TID: Mystic BBS 1.12 A48   
   MSGID: 1:105/420 74f8029d   
   REPLY: 1:229/310 72acb078   
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    mg> Player of Games - Felt a little too focused on the local/micro and not   
    mg> enough on the macro   
   I get what you are saying however I did enjoy that story for what it was -   
   special circumstances being their usual sneaky selves & using the main   
   character's talent for understanding and winning games to break apart a   
   totalitarian society. I was interesting seeing how said society started coming   
   apart at the seems it becomes more and more difficult for them to ignore the   
   fact that their great games on which they model their awful society could be   
   won by an alien from another culture.   
      
    mg> Use of Weapons - Felt too focused on the individual and less on the   
    mg> broader canvas that he found himself in   
      
   Doesn't help that the main character is completely unsympathetic & hard to   
   relate to.   
      
   mg> Inversions - Didn't even feel like it belonged in the series, I'm never    
   mg> a fan when scifi goes all fantasy/medieval and I believe this one was     
   mg> the one with the cat people? Just felt out of place   
   I don't recall reading that one.   
      
    mg> All very good points and the last one is something overlooked so often   
    mg> when people claim that China is relatively debt-free compared to the   
    mg> west, ignoring or being ignorant of the fact that China's debt is   
    mg> distributed federally, provincially and municipally instead of just at   
    mg> the federal level. Putting all level of debt together China's on par or   
    mg> worse with most western nation in pure numbers but seemingly much much   
    mg> worse in terms of sustainability.  It really does look like a house of   
    mg> cards that's starting to crumble.  There is a youtube channel called   
    mg> tl;dr News that has some good short pieces on this.  They are stuck in   
    mg> this spiral, partly exaccerbated by Ping's semi-religious hatred for   
    mg> western consumerism, trapping them in this reliance on a low-wage export   
    mg> driven economy.  I haven't heard of any reasonable solution so far to   
    mg> get them out of this quagmire, have you?   
      
   The only suggestions I've heard of is that China needs to follow the west in   
   liberalizing their economy and society so that they can work on providing high   
   value financial and technical services. The former would require changes to   
   how they run their economy - none of this currency manipulation and fixed   
   exchange rate rate nonsense thank you very much. The latter won't work if the   
   CCP continues on with is atrocious privacy and human rights record. Would you   
   trust cloud services or technical consulting services offered by an individual   
   or company domiciled in a state that can and will obtain your data whenever   
   they feel like it?   
      
   ... A deaf ear is the first sign of a closed mind.   
      
   --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)   
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