Grumpy Chinese Guy

Civilization Isn’t About Technology: Lessons from China and the West

Two histories, two ideas of progress, and one question, who truly modernized?

Neil Zhu's avatar
Neil Zhu
Oct 14, 2025
∙ Paid

People love to talk about how advanced the West is, how modern its values and technology are. But when you look closely, the story changes. Civilization is not about how many machines a country builds, but about how it treats people, how it distributes power, and what kind of society it wants to become. This is a look at how China and the West took different paths to modernization—and what that means today.

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