I hardly consider the West or America stuck in a rabbit hole. Nor do I consider the Chinese a particularly exemplary model of a healthy culture.

Our current version of the Red Guards has gone on longer than I like (and killed far, far fewer people than the horrific Chinese version BTW) but a substantial backlash is baked in and is already starting to change things.

In 1969 John Mitchell, after Nixon appointed him Attorney General, said:
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This country is going so far to the right you won’t recognize it.

https://www.necessarystorms.com/home/the-silencing-of-martha-mitchell
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In 1969 the US looked on the verge of a leftist-hippie revolution. The assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK. The increasingly violent anti-war movement. The astonishing cultural impact of mass LSD dosage on the population.

1969 was about the peak of all that. Most people did a straight-line calculation of how much farther to the left and farther out we would be in ten years.

John Mitchell said we were going hard to the right. And he was right.

Keep on keeping on. I’m nearly done with The Dark Forest and am still enthused.

“as well as a fascinating light upon Chinese culture since Mao”

The thing to get is that healthy cultures move on. Unhealthy cultures don’t. I like posting here, so won’t speculate too much on why West has gone down the perpetual scab-picking rabbit hole.

Re recent Chinese literature, for an idea of what the post-2012 Reaction is all about, the book to read is Shanghai Baby.

I’m halfway through 3BP.

After the Red Guard/Gulag chapters it does become regular sci-fi, albeit from a Chinese POV.

I can understand why you called it Lovecraftian early on, though later the book moves past incomprehensible horror-fantasy to well-thought-out, hard science-fiction. Cixin Liu’s rep as the Chinese Arthur C. Clarke is justified. Liu earns his praise.

It’s a good read as well as a fascinating light upon Chinese culture since Mao.

“and was a Josquin groupie”

A man of taste and refinement.

I’ve just gotten in a new pair of HK Human Filing Cabinet Apartment size-appropriate small bookshelf speakers which sound stage very nicely for polyphony. The Orthodox Chant of the New Rome will have to await arrival of the matching sub-woofer. Next week with any luck the neighbours get to meet Vladimir Miller whether they like him or no. He won’t just be below the staff; he’ll be crashing through the floors underneath me.

(Not my cup of tea, either actually, but what do I know? I’m one of those who happen to like Suzanne Vega, actually—i.e., the earlier incarnation—well, among a host of other stuff…. Also have a soft spot for Tomás Luis de Victoria and was a Josquin groupie for quite a while….)

When you’re in a hole or the Sin Bin (take three guesses what topic dunnit), the best plan is to keep digging until you come out the other side somewhere around Three Mile Island. So I spent the week going long on Alibaba. Not necessarily a retirement nest egg strategy I’d recommend to anyone.

FWIW, and contra the China Syndrome movie, the Antipode of the Three Mile Island plant is approximately Augusta, Western Australia and nowhere near China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta,_Western_Australia

Place looks like it would be improved by a surfacing puddle of molten reactor core.

They did such a good job of integrating Taiwan into the Empire after it was annexed at the end of the 1895 war that the Taiwanese never could quite stomach the alien KMT regime after WWII.

Korea not so much. But anyone who knows Koreans knows that they are a fractious people. That’s an understatement.

The joint action against the Boxers which Japan participated in was a bit of a free-for all. But the Boxers deserved anything they got.

A bunch of stuff happened after the death of the Meiji Emperor (figurehead) and the Genro- (important people). Doubtless Mark Felton goes into some of these factors.

Well, glad you returned (or were returned) unscathed—I hope—and none the worse for where….
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Meanwhile, Twitter may have changed hands, as it were, but they’re still as warped as ever—indeed, “problematic information” must be suppressed!!
“Governments warn of heart problems from COVID vaccines, but Twitter calls research ‘unsafe'”
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/health/governments-warn-heart-problems-covid-vaccines-twitter-calls-research-unsafe

File under: Just NOT the facts, ma’am….

You’re missing one small detail re why we don’t constantly hear about Japanese wartime brutality, but I don’t want to get put on moderation again.

😛