I believe Xi (or choose your CCP representative) would say that the ultimate goal is human flourishing
I’m very much worried that this sort of thinking is a severe case of Typical Mind Fallacy.
I think the main terminal values of the individuals constituting the CCP – and I do mean terminal, not instrumental – are the preservation of their personal status, power, and control, like the values of ~all dictatorships, and most politicians in general. Ideology is mostly just an aesthetics, a tool for internal and external propaganda/rhetoric, and the backdrop for internal status games.
There probably are some genuine shards of ideology in their minds. But I expect minuscule overlap between their at-face-value ideological messaging, and the future they’d choose to build if given unchecked power.
On the other hand, if viewed purely as an organization/institution, I expect that the CCP doesn’t have coherent “values” worth talking about at all. Instead, it is best modeled as a moral-maze-like inertial bureaucracy/committee which is just replaying instinctive patterns of behavior.
I expect the actual “CCP” would be something in-between: it would intermittently act as a collection of power-hungry ideology-biased individuals, and as an inertial institution. I have no idea how this mess would actually generalize “off-distribution”, as in, outside the current resource, technology, and power constraints. But I don’t expect the result to be pretty.
Mind, similar holds for the USG too, if perhaps to a lesser extent.
I’m very much worried that this sort of thinking is a severe case of Typical Mind Fallacy.
I think the main terminal values of the individuals constituting the CCP – and I do mean terminal, not instrumental – are the preservation of their personal status, power, and control, like the values of ~all dictatorships, and most politicians in general. Ideology is mostly just an aesthetics, a tool for internal and external propaganda/rhetoric, and the backdrop for internal status games.
There probably are some genuine shards of ideology in their minds. But I expect minuscule overlap between their at-face-value ideological messaging, and the future they’d choose to build if given unchecked power.
On the other hand, if viewed purely as an organization/institution, I expect that the CCP doesn’t have coherent “values” worth talking about at all. Instead, it is best modeled as a moral-maze-like inertial bureaucracy/committee which is just replaying instinctive patterns of behavior.
I expect the actual “CCP” would be something in-between: it would intermittently act as a collection of power-hungry ideology-biased individuals, and as an inertial institution. I have no idea how this mess would actually generalize “off-distribution”, as in, outside the current resource, technology, and power constraints. But I don’t expect the result to be pretty.
Mind, similar holds for the USG too, if perhaps to a lesser extent.