51–60 of 208 posts
Whataboutism. edit: If someone is using whataboutism (as the person I'm responding to is) there is no real argument to respond to. Any modern day atrocity can be justified by saying that it was done in the past by a different nation. Saying that the US had done something in the past to justify a different countries' present day actions is intellectually lazy and dishonest and is meant to shut down discussion. I was j…
And so what??? The US pried the textile and locomotives industries from the UK, check the history of Samuel Slater[1]. Same happened for Japan under Meiji restoration. India and Brazil do the same for pharmaceutical patents, because they're too poor to afford paying them. Stealing IP will happen, no matter what treaties and governments try to do. For poor countries it is a path they just don't have the luxury of givi…
In some ways, you can't blame China for trying. It's playing dirty, but that's how international relations go. You can place a bit more blame on the US companies that let it happen. The people running them are short-sighted and unpatriotic. The real problem is that the law allows companies to be in a race to the bottom that is ultimately self-destructive. Allowing non-citizens to get access to the IP should be illega…
This is one aspect of Chinese culture that I’ll never understand. For example, if you get cheated, it’s your fault for being lax/trusting/stupid enough to get cheated. The immorality is on the victim, which makes for some extremely paranoid business relationships when working in China.
How is that beneficial in the long term? Why doesn’t such a system just implode on itself? I guess this is where guanxi comes into play to counteract that, because I don’t see how it could work otherwise.
And so what??? The US pried the textile and locomotives industries from the UK, check the history of Samuel Slater[1]. Same happened for Japan under Meiji restoration. India and Brazil do the same for pharmaceutical patents, because they're too poor to afford paying them. Stealing IP will happen, no matter what treaties and governments try to do. For poor countries it is a path they just don't have the luxury of givi…
I feel like this misses the point. I don't expect people to complain much about IP being stolen by competitors - that feels like an security/internal problem.
The issue with China seems to be that they force partnerships with Chinese companies, resulting in western companies having to share their IP, and when that IP is used outside of the constraints of whatever contract was created and the western company complains, the Chinese government colludes with the Chinese company to stymie or exploit the western company as much as can be done without breaking the relationship.
I'm also not going to say whether this is right or wrong - just that the feeling I get from the whole thing (as someone who doesn't follow this stuff that closely) is that the government efforts go beyond what others have done in the past (which I understand to be more subsidizing industries to boot them up).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Francis Cabot Lowell, who was instrumental behind the industrialization of the US, visited textile plants in the UK and committed their designs to memory, which were later introduced to the famed Lowell textile plants in Massachusetts. At the time (1826), America's per capita GDP was $2,460, which is 68% of the UK's per capita GDP of $3,600. Today, China's per capita GDP is $16,000, or 29% of of the US's per capita G…
Other Western nations are also behind the US in terms of GDP per capita but not as much as China. Japan is about $39,000, Germany is $41,000, France is like $37,000. But Poland which is part of the EU is $12,000 as well. Russia is like $9000 per capita.
For all I know the numbers are totally made up, but they rate Russia at 17.29, China at 19.08, Poland at 26.56, Japan at 34.58, Germany at 36.54, France at 36.74 and the US at 37.98. Obviously the relationship to GDP per capita isn't monotonic, but some correlation appears to be there.
Whataboutism. edit: If someone is using whataboutism (as the person I'm responding to is) there is no real argument to respond to. Any modern day atrocity can be justified by saying that it was done in the past by a different nation. Saying that the US had done something in the past to justify a different countries' present day actions is intellectually lazy and dishonest and is meant to shut down discussion. I was j…
Invoking whataboutism is not a defense against hypocrisy.
Of course now people are going to normalize it and say it’s no big deal after years of saying it was an exaggeration.
But that’s what you get when you get blinded by the lure of 1-billion potential consumers... along with an unfavorable trade agreement wich allowed for assymetrical tariffs, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US pried the textile and locomotives industries from the UK This is the sort of argument that an eight-year-old makes to his mother, and the mother responds, "If Jimmy jumped off a bridge, would you?" I don't know if you're an American or not, but there's an very common expression: Two wrongs don't make a right.
Isn't this "whataboutism"? You shut down a conversation by trying to deflect about how others have also done something? Like you said, two wrongs don't make a right. Just by pointing out this has happened elsewhere doesn't make the conversation about China doing it any less important or relevant. Why shut down this conversation?
In the US patent law doesn’t cover everything, there are alternate forms of IP like copyright which has let open source software and fashion thrive.
Then there’s the open hardware system in China called GongKai: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141230/09362929550/how-g...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to Wikipedia[0] China GDP(PPP)/capita is $16,624, just below Dominican Republic and Iraq. Not sure that's "wealthy" quite yet. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
When an authoritarian government enforces policies that lead to massive wealth inequality it becomes pointless to measure things on a per capita basis. If China had policies in place to lift the quality of life of the majority of the population it might be acceptable to measure stuff on a per capita basis.
There's a rather surprising attitude in this discussion that the IP belongs to a country (e.g. "Allowing non-citizens to get access to the IP should be illegal."), as if it were some sort of nationalised asset in common ownership. It's a privately owned asset for private benefit. It's not a form of property that pays property tax.
Yes and no. Nothing happens in a vacuum. If person X develops something that they could not have developed without certain institutional and social and physical infrastructure around them then it’s by no means as clear cut. For example I think most people in the UK would say if the taxpayer has directly or indirectly underwritten something then it’s not unreasonable for a portion of the profit on that thing to be tax…