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Comment by blisterpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

I visited China in 1982, when the capitalist revolution was just getting started. Such wealth did not exist, but there was a deep, simmering anger among the people over Communist corruption and general unfairness and inequity. I witnessed it personally.

Now that there's a bit more prosperity and availability of material goods, but still no freedom and still a simmering resentment of government corruption, this fuerdai generation of spoiled children have put themselves out there with brash behavior and big targets painted on their foreheads.

An economic slowdown and a loss of jobs to cheaper locales in South Asia and to manufacturing technologies like 3D printing could be the catalyst to large scale social unrest. It's a worrisome situation.

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Large scale social unrest is just what the communists fear the most. To me, that's not worrisome - it's hopeful. Just opining, and I understand that the collateral costs would be worrisome for everyone in the short term.

You probably don't know what you are wishing for.

Just scroll through this list : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic...

4 out of the 10 most deadliest human conflicts in human history happened in China. I have a suspicion that the Chinese leadership is acutely aware of this, and their world-view has been moulded by this (favouring stability over everything else including justice, freedom or human rights). When things go wrong there, they tend to go wrong in a big way.

edit: To get some idea of the scale, The An Lushan Rebellion that occurred in the 7th century wiped out 15% of the world population at the time.

The An Lushan rebellion probably did not wipe out 15% of the world's population. This number comes from comparing before and after census numbers, which is hard because (a) the census was vastly disrupted by the war, and (b) the size of the empire was decreased by the war, so former provinces weren't counted in the later censuses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Lushan_Rebellion#Death_toll

The collateral cost from civil wars, revolution movements, or other massive uprisings in China is immense. Like absolutely staggering. The "collateral costs" have previously been in the >1,000,000 death range, and this has happened multiple times in the last few centuries.

E.g. taiping rebellion (>10 million), Dungan revolt, Du Wenxiu, etc...

The most recent large one only killed like 8 million people though, so we've got that going for us I guess.

> collateral costs

Read "human lives".

I understand and share your sentiment regarding the fact that a chance towards a (seemingly) more liberal form of government is good. But I'd be hesitant to call the costs of unrest at such a scale merely worrisome. The only thing I hope for is that change will come slowly, if it comes at all.

> The only thing I hope for is that change will come slowly, if it comes at all.

That's worse than a bloody revolution. If change comes so slowly that you don't get to experience it in your lifetime you might as well have died anyways.

There's a vast spectrum between bloody revolution and glacial change. You only need to go across the strait to see an example of quick but bloodless regime change. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Taiwan was an authoritarian one-party state under martial law. But from the late 70s on, the Taiwanese government steadily introduced reforms until it head its first direct presidential election in 1996. Today, Taiwan is a multi-party democracy with a stable economy. Certainly, it has its fair share of problems (there's been a lot of corruption scandals), but it's definitely come a long way.

Only if living conditions today are so bad you might as well be dead.

Which is why I speculate revolutions might become rare, as progress has improved everyone's lot, even the lowest classes. Few people live in a wood-fired dirt-floor log cabin or wash their clothes in a tub by the river these days.

The most worrisome timing is when the system runs out of fuel. It would be a disaster for people living on the land. Fightings on the land are usually very brutal and violent. If there is any true hope, it will emerge after the messy chaos. But I'm afraid after the chaos it would be just the start of the same old story.

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