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We are all going to die immediately.I want you to imagine the most terrifying scenario imaginable. In the event that a cheat code can be entered and the best homes, cars, lifestyles, and all the money you would want are instantly given, and any unfavorable outcome can result in a person resetting, a few things are going to happen with terrifying implications.1) JoblessnessPeople are going to reset when they lose their jobs. Imagine home builders and car makers, or the sellers of these commodities, when simply wishing creates them. All of these people would lose their jobs in the days and weeks to come, along with absolutely every other person involved in any segment of the consumer pipeline of any industry that is tasked with making something or selling something to anyone else. In the new world without consequences, each of these people will eventually come to the realization that they need to go back to some better time, or worse and eventually, that they need to apply the same cheats as others.Even when people have infinite resources, they need to be productive. Though they may have a house, or money, they will lack value in themselves. When so many people suddenly become useless to society, they are going to be depressed and this will lead to problems, among other things.2) Hyperinflation.Hyperinflation is when currency, in some form or another, is created too quickly, devaluing the entire money supply. This happened recently in Zimbabwe resulting in this image of three eggs being purchased for $100,000,000,000. Imagine a world where people can just "will" tens of thousands of dollars at a time, just enough to buy that thing they want right now. Two people epiphying money over and over to win a bidding war over the last gallon of milk might very well destroy the whole of Earth's economy. Money, you see, does not solve the fundamental problem of economics, scarcity. Scarcity will always exist, but when the money supply is infinite, no amount of money will be enough to get us the things we need. At this point, it's safe to say that money is worthless and instead, people convert to a barter society.Barter society isn't always bad. In fact, in some cases it is preferable. It is one of the few types of transactions in which both parties usually feel they are the better, exchanging some good or service with which they hold as having little value for something of greater value. One might even consider that in many ways, we are converting back into a barter society, or a "sharing society" with services like AirBnB, Uber, and Task Rabbit somehow a thing.The problem with barter economies is that, for a person to receive even basic goods and services, a massive conversion chart must be created measuring the current value of any product against all other products and who needs them the most, variables which, by the way, are never fixed. One must ask themselves, "Should I attempt to exchange three backrubs for these eggs, or two brooms?" Now a desperate struggle begins whereby the shopper must catch two fish to give to the baker, for a loaf of bread to give to masseuse, so that she will give three backrubs to the farmer, so that the shopper can finally make her scrambled egg sandwich. Oops... forgot the Miracle Whip.So this is why mankind invented currency. It makes life easier, though less social, I suppose. We, however, have shown that currency in our cheat based economy would be meaningless. Perhaps people will find a new currency, making the cheat code meaningless. This leads to a recurring problem...3) Joblessness 2: Those Who Won't WorkNow something rather troublesome is going to start happening. While every single job that relies on people doing things for stuff is going to eventually go under, some services are going to become irreplaceable. Consider therapists. We've already seen a need for them helping the countless now without jobs and the rest unable to cope with a world changing so fast that a loaf of bread now costs as much as a house once would. These people will need help finding purpose in their lives, or therapy just to endure the realities of utopia.I don't really see how someone can receive a cheat for counseling. This is a human commodity that can't be given through supernatural means, but needs to be delivered via another human individual. For reasons like this, therapists are going to become the most important people in the terrifying new world. In truth, their need will be even more necessary for reasons I will explain later. The problem, though, is that they won't be there to help us.Let's consider, what happens when all the needs of people the rest of us rely on are met. What happens when they have the home they want, the clothes they like, and the life they wish to have? What happens they have no more material goals or needs? Will they still be therapists, or will they pursue their dreams of fly-fishing in all the rivers of North America, or perhaps just sit at home doing nothing?Don't expect altruism and charity. Napoleon said it best when famously declared,"You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led… Do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning? Never. That is good only for the scholar in his study. The soldier needs glory, distinctions, rewards."This has been often quoted as "It is with such baubles that men are led." The point is that many, if not most people, will not work for nothing, or in our case, will not work if there can be no reward. If they have already "cheat coded" their way into a life where there is no reward, how many of them would simply do their jobs for the love of the labor? How long would that last?Eventually, they simply wouldn't, as would thousands of other job fields. Those parts of our world that, right now, revolve around people doing things simply to benefit other humans on an emotional or even spiritual level would simply dry up, offices abandoned for better, more selfish pursuits. Of course, others may have always dreamed of filling their shoes, leaving jobs they hate to help people in need. Maybe that is their fly fishing. I have to ask though, would they be that good at it? Would not years of experience simply walk out the door... millions of times across the world? Would those motivated laypeople really be able to deliver the same quality of service as their predecessors? No. No they wouldn't. Frankly, the rest of us would have to deal with what's left. As I said, in this new world, there will be a need for therapists who won't be there when we need them.4) Chaos Theory, the Unborn, and MadnessSo far we have dealt with some of the ramifications of a universe where people can wish for all the big objects, but we haven't explored the big question of what happens when people can simply reset to a better time in their lives. To begin, I want to talk about Chaos theory.Chaos theory is the field of study in mathematics that studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions—a response popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. A summary of Chaos Theory would say that small changes in complex systems will have massive and unpredictable effects over time.Now that we have a handle on that, let's consider some of the possibilities of a person who could blink backward in time to a better point in their lives. All things equal, one would assume that a person could simply make all the right choices, or even just fix that one crucial choice and have the perfect life. Would they though? Let's consider.Say you go back a few days. You discovered on Friday a mistake you made on Tuesday, and being that you are lazy now and just don't want to fix it, you go back to Monday and prevent it. Now let's ask, "Would the mistake made on Tuesday #1 be the only thing that changed once Friday #2 arrived? It's almost impossible that it would and here's why.You are not the same person on Monday #2 that you were on Monday #1. You have new experiences, slightly different opinions, a slightly different perspective and an outlook that will affect the decisions you make from then on, besides just fixing that one fateful mistake. Maybe you will just so happen to be there with the briefcase your boss was going to forget, earning his favor, but changing his life twenty minutes for the rest of time. Maybe you take an exit to avoid a traffic jam you know is coming on Thursday #2, getting home thirty minutes early to surprise your wife by cooking dinner. Maybe you stop by and pick up flowers, too. All this is possible, but by Friday #2 your life with subtly be different and your life will be on a completely different course. Whole works of fiction have been dedicated to this type of story, but I will offer one more.Let's take this change and consider what happens when your wife gets home. She sees the flowers and dinner waiting for her. She's elated. You're getting lucky tonight. Skipping the details, nine months later you and your wife welcome your first beautiful child, a girl with blue eyes and blonde hair. She is the love your lives. No moment could ever replace this moment. You name her Sarah.Years go by as you raise Sarah and you watch her grow into a beautiful women. She one day marries and gives you many beautiful grandchildren and through her, many beautiful great-grandchildren, which you hold dear for the rest of your days. Then one evening, you look into her eyes one last time and realize that you are about to die. You love this life and your family, and you wish to continue enjoying this perfect bliss forever, so you return to where it all began. You return to that Thursday night where Sarah first came to be.The evening plays out exactly as it should. You've picked out the flowers and the meal you prepared is even better than before. Your cooking has improved much in seventy years. Your wife, now young and beautiful again, captures your heart as the two of you rekindle a passion you haven't known in half a century. In the midst of your love-making, you think to yourself of how this night perfectly will end, with the beginning of your beloved daughter Sarah.Nine months later you stand in the delivery room waiting for the moment to greet your angel Sarah with her perfect blue eyes and her curly golden hair. How fortunate, you imagine, are you to experience the greatest moment of your life twice. The doctor arrives and the baby is born. You look down at the child that the nurse hands you with a smile as she says,"Say hello to your new baby boy."Boy? But this must be Sarah. You're horrified. This child is not your Sarah. It has green eyes and brown hair. It looks nothing like Sarah. This has to be a mistake. Where is your Sarah? Your wife asks for the baby as you look on with shock. Your wife isn't alarmed. She sees what you do not. She, after all has never met Sarah. The boy doesn't have Sarah's eyes or her hair, but he does have your nose and chin. He does have your wife's ears and her eyes. This is your child, indeed.Let us talk about the miracle of you, and the profound unlikelihood of your existence in this world.Within you is a monumental code composed of chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA, unique among all humans in history. This code was passed to you by your mother and your father in the most unlikely of manners. In the most unexpected of events, the egg which contained half of you fell from among millions your mother held, one of only a few thousand she would release in her lifetime, and for only a few hours of a single day that month. On that same day, your father met her intimately. From him, one single cell, one of among millions which he produces and which die every day, containing your other half, beat out all the others to reach your mother's egg. From their joining, you were made.You are one in a statistically incalculable number, along with everyone else who has or will ever live... and even the slightest change in the circumstances surrounding your conception would cause you to never be. It would instead perhaps be any one of the unfathomable multitude of brothers or sisters you could have had, or perhaps no one at all.You, however, didn't realize this when you went back to that point nine months ago. You didn't realize that the creation of your daughter Sarah, in fact, was a miracle. As you realize what you have done, you start to understand all the lives you have affected. Not only is Sarah gone, but so are her children, and their children. Everything you knew from a life long ago is gone. It's not even dead. Because of you, it will never exist, never in any form besides the memories you hold.Perhaps you could go back? Perhaps you could fix this. Abandoning this boy to the nether of noncreation, you go back and attempt to do what you don't yet see to be impossible. Time and time again you replay the same wretched moment, and the year spent in anxious expectation. Each time, another child is born, different from the last, but not your baby girl Sarah. Finally, after the loss of so many with your eyes and your chin, there is one born with hers. This girl has blue eyes and blonde hair. Could this be her? You name her Sarah.She isn't, though. This girl isn't Sarah. The differences build as the years go by. She reminds you of her, but this girl is taller. She likes math where your Sarah liked reading. She married Joseph where your Sarah married Ashton. Your grandchildren look nothing like the grandchildren you once knew. Everything is wrong, yet again. Sarah is truly gone.You've caused something dear to you to never exist. You've shattered your family time and time again while deciding the fate of hundreds of people, your flesh and blood... now all lost to oblivion. This story will repeat for many, those who don't think of the consequences of the small changes in complex systems, those we cannot predict, cannot control, and can never put back in place once they are broken. Did I mention that there will be a need for psychologists?The guilt and pain of loss overwhelm you and you know nothing but mystery. Overcome by a longing for a person, and people, you cannot express, for only you have ever known them, you find the only escape is to end the cycle. You take your own life to end your overwhelming sadness.Bitterly though, this isn't the end of your story. In a world where anyone can reset to a point that they deem necessary, someone will change this story. Someone, among the billions of people that exist will find a need to go back to a time before your fateful choice. Someone, somewhere, will go back to the Sunday before all this began. Your choices, every one of them, will be undone.You will be completely unaware of this. To you, it will seem as though nothing more amazing will have happened beyond a Saturday turning to Sunday. You won't even know that dozens of lives will have passed in the blink of the eye. Worse yet, you will make the same choices that brought you to this point, likely leading to the same end, over, and over, and over. Your only hope is that which brought you to this point: Chaos theory. With hope that other someone you don't know, the person who reset you back to the beginning of this terrible, bittersweet journey, will change something small which will ripple into your life and will lead you down a different path. You will have no control of this, but it is the only chance you will have for a better future.5) The Momentary Reign of Maniac Anarchy and the After-chaosThe thought of a society without consequences and where depression and a sense of lacking purpose is common, I am reminded of a law of gaming that I want people to be aware.As the amount of time a player spends in an open world adventure game increases, the chances that player will not go on a game wide "Murder all innocents and everything that moves in town rampage" declines, asymptotically approaching zero.I spoke about this in another question with terrifying implications. The first time I heard of this was in a video game youtube channel named outsidexbox in an episode titled "9 Things You Really Can't Resist Doing in Videogames: Commenter Edition". Here, commentors to the show listed all the things that they simply can't resist doing in a video game at some point or another. Among other sadomasochistic acts of human depravity were saving the game before launching worldwide killing sprees. The host gave a particularly telling realization."According to many comments, there is only so long you can go in an open world game before dropping everything and to go on a game wide rampage of destruction... So yes, maybe your character is struggling with the criminal past, or an undercover cop, or just trying to make the best out of a bad start in life, but at some point they will go and shoot up a crowd of pedestrians... for a laugh. That's what saving's for right? Grand Theft Auto 5 understands this, which is why it included Rampages... so you can let off steam and be rewarded for it instead of being shot by the police. You know us so well Rockstar."This piece disturbed me a little, not because players would do this, but because I have done this. I don't know who hasn't done this. I went back to my own murderous antics in games like Skyrim. It got pretty ugly... every time I did it. I, for one, consider myself a pretty calm and happy person. Still though, I killed that fruit vendor, all the other people of town and all the guards until I finally fell beneath so many hundreds of victims of my rage. Why? I have no idea.Ask yourself honestly, in a real life world where such a thing is possible... do you trust everyone in the world to deny this morbidly depraved curiosity in the human condition forever? I don't. Many have proven capable of it without even having the benefit of saving and starting over. No, in truth, I think that everyone, everyone on earth has a limit where, at some point, they will ask what it feels like to do things that are truly terrible, things that are horrific and unimaginable. Murder, arson, theft, assault, rape, and yes, even massive killing sprees will result following that macabre moment of curiosity. For a few minutes, anarchy alone will reign.Some things need to be consider about this holocaust that will be very different than the world in which we live in. First, not everyone will do this. When I say that the chances against one committing an atrocity asymptotically approach zero, for some, hopefully most, that point will be thousands of years from now, well beyond their lifetimes. Good for us, however, for many others, it won't take long, at all. Perhaps the fact we can't already simply reset to a saved state is all that really prevents many people from being monsters. To be honest, I've been through war, literal war in Iraq, and while I believe most people to be good, I know that in the absence of any kind of authority or consequence, anyone is capable of doing terrible and unspeakable things. Inhumanity is just human nature beyond its limits.Now there is something else that perhaps is a positive in this. Most of us will never experience a rampage of this sort in spite of so many people doing it. When something terrible happens, someone is going to reset to an earlier save point. Perhaps the killer will have his fill and he will go back to a time before he was a monster, and no one will know the wiser. Perhaps a victim, injured but not dead, will reset themselves back to a safer time and place. Perhaps it will be one of the victims' families, going back to when all was right with the world. Simply it could be some onlooker, one of the millions watching the news, but the first to remember that they can easily make it all go away with a thought. And just like that... it never happened. In truth, none of us will ever likely experience the consequences of such rampages, even though so many will do it.There will really only be one victim in any of these situations, the one who reset. If it were the onlooker, what would that be like? Though no one else in existence remembers what went on, they would know that somewhere out there, people are ready and willing to do terrible things, snapping at any given moment. How could one trust a stranger after that? What if it were the victim themselves, the person who experienced incalculable pain, not only the pain of being shot or maimed, but the pain of experiencing another human's evil senselessly directed at them. I wonder if they would still feel pain where the wounds were or if they might suffer forever with the same mistrust of others. Perhaps one could ask if they would feel a sense of self-loathing, believing that they that they mattered so little that someone would murder them for no reason.In truth, neither of these cases would solve the problem. A killer is still on the lose, though they haven't yet committed a crime. Whatever need they wish to express will remain unresolved if someone other than they resets. The morbid curiosity, the anger, the fear... whatever drove them to commit acts of violence will go back to being unanswered when someone else takes the world back to before he decided to do it. Lacking any other input, what's to stop them from doing it again? In truth, perhaps the only solution is just to let the villain run his course. Enjoy his one man holocaust and reset of his own free will, his needs satiated. That alone would change the cause of the massacre for good, I'd imagine. This is terrifying to me, considering how many psychopaths and monsters would be surrounding us at every moment, guilty of unspeakable evils which only they were aware.We aren't done with this scenario. I can't help but wonder what would take place in the minds of so many who have reset following a chaos. I touched on it briefly. Think about the traumatic suffering of those who remained, victims, onlookers, and the monsters themselves. They would be forever scarred by their experiences, carrying the burden of knowledge with them.In his book, "On Killing" Lt. Col Dave Grossman, a once Army Ranger turned councilor and one of the foremost experts on combat psychology, expounds at length on the burden that killing takes on the mind. Those who are not prepared for it, through training, acceptance, and having the understanding of society supporting them upon their return, suffer the scars of war long, long after the fighting is over. Though the killers in our hypothetical world have committed no crime in the traditional sense, they will remember the acts and, in my mind, will not be able to shoulder the burden forever. They couldn't have been prepared and society would never accept their acts of senseless destruction. The victims and onlookers, as I have said, will suffer knowing that there are terrible people all around them, never able to trust again, and maybe, never able to love themselves the same again. How would one go on like this?Did I mention that there will be a need for psychologists?6) One Man's Heaven... The Philosopher's WarAt some point, somehow, order will be achieved whereby people learn of the numerous irreparable mistakes that simply can't be reset away. Enough people will have gone back far enough, taking with them enough experience of the dangers of this terrible world we have created, to lead the rest away from the steady decline into madness that such a world would create.At this point, the true dangers of this world that remain will begin to stabilize and a new normal will be achieved. From here, the philosophers will take over as the purveyors of change and disorder. They'll seek to question the world and the new powers of man. They'll ask questions of what it means to go back. Does the universe we leave remain after we are gone? Does everyone else die in that universe if you reset? Are we responsible for those who are unborn and no longer exist when we reset? Is the loss of experience of another like a little death, and are we responsible for that, as well? By what standard should such a world strive toward? Do laws have any meaning? Does anything matter anymore?The philosophers discuss and debate, each arguing in their turn what a perfect world should be. They'll plan and scheme and one will decide to go back, to rebuild the world perfect from as near the beginning as is possible. When their plans are finished, one person, that one person with all the power of mind to implement it all, will reset with all his knowledge to lead the rest of us into a brave new world. He will fail, as time will show, and another will build upon his vision and try again, followed by another, and another.We will be completely unaware of this. At the moment saving became a thing, a constant cycle of philosophical temporal dictators will carry on this loop of guidance for the rest of us into a perfect utopia. Our understanding being none the wiser that, in truth, this system of trial and error has gone on for millions of years, with each iteration, perhaps, just as fruitless as the last, as one man's heaven will be another man's damnation. And the cycle will continue. This cycle will continue forever until eventually, we reach a point... the best of all possible worlds.Watch the Ryan Reynolds movie "The Nines". It's trippy and confusing. The protagonist sails from world to world, each familiar, but completely different. In the end, he settles on a world that possesses all the best qualities of each he experienced before, with none of the bad. This, the creepy wise little girl states, is the best of all possible worlds. Our world will eventually be like this.It will begin with the moment that saving and resetting will become a reality. At that moment, a voice will take over every media outlet. Every TV, every computer, every phone, and every medium for communication will be taken over by one voice. This will be the voice of a person who has worked an entire life for this moment; perhaps many lifetimes and perhaps the lifetimes of many people in preparation to come back and deliver this very speech to all of us. This person will deliver a speech so profound, so moving, so logical, so wise, and so perfect, that each and every one of us will be left with no choice but to listen and agree. We will be guided by it and agree.Well, some minority of us may not...At that point, we might look out the window to see a man standing there, pointing a gun, and then you will die. It's hard to imagine it so, but we might all need to face the possibility that the best possible world for the most possible people, is simply a world that doesn't have you in it. It's a scary thought that you might be so important as to ruin the universe of everyone else.Free of undesirables and guided by the singularly perfect vision, we will move on to the ideal goal. From that point forward, an order will take hold and this life will be the new normal. We will each learn to gain contentment, happiness and bliss.But it will not last forever.In time, there will be those who even in utopia do not find peace. They will have a new plan, one which does not revolve around the cycle of better and better things. Theirs will be the goal of breaking the cycle. A new plan will be hatched and someone will return to the moment it all began. This person will work quietly and unseen by anyone. At the moment of their choosing, a sudden shock will ring out and in an instant, too soon for anyone to react or even to realize it, our world be gone. The cycle will end as we all fade away in a momentary snuffing of human species.SummaryAfter enduring countless lifetimes of misery, suffering, self-inflicted torment and woe, and finally bliss in the realization of a perfect utopia, all will be forgotten after we reset one final time and then we will die quickly and painlessly.Thanks for reading!For more answers like this check out Inspired Lunacy and follow my blog War Elephant for more new content. Everything I write is completely independent research and is supported by fan and follower pledges. Please consider showing your support directly by visiting my Patreon support page here: Help Jon Davis in writing Military Novels, Articles, and Essays.

A2A. There are a lot of systematic corruption in China. And this is indeed a problem. But just hang on for a second, I would also say a slight corruption is also the secret key to the high efficiency of the Chinese government.Why is it the case? Let’s transport to China and become one of the government officials in China so you can understand the context better.First, I will name you as Jiayi Liu, the CCP leader of Shandong province, the man who is in charge of a province with 99.47 million people and 1.2 trillion dollars GDP. For reference, the population and GDP of Shandong are quite similar to Mexico.To govern a province of around 100 million people, you definitely need someone to support you. I mean, the real support, not the bureaucratic support from the staff who are simply doing their job or not the fake support from someone who wants to backstab you. The real support means someone is sharing the same boat with you with direct or indirect interests connections.So your prime goal is to amass a sect of people to support you with the same interests and goals. To make someone stand in your boat. You have to promise something to him, either offering a lucrative position, a promotion, or a grant of a mega project with billions of dollars in value. Even if you are aware that someone is not in your league, you have to use them wisely using carrots and sticks based on their characteristics.For example, when the Tyrion was first named as the Hand of the King. He has to know which one in the King’s council could be “used” and which one should not be used.Similarly, just imagine there are three persons in front of you. Someone might be really helping and someone might just be a spy from your rivals. What would you do? Please watch the game of thrones for more details about how Tyrion uses the people well. And how Tyrion promised the position of the Lord of RiverRun to the Little Finger so that the Little Finger can do things for him.In real life Chinese politics, we could see similar scenarios happening daily but on a much larger scale. As a top leader of Shandong, you are faced with a council of around 100 officials at your direct control. This includes the 17 CCP mayors and 17 civic mayors from all 17 prefecture cities in Shandong. And there are also several vice provincial CCP and civic leaders (副省级，厅级) at your deposal. They are in charge of different sectors in development, manufacturing, health, education and military respectively.Please note that each member of your council is very powerful on his own. He could be the top leader of a prefecture city with a constituency of approximately 5 million people. And also he has his own “circles” or cabinet with 5–10 county-level and bureau-level leaders in his city. If you add them together, there are 139 counties in Shandong. That means you are also indirectly in charge of 139*2 county-level CCP and civic leaders respectively. Let’s go further down, each county level leader is in charge of 5–20 town-level CCP leaders. In total there are 1931 towns in Shandong. Each town has approximately 50k citizens. And each town has 10–50 districts and villages etc. Those leaders are basically beyond your control because you can’t manage 5k CCP leaders directly in your province. All you can do is to interact with a cabinet with less than 100 officials with high rank.In order to efficiently realize your goal of developing Shandong, you started to build or your “circle” of interests. Among the 100 people in your council, you have to promise lucrative positions to some of them in order to encourage them to do things for you “efficiently”. Otherwise, those who are not in your boat would be just lazy or doing things slowly.So how to use people wisely?The first rule, let them compete. Place one mayor you like and then nominate his rival to a similar rank to check and balance him. If the rival got beaten, then just name another rival to continuously balance him.The second rule, connive them. Tell them you have *zero* tolerance in any form of corruption officially but turn a blind eye when you indeed find their corrupted activities.The third rule, threaten them. Secretly collect evidence of all your subordinates so you could use the evidence against them if someone wants to leave your circle or does something against you.The fourth rule, crush their camp. Once you found someone is secretly building his own “circles” of friendship. Crush their “circles” every few years. One efficient way is to rotate their positions. For example, you can switch the mayors of Qingdao city and Jinan city if you find both of them are forming their own circles in their own city.Once you promise something that is beyond fairness, OOps, you made your own corruption. You are fully aware of this so you might use a few deceptive tricks or implicit rules to pretend you appoint people purely based on their merits. But behind the scenes, their merit is only one of the consideration. Which league he belongs to also matters. Of course, you can only promote someone who is in your own boat. In the USA, the “promise” and “political lobbying” is legalized but you have to follow the rules. It is similar in China, you have to follow the rules in order to be strong and survive.However, you are not the only player here. Your boss, Xi Jinping, is also a master in using people. He is fully aware that you are forming your own circles in your province. So he appointed another provincial leader with the same rank to check and balance your power.So Xi Jinping appointed Gong Zheng as the civic leader of Shandong province. He will be your rival. He will be observing and potentially against you if you are not careful.And you are also aware that Gong Zheng is the husband of Liu He’s sister. Who is Liu He? He is the henchman of Xi Jinping. He is a top trade negotiator of the trade war.Gong Zheng is also forming his own circles for his own purposes too. Essentially the council would be divided into two circles competing with each other. In order for you to get promoted or in order to just to survive, you need to work harder and get more things done than him.So you have proposed a few mega projects to develop Shandong. These projects are not just for your own performance but also an approach to add more people into your circles. For example, build three high-speed railways in Shandong (胶济，鲁南，沿海). Lure more foreign investments to Shandong and promote manufacturing and selling more Shandong products to the rest of the provinces and overseas(貨出得去，人进得来). And also pay extra attention to the poor people in Shandong and tell them how to make money. (精准扶贫) In order to boost the performance, you also asked each provincial sector leader in agriculture, education, finance, military, manufacturing etc to propose their own plans.You also noticed that your rival has also proposed his own plans or he is going to cooperate and backstab you in the same project. So you have to outperform him in every direction. In order to achieve these plans more efficiently, you have to appoint more capable people in your circle and promise them with “huge benefits” if it were to achieve. Capable people only work for you if he can get huge benefits from it. Why are they capable? They are good at using their own people too. These people would spread the benefits and responsibilities down to their own circles.Let’s take the high-speed railway as an example: you want this railway to be constructed as quickly as possible as well as high quality. So that this railway would be a “merit” in your governing performance then you could be promoted to the central government.In order to stimulate your people to get the job done efficiently, you allow your council members to take a proportion of the fund or future shares for their own interests. Your counsel would spread the benefits down to their own circles so they can get the job done as quickly as possible. The high-speed railway means the joint development of new real estates, communication, power plants, logistics, taxes across multiple cities. Of course, those mayors would be in charge of the development of the station complex, call for bids from different vendors or other splits of benefits. This means that they could get fishy from all the stages at each circle.However, you can’t just turn a blind eye to everything. You are also fully aware that you take full responsibility if there is something wrong with the high-speed railway. Your future career to be in the central government would be doomed if there were something wrong happened. If a safety hazard happens. You might get fired by the central government or no longer considered for promotion.Your political life drives you to make sure that you take every means to ensure the railway must be built in time and quality must be satisfied. You can also appoint a dedicated group of people (巡视小组) and media outlets to oversee the project to avoid massive scandals or quality issues. You allow a certain tolerance at each level of governance when they only take a tiny fraction of the benefits just enough to get things done. Everyone at each level is fully aware that he would lose jobs if there were quality issues. So quality can be more or less guaranteed.Corruption is the lubricant and catalyst to get people moving. Too much corruption would cause the whole system to collapse. Too little corruption would make people reluctant to do things quickly. So you gradually learned the art of balancing corruption, risk and efficiency as a top leader.After 5 years, your term as the Shandong leader would finally come to an end. The central government then reviews your performance and achievements of this five year during the National People's Congress. Normally the decision is made by the top CCP Central Committee members during the holiday vacation in Bei Daihe.Of course, in order for you to promote, your merit is just one consideration. Your league in the central government also matters too. Please note that there are another 34 provincial top leaders just like you eager for promotion. They are not as united as you naively thought. That means that you have to join one of the leagues in central government. If you stay neutral, you will never get promoted. If you join the wrong side (站错队), you will be doomed. These leagues are like sub-parties in CCP. Or they can just be different parties in other countries.Before Xi Jinping, there are three leagues that dominate the Chinese central government. One of the most influential “circle” is called Tuanpai (团派) Tuanpai - Wikipedia These CCP officials are originally from normal Chinese families with no connections with the offsprings from the old generations of CCP. They purely get promoted based on their “merits”, not their family background.The second “circle” is called Jiangxi(江系)，which is a group of leaders promoted by Jiang Zemin, the former leader of CCP. Leaders in Jiangxi are normally promoted from Shanghai, who are very pro-business.The third league is called Xi Jinping’s army. This is the group of people that Xi Jinping promoted along the way. Actually, Xi laid low for a very long time and secretly absorbed people into his circles. These are the Xi Jinping’ army. His own circles. How did he build this circle? By using the same rules we mentioned above.Then he successfully knocked down his rival: Bo Xilai and Bo’s circles before he successfully rose to the top. These were the big tigers Xi managed to beat down in the name of corruption. Of course, corruption is Xi’s main weapon to fight against his rivals. Even someone is not corrupted, you can always find some evidence or just to claim he is corrupted.Now it is your time to join the league in the central government. Even though the current situation is that there is only one league now: Xi’s league, but there are still sub-divisions and many small circles are forming. This is exactly the same situations in a classroom, in a company, in a society. Some people get along and some people don’t. Politics exists everywhere.Even though Xi is in his absolute power now. The old circles from Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin are still secretly against Xi. These people are seeking every opportunity to beat or just weaken Xi’s circle down. As a defence, Xi proposed “Youth promotion campaign”, where he legalized the means in absorbing more young people to support him.But after decades of experiences in using people. You know what to do and which league to join. In order to join Xi’s league and become closer to Xi. You have to perform really well that correlates Xi’s vision.If you did really well in governing Shandong province, for the next five years, you will be appointed to govern Tibet. So you’d better try your best to improve Tibetan’s lives and reduce Han-Tibetan collisions. If you did well in Tibet, then you will be appointed to be the leader of Fujian. In Fujian, you will fully understand what is going on across the Taiwan Strait and you will have experiences in handling Taiwan problems. After Fujian, you might be appointed to the mayor of Shanghai so you have the experiences in governing the global financial centre. If you are really lucky, you will be considered a candidate for the chairman of PR.China.To help you understand the scale here, I will make an analogy. As you can see, European countries have a similar size and GDP as the provinces in China Imagine the PM of Germany Angela Merkel is appointed to be the leader of Greece for five years. She will use her talents and experiences in Germany to reform and develop the Greece economy. If She does really well in Greece, she is then appointed to be the leader of Serbia so that she understands perfectly about the Kosovo problem. After five years, she would be appointed as the mayor of London to be familiar with financial and trade. Eventually, after five or six rotations, she can finally become the leader of Europe because she understands each part of Europe so well and she has circles of her supporters in each country.Now you can understand perfectly well how corruptions in PR China are performed. It interleaves with the art of using the right people and the philosophy of forming your circles of common interests. Use corruption well, and it will boost your efficiency.To summarize, let’s look at the pyramids of the Chinese government:Level 0: the central rank (<100 officials)Level 1: the provincial rank (<3000 officials)Level 2: the prefecture city rank (<50k officials)Level 3: the county rank (< 1m officials)Level 4: the town rank (< 20m officials)Level 5: the district/village rank (<50m officials)As you can imagine, each official can form their own circles of interests from the same rank or the lower rank and compete the government performance. You allow slight corruption in the next level but also you take the responsibility if the corruptions go beyond your control. And also it is a dangerous game in China. You would be sentenced to jail and potentially charge for 20 years or even the death penalty if you are found guilty of severe corruption.This is different compared to the corruptions happened in democratic countries such as India.In India, where everyone is corrupted and everyone wants to get a share, as a result, you don’t get things done and no one takes the responsibility. The corrupted people might just resign. The common voters take the responsibility of voting the wrong people.In China, where everyone is corrupted and everyone wants to get a share, but the top official takes the responsibility, otherwise he would be sentenced to death, so he will make sure that things still get done efficiently and everyone gets less proportion of the benefits.And moreover, those who survived in the level 0 are all masters in using people and highly clever in EQ and building his own circles.This is completely the opposite in democratic Taiwan, where you can just use your speech to quickly rise from a market manager to the mayor of Gaoshiung and then immediately go for the president of Taiwan in just four months.All you have is just the voters' support. Do you have your intelligence to build your circles and alliances to achieve better management of Taiwan? So far I didn’t see that.Update:Oh Gosh! Xi Jinping just recently spoke in the OBOR forum with quotes in the Game of Thrones. Did he actually read my answers?Xi’s warning to the world: don’t let us become like Game of ThronesOr great minds think alike, haha

Stranger things certainly happened when the unknown Duffer brothers sold their TV show to Netflix after a heartbreaking period of rejection where the series was denied more than twenty times by other networks. Nobody thought that a show about three boys trying to solve a mystery would be a hit.Matt and Ross Duffer started making movies in the third grade after their parents bought them a Hi8 video camera.“We just started filming anything and everything,” Matt Duffer told Entertainment Weekly. “And then, each summer, we made a feature-length movie. The first one was kind of unwatchable, but progressively, they got a little better and better.”They later attended Chapman University together and began to collaborate on many short films — one of which won Best Short at Dallas’ Deep Ellum Film Festival in 2005.Their senior thesis was a short film entitled Eater — based on the Peter Crowther story about a cop working a night shift while a cannibal inmate is on the loose. They had been previously named Marion Knott Scholars and were awarded with the chance of developing this film under the guidance of The Hunt for Red October producer Mace Neufeld.After graduating, the brothers wrote the feature Hidden, a horror-thriller about a family taking refuge in a bomb shelter away from a deadly viral outbreak. The script later prompted a bidding war in Hollywood in 2011 with Warner Brothers eventually winning the rights. The film never made it to theaters.“Looking back on it, for us, it was using that low point as an advantage,” Ross explained. “I don’t think Stranger Things would exist without it, because it was us being disillusioned with movies, the things we fell in love with, and then seeing this other opening in television that, if we really want to tell the kind of stories we want to tell, maybe we were just looking in the wrong place.”Catching the attention of none other than M. Night Shayamalan, the filmmaker gave the brothers writing and producing jobs on what would become the first season hit Wayward Pines. They went on to write season 1 episodes The Truth, Choices, A Reckoning, and Cycle.“That became our training ground, and M. Night Shyamalan became a great mentor to us,” Ross told Rolling Stone. “By the time we came out of that show, we were like, ‘OK, we know how to put together a show.’ And that’s when we wrote Stranger Things.”The rest is history.What is even more interesting is how the brothers sold the show.The History of the Show BibleThe show bible has evolved. In the beginning, writer rooms of shows that had been on the air for multiple seasons would create show bibles specifically for the purpose of informing incoming new writers. Because the shows had multiple seasons, writers would come and go. In order to ensure that the nature of the show wouldn’t change as those new writers came in, the show bible was created as a reference tool.Now all incoming directors, writers, and talent could refer to these bibles, which detailed episode stories already written and produced, character arcs, story arcs, etc. The practice was less of a product of the show runner and more a product of the writing assistants in the writers room.As television grew, the use of show bibles evolved. And then things began to change after the first decade of the 21st century.The Show Bible As a Selling ToolProducers and writers eventually began to use the template of a show bible as a selling tool to networks. In the risk adverse times post-WGA strike and economic disaster of 2007-2008, the usage of show bibles that accompany spec pilot scripts began to take fashion.It was no longer just about a hot spec pilot. That pilot had to be the introduction of the story while a connected show bible showcased the long term potential. It was now a selling tool, as opposed to a back end reference for an already produced series.Stranger Things — Formerly Known as MontaukThe Duffer brothers had a love for all things Eighties — John Carpenter, Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and beyond. When they began to develop the pilot, they also conceived a somewhat cryptic show bible that would display the themes, homages, and inspirations behind what they were trying to sell.“When we were selling it, we made a fake Stephen King paperback cover for the show. We actually used the Firestarter paperback and put our title and an image of a fallen bike on top of it, so when we were trying to come up with titles, we would type them out onto this paperback cover and it would help us. And Stranger Things sort of sounds like Needful Things—it sounded like it could have been a Stephen King book from the ‘80s,” Matt told The Daily Beast.IntroductionThe beginning of the Stranger Things show bible — following the enticing throwback cover — continued to follow the stylistic fashion of old Stephen King paperbacks.Notice that they didn’t utilize a logline or story synopsis of the pilot script. What you have to remember is that the show bible is there to compliment the spec pilot — with the thought that the producer or development executive liked the pilot enough to warrant a look at the show bible that the writer(s) wisely included.The introduction within the Stranger Things show bible instead focuses on the themes and style of what the show could be.They use comparisons to iconic and successful films and literary references to set the stage as far as what the reader should be visualizing when considering the project.The brothers even included reference photos of those inspirations to solidify those pitched visuals and concepts.The MythosStranger Things has specific story mythos embedded within. One of those central story arcs centers on the Montauk Project Conspiracy. This story element is the backbone of the whole series. What is the conspiracy? Who are the people behind it? What did they unleash?Screenwriters could learn from this move by understanding that the show bible is there to offer not detailed description, but broad strokes of story, characters, plots, etc. Since the Montauk Project is so vital to the eventual stories that the characters must deal with, the brothers wisely included it right after the introduction.This section is essentially the conflict of the story.So if writers are developing their own show bible, it may be smart to find that central conflict backbone and pitch it early so that the development executives and producers can know and understand what the conflict of the whole series is.Lost would be the island and the Dharma Initiative. Breaking Bad would be the drug operation and everything it touches. The Last Man on Earth would be the post-apocalyptic world after a deadly virus has killed most of the world’s population.In short, presenting the core conflict early engages the reader. They want to know how this conflict is going to play out.And to sell the visual of that project, the brothers included another image that offers the reader a frame of visual reference.The StoryThe next page of the bible contains the story. Now, this isn’t just a recap of the pilot script in synopsis or treatment form. Instead, it builds from the pilot and communicates story direction that will be taken.Character names are in caps the first time they are mentioned, much like in feature scripts and pilots. The time period is set and the atmosphere is drawn out. The conflict is being built up without going into detail.The Duffer brothers are bombarding the reader with excellent themes and imagery. This type of writing is all about style and atmosphere. Sure, there are story elements involved, but they are partnered with a feeling of being within a living and breathing production already.And this is done in just one page followed by yet another reference image.StructureThe next section covers the structure of the whole series. Stranger Things in particular was an eight episode limited series — but what is interesting is that in the spirit of homaging Eighties movies, the series is pitched as structured under a general three act story structure normally followed in features.Once again, this only covers one page of the bible. Like the story section and introduction before it, you want to make sure that these descriptions and breakdowns are kept to a minimal number of pages. Anything beyond one page is a stretch. You can quickly lose the interest of the reader. Remember — broad strokes.Tone and StyleThese elements are crucial to the selling of a series. Once again, you want to communicate the look and feel of the show, beyond the story and concept elements.From the visuals, to the period setting, and even to the soundtrack. The Duffer brothers gave networks an added feel of the series that they opened up with in the introduction. It’s quick, simple, and full of references that the reader can relate with and envision.GenreThe next section of this type of show bible includes the genre. Stranger Things focused on horror. Because the series was highly inspired by Stephen King novels, there’s no question as to why this genre was featured in the bible. There are elements of science fiction as well, but the overall feel of the series pegged the core genre as horror. So the brothers featured it briefly.Within this genre section, the idea of subgenres is introduced as well. They state that the horror is supernatural, but rooted in science. They also feature a different kind of horror — the human kind.What they are establishing is the scope of the genre. And while they do that, they are also informing the possible buyers of the type of production that will be warranted. They point to specific special effects needs and dictate that it’s not all supernatural horror — which costs money — but also the horrors of human characters and the darkness of the human condition as they struggle through the conflicts thrown at them.After reading that section, the reader has a perfect idea of the genre that they could possibly be buying.CharactersThe characters are especially crucial to a television series. With features, you’re only spending two hours with those characters. With a show, you’re looking at potentially multiple seasons — hours and hours spent watching the same characters (at least those who survive) dealing with conflicts. Thus, the work on character development is even more difficult.Those four characters are the central protagonists and the Duffer brothers simplify their descriptions — which offer character types, traits, and physical looks — with the perfect reference visual.While that visual aid isn’t a perfect reflection of the characters presented, it is a perfect frame of reference to start from.While the kids are great protagonists, you always want to shake those characters up. This applies to any story. Who is the X factor that adds more depth and draw to the story?The Duffers said it best when they wrote, “If Mike is the Elliot of our show, Eleven is our E.T.” Imagine Stranger Things without that character — difficult to, isn’t it?In the case of Stranger Things, what Eighties-inspired series would forget teenagers?In the context of your show bible, you also have the chance of adding additional characters to add to the stories of the protagonists. This adds just a couple of more elements to the mix to give the show more story angles to work with.When you are developing a show, you need to look for any and every possible way to broaden the audience-base. That’s what networks are looking for. The more demographics you bring in, the more appeal your series will have.So with the kids and teenagers as central characters, Stranger Things also needed some eyes for the adults in the audience. Now, yes, the show itself isn’t primarily for kids and teenagers. It is more geared towards adults. But with the initial main draw of the series centered on nostalgia of the Eighties, those that weren’t as engaged by the idea of being kids in that era again had adult characters to follow as well.Franchise PotentialThis final section is your final pitch. This is where you tell the powers that be where this story could go beyond the first season. Networks aren’t primarily interested in one-offs. They want content that will keep audiences coming — season after season. And this section exists for the sole purpose of you to tell them how and why the series could continue on.It’s interesting to see this closing statement in print after the success of the first season and the announcement of at least two additional seasons at the time of this writing. The second season didn’t jump ten years like the show bible said. Instead, it is still set the in Eighties. The lesson to be learned is that you need to know the pure draw of your series. For Stranger Things, many people watched it because of the nostalgia they felt in the homages to movies and cultural references of their childhood. Others were engaged by the retro aspect of it — with many born well after the Eighties.The Duffer brothers will tell you that the response to the series was a shock. Even they didn’t know the huge draw of the show. They just wanted to write a strong series that was a love letter to what they loved from that time period.So be sure to take your time with the conceptualization of the franchise potential of your series. Get to the core of it and then sell that in the closing statement.Note: The presentation of this Montauk Series Bible is meant to be used for educational purposes only.The Stranger Things show bible was a mere 23 pages long. There were no episode breakdowns — just overall act breakdowns for the first season. The mistakes that screenwriters make when developing bibles is the misconstrued belief that bibles should be this thick and dense book of information. They are mistaking the new evolution of the bible with the old timer’s show bible that was used as a tool for incoming writers of already established shows. Such bibles still exist, to be sure. But when it comes to using a bible as a marketing tool to sell your pilot, this is the direction to follow.You offer an introduction, feature the core conflict of the series that the characters will be going up against, offer a general broad stroke of the story, break down the structure of that first season, display the tone and style to set the atmosphere for the potential buyers, feature the main characters that your series will follow, and then wrap things up by telling them how and why the pilot script that they just read wasn’t a mere flash in the pan.That’s how you sell a series. And yes, selling television pilots on spec is difficult and has its challenges — but stranger things have happened.This Answer was adapted from an article I wrote at ScreenCraft.Check out my film and television industry articles on ScreenCraft and The Script Lab where I discuss screenwriting, writing, industry jobs, television, and movies!