Bryan Callen: China's Oppression Limits Its Innovation

Twenty million cell phone users are missing from China. Where does that stat come from? This is- Is that an American stat? This is what they don't know. They don't know if this means there's 20 million casualties because it also coincides with their switch to 5G. They switched from 5G in January. So from January to March, China lost 20 million cell phone users. Now what does that mean though? It's hard to tell. But I think you could safely say whatever they say the casualty number is, is bullshit. That's pretty safe because they've been bullshitting left and right about the whole thing. They go on Twitter, there's some branch of the government that's involved in propaganda that's trying to say this is the United States government creation. Of course. The Chinese are incredibly practical. The Chinese, you know a lot of people, and I'm speaking of the government of course, but I think when you live in a society that has been essentially communist or really at the mercy of a central authority and the all powerful central authority for so long. Forever. Yeah. Forever. It's also that's a society that treated religion with great disdain and suspicion. They didn't really have, even though there are small pockets of these different, but for the most part I think when you forcibly rid a population of religion, what you are left with is something that takes its place. Sure an ideology like communism or whatever, but they're not really communist anymore. But I do think what happens is you get a population that deals in practicality, that is I'm sure very good to each other when they know somebody. But also deals in things like cause and effect. Not so much the over, one of the things a friend of mine, I'm speaking for a friend of mine who does a lot of business, billions of dollars in business with China. And another friend in fact who does a lot of business with China did so and speaks fluent Chinese. Both of them had something, an interesting observation which was that when you speak about morality in a Judeo-Christian way, when you think about, you say well that's just the wrong way to do it. That in dealing in business with a Chinese company is not necessarily, that's not really the way to approach business. They are way more practical than that. That doesn't mean that the average Chinese person is not moral or ethical, I don't know. But certainly you will get burned if you are playing by the rules that you are used to which would be just don't do it cause it's not the right thing to do. It's not going to find its way a lot of times when you are dealing in commerce with China. Well you are dealing with a military dictatorship who thinks about things the same way they think about war. Correct. They are not our ally. They are, I believe they are our enemy. They'll do whatever they can, I think to get an upper hand. They also now have enough wealth and they have a huge middle class where they can almost start, they are starting to become way more self-sufficient. We don't have the symbiotic relationship we are used to with China. China doesn't need our consumers as much as they did, not even close. They have their own consumers in their own country. What's weird is that we need them. What's weird is how much we need them for the manufacturing of medicine. 97% of all our antibiotics are made in China. That is so crazy. How did we ever let that happen? China and India. And how did they ever let that happen? Is it because they could save money? It's more efficient. Is it more efficient or is it more cost effective? They are better at making it. Because they have magic? No, yes. And why can't we do it? Their factories are amazing. They are incredibly efficient. But the Chinese, see people worry about the Chinese. I don't think they will ever be in our area code as innovators. They steal from us. They take our intellectual property, etc. But that will always be a catch up game. And part of the reason I think is that I love the quote from Why Nations Fail. I believe China, yes, they put their Uyghurs in concentration camps. I went to Beijing. The first thing they said is you cannot speak about the government. If you say anything about the government, you will be sent home. Oh, and by the way, here's a cell phone, Brian. You can use WeChat. You're not using your iPhone. When was this? This was when I did a movie this summer, two summers ago. So they gave you a phone to use. Uh-huh. And they said you can't use your phone. And you don't get on Google. You have to find thousands of firewalls. You have to find all different ways to get over their firewalls because they control the internet there. Make no mistake. So can you use a VPN? I don't know what that is. Virtual Private Network or ExpressVPN? You try to do that and then they block that too. So you have to keep coming up with new ways. I was right there with the production designer assistant who was dealing with that issue. So you're essentially at the mercy of their news. Of course. So here's the thing. There's a great quote, and I've said it before probably even on this podcast, and I love it. You cannot hold a gun to a man's head and make him move a box or a rock. You cannot hold a gun to a man's head and make him have a great idea. And any country... That's a great quote. It's a great quote. So China, Russia, you guys have great weapons and you have great power and manufacturing. You will never be a country of great ideas because... The oppressors. Because you oppress people and people can't give you motherfuckers the finger. Xi is the most powerful man in China along with his people, his inner circle. And if you in any way look at the whistleblowers... Isn't it interesting? The whistleblowers, the original whistleblowers on the coronavirus are dead and they were doctors in their 30s. Did they die of the disease? Did they? Or what happened? A lot of them... Yeah, that's a real good question. A lot of the journalists and a lot of those doctors were disappeared. They just didn't... They're dead or they disappeared. China can do that. Somebody who lived there for their whole life, I was there, and he was an American and said, people get disappeared here all the time, dude. You don't speak against the government. It just doesn't happen. Jesus. And I think that's one of the great evils. And that's what I worry about any time we have a pandemic like this where the government can just shut you down at the behest of the scientists and doctors, I suppose. But I get very worried when someone like Gavin Newsom can say, nobody's going back to work for a month. I'm not saying that right now that isn't a sound policy. I just get very worried when the government has that kind of power to shut all of us down without a discussion. Once they start with that kind of totalitarian power, it's very difficult to turn that off. That's right. It's for our own good. If you study history, it's always for the people's good. Well, that's what Edward Snowden is warning everybody about this now. He should be. Hitler, when he came to power, talked about that. He said, this is when I think there was a fire in the Reichstag and he used these emergency powers to suspend civil liberties. They started the fire so that they could do that. It was a false flag. There you go. Yeah, they did. That's the same way Nero burned Rome. Same reason. Yeah. It's the age old. Well, that's what the conspiracy theorists think that 9-11 was. Yeah. Good for them. I don't mind their... I appreciate their paranoia. I think that's American. Yes. I don't think that's a bad thing and I think you should always be... What's the fundamental question to political philosophy? The fundamental question? Who governs the governor? Yes. Very important. Yes, very important. Who the fuck govern... Who's governing the governor? I don't trust my government and I shouldn't. No, you shouldn't. It's also like people that have power, like the kind of unchecked power that you see in China, they're not going to give that up. Career politicians. They're going to fight for it. They're going to fight for it. Career politicians, you see that with this bill that they're trying to pass to help people that are dealing with this coronavirus because they can't work and they're slipping all kinds of stuff in there. Of course. AOC and Bernie Sanders, they're all trying to... Yeah, they're all slipping things in there about the environment. Of course. It's like, hey guys, we want to fucking solve a problem. Slipping into the stimulus package. Yes. That is something that politicians do. They utilize this moment to try to use it to leverage their own causes, their own pet causes, things that they think are also important.