E48: The role of decentralization, China/US break down & more with Bestie Guestie Balaji Srinivasan

By November 30, 2025—over four years after the September 2021 statement—China has not experienced the kind of revolutionary upheaval implied by “on the brink of having a revolution” (i.e., a large‑scale revolt that fundamentally challenges or topples CCP rule).

There have been significant protests, most notably the 2022 “White Paper” / zero‑COVID protests, which spread across many cities, included unusually direct calls in some places for Xi Jinping or the CCP to step down, and led to a rapid end of the zero‑COVID policy. However, these events are characterized in scholarship and reporting as protests or civil unrest, not as a revolution; they were relatively short‑lived and did not develop into a sustained nationwide insurrection against the regime. (en.wikipedia.org)

Over the same period, the CCP under Xi Jinping has consolidated power rather than lost it: Xi secured an unprecedented third term as General Secretary at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022 and was then granted a third term as PRC president in March 2023, with the top leadership packed with loyalists and the party–state security apparatus intact and active. (theguardian.com) Analyses of post‑Congress governance emphasize continued or even tightened central control—“People’s Republic of Control 3.0” rather than regime breakdown. (usip.org)

Given that no large‑scale revolutionary overthrow or near‑overthrow of CCP rule has occurred and the regime remains firmly in power, the specific prediction that China was on the brink of a revolution in the near‑to‑medium term is best classified as wrong, despite the occurrence of notable but contained protest waves.

Evidence since 2021 shows that China has indeed experienced large‑scale, politically charged protest waves and rising social unrest, consistent with Jason’s prediction of “revolutionary movements,” even though the CCP regime has not fallen.

Key points:

1. 2022 “White Paper Revolution” / anti–zero‑Covid protests

   • Following the deadly November 2022 Ürümqi fire, protests and vigils broke out in Ürümqi, Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and many university campuses. Demonstrators condemned the government’s zero‑Covid policy, and in Shanghai some called for Xi Jinping and the CCP to step down—an explicitly anti‑regime demand.
   • Participants used blank A4 sheets as a symbol of resistance to censorship, leading media and observers to label the events the “White Paper Revolution” or “A4 revolution.” (en.wikipedia.org)
   • The protests spanned dozens of cities and campuses and were widely described as the largest politically motivated mass demonstrations in China since 1989, forcing a rapid reversal of the zero‑Covid policy. (peoplenewstoday.com)
     These protests are exactly the sort of revolutionary movement / serious social unrest Jason described, short of regime overthrow.

2. Ongoing protest and dissent trend

   • Data from protest‑tracking projects (e.g., China Dissent Monitor, China Labour Bulletin) indicate a sharp rise in strikes and protests in 2023 and after, with 2023 recording the highest strike activity since 2016 and labor unrest making up a growing share of dissent nationwide. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Notable episodes include the Zhengzhou Foxconn worker protests in November 2022 (violent clashes linked to Covid controls and contract disputes) and 2023 pensioner protests over healthcare reforms, where thousands of retirees in Wuhan and Dalian demonstrated and chanted slogans like “down with the reactionary government.” (en.wikipedia.org)
     While many of these are issue‑specific, the frequency and intensity of unrest clearly increased in the “coming years” after 2021.

3. Continued localized unrest into 2025

   • Recent reporting notes significant rural and local protests—for example, 2025 demonstrations in Guizhou over a cremation mandate and 2025 city‑wide protests in Jiangyou over a bullying case—showing that disruptive public dissent continues despite repression. (theguardian.com)

4. Regime stability

   • Despite these movements, there has been no overthrow or collapse of the CCP regime; Xi Jinping remains in power. The prediction explicitly allowed for the regime not falling while still seeing revolutionary movements.

Putting this together: between late 2022 and at least 2025, China experienced exactly the kind of large‑scale, politically charged protest waves and serious unrest Jason forecast, without regime change. On that basis, the prediction is substantively correct, so the appropriate label is "right".

As of November 30, 2025, there is no public information indicating that Frances Haugen (the 2021 Facebook/Meta whistleblower who provided documents to Congress and the SEC) has received any formal SEC or related whistleblower award, let alone one on the order of billions of dollars.

However, whistleblower compensation through the SEC or similar programs can take many years because it depends on:

• Whether enforcement actions are brought and successfully concluded.
• The size of monetary sanctions actually collected.
• Subsequent processing and approval of any award petition.

Since:

1. The relevant investigations and any enforcement actions could still be ongoing or unresolved.
2. Whistleblower awards, if any, would likely be decided years after the 2021 disclosures.
3. There is still a plausible path (even if unlikely) for a future, very large award tied to enforcement outcomes that haven’t fully played out yet.

…it is too early to definitively say the prediction is wrong. At the same time, we cannot say it is right, because no such multi‑billion‑dollar award has been reported or announced as of today.

Therefore, the prediction is best judged as inconclusive (too early to tell) rather than right, wrong, or fundamentally ambiguous.

There have clearly been significant new federal enforcement actions against Big Tech since late 2021, matching the first part of Friedberg’s forecast:

• DOJ sued Google over its ad‑tech business in January 2023; in April 2025 a federal court found Google had illegally monopolized key ad‑tech markets and unlawfully tied products, with potential structural remedies on the table. (en.wikipedia.org)
• DOJ and multiple states sued Apple in March 2024 over alleged iPhone and ecosystem monopolization, explicitly challenging its walled‑garden model. (justice.gov)
• The FTC and 17 states sued Amazon in 2023, alleging it illegally maintains an online retail monopoly; this case is still ongoing. (ftc.gov)
• Separately, Amazon agreed in 2025 to a record $2.5 billion settlement with the FTC over Prime “subscription traps,” which forces major design and disclosure changes. (ft.com)

So the “something’s going to happen” via major federal enforcement clearly did occur in the “coming years” after the 2021 podcast.

However, no major new federal tech‑specific regulatory statute has actually been enacted. High‑profile bills such as the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, the Open App Markets Act, and the AMERICA Act have remained proposals without becoming law. (en.wikipedia.org) That undercuts the “new regulatory” half of the prediction.

The hardest part to evaluate is Friedberg’s claim that these actions would be “clumsy” or “overreaching” and cause substantial “collateral damage.”

• There is substantial criticism from business and policy groups that the FTC under Lina Khan and related antitrust efforts constitute overreach that harms competitiveness, chills investment, and creates broad uncertainty. For example, a Fortune op‑ed argues Khan’s antitrust “overreach is hurting American competitiveness” and contributed to a sharp drop in biotech VC funding, describing serious knock‑on effects outside the targeted firms. (fortune.com) Other commentators and organizations (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, CEI, taxpayer and free‑market groups) similarly accuse the FTC of ideological, poorly targeted enforcement that risks harming consumers, innovation, and broader economic performance. (uschamber.com)
• At the same time, many regulators, academics, and public‑interest groups argue these same actions are necessary course‑corrections after decades of under‑enforcement, stressing consumer harms from dominant platforms and portraying recent suits and settlements (including against Amazon and Google) as overdue, not clumsy. (theguardian.com) In some high‑profile Big Tech cases, courts have either sided with the government (e.g., finding Google’s search and ad‑tech monopolization illegal) or limited remedies rather than condemning the enforcement itself as abusive. (en.wikipedia.org) Meanwhile, consumer‑protection actions like the Amazon Prime settlement are widely characterized as wins for users, not as harmful collateral damage. (ft.com)

Because reasonable observers sharply disagree on whether these enforcement waves are a clumsy overreach causing substantial unintended harm, and because the concrete long‑run “collateral damage” (to innovation, smaller firms, or consumers) is still being debated and empirically unclear, that part of the prediction cannot be judged as simply true or false.

Overall: major new enforcement did happen, but whether it is in fact “rusty‑knife” overreach with large collateral damage is contested and not objectively settled. That makes the prediction’s outcome ambiguous rather than clearly right or wrong.