«1. Democracy is a means, not the goal. For a developing country, the most important goal is to develop its people (which parallels the development of the economy), and China is currently doing quite well in this regard.» - 9000

«2. Democracy basically lets the people rule themselves, whose effectiveness heavily depends on the quality of the people. I'm also a computer science major and I'll make another computer-related analogy: installing democracy in a country whose people isn't ready for it is like installing Windows 7 on a 486, you do get some benefits of the new system, but the overall user experience would be bad, because the minimum system requirement isn't met.» - 9000

«3. So what's the best way to quickly improve the quality of a country's citizens? Economic development. In this regard, the best way for China to have an effective and working democracy as soon as possible, is ironically, for it to not have democracy now. Because the current system is great in developing the Chinese economy, and people.» - 9000

«4. Are the Chinese people ready for democracy now? I don't know, and we have only one chance to test it, there is no save/load. As it's a decision that's so important, I'd say it's better safe than sorry. As long as the current system still works and isn't holding back China's development, democracy can wait. Empirical evidence from Taiwan, by the way, doesn't bode very well.» - 9000

«5. I believe the current blind passion for democracy has misled many countries to adopt it prematurely, as if it's a fashion. There are many horror stories and not many successful ones in the past 20 years' huge democratic push to poor countries. In the mean time, almost all working democracies are rich countries (and you know why), which unfortunately makes many people to confuse democracy and wealth.» - 9000

«6. I'll quote Albert Einstein to end this answer, as this is IMO the best statement to date on democracy:「Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.」It seems like our age isn't that much different than his after all.» - 9000

:clap: - голос в темноте

Also, a good text about Singapore by William Gibson himself (from 1998 or so): http://archive.wired.com/wired... Shows the perspective. - 9000

Всё логично и убедительно. Но я бы ответил на тот же вопрос по-другому: если у китайцев получится построить демократию, они завоюют весь мир. Так что лучше не надо. - true meaning of suspense

^ Было ли дело, чтобы демократическая держава завоёвывала весь мир? Ну там, Швейцария? Можно, конечно, сказать, что США поназавоёвывали себе территорий, но в основном потому, что государств на них не было (разве что Мексика попалась под руку). А, скажем, Британская империя построена вовсе не демократическим режимом, не говоря об испанской или португальской, да и о Китае. - 9000

у Херберта есть отличные пассажи про демократию от лица Bene Gesserit, но хорошая объемная цитата с ходу не нагугливается, только куски вроде: - Michael Bravo

"Have they taught you about democracy?" "Yes, sir. That's where you vote for..." "That's where you distrust anyone with power over you!" - Michael Bravo