Network States

creating and destroying; built flying cars & autonomous vehicles, now building /faust, more here: /july, web: july.rocks

One thing I notice in the West especially is this tendency to severely underestimate how much change China has gone through in the past 30ish years. It’s unprecedented at a scale that I don’t portend to even attempt to understand as well, but I think it’s severely overlooked as many in the West

Americans are just not calibrated on how far Asia has advanced.

Why? I think it’s partly because there is no mass media depicting modern life in Asia besides perhaps Crazy Rich Asians. Also partly pride.

There is a prejudiced mental model that is colonial in origin - just like "not invented here" that pre decides that asia and africa are backwards, arabs are rough and dirty, foreigners are out to get us and so on which all feed the "America is number one" propaganda.

This is not, of course, exclusive to the united states but when it shapes US policy it has far reaching consequences.

Travel may (but does not always) help open the curtains of the mind but convincing others who are complacent of the need to change is an uphill task.