[robomartin]

After spending way too much time on this thread here's my parting thought:

Some choose to believe that corporate greed is the cause of issues such as that highlighted by this article. Others believe that the political and legal system in place has flaws that create the conditions necessary for such things to happen. And some are in between these two schools of though.

Here's the kicker: While we live within and with our reality other parts of the world are watching. And in some parts (China?) they are surely having thoughts akin to "these people are too stupid to get out of their own way". And so, we'll keep arguing and "enjoying" the ineptitude, complexities and realities of our reality while others will watch, learn, study and take measures to ensure that they don't fall into the same traps.

Yes, there will probably be better syringes in China than in the US. And, with time, that will be true about a lot more things and a number of other countries.

Enjoy.

[mudil]

Thanks, robomartin, for your thoughtful commentary. You are right 100%, through and through. Unfortunately, as I learned long time ago, it seems to me that much of the people on HN believe that gov't is never at fault. That regulation, taxation, and other forms of gov't oppression are good things. Ever. Especially, when reassured by a politician.

Today's progressives are just sheeple. They will believe blindly any politician that says "for the children's future" or "for teachers and fire fighters," so let's raise taxes or strangle pharmaceutical companies.

A "progressive" used to mean "believe in individual" or "believe in freedom." Today it means "believe in gov't" or "believe in regulation" or "believe in politically correct speech", etc etc (the list is long).

Progressives, in other words, are just statists.

[robomartin]

Thanks for the feedback. People create a view of the world based on where they came from, what they have experienced, what they've been taught and many other factors (for example, religious indoctrination). This is a fact.

Regrettably the governing class in a country like the US knows this very well and has learned how to pander and manipulate the masses in their favor. This is also a fact.

Then you have the media. Most people will subscribe to one ideology and set forth to consume media that aligns with this ideology as closely as possible. This is comfortable and easy to chew on. No gag reflex involved. This is another fact.

The media know this, and feed that need. They report with overblown outrage about mostly unimportant stories. They go on and on all day long beating the same dumb story to death until they can't flatten it any more. They cater to the audience that, due to ideology, will stay with them. It's SEO, TV style. This is also a fact.

All of this leads to great levels of polarization. How else would you have huge chunks of the population self-identify with one party or another? They buy into a "tribe" and stick with it, no matter what. Tribal behavior is a most fundamental human trait. This, also, is fact.

Those in the middle of all of this, a group of which I consider myself a member, are willing to stop and think for a moment and not rattle off what others are saying without some thought and consideration. This is hard. This requires work. This requires rejecting years of unintentional indoctrination and trying to see the world for what it is. This is about the Allegory of the Cave in more ways than one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave). It requires consciously refraining from the most fundamental human impulse to be tribal and believe what has been pounded into your brain. This is hard (I repeat) and this is why most people don't do it.

At home we make it a point to learn about multiple points of view. We watch CNN and FOX. We also watch Al Jazeera and LinkTV. We are also fortunate enough to speak more than a couple of languages, so we consume international news from more than one perspective as well. It's amazing what you can learn this way.

I don't know where I am going with this except to say that there are a lot of voting groups that, just like Plato's cave, have been living and looking at the shadows in their own caves. And virtually nothing more than that. Government workers, Politicians and Unionized workers (to be brutal in my generalization) are examples of such groups. Individually none of them are bad people. As a voting and acting block they can be absolute morons, but only because all they've been willing to consider are the shadows.

I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if it's even possible.

[coopdog]

I don't know. If decentralisation of control, increased use of bottom up feedback, and less corruption to increase the innovation cycle is really the way forward, I don't feel that the current Chinese model of government has any significant advantages

Currently they rely on the rest of the world to find the best designs and practices, then cherry pick the good parts and make the whole thing efficient with centralised control. For them to pull -ahead- permanently they need to start fostering their own innovation. Capitalism and transparency have been shown as the best way so far to achieve this

[robomartin]

Well, I wish I had the formula for perfection. I don't.

It's interesting to see how in China a "benevolent" (using the term loosely) dictatorship is able to push billions of people forward. One could of course argue about a million things they are doing wrong and there would be no doubt that the charges would be on point. However, what they seem to be doing very well is taking their time to become a super power in their own right. At our expense as well as others.