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China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

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Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#211

Post by powerapple »

iguy wrote: post #113
throwaway414 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By contrast, ~30% of > American billionaires > are dropouts. How is it a contrast when more than ~50% of Chinese billionaires are dropouts? [1] Added to that, of the 78 self-made women billionaires, 49 of them are from China. [2] 1. http://en.yibada.com/articles/195121/20170220/new-hurun-list... 2. http://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/2117158/...

The claim about American dropouts is about success not needing the blessing of the establishment. How many of those billionaires aren't Party members?

you become a party member after you become a billionaire. Then there is responsibility comes with it, you will need to help the government with jobs and other things. Sometimes you will need to help to revive a bankrupt company for example.

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#212

Post by powerapple »

oxymoran wrote: post #76
baybal2 wrote: post #12

Comparison Baidu - Google Baidu is horrid, even in Chinese. Baidu doesn't have nearly as big stronghold on advertising in Chinese market as Google has in every market outside of China. End of discussion. Alibaba - Amazon On commercial side, Alibaba steamrolls Amazon with some margin remaining. Tech-wise, Alibaba sucks big time. Their search algo is something horrid. Alibaba has a relatively big part of Internet ads p…

Tencent is undisturbed by ads because it’s subsidized by the state to funnel user data back to the state. Tencent is one of the companies leading the development of the social credit system that the Chinese government is pushing. The only possible thing worse than Facebook funneling data for the highest bidder, would be Facebook funneling data directly to an oppressive state, which is exactly what Tencent is doing.

why it is subsidized? as if Tencent doesn't make enough money already? If the government wants it, it can have the data for free. I thought you have access to all Tencent information.

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#213

Post by collyw »

intrasight wrote: post #149
pm90 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really a good comparison. The US has its problems and rising inequality has been a huge one for sure. But the biggest strength of the US has been its institutions and a society and economy that is based on laws. The independent Universities, Judiciary etc. are all extremely hard to get it right and the US has managed to do so (mostly; there are still many many problems e.g. school-prison pipeline, unequal…

And in addition to the rule of law, the US gives it citizens the opportunity to rise above their situation (some would use the term "class"). There are few countries where this is the case. In most countries, the state determines your fate.

Most countries don't allow this? You need to give some evidence of that.

European countries have free markets and most have better social mobility than the US. If you check the link in my original post you will see the US has relatively low social mobility for a developed nation.

Your comment reminds me of the attitude described in this sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oyKVAjISmI

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#214

Post by iguy »

powerapple wrote: post #211
iguy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim about American dropouts is about success not needing the blessing of the establishment. How many of those billionaires aren't Party members?

you become a party member after you become a billionaire. Then there is responsibility comes with it, you will need to help the government with jobs and other things. Sometimes you will need to help to revive a bankrupt company for example.

Yea I agree, it's far from an exact analogy. Some certainly did get very rich from Party power, and some were invited to join once already rich... does anyone refuse such an invitation, and stay rich?

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#215

Post by hn0 »

Fins wrote: post #193
hn0 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The age old liberal hymn. I’m not going to say this is wrong, but it’s a very black and white stance in the matter. Plenty of succesful economies have been centrally planned and/or protectionist. Likewise speculative booms in unregulated markets have produced massive amounts of deadweight loss. Not to mention the administrative overheads of running large scale free(ish) markets we observe in all first world countries…

Seems pretty obvious that you have neither ever lived in USSR nor experienced the Soviet economics first-hand. Although I would like to see a sample of a single lean and mean organization in USSR...

You appear confused, I only mentioned the USSR once as a figure of speech. Communist countries were run by blind ideologues and I would never use those as good examples of central planning.

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#216

Post by pm90 »

collyw wrote: post #213
intrasight wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in addition to the rule of law, the US gives it citizens the opportunity to rise above their situation (some would use the term "class"). There are few countries where this is the case. In most countries, the state determines your fate.

Most countries don't allow this? You need to give some evidence of that. European countries have free markets and most have better social mobility than the US. If you check the link in my original post you will see the US has relatively low social mobility for a developed nation. Your comment reminds me of the attitude described in this sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oyKVAjISmI

Do they really? The compensation for Software Engineers at least seems to be ridiculously low compared to those in the US, moreso in SFBA. I get that the social safety nets are very good but I don’t agree that social mobility is any easier in Europe.

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#217

Post by seanmcdirmid »

powerapple wrote: post #210
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked for Microsoft in China, our C suite was all Chinese (well, many Taiwanese). The nearest foreigner headed up sales for the region, was a German. Americans were common, but they were almost all Chinese or Taiwanese who naturalized. Our SVP based in Redmond was also a Chinese (In charge of all of Microsoft Research and advanced research). He would try to conduct our meetings in Chinese, and then would demure…

You don't see them as American even though they are American? How strange.

I do of course, and said so in my comment (I referred to them as Americans who naturalized from Chinese and Taiwanese nationalities). I was just pointing out that they were all Chinese speakers and were born in China or Taiwan. Conducting business in Chinese is not a problem for them.

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#218

Post by jlarocco »

forapurpose wrote: post #200
jlarocco wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion, the main difference between China and the US is nationalism. And that's also what I think that slogan is indicative of. It also, I think, explains their government actions. Supporting their companies is not about nationalizing them, which implies a motivation of state driven control, but growing and improving Chinese companies on the national scene. I've noticed that a few times recently when compari…

> The Chinese government seems much more concerned about making their country and society better as a whole. They do what is best for themselves, which at times means doing what's best for the Communist Party. Suppressing dissent, denying Chinese people freedom and self-determination is only good for the people in power. In case someone wants to argue that authoritarianism provides better governance (which is BS anyw…

> They do what is best for themselves, which at times means doing what's best for the Communist Party. Suppressing dissent, denying Chinese people freedom and self-determination is only good for the people in power.

The United States is often nearly as bad as China on human rights. At least China is overt about it. Nobody denies they're watching everybody, but it took an NSA contractor leaking information to bring up the issue in the United States.

For example, here's a story about 1300 people in jail >4 years with no trial:

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2018/04/imprisoning_p...

Here's a guy who spent 13 years in prison for having 2 joints:

https://www.alternet.org/drugs/louisiana-man-13-years-prison...

Our systems punish people for different things, but they're both pretty bad.

> In case someone wants to argue that authoritarianism provides better governance (which is BS anyway - if it's so great, then hold an election and people will vote for you; who are you to decide that it's so great for everyone else?), all the most wealthy, most stable countries in the world have those freedoms (Europe, the U.S.), including the most wealthy and stable parts of China (Taiwan and Hong Kong).

I'm not saying China's system is absolutely the best without any downsides, but in a lot of cases it's clear that what they're doing is good for nearly everybody. For example, when they cut off imports of foreign waste and when they build and maintain infrastructure to their rural regions. Likewise, there are many cases where the American system has results that are clearly bad for us, like paying our teachers so little that they strike or move away because nobody wants to pay extra taxes.

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#219

Post by pm90 »

foepys wrote: post #208
antoniuschan99 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually not totally true. There are tons of pcb fabs in NA. But it's a lot cheaper in China. R&D costs are just more expensive here or it takes longer vs in Shenzen. 3d printing has also drastically reduced time to production as you can iterate the design during development.

Tesla has just found out that producing 100 cars a week is absolutely different than producing 5,000 cars a week. The same applies to every other product. A few PCB fans will not have the expertise to build factories that output millions of PCBs a month.

This is interesting. Is the problem here a lack of skilled labor force to do so? I'm wondering what prevents the US from having vocational programs to teach American workers those skills and kickstart that kind of manufacturing again.

Re: China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector

#220

Post by forapurpose »

jlarocco wrote: post #218
forapurpose wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chinese government seems much more concerned about making their country and society better as a whole. They do what is best for themselves, which at times means doing what's best for the Communist Party. Suppressing dissent, denying Chinese people freedom and self-determination is only good for the people in power. In case someone wants to argue that authoritarianism provides better governance (which is BS anyw…

> They do what is best for themselves, which at times means doing what's best for the Communist Party. Suppressing dissent, denying Chinese people freedom and self-determination is only good for the people in power. The United States is often nearly as bad as China on human rights. At least China is overt about it. Nobody denies they're watching everybody, but it took an NSA contractor leaking information to bring up…

Yeah, I hear a lot of Americans saying that they want to move to China for the human rights.

> The United States is often nearly as bad as China

I just can't get enough of that song! And I get to hear it about ten times in every discussion that includes the string "China".

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