At 18:47 10/06/2010 -0700, you wrote:
Some belated comments below: in BOLD:
Keith Hudson wrote:
At 14:02 05/06/2010 -0700, you wrote:
(DN) Just because political placements in China are unelected does not
mean bribes do not take place. Corruption there is rampant, amongst the
highest in the world in politics and corporations.
I never said that. They confess themselves that corruption is widespread.
Transparency International places China about halfway down their
corruption list -- just a shade less corrupt than India -- with another
100 countries assessed as being more corrupt.
(DN) Feudal or Communist systems don't stay in power because of
tradition, but because of unyielding centralized power. Certainly not
because of integrity or even functionality.
I hold no particular brief for China, only that it needs to be paid
attention to because it has more or less held itself together as one
empire since Emperor Qin in 200BC -- so it must have learned a bit about
what makes government work. China is certainly highly centralized on
financial matters and also foreign policy (in looking for resources) but,
increasingly in recent years, there are indications that provinces,
particularly the coastal provinces, are becoming increasingly
self-determining in their economic development. Shanghai, Dalian,
Shengzhen, for instance, take most of their own developmental decisions.
Hong Kong, legally part of China since 1984, is still virtually a
separate country with a separate currency and will probably remain so.
Taiwan is no nearer being re-incorporated into China than it was in 1949.
(DN) That such unjust governance could be in part genetic is unlikely
because genes lean towards survival of the species.
True, but only within the context of the environment which either
reinforces or weakens particular mutations. But, in the case of man ever
since we became civilized, the natural environment also includes the
cultural environment. Just as climate (solar intensity) has changed man's
skin colour in different parts of the world so has culture changed other
traits. There are indications, for example, that Chinese and Japanese
brains are slightly different from Caucasian brains -- being more
mathematical and spatial than verbal when compared with ours.
Cultural environments have hardly been consistent across millions of
years. At best, polymorphisms might raise the score a single point of
variance, but you're still banking on Chinese centralization as consensus
of minds.
Are you saying that Chinese and Japanese people are born with slightly
different brain formation?
Yes. There have been several anatomical studies which indicate slightly
different neuronal densities in different regions of the brain as between
people in different ethnic regions. There are also mutational differences
in genes which are importantly involved in brain size and development. At
least two of these are still working their way across the world population.
Or is this from a study (which study?) that was assessing brain activity
in adults, following two decades or more of conditioning?
No. As to which studies, there are plenty of leads on the Internet which
will take you to these sorts of research.
Was any similar study conducted in the United Arab Emirates, for
example, where international scholarships are being dispensed almost
exclusively to students in business, science and technologies, this being
the research area that the ruling princes consider vital to their future
desert once the oil runs out?
Not as far as I know.
Perhaps that's too recent an example, but I'm sure you'd find similar
distribution patterns of brain activity in those candidates. In both
China and Japan the educational systems have been focusing on the same
narrow fields since WWII.
Long before Chinese or Japanese children learn about science they have to
spend years in learning how to write in their non-phonetic script -- at
least ten times more hours than children in the rest of the world. It is
considered that this has had strong selective effects on brain structure
over the past two millennia.
These seem to speak of culturally imitative, or memetic influence. Memes
far outrun genes for ability to morph or reproduce, whereas genetic time
frame is far slower.
I haven't come across any research which has to do with the meme proposal
of Richard Dawkins.
Most of our DNA sequences are millions of years old. Even rapidly changing
genes, eg. viral resistance, have taken centuries to evolve.
True, but it's also being realized that some mutations can spread very
quickly -- in some instances instantaneously every generation -- but also
that new species can suddenly arise. At the present time there's quite a
big shift in evolutionary thinking going on, and the Darwinian idea that
evolution is always a slow process of adaptation is now being questioned.
(DN) Inequality and oppression are not the hallmarks of good governance,
if one is to presume that good governance reflects good genetics.
I don't presume to know what good governance and good genes are. But one
certain genetic trait that appears in every society on earth is that
status differences become very clear between puberty and early adulthood
and that twin aspects of governance by a few and deference among the many
always emerge.
Not that I haven't noticed the tendency, but this could simply be due to
traditional upbringing, the need for human nurturing and role models in
our youth, or government-generated big brother dependency. What proof
exists of such actual genetic traits?
There's plenty of evidence from anthropology, social psychology,
evolutionary biology, etc.
(DN) (This particular system cannot hope to prosper once the alleged oil
shortage starts hurting.) What you're talking about is memetic, sooner
than genetic; ideas passed on by writing, speech, ritual and imitation.
It is the memes which carry the culture down the line.
That is what Richard Dawkins wrote some 30 years ago in his influential
book, The Selfish Gene. But since then research shows that individual
genes can in no way be regarded as autonomous. They always act in
association with others and very often switch around in their coalitions
according to circumstances.
The above mentioned widely accepted bit about genetic association does not
discredit nor discount memetic influences.
Maybe, but either the idea of "memes" is a big one which everybody else in
the biological sciences is neglecting or denying, or else it's so vague
that it's hardly ever mentioned (except in passing) by other biologists in
the past 30 years.
The idea of "memes" as independent pieces of culture has also fallen by
the wayside. It simply isn't a useful way of describing the complexities
of the cultural environment that surrounds a child in its earliest weeks,
months, years.
Dawkins may have been the first to describe memes, and you may not agree
with his interpretation of how/why they replicate, but yet they exist as
transmissions of ideas, and from what I've observed, have not lost their
prominence in scientific dialogue.
They have never been researched in a serious way, not even by Dawkins.
What have you read that led you to regard memetics as a poor way of
describing cultural environment complexities?
You and I must be on a different reading planet. Memes are never mentioned
in a scientific research context.
(DN) Even given the shared cultural environment of twins, fraternal or
identical, what counts most are the unique life events each person
experiences on their own.
Of course. Even identical twins, born with identical genes, form
different genetic associations (epigenesis) according to slightly
different experiences.
(DN) Because of the scarcity of twins in China, the case for genetic
influence would be a tough one to nail.
Twins or no twins have no bearing on the general cultural influence on genes.
As above. Culture changes overnight, but genes don't.
Cultures don't change overnight. They take generations. New ideas hardly
ever register -- except by denial -- in people over 30 years of age. They
only have a chance of catching on in pubescent minds before the frontal
lobes have developed much. Big cultural changes take two or three
generations. It is very interesting to compare the post-1990 cultural
change in Russia (where they had almost three complete generations of
communist indoctrination) with, say Poland or Slovenia (with one
generation). When communism collapsed Russia fell prey to a small number of
oligarchs (often former Kremlin bosses) while Poland and Slovenia had
enough people still alive who remembered free market institutions of
government and business to be able to adapt very rapidly to former methods.
(DN) I can't agree that the Chinese work ethic is stronger than that of
the West.
Work ethic is hard to define but people in China and many other countries
when offered a cash incentive work harder and for longer hours than
Western people now do -- but used to.
But are you comparing apples to apples?
I have no idea what you mean by this question.
(DN) Historically, China has been rife with poverty and oppression
through the ages, and especially since the dawning of the industrial age.
Historically you're wrong. It has had several periods of great general
prosperity. When China had a smaller population of about 300 million --
say up to the Ming Dynasty of about 1400 -- very few of them lived in
abject poverty. Few lived in what is now the rural interior where the
soil is now almost totally impoverished. They mostly lived in regions
with rich soil and worked at intensive horticulture rather than
large-scale farming. Even the poorest serfs among them had a chance of
making good if their sons passed the Imperial exams and entered the
mandarinate. Most lived near sizeable towns or cities with rich public
facilities (baths, libraries, outdoor theatres), many of which were the
most advanced in the world -- more than equivalent to the few Renaissance
cities of Europe at that time.
The same could be said of most places where population has steadily
increased. and the wealthy have bought up the land. Folk once got by off
the land, by trade or skill. I was not aware, however, that China's rural
interior was chiefly uninhabited for that long.
China's interior has always been inhabited by at least pastoralists, and
also farmers in particularly sun-favoured pockets with good soil and water.
Also, at various pre-Chinese times in the past there have been rich forest
and savanna regions stretching right across from the Middle East to
northern China. But back-migration of a growing population into the
interior is relatively recent historically.
(DN) Millions of farmers forced into city jobs, for example, because
their land was flooded for the hydro dam. Farmland worked by hundreds of
millions more consumed by industry.
Millions of Chinese have been affected by these developments in exactly
the same way as millions of European peasants were displaced from their
land from about 1600 and onwards (though not for dams!). But scores of
millions more Chinese have voluntarily migrated to the cities -- as
hundreds of millions more of the poor of the world are now doing.
Volunteered or pressured due to centralization/concentration of power/wealth?
Globally, these 'volunteers' are victims of Monsantos, intensive crop
and livestock operations.
In many parts of the world, migration into cities has been involuntary due
to land enclosures, etc. In China of the last three decades (since Deng
Xiaoping's reforms) the bulk of movement into the cities has been voluntary
-- a product both of trying to make a living from impoverished soil but
also the perceived wealth of the cities.
(DN) It's an overpopulated nation of primarily long-toiling low wage
earners, whose absolute dependence on their pittance for food precludes
any involvement in fundamental progress in government. Authoritarian
rule brutally stamps out any attempts at change. Any belief in the
system is either feigned for protection or feigned for a better paying
job. Anywhere there is poverty, but also exists industrial livelihood,
you have work slaves who have no choice but to comply with jobs marked
by long hours and ghastly conditions.
That's a rather a strong way of describing things, but essentially the
worst features are no different from what happened in Europe only two or
three hundred years ago.
(DN) Modern economic, social and educational tools and developments
will, however, bring about change eventually. The most recent optimistic
case was the Honda car factory walk-out, which was conducted and ended
peacefully in a 40% wage hike. The internet will, as you touched upon,
continue to be invaluable in initiating and realizing human rights
victories. Survival of the net is assured in China, in part because it
is a tremendous tool of modernization, which global pressure demands of
them, and because it is profit driven--something centralized power
cannot resist.
Yes. Well . . . this is just another aspect of China fast catching up
with the West.
Just today I heard reports on CBC of 8 other Shanghai factory walkouts.
Foxcon in Shanghai (electronics) experienced 10 suicides as desperate
workers jumped to their deaths, but these martyrs realized a 70% pay hike
for their fellow workers. Honda pay hikes were a mere 24%, as it turns
out. Emails and text messaging have been the primary tools of
communication and organization. The West has been duly warned of imminent
price hikes.
I don't believe for one moment that the Foxcon suicides was anything to do
with poor pay. Many of the young workers who have come from the
countryside, send most of their earnings back home, work long hours and
live in Foxcon dormitories certainly have desperate lives. There have also
been wage pressures, particularly from the city-raised young people (who
have a social life outside the factory) -- but there always are in any
developing country. If South Korea is any guide, the average Chinese
factory worker will be earning as much as the average wage in the West
within the next 15-20 years -- with or without suicides.
Keith
Natalia
Keith
Natalia
Keith Hudson wrote:
China is never likely to become a democratic country -- at least, via
the method that we in the West have espoused in the last 200 years
whereby political parties have only retained, or regained, power by
offering bribes to this or that part of the electorate every time
there's an election.
All Western governments are now so deeply in debt that only someone
with no mathematical ability whatsoever could believe that there's any
way out via taxation -- of our children and grandchildren as well as
ourselves. Politicians tell us that we could grow ourselves out of the
present impasse, but that's strictly for punters. Unfortunately, there
are another billion people in the world with a far stronger work ethic
than ourselves who are making most of the consumer goodies today and
prospering therefrom. Sooner or later, a period of inflation leading
to hyper-inflation will ensue that will reduce everyone's debts -- most
of all, governments'.
This wheeze is so much on the cards that some voices are already being
raised against the likelihood of politicians adopting it. The Deputy
Governor of the Bank of England, Charles Bean, said yesterday that it
would be "severely misguided" because "a bit of inflation has a nasty
habit of turning into a lot of inflation". Well, we don't need him to
tell us. We all know that. But does he -- or any intelligent person --
think that politicians will be able to keep in power without more
Quantitative Easing, more money printing, more inflation? So that
politicians still have money to bribe us with?
Those who have saved money will be hammered. Those in debt will have
been rewarded. But no matter, the overall experience will have been
beneficial. Once new national currencies have been established -- as
always happens after hyperinflation -- then lessons will have been
learned and, for about a generation, individuals and governments will
practise good housekeeping. That, at least, has been the repeated
experience of several countries in Europe. But then, politicians
re-learn the trick of offering bribes and the process starts all over again.
This is not to say that the Chinese system of selecting politicians
from above -- not electing them -- will necessarily fare any better.
They, too -- with their Tiananmen Square experience recently behind
them -- are as aware as Western politicians that people have got to be
kept sweet. Otherwise -- particularly in these days of mobile phones --
people in their tens of thousands might gather in the streets and . . .
well . . simply walk into parliamentary buildings and take over as
they did in Georgia in 2003 (the Rose Revolution).
The Chinese system of governance may not succeed either. But in terms
of historical experience and tradition it's somewhat more likely to.
After all, they've had a system which has been in existence on and off
for about 10 times longer than Western electioneering -- ever since
Confucius in 500BC. Indeed, it may even be in their genes. A
long-standing culture, itself becoming an important part of the
environment which shapes genes, may have had a slight selective effect
on the Chinese character.
At least Bruce Lahn thinks so. One of the leading geneticists in the
world, Chinese born but researching in America as well as in China,
thinks that the Chinese trait of deference and the high status of
scholarship in their country might be quite significant. He took a lot
of political flak for suggesting this in 2005 and, because the feedback
was so aggressive, decided to put brain gene research behind him to
concentrate in other areas.
I am pretty certain that, sooner or later, the sort of electioneering
we have in the West today -- really only an extension of little boys
fighting in the school playground -- has got to give way to something
similar to Western civil services of about a century ago -- when they
genuinely believed in public service. Similar, in fact, to the Chinese
system. We need a marriage between experts and public opinion. We need
some sort of tiered arrangement (but not too many) between local focus
groups and competitive debate between those fairly rare individuals who
really do have a high regard for intellectual understanding of problems
and not scoring off one another as politicians do.
I wrote a paper about this some 30 years ago when I was a member of the
original organizing committee of the Social Democratic Party in the UK
during its brief existence. I was carried away at the time by
something David Owen (now Lord Owen) had said at the time about the
need for a completely new method of selecting governments. I tried to
put some clothes on it. Unfortunately, this vigorous new idea got lost
when the SDP combined with the Liberals and produced a fudge. I then
resigned (and, incidentally, so did Owen) and I took no further
interest in active politics.
But I'm pretty certain that something like this will develop in due
course, once we've been through hyperinflation and, hopefully, a
non-outbreak of war between America and China. Whether it will develop
faster in the West or the East remains to be seen. Perhaps, once
America and China have agreed a new world currency between them, some
of their political scientists might start meeting together and make
proposals that they can present to their respective governments.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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