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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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(1) Attracting top talent.

It is a major weakness. People who move are people who are willing to give up on their people, country, friends and family for personal gain. They will leave again if another country offers a better deal. By filling elites with foreigners the US has greatly increased the rift between the elites and the common people. Foreigners in San Fransisco have as much in common with people in Missouri as westerns in Singapore have with Cambodians. The US becomes nothing more than a vehicle for personal ambition among the ruling class. The result is a low trust society with a fractured political system and low social cohesion. France did not benefit by gathering the elite of Europe in Versailles. Even worse, the actual wasp elite will become less American when their colleges and workplaces are full of foreigners.

(2) Economic security.

The US sanctions far more countries than China and places far greater demands on its trading partners. China has no problem selling to the taliban or various African countries. They have little interest in the inner workings of these countries. The US wants to reshape their entire societies to mirror American values. China is far less likely to sanction or even care about what happens in another country. American companies are far more likely to deplattform someone for dissenting values not directly related to the US while China really doesn't care as much about the world outside of China.

(4) Market discipline.

High speed trains don't have to be profitable to make sense. Roads are subsidized by taxes yet they aren't considered unprofitable. Rail way is infrastructure and sewers, railways and roads don't have to operate as a profitable business. Rail requires far less parking space in cities than roads, it produces a fraction of the air pollution, it is far less reliant on fossil fuels and it is faster. High speed rail delivers people straight to city centers and ties in well with other forms of public transit.

(5) Long-term economic trajectory.

China is a manufacturing super power. The US is the country that is heavily reliant on property speculation. The US is running an unsustainable deficit and growing slower than China.

(6) Friends and Allies.

https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/ypy1oo/countries_whose_largest_trading_partner_is_china/#lightbox

China is the biggest trading partner for most of the world and most of the world has no historic grudge against China. They have never fought a war outside of Asia and have if anything been a big economic benefit to large parts of the world. The US has made a great effort to create grudges against it in the middle east and latin America.