China's got a better rail network than the US, more industrial capacity, and produces the world's electronics now. The gap in tech is measured in decades at most, and by that metric the world was behind England (until it wasn't) because England had the accident of thirst for coal and the use for automated, sustained drainage and pumping that allowed them the critical mass of tech and need to build and refine the steam engine.
In terms of world history, the era of European / American tech ascendancy is a blip on the radar.
Who cares? America's progress came from Anglicization. The Brits invented the steam engine, the locomotive, and the electric generator. Then the Americans took those ideas and ran with them.
... now, China's running with the generation of ideas America pioneered and refined, and America's mostly playing catchup because they're off the rails (tragically literally, if you live in East Palestine, OH).
I do. The Western model is superior. Your Chinese model is inferior.
You can live under the boot of an authoritarian regime if you lack the self respect to stand up for yourself. Liberal democracy and the rule of law do take work, and you do sound lazy.
Maybe you do need to be told what to do.
> tragically literally, if you live in East Palestine, OH
I don't know, I would consider it lazy to write off the political structure coordinating over a billion people as "inferior" when it seems to be working for them. I have no disagreement that authoritarians tend to massage and hide data more (as opposed to liberal democracies, where we just classify it and throw people in jail for dumping those databases, right?), but I observe the way the world works and conclude the jury is currently out on which solution leads to a more stable society in the long term. China's communist experiment is young, but it's grounded in political philosophy and theories of social structure dating back thousands of years... I'll let America get a couple more hundred under its belt before I conclude this Democratic experiment is working.
History suggests previous attempts at democracies were unstable. Maybe the alchemy was right this go around. But I'm watching this one allow itself to be spun up into division and polarization that has resulted in a civil war in the past, so we'll see how it goes. The house has a tendency to win, especially when the house is time herself.
> I would consider it lazy to write off the political structure coordinating over a billion people
You're not considering anything. You're only desperately trying to hold on to a losing proposition you've arrived at through a lack of principle, a profound laziness, and a basic nihilism.
> I'll let America get a couple more hundred under its belt before I conclude this Democratic experiment is working.
Such sloppy thinking. You really do need to broaden your horizons.
China's got a better rail network than the US, more industrial capacity, and produces the world's electronics now. The gap in tech is measured in decades at most, and by that metric the world was behind England (until it wasn't) because England had the accident of thirst for coal and the use for automated, sustained drainage and pumping that allowed them the critical mass of tech and need to build and refine the steam engine.
In terms of world history, the era of European / American tech ascendancy is a blip on the radar.