World balance shift

I feel the "West", as in the US and Europe, is developing very slowly, even kind of backwards... compared to China these days.

How do you guys think it will be in say, 10 years from now.

but us and europe are developed nations unlike china.. so it doesn't matter you are just a slave labor place for them manufacturing mcdonalds toys and pingpong balls

In 10 years I feel both China and India will be seen and accepted as world super powers. I also imagine that in 10 years time, the whole outsourcing thing will come full circle and both countries will be sending work to other countries due to cheaper labor.

As for the US in 10 years... that's anyone's guess.

The truth is humanity is heading in the wrong direction. We should be learning how to live directly from the land. from nature.

Those who cannot sustain themselves and simply rely on modern comforts for survival are going to become extinct.

I think the future will look very much like Final Fantasy X... if you know where I am coming from.

NeoN HaZe.

hellraiser

how many percent of labor force in china is actually "slave labor"?

it sounds like you think there's a lot

I think that lacks validity

they make prisoners work...

nothing wrong with that... however some of them are political captives, and that's where it becomes an issue

well... i doubt that constitute a even noticable portion of the total industrial and consumer output of China...

and these exist everywhere around the world, you cant avoid it, just take it as a fact, kinda like you eat several pounds of insects each year from ur bread. It's a negligible amount, there's nothing you can do, just sit back and live your life.

of course i dont advocate avoiding problems, only when they are negligible and pretty much within the statistical error... big problems like ethnic cleasing, child soldiers, aids in africa should be big concerns for people of the world.

I see the current chinese 'one child' policy as being a future threat to western society. The trend towards having boy babies and killing , aborting and so on of girl childs will cause a huge uneven balance in the sexes.

So in 15 to 20 years time you are going to have a mostly male population that number one have no fellow country people to take as wives and number two a potential army of millions.

Well look at it from the biblical perspective: the woman riding the dragon in the end times(America dependent on China), the whore of babylon(confusion), and the man possessed by the evil one, all here all working now to ruin good people and enslave them because they have unending hatred for truth and the true God of Isreal, and a populous they molded and created for an end and then they throw the helpless public back into the sea after use. THis is how they act and what they do and what are humans doing?? LETTING THEM! ARMIES PEOPLE_CITIZEN ARMIES! FIGHT THEYRE MANIPULATION WITH A LITTLE PUSH AND SHOVE! THE ARMY IS MOSTLY CITIZENS SO ONCE THE SIGNAL GETS THROUGH IF IT DOES, THEY WILL FIGHT FOR US INSTEAD OF THE IDIOTS WHO TAKE THEM OFF TO DIE FOR A SELFISH CAUSE OF A DRUGGED UP POLITICIAN. EASY I'D HOPE.

Originally posted by chinalurker
I feel the "West", as in the US and Europe, is developing very slowly, even kind of backwards... compared to China these days.

China is catching up to the west, its not advancing past it. Its possible that the big leap in tech is what occured between pre-industrialization and now. Such that any new advances from now are going to be as slow as they were in the pre-industrial days. So china should accelerate very quickly, since it doesn't even have to invent the stuff, just adapt it, while the West sits still, until parity is reached and it stays at that level.

How do you guys think it will be in say, 10 years from now.

Not much different. 10 years is a good time for a generation to grow up and an older one to die out. China apparently is westernizing and adapting free trade policies. The question is, can the one party system deal with the popular movement and social reorganization that come with free trade? If not, then the whole country can collapse. If so, well, how does it adapt? By becoming more like Chiang Kai Sheks china?

[edit on 17-3-2005 by Nygdan]

Such that any new advances from now are going to be as slow as they were in the pre-industrial days.

Uhh what are you basing this assumption on. If anything I would say new advances are coming quicker then ever before. It's starts to get dizzying when you start to follow such fields like Robotics, Nanotechnology, IT and Biotech at the same time, things are getting invented faster then they can be marketed and become obsolete before they even get off the drawing board. Those four fields will be converging very rapidly over the next 10 years and we will see huge societal changes. We have not even seen the true impact of the Net yet which is IMO the biggest accelerator of Science and Technology out there.

while the West sits still, until parity is reached and it stays at that level.

I would not characterize the west as sitting still, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year by the west on Science and Technology, and it seems all of our collective efforts are converging at the same place, the Nanoscale.

I could go on and on but I do not think it's the point of this thread, so I'll close off with my opinion about what China's position will be in 10 years time.

China in 10 years will be leapfrogging us in more and more ways, due to thier utter lack of respect of the environment and human rights. It's an environment very conducive for rapid progress. Militarily they will still be second to the USA but will be in a much better position, I see thier indigonous technology programs finally taking root and sprouting valuable fruit.

Originally posted by sardion2000

Such that any new advances from now are going to be as slow as they were in the pre-industrial days.

Uhh what are you basing this assumption on.

Purely random speculation and hypothetical thinking. I did try to make it rather clear that that was what I was doing. Personally, I don't think that such is going to be the case at all.

China in 10 years will be leapfrogging us in more and more ways, due to thier utter lack of respect of the environment and human rights.

If the environment and human rights are ultimately meaningful tho, then their progress would utlimately have to collapse no? Imagine if their progress didn't fall apart tho, if a 'ruthless and totalitarian' research and development programme was the best kind of programme, and it the one part unitary government was the best type of government. THe rest of the world would have to, reasonably, follow suit and set up their own totalitarian dictatorships.