not be used to govern a country with 1 billion population.

Likewise, if China with the population of 1.4 billion adapts an American-style two-party democracy (including gun rights), China will very likely collapse into 4-5 smaller countries each with a population of more or less 300 million, because the current American system is only well-suited for a country with a population figure that ends with hundred millions.

Follow the same logic, at this rate of population growth, given the size and natural resources of America, the population of America will one day reach 1-2 billion, this means the current political system of America has to be changed into a system designed for a billion-level country, which I'm afraid more or less resembles a Chinese/Indian authoritarian system.


Actually there are already some signs of it: like China, America spends a lot on numerous domestic surveillance programs as revealed by Edward Snowden.

If you don't agree with me, debate is welcomed.
Last edited by Above us only sky on Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:34 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Your argument is not very good. You made no effort to establish any causal relationship between size of state and the autocratic scale you have assumed. All you have there are cherry picked anecdotes and some sort of hunch.

American fertility rates are at roughly break even so I have no idea where you get the notion of a population boom to a billion people from
Image
India isn't terribly oppressive in the grand scheme of things, there are far more oppressive places with much smaller populations.
Above us only sky
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Above us only sky »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 9:17 pm
American fertility rates are at roughly break even so I have no idea where you get the notion of a population boom to a billion people from
What matters in the future is not how much the fertility rate of America has fallen, but what the fertility rate is right now. because given the limited natural resources on earth, fertility rate will fall naturally worldwide overtime.

First of all, It is not just in America that the fertility rate is falling, it is almost everywhere. The falling fertility rate you mentioned could not knock off my argument.

However, America will become a billion level country even if it has lower fertility rate than India, as long as the America fertility rate figure surpass the death rate.

Here is a fertility rate figure, check this out:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN

America fertility rate is 1.80, China is 1.6, and don't forget the fact that as China is becoming a more industrialized country the fertility rate will continue to fall much further.
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 9:17 pm India isn't terribly oppressive in the grand scheme of things, there are far more oppressive places with much smaller populations.
I did not say India is terribly oppressive in the grand scheme of things, I did say that Indian democracy has a very strong authoritarian taste especially if you compare India with other true liberal democracy like France.

However, India did have a grand oppressive system, that is called Caste system, one reason for India to adapt a western liberal democracy is because India needs a western liberal democracy system as a dressing to de facto legitimize the caste system.

I did not say the relationship between size of state and the autocratic scale is a linear relationship, I did not say smaller country will be more democratic.
For country with a population less than 10 million, there are two options, an authoritarian system (Singapore) , a Swiss direct democracy system (Switzerland).

For country with a population of 10-60 million more or less, there are two best options, one is a direct dictatorship system ( Cuba and North Korea), another is liberal democracy (South Korea).

For a country with a population of 60-100 million, the best option is liberal democracy. (France, Japan.....)

For a country with a population of 100-900 million, the best option is Amercian style two-party system.

For a country with more that a billion population, the best option is a Chinese/Indian authoritarian system (with or without democracy as a dressing)

If you want to use the 'counter-example' of North Korea, I 'm afraid Kim will let you down:

China and North Korea do not share the same system even though the media loves to put them together.
North Korea with a population of 35 million have a sparta-style direct dictatorship system. Just like sparta, the North Korea system can not be used to govern a billion level country like India or China. In the Chinese system, heavier industries are state-controled, apart from that, it is more or less a free market economy, in China people have personal freedom and can use internet as he wishes; of course there are no elections,instead, a very rigid accountability system is in place, and in North Korea you could not find neither of them.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Above us only sky wrote: Fri Jun 23, 2017 4:48 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 9:17 pm
American fertility rates are at roughly break even so I have no idea where you get the notion of a population boom to a billion people from
What matters in the future is not how much the fertility rate of America has fallen, but what the fertility rate is right now. because given the limited natural resources on earth, fertility rate will fall naturally worldwide overtime.

First of all, It is not just in America that the fertility rate is falling, it is almost everywhere. The falling fertility rate you mentioned could not knock off my argument.

However, America will become a billion level country even if it has lower fertility rate than India, as long as the America fertility rate figure surpass the death rate.

Here is a fertility rate figure, check this out:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN

America fertility rate is 1.80, China is 1.6, and don't forget the fact that as China is becoming a more industrialized country the fertility rate will continue to fall much further.
Have you got the ability to count?
That is the fertility rate per female. It is only possible for the population to grow if it is above 2 (on account of boys not giving birth).
the replacement rate, which is shown on the graph I gave you is 2.1 which is the level that keeps population numbers static given that some children die.
So no, with a fertility rate of below 2, the USA will never become a billion person country because basic maths says NO.
Above us only sky wrote: Fri Jun 23, 2017 4:48 am For a country with a population of 100-900 million, the best option is Amercian style two-party system.
That is stuff you made up on a hunch. You have no causal reason for it to be true.
Above us only sky
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Above us only sky »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:53 am
Have you got the ability to count?
That is the fertility rate per female. It is only possible for the population to grow if it is above 2 (on account of boys not giving birth).
the replacement rate, which is shown on the graph I gave you is 2.1 which is the level that keeps population numbers static given that some children die.
So no, with a fertility rate of below 2, the USA will never become a billion person country because basic maths says NO.
Above us only sky wrote: Fri Jun 23, 2017 4:48 am For a country with a population of 100-900 million, the best option is Amercian style two-party system.
That is stuff you made up on a hunch. You have no causal reason for it to be true.

Well, you are right, it seems both America and China will have less and less population, which is a good thing for the earth.

However, I did not make that up on a hunch.

If the best option for America (a country with a population of 100-900 million) is not Amercian style two-party system, then why didn't America adapt that best option?

Can you find another country on earth that have 300 million people yet did not adapt the Amercian style two-party system? If you can, then tell me.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Above us only sky wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:27 pm Well, you are right, it seems both America and China will have less and less population, which is a good thing for the earth.

However, I did not make that up on a hunch.

If the best option for America (a country with a population of 100-900 million) is not Amercian style two-party system, then why didn't America adapt that best option?
America has failed to adopt the best option for many things, the reasons are not relevant, and you do not need to be told why. It is simply true that they can and that they sometimes do.
Above us only sky wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:27 pmCan you find another country on earth that have 300 million people yet did not adapt the Amercian style two-party system? If you can, then tell me.
Of course not, the USA is the only country with > 300 million and < 1 billion people. Not that it makes any difference as this is a philosophy forum and you are trying to derive an ought from an is there which won't fly.
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Impenitent »

Our wall will not hold the Mongols back...

-Imp
Above us only sky
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Above us only sky »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 10:36 pm
America has failed to adopt the best option for many things, the reasons are not relevant, and you do not need to be told why. It is simply true that they can and that they sometimes do.
No, not because America failed to adopt the best option existed for America, because a two party system is the best option existing for America of a certain population.

French style democracy is good, but that is not an option existing for America, if it is so, why America failed to adopt it for so many years?

However, there is hope that if one day the population of America shrink to the size equals to french population, then America has no choice but to adopt the best option available in that moment, which is more or less a french style liberal democracy which is more democratic than the current one.
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 24, 2017 10:36 pm
Of course not, the USA is the only country with > 300 million and < 1 billion people. Not that it makes any difference as this is a philosophy forum and you are trying to derive an ought from an is there which won't fly.
Let me get this right: I 'm not saying America, India or any other country morally ought to adopt a certain type of political system, It is not about what things ought to be, it is about what countries with a certain population have no choice but have to be.

Let me demostrate with an example: the water flows by gravity, it is what it is, therefore an engineer can design and build an aqueduct because by calculating the gravity factor he can predict what path water ought flow within based on his knowledge on how water flows. In other words, an engineer can know what ought to be by understanding what it is, only in this way can he build an aqueduct.

My idea is simply a development from German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's political determinism, in which Arthur Schopenhauer claimed that every country on earth has a political system its people may not like but deserves under the situation.
Last edited by Above us only sky on Sun Jun 25, 2017 1:32 am, edited 2 times in total.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Then I may as well just repeat myself...

Your argument is not very good. You made no effort to establish any causal relationship between size of state and the autocratic scale you have assumed. All you have there are cherry picked anecdotes and some sort of hunch.
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Above us only sky »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 1:20 am Then I may as well just repeat myself...

Your argument is not very good. You made no effort to establish any causal relationship between size of state and the autocratic scale you have assumed. All you have there are cherry picked anecdotes and some sort of hunch.
People why study human society have to overcome the physicist envy, that is, to come up a theory as accurate and comprehensive as the theory of gravity, but it simply is impossible in social science.

I did not conduct a research in details, and I can not say with certain exactly how much population equals what political system because first I do not have the means to conduct a good worldwide research and because nobody can say things with that certainty when he deals with human factors.

What I'm saying is this: there are many factors that determines what a country's political system is, those factors can be geographic, economical, historical and population, and I say population is the single most important factor, because the population figure alone is determined by a combined influence of geographic, economical, historical factors, and since the goal of any political system is to govern a population, therefore population is the single most important.
Above us only sky
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Above us only sky »

Impenitent wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 12:22 am Our wall will not hold the Mongols back...

-Imp
What are you talking about? well, If you refer to the issue of illegal immigrants from Mexico then I may say America will be the next China in the end if there is no wall to block Mexicans.
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Above us only sky wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 1:41 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 1:20 am Then I may as well just repeat myself...

Your argument is not very good. You made no effort to establish any causal relationship between size of state and the autocratic scale you have assumed. All you have there are cherry picked anecdotes and some sort of hunch.
People why study human society have to overcome the physicist envy, that is, to come up a theory as accurate and comprehensive as the theory of gravity, but it simply is impossible in social science.

I did not conduct a research in details, and I can not say with certain exactly how much population equals what political system because first I do not have the means to conduct a good worldwide research and because nobody can say things with that certainty when he deals with human factors.

What I'm saying is this: there are many factors that determines what a country's political system is, those factors can be geographic, economical, historical and population, and I say population is the single most important factor, because the population figure alone is determined by a combined influence of geographic, economical, historical factors, and since the goal of any political system is to govern a population, therefore population is the single most important.
You aren't doing yourself any favours with this. It is absurd to describe your research as merely lacking details, when it is entirely without research at all.
You have done nothing whatsoever to establish any relationship between pop size and authoritarianism.

I can counter your nonsense just by saying "obviously history is the most important factor", or "obviously culture is the most important factor". You cannot argue this point meaningfully if you have been too lazy to bother coming up with a causal relationship between population size and the thing you wish to link to it causally. Or at least prove there is any relationship at all.
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Above us only sky »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:19 am
You aren't doing yourself any favours with this. It is absurd to describe your research as merely lacking details, when it is entirely without research at all.

If I wrote a 3000 word essay on this topic with tons of figures and post it here are you going to read it?
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:19 am You have done nothing whatsoever to establish any relationship between pop size and authoritarianism.
I have established a relationship, and indeed there is a relationship, as a country grow bigger and bigger, it becames less and less direct democracy/direct dictatorship and more authoritarian.

I give one example:

For a city-state in ancient time, a Sparta style direct dictatorship and a Athen style direct democracy are two options,

When Rome was a city-state, it was more like a Athen style democracy, but as it became bigger it went from city-state democracy to republic, and finally to a authoritarian empire, but I can try.

However I can not give you more details on exactly how much increase on pop will trigger a transformation, and what the inner machanism of this transformation will be exactly.
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:19 am I can counter your nonsense just by saying "obviously history is the most important factor", or "obviously culture is the most important factor". You cannot argue this point meaningfully if you have been too lazy to bother coming up with a causal relationship between population size and the thing you wish to link to it causally. Or at least prove there is any relationship at all.
Here is the backbone of my theory:

Economic system and geographic factors combined determine demographics, demographics in turns determine culture (culture includes politics).

Meanwhile, culture (culture includes politics) reversely influences the economic system.

And this whole process of influence and reverse influence is called history, which is not the reason but the result.
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by Above us only sky »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2017 9:17 pm
Image
The natural replacement rate of 2.1 is suspicious. Parents who decide to have 2 children early or late will make a major difference in population growth, and your graphic did not dress this issue.

If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/02/ ... 2005-2050/
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Re: Will America be the next China in the end?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Above us only sky wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 3:42 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:19 am
You aren't doing yourself any favours with this. It is absurd to describe your research as merely lacking details, when it is entirely without research at all.

If I wrote a 3000 word essay on this topic with tons of figures and post it here are you going to read it?
I would suggest you try to become coherent in shorter postings before pushing out the boat.
Above us only sky wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 3:42 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:19 am You have done nothing whatsoever to establish any relationship between pop size and authoritarianism.
I have established a relationship, and indeed there is a relationship, as a country grow bigger and bigger, it becames less and less direct democracy/direct dictatorship and more authoritarian.

I give one example:

For a city-state in ancient time, a Sparta style direct dictatorship and a Athen style direct democracy are two options,

When Rome was a city-state, it was more like a Athen style democracy, but as it became bigger it went from city-state democracy to republic, and finally to a authoritarian empire, but I can try.
You are just asserting that population size was the deciding factor there, and also you are just asserting that Rome under a King was less authoritarian than it was under the later, and larger, republic - which is not at all how the Romans saw matters.

All you are doing still is providing innuendo based on cherry picked data that you haven't even really selected very well.
Above us only sky wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 3:42 am However I can not give you more details on exactly how much increase on pop will trigger a transformation, and what the inner machanism of this transformation will be exactly.
If you want your theory to hold water you will need to plug those holes then.
Above us only sky wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 3:42 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:19 am I can counter your nonsense just by saying "obviously history is the most important factor", or "obviously culture is the most important factor". You cannot argue this point meaningfully if you have been too lazy to bother coming up with a causal relationship between population size and the thing you wish to link to it causally. Or at least prove there is any relationship at all.
Here is the backbone of my theory:

Economic system and geographic factors combined determine demographics, demographics in turns determine culture (culture includes politics).

Meanwhile, culture (culture includes politics) reversely influences the economic system.

And this whole process of influence and reverse influence is called history, which is not the reason but the result.
That's just a hot mess of complete nonsense.

Develop a proper theory.
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