When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All • Hacker News Board

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#71

Post by SapphireSun » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

throwaway201607 wrote: post #46

diego_moita wrote: post #30

> Uber felt it was treated fairly by a government > my guess is that if [...] had been more successful, China would have put a Mao-sized thumb on the scales. This is how it lost me, it shows how light he is on facts. I do agree with the 2 statements "China is protectionist" and "protectionism is bad". But I am cynical enough to see that everyone carefully pics which protectionism they complain about. As a Brazilian I…

I HATE American protectionism in farming. One such example is the ridiculous subsidies of corn that lead to obesity, feeding ruminants grain and even crappy cocacola! Other terrbile side-effects of our agrisubsidies include crap processed food, agricultural practices built on assumption of nearly free water leading to droughts, nutritional deficiency in produce etc etc.

Other terrible side effects of our subsidies are a reliable food supply as we overproduce far beyond what's necessary which makes us nearly immune to supply shocks like pre-1930s america. Ever heard of famine in the united states in recent memory? Didn't think so. Know what else causes nutritional deficiency? Not eating. While there may be some problems with our current system, they are firmly in the "good problem to have" territory.

Exporting food for free is a more complicated topic, on the imports side, protectionism is justified for critical functions. If we outsourced our food production, we could get it more cheaply (it's already cheap), but imagine if a supplier suddenly decides to cut us off? Food security is a national security priority moreso than typical military stuff like steel mills.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#72

Post by warcher » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

hyh1048576 wrote: post #15

> As late as this past June, Uber was predicting it would pass its rival within a year. This is simply not true (edit: not going to happen). I'm a fan of Uber, but using Uber is kinda like a exotic thing to do (while Didi is more common). Uber can be only used in major cities, on the other hand Didi can be used almost anywhere. Didi simply expand faster in China. (Uber is available in less than 20 Chinese cities whil…

Just because the government didn't need to put their thumb on the scale, yet, doesn't mean they would let a foreign entity take the lead in as critical a piece of infrastructure as transportation.

I strongly suspect it was a "heads we win, tails you lose" situation that just came up heads. But that doesn't mean the outcome was ever in question.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#73

Post by johncolanduoni » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

tiatia wrote: post #49

erdevs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that China outplayed the West here by a wide margin. For some reason, the West has let China get away with extremely protectionist trade policies the likes of which no one else in the world would dare even attempt. I think this was a combination of fear that isolating China vs creating a high degree of economic interdependence could lead to war down the line, and a lack of control over Western companie…

> It seems to me that China outplayed the West here by a wide margin. Don't worry, the game is not over yet. >For some reason, the West has let China get away with extremely protectionist trade policies the likes of which no one else in the world would dare even attempt. Yes. But this could be changed by Trump in one day. (Sorry, I know that this is an extremely liberal board). Chinese don't believe in win-win. They…

> Why? Because a lot of their decisions are irrational and it is extremely difficult to have an opponent that does irrational decisions.

So if I make business decisions via ouija board or in a cocaine induced rage, I'll have a leg up?

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#74

Post by gnaritas » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

tiatia wrote: post #67

serge2k wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes. But this could be changed by Trump in one day. OH really? How will he do that?

Tell them: Look, you can play around with your currency in whatever way you want. But if the trade balance is not balanced, we charge a 10% import tax. Per day. Cumulative. I think there are many countries that can produce cheap shoes, clothes and electronics. By now all this stuff can already be manufactured in the US again due to automation and robotics (see Adidas producing shoes in Germany AGAIN). This would be a…

> Tell them: Look, you can play around with your currency in whatever way you want. But if the trade balance is not balanced, we charge a 10% import tax. Per day. Cumulative.

Yea, that's not how the world works; the President isn't a CEO.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#75

Post by morgante » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

tiatia wrote: post #67

serge2k wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes. But this could be changed by Trump in one day. OH really? How will he do that?

Tell them: Look, you can play around with your currency in whatever way you want. But if the trade balance is not balanced, we charge a 10% import tax. Per day. Cumulative. I think there are many countries that can produce cheap shoes, clothes and electronics. By now all this stuff can already be manufactured in the US again due to automation and robotics (see Adidas producing shoes in Germany AGAIN). This would be a…

And watch while we are plunged into a recession due to a huge disruption in global supply chains.

Sorry, but complex problems don't have simple answers. Trump can't unilaterally force China to stop its protectionism, at least not without inflicting significant hurt on the American economy.

How do you think people will react to a 10% increase in prices for almost all goods?

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#76

Post by serge2k » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #37

noisy_boy wrote: post #31

China is a peculiar case. It has embraced parts of capitalism that ensure market growth. The huge domestic market coupled with aggressive stealing of IP to create cheapest-in-the-world knock-offs have fuelled its exports. However, having this selective breed of capitalism has allowed its leadership to sidestep aspects of American capitalism e.g. influence of corporations on leaders. This means that companies don't ha…

> However, having this selective breed of capitalism has allowed its leadership to sidestep aspects of American capitalism e.g. influence of corporations on leaders This is not a surprise if you understand China's political culture and its long, long history. For literally thousands of years, political elites in China have understood that political power follows economic power, which is why the richest in China are g…

> which is why the richest in China are generally Party members and high officials.

Wouldn't that be the case with pretty much any totalitarian regime?

> American politicians and citizens allowing corporate interests to slowly take over the political process is due to not understanding how history works.

I'll take the flawed lobbying system over the Chinese system any day.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#77

Post by joe_the_user » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

erdevs wrote: post #28

sunstone wrote: post #7

The West and China are playing a global chess game and have been for some time. An impoverished China was not in the West's interests and so they agreed to buy all kinds of lowish tech Chinese made goods. In return most jurisdictions enforced a balance of trade with China, with the exception of the US. On their end China insisted on joint ventures and technology transfer to the extent Western companies would comply.…

It seems to me that China outplayed the West here by a wide margin. For some reason, the West has let China get away with extremely protectionist trade policies the likes of which no one else in the world would dare even attempt. I think this was a combination of fear that isolating China vs creating a high degree of economic interdependence could lead to war down the line, and a lack of control over Western companie…

Your comment sounds like it's coming from ten years ago or something.

China may (or may not, for all I know) have beaten the West in the game of getting the technology it wants but the country has enough structural problems that it's chances of getting ahead of the West broadly are looking very dim.

Problems: Horrific pollution, huge loans to inefficient state-run industries, massive real state and infrastructure mal-investment and bubbles, losing conventional factory jobs to even lower waged centered without gaining better jobs in compensation, having a first world demographic structure (lots of old people) without a first world standard of living, a government that's resorting to repression and ideology to solve problems and so-doubling down on all mistakes, the falsification of statistics can barely conceal an economy in stasis, etc.

So, there's little to fear from a Chinese economic "juggernaut" but the decline of China poses serious problems - especially, it seems to be what fueling the huffing and puffing over the South China sea.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#78

Post by fryguy » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #44

skynetv2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China ended up with last generate tech we are way past that point. China has leap frogged pretty much everyone else in every aspect. It took China less than a year to build the worlds fastest supercomputer (unclassified) after US placed restrictions on related technology exports to China. China was building components for supercomputers over the past decade, they would show case a network, a small processor, coolin…

The west's critical flaw is that it believes its own propaganda. The "Washington Consensus" believed that no country could develop or resist the temptations of the "superior" culture and understanding of the western financial system and industry. That the countries that they were moving into were hopeless without their intelligence and guidance and would quickly fall in line and become dependent and helpless without…

Was that anything like the hotel in San Antonio? http://www.modular.org/htmlPage.aspx?HtmlPageId=400

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#79

Post by twblalock » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

malchow wrote: post #70

twblalock wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. The fact that they could achieve this so quickly is the impressive part.

As folks have mentioned, the evolution of the Top500 shows that "world's fastest supercomputer" is no longer an EE feat: it's an infrastructure feat, and not much of one, either. If you think the Chinese military is going to be using quantum computers before the American military, then you've got my attention.

I think that's an entirely realistic possibility.

China plans to launch a satellite named QUESS to perform quantum encryption and communication experiments later this month. They also have some other quantum computing projects that seem to be going well.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#80

Post by serge2k » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

diego_moita wrote: post #30

> Uber felt it was treated fairly by a government > my guess is that if [...] had been more successful, China would have put a Mao-sized thumb on the scales. This is how it lost me, it shows how light he is on facts. I do agree with the 2 statements "China is protectionist" and "protectionism is bad". But I am cynical enough to see that everyone carefully pics which protectionism they complain about. As a Brazilian I…

It's hypocritical, that's true.

It's also true that there are good reasons not to let your farming industry completely collapse. Aside from the obvious large numbers of people who would lose everything. It's in the best interests of the US that they can feed themselves.