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I have a similar sense, that there's a "rats fleeing a sinking ship" dynamic at play with the elites. I wish I had more confidence about what the sinking ship is, though.
It could also be that the traditional avenues of preserving power and control (influence over media, politics and money) don't work as well anymore and the CCP top down authoritarian control model seems to work well (for the CCP- not the people) so the elites think "maybe we need to be a bit more like that"
the traditional avenues of preserving power and control (influence over media, politics and money) don't work as well anymore
This is my leading hypothesis. I think the rest is an attempt to preserve control, like you say. However, I'm not sure if it's more likely because they think it will work or that it will buy them time to extract as many resources for themselves before the door closes.
Good question.
This question should be a separate post. I would love to hear ideas from the broader community.
Agreed
Hmmm maybe they believe that controlling how others live is the best way to preserve the way they live.
Yesterday before I had to take my daughter to my parents so they could watch her while I took my wife and son to the airport my kids were playing with magnet blocks together trying to build a tower with every single piece. They built a really cool tower and when it was time to leave I said "ok guys awesome tower but it's time to put the blocks away we gotta go". My daughter, with far too much joy, smashed the tower to the ground (it did look fun). So before I had them clean up the now scattered blocks and put them away, I quickly pulled them aside and essentially said "how long did it take you to build that tower" and my son replied "15 minutes" and then I said "and how long did it take to knock it down" and my son replied "1 or 2 seconds" and I said "there is a life lesson in there, it's much easier to tear things down than build them up".
Maybe the elites are just trying to build a moat around the block towers they have built to protect it from crazy 5 year olds that want to destroy it and if they make a lot of crazy and restrictive rules for the crazy 5 year olds it is less likely they will knock the towers down.