Penniless retirees and teen zombies: how hot tech has China and the world hurtling into a dark age

While I was giving a talk to a bored and sleepy audience one afternoon last month, they suddenly rose from their lethargy, clapping and cheering ecstatically. It wasn’t me. They were worshipping a gigantic picture projection on the screen behind me. It was the chart of cryptocurrency prices going vertical. The audience looked mostly like retirees from central China. Many of them were probably red guards during the Cultural Revolution and cheered at Chairman Mao with the same enthusiasm. Now cryptocurrencies are their gods.

The middlemen in this market are like the “wolf of Wall Street” on steroids, coming up with more fantastical stories by the day. If the CIA were looking for the perfect weapon to bring down China, this is it. Electronic currencies have put Las ­Vegas and Macau at the fingertips of all Chinese retirees. Sooner or later, most will lose their pension money. The resulting chaos will pose a critical threat to social stability.

And, talking about weapons against China, ­online gaming is even more powerful, being targeted at youth. Electronic currencies promise to make Chinese retirees mad, but ­online gaming is turning Chinese boys into zombies. A century and a half ago, the Chinese government fought the British to keep opium out. In the 21st century, China is happily doing it to itself. China’s successes have got many countries worried about their ­future. It seems those worries may be overblown.

Lately, its official media waded into blaming one game for its negative social impact. But why this one, and why now? Online gaming has been a battle between mothers and sons in China for a decade. Would an occasional media intervention like this make a difference? Remember a similar episode about online searches? In China, the essence of searches is selling fake information. When someone died for believing in fake medical information, there was a media uproar. Has anything meaningful changed?