Cool to see someone trying to think objectively about this. Inspired by this post, I had a quick look at the scores on the world happiness report to compare China to its ethnic cousins, and while there are many reasons to take this with a grain of salt, China does… ok. On ‘life evaluation’, which appears to be the all things considered metric (I didn’t read the methodology, correct me if I’m wrong), some key scores:
Taiwan: 6.669
Philippines: 6.107
South Korea: 6.038
Malaysia: 5.955
China: 5.921
Mongolia: 5.833
Indonesia: 5.617
Overall it’s ranked 68th of 147 listed countries, and outscores several (though I think a minority of) LMIC democratic nations. One could attribute some of its distance from the top simply as a function of lower GDP per capita, though one could also argue (as I’m sure many do) that its lower GDP per capita is a result of CCP control (though maybe if this is true and is going to continue to be true, that’s incompatible with the idea that they’ve got a realistic chance of winning an AI arms race and consequently dominating the global economy).
One view I wish people would take more seriously is the possibility that it can be true both that
Chinese government is net worse for welfare standards than most liberal democracies; and
the expected harms coming from ratcheting up global tensions to avoid them winning an AI arms race are nonetheless much higher than the expected benefits
I’d lean towards the World Happiness Report results here. IPSOS uses a fully online sample, which means you end up losing the “bottom half” of the population. World Happiness Report is phone and in-person.
Oh, thanks for the clarification! I totally missed that difference.
Given how the “bottom half” of China’s population is, to my admittedly cursory knowledge, mostly the poor rural farmers and migrant workers who have benefited a lot less from China’s recent economic growth, and are likely a big reason why China’s GDP per capita is still a fair bit lower than most western developed countries despite the shiny new city skylines, it makes sense that including that segment would make a big difference in the evaluation.
Thanks again! That actually makes me update on my earlier evaluation of the utilitarian impact of China a lot.
Cool to see someone trying to think objectively about this. Inspired by this post, I had a quick look at the scores on the world happiness report to compare China to its ethnic cousins, and while there are many reasons to take this with a grain of salt, China does… ok. On ‘life evaluation’, which appears to be the all things considered metric (I didn’t read the methodology, correct me if I’m wrong), some key scores:
Taiwan: 6.669
Philippines: 6.107
South Korea: 6.038
Malaysia: 5.955
China: 5.921
Mongolia: 5.833
Indonesia: 5.617
Overall it’s ranked 68th of 147 listed countries, and outscores several (though I think a minority of) LMIC democratic nations. One could attribute some of its distance from the top simply as a function of lower GDP per capita, though one could also argue (as I’m sure many do) that its lower GDP per capita is a result of CCP control (though maybe if this is true and is going to continue to be true, that’s incompatible with the idea that they’ve got a realistic chance of winning an AI arms race and consequently dominating the global economy).
One view I wish people would take more seriously is the possibility that it can be true both that
Chinese government is net worse for welfare standards than most liberal democracies; and
the expected harms coming from ratcheting up global tensions to avoid them winning an AI arms race are nonetheless much higher than the expected benefits
As I mentioned in another comment, while China ranks in the middle on the World Happiness Report, it actually ranked highest on the IPSOS Global Happiness Report from 2023, which was the last year that China was included in the survey.
I’d lean towards the World Happiness Report results here. IPSOS uses a fully online sample, which means you end up losing the “bottom half” of the population. World Happiness Report is phone and in-person.
Oh, thanks for the clarification! I totally missed that difference.
Given how the “bottom half” of China’s population is, to my admittedly cursory knowledge, mostly the poor rural farmers and migrant workers who have benefited a lot less from China’s recent economic growth, and are likely a big reason why China’s GDP per capita is still a fair bit lower than most western developed countries despite the shiny new city skylines, it makes sense that including that segment would make a big difference in the evaluation.
Thanks again! That actually makes me update on my earlier evaluation of the utilitarian impact of China a lot.
Interesting, yes perhaps liberalising/democratising China may be desirable but not worth the geopolitical cost to try to make happen.