5 hours ago
- Chinese society shows high AI acceptance in surveys (85%+ view AI as beneficial vs <45% in US), despite high youth unemployment (~17%) and historical job loss trauma.
- China's 1990s state-owned enterprise reforms (xiagang) caused 24 million layoffs, concentrated in the Northeast rust belt, dismantling the danwei system that provided total social identity.
- The 'last bus' mentality emerged from the 1990s: fear of missing transformative opportunities drives frenetic adoption of English, coding, and now AI crash courses.
- Chinese AI enthusiasm mixes genuine optimism with fatalistic acceptance—technology seen as inevitable national necessity rather than purely beneficial choice.
- Polling may conflate trust in AI's necessity with trust in its benefits: 49% believe AI will replace jobs, yet 95% express willingness to adopt it.
- The 1990s divide—coastal prosperity vs northeastern collapse—created a Social Darwinist narrative blaming individuals for structural job loss.
- State rhetoric reinforces inevitability ('seize the new opportunities'), while cultural trauma of xiagang surfaces only in marginal 'Dongbei Renaissance' art.