The answer depends on the type of person you are and what you believe, but in America, it is generally accepted that the mortality rate from hunger is essentially zero; well, statistically unmeasurable to be precise. Of course, this does not mean we should ignore the few, shrinking hunger category, or ignore the larger groups of under-nourished; true hunger is a large problem in other countries.
On the other hand, if over-nourished populations is a real problem, then I am okay with that relative to other, much larger and pressing issues. These immediate, shorter-term issues should always be addressed, but there are much larger, systemic issues that go unaddressed by most people, which is what I want to call attention to here, and that is China. The following is for extreme poverty, but even for poverty in general, it was 99% only 3-4 decades ago. Now, I realize “poverty” is difficult to define if you simply live off the land, but the incredible change is apparent here dropping from 66% in 1993 down to essentially 0% in recent years.
This was not the result of sending food aid packages to them. It was letting them reap the fruits of their own labors. The best way to cure hunger and poverty is via “liberty” not sending food aid. This makes me wonder then how much of Africa has hunger issues due to corruption (resource theft) and the lack of freedom. Perhaps corruption is the second most important issue, but I’ll leave that for another day.
1. Freedom Leads to Prosperity
First, let me establish a very important principle. Nothing has done more for this world that the idea of freedom. Economic, political, social, and ideological freedom. In fact, countries that have adopted free-markets have been the most successful in bringing their citizens out of poverty. China, when they abandoned central-economic planning, became very rich, and their poor populations disappeared. This has happened around the world. So if you want to solve the bulk of hunger, make sure your govt does not plan or manipulate your economy in excessive ways. China’s economy is still quite centrally planned, and there will be large crashes, but they will learn over time that it does not work as well, even if it means short term gains.
However, China still lacks to a large degree is political/ideological freedom, or simply the complete freedom to think and express one’s own personal beliefs, and choose one’s own government.
2. Freedom to Express Ideas & Believe What One Chooses
We all know about their censorship, but did you know that if you are a foreigner, you are not allowed to attend the same church meetings as native Chinese? They demolish churches that do not register with the govt. They blame anti-communist churches for crimes and put them in jail regularly. Then there is the large amount of evidence on the Muslim Uyghurs that live in China who are imprisoned, tortured, and significant evidence that they regularly have their organs harvested. I assume the Chinese know that having multiple competing religions is unhealthy both for maintaining “peace,” so promoting a religious monopoly is ideal for them.
Additionally, Christianity is seen as promoting Western values, which not only challenges their Confucianist-driven goal of a low-conflict, orderly society, but Western societies coincidentally are far more bottom-up, democratic, and “classically liberal” (not “progressive”), which is a threat to the single-party, lead-fisted rule of China today (not as hard as the iron-fist they once used). Even Hitler even admitted this. Likewise, Russia promotes the Orthodox church today as well as a form of PR and generating stability.
The Chinese govt is not shy in that it wants to minimize American cultural influence on their society, but freedom says, let people believe whatever they want to believe. This of course is why there is a plurality of religions in America today, and the founding fathers knew it had to be this way. The freedom to believe differently is mandatory for a successful society, and China does not like that idea very much.
China also carefully regulates all churches there to look for anything that challenges the govt. and anyone who studies tyranny knows the power of a state is only preserved when people are not allowed to criticize it. China, above all, places importance not on freedom, but a stable society. This originated from Confucious thought. This unfortunately is not only an impossible task to manufacture by a govt, but it also ensures much less freedom.
3. Preventing Permanent AI Powered Authoritarianism if China Becomes the Next Hegemonic Superpower
Anyone who thinks we live in a state of perpetual peace is naive or short-sighted. With China aiming its sights on the south seas and Taiwan, I hope it is clear that war is often the result of fear, greed, and other imbalances, and it will come again.
For those that do not keep up with tech, here is possibly the single largest risk to the modern world:
- AI, if invented, will possibly get to the point where it continues to reprogram and train itself
- The first country to do this may gain a permanent head-start, giving them technological hegemony.
- If such a country is authoritarian, chances are they will dictate rules around the world, as we have seen countless times in the past. You cannot deny that China is very authoritarian and if they gained a permanent hegemony via AI that the world would be in serious trouble
On the other hand, if the people of China rise up against authoritarianism, then no amount of tech will save them, but key is the early realization and implementation of this. Their recent protest of blank signs was a major fracture in their “no free speech” rules. The signs were blank because they were protesting, while keeping the law outlawing protesting, since nothing was actually written.
What I predict is one of two outcomes: Either they remain essentially the same, and eventually become the world’s superpower, with some communist Mao/Stalin-like elements, and AI will ensure permanent hegemony. But I think they are much more ripe for option two: Their people getting a taste of liberal democracy and challenging their govt. Censorship of American ideas needs to be circumvented and promote ideological movements within. They laugh at the idea that more countries are increasingly adopting democracy, but they have already failed to crack regardless of multiple attempts at overthrowing their own heavy-handed govt. Even Tiananmen Square did not start out as an anti-govt movement, but it became such when it caught the world’s attention. They still play it down today.
Perhaps the most important aspect is to let their citizens communicate with each other without govt interference and censorship. With millions of people, technology tools like Twitter allowed ideas to flow much faster than ever before. Another case was Firechat which, because it was peer-to-peer, could not be shut down by companies or govt, much like a conversation directly between two people should be. So when Hong Kong had protests started, Firechat was the tool of choice.
Yes, govt will try to shut down such apps, but we will near a time when anyone can make such an app, and therefore difficult to stop. This is probably the most important and useful application of blockchain: peer-to-peer communication ability among millions of people, without central servers and a way for the govt to shut it down. In other words, freedom of speech. Of course, such tools will be used to promote bad ideas, not just good, so I don’t promote it as inherently good, but I do hope the good comes out ahead.
Today, companies and campuses are increasingly censoring non-hateful debates. P2P (peer-to-peer) will change that in the same way it changed currency (bitcoin) and information sharing (Napster/torrents). While freedom of ideas is always riskier than limiting ideas, in the end, greater evolution of ideas is safer than govt. controlling it, just like the way capitalism is evolutionary (good companies die off, and new/better ones replace them).
Goals
Liberal democracies, in the long run, create a happier, freer people, therefore, encouraging, persuading, educating, and helping other non-liberal societies should be the first and foremost goal. It is equally important to feed those really starving or other emergencies, but for the rest it should generally be “teach them to fish” mentality, while investing in them personally and individually, paying a fair wage, etc… Case in point is to avoid the mentality that if we just redistribute everything, all our problems will go away. That is communism. “Hunger” both literal and for success, are the most powerful motivators on earth. If challenges and opportunities are gone, then success dies with it.
Currently, the best way is probably to figure out how to get Chinese citizens to have a taste of freedom. In fact, most uprisings in recent years have been such people, ranging from the Aram Spring to Hong Kong protests. Western media is terrifying to Chinese, North Korean, Russian, and other authoritarian governments. Now, I do not think a free society is necessarily more moral, since that is a broad problem, but the real benefit is that each person is in fact more accountable to themselves, and this may be the most important element of all. How can people take responsibility for right and wrong if they are not free to choose it?
If they do become a stable bastion of freedom, then I am fine with them being the world leader, but if not, then will do everything possible to stop them because otherwise, we may live in an eternal prison of semi-communist ideals. On the flip-side, I realize communist and authoritarian trends are increasingly seen as acceptable here, so I am quite worried about our future.