I don't think rigid totalitarianism is a stable solution at all, long term. A society that isn't somewhat elastic has no hopes of overcoming unprecedented challenges; it's bound to fall apart. And even though China's social credit system seems hopelessly Orwellian, I'm confident that its architects are aware that faulty design might inadvertently render China fragile.

Tanner Greer at The Scholar's Stage has written about Xi Jinping's apparent belief in the "tides of history". It's a very Taoistic notion. History flows and develops and all we can do is try to swim along with its currents. The only other option is to get crushed. So there's not really much hope in trying to control it. At least that seems to be Jinping's philosophical position.

Deng Xioping started the trend with "pragmatic experiments" to test solutions on a small scale before implementing them wholesale. Stability is the goal. And if that means letting go of the reins, that's just what they're going to have to do. Robustness requires flexibility, and you don't get that with simple-minded rigidity.

I'm also a bit surprised the author of this essay chose to invent a new term--horizontal totalitarianism--to describe how social groups protect their worldviews. It's just ... a very mundane and obvious thing. The exact same phenomenon occurs at an individual level; cognitive dissonance results when our beliefs are in direct conflict. We tend to reject threats to our worldviews with the tenacity we defend ourselves against physical harm; it's more powerful at a group level, but it's the same thing.

When people spend time together, they become more similar. Is that "horizontal totalitarianism"? Or is that just a very obvious observation of human behavior?