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moridinamael comments on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: OrphanWilde 02 January 2013 03:31AM

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Comment author: moridinamael 02 January 2013 04:45:20PM 8 points [-]

I think there's a valid alternative narrative where China's explosive growth is the result of enormous quantities of previously untapped natural resources and a previous lack of infrastructure. One could argue that prosperity was inevitable for China as soon as it eased up on its isolationism, almost regardless of what government was in place.

Comment author: HalMorris 03 January 2013 11:09:03PM 0 points [-]

the result of enormous quantities of previously untapped natural resources and a previous lack of infrastructure.

Previously untapped natural resources are a good thing, esp. along with a well enough educated population with a good work ethic.

Previous lack of infrastructure? I'm not sure how that can be an advantage.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 04 January 2013 11:56:35PM 4 points [-]

Previous lack of infrastructure? I'm not sure how that can be an advantage.

One way to a have a fast growth rate is to start out very low.

Comment author: gwern 03 January 2013 11:23:22PM 1 point [-]

Previous lack of infrastructure? I'm not sure how that can be an advantage.

May be referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leapfrogging ; but in general, we'd expect fast growth just from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_%28economics%29

Comment author: HalMorris 03 January 2013 11:28:04PM 0 points [-]

I was thinking more in terms of transportation infrastructure, though maybe from having so little they will end up with one that doesn't reproduce a lot of past mistakes. It's just hard to launch an industrial revolution with having as little of that as they had to start with.