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China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

nytimes.com

91–100 of 110 posts

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#91
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP theft is an important part of the Chinese "Miracle" but it is short-sighted to focus too much on that...If IP access is all it took, I think we would have seen the Chinese achievement replicated in many other places.

Exactly. You need process knowledge in addition to IP in order to make innovation and manufacturing happen. And China is really good at cultivating process knowledge, something the US is slowly ceding to them.

The reality is that often, neither the patents or the processes are available for licensing or through an acquisition and merger. Trade secrets and IP are used adversarialy, to limit competition and often times governments are deeply involved, vetoing against any technology transfer that could hurt national competitiveness. That makes sense for a nation but hurts the technological progress of the world.

So we are in effect, back to the pre-intelectual-property world. The moral connotations of IP theft hardly apply.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All great nations are built by theft of a valuable resource. It's the sure fire way to get ahead in any game.

well okay guys, after a cumulative -2 on the above, I want to disclose that I'm open to counterpoints if you have a compelling one! Just because an ego is bruised or you want a better world doesn't mean you need to project that through downvoting, it is effectively censorship when you do that

The borders of all nations are determined by some previous conquest and the great nations are the ones that were most successful conquering their neighbors, but what made them able to do so where most could not? The ability to conquer obviously can't be taken by conquest. Only recently has IP been as or more valuable than natural resources, but the concept remains. Why has Nigeria stuck to stealing a few of our dollars instead of making a killing like China stealing our IP? Because they can't and China can. That ability is what makes it a great nation, and was necessarily developed before it was used.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#93
post #85

I think it is still too soon to blow the horn on China's model. Yes, China has become successful through authoritarianism, but it has only had 2 successful authoritarian leaders, both of whom were competent and benevolent. History shows that, on longer time scales, it is difficult to continuously install competent and benevolent leaders, and when a leader comes along that is not competent or benevolent, authoritarian…

> but it has only had 2 successful authoritarian leaders, both of whom were competent and benevolent. Which ones were benevolent?

Don't be ridiculous. They have put their country first. You don't have to conform to the Western ideals of democracy and freedom to be benevolent. And compared to the historical record of monarchs putting their country first, China has done very well so far.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#94
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America owes its very existence to the land it stole from Native Americans. It owes a huge part of its prosperity to the entire lives it stole from generations of black people by using them as draft animal (hence freeing the white man to think about science, mathematics, whatever). The entire material infrastructure that enabled the production of these fruits of the intellect is stolen, with direct violent human cons…

So who are these groups of people with morally irreproachable ancestors who've contributed so much to our world?

I personally like the idea of the ancient Indian college (in modern day Pakistan) that considered knowledge a gift from God (meaning it should be free to all).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila

This idea could propel mankind into the future faster than the steal, iterate, then lock down IP method we are using today.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#95
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who are these groups of people with morally irreproachable ancestors who've contributed so much to our world?

I personally like the idea of the ancient Indian college (in modern day Pakistan) that considered knowledge a gift from God (meaning it should be free to all). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila This idea could propel mankind into the future faster than the steal, iterate, then lock down IP method we are using today.

I agree to make the knowledge to free. They should be public domain, not copyright and patent. (Public domain is what I do, at least. The law ought to abolish copyright and patents (to make them all public domain), in my opinion.)

However, I fail to find the mention in that Wikipedia article (am I not looking enough?)

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well okay guys, after a cumulative -2 on the above, I want to disclose that I'm open to counterpoints if you have a compelling one! Just because an ego is bruised or you want a better world doesn't mean you need to project that through downvoting, it is effectively censorship when you do that

The borders of all nations are determined by some previous conquest and the great nations are the ones that were most successful conquering their neighbors, but what made them able to do so where most could not? The ability to conquer obviously can't be taken by conquest. Only recently has IP been as or more valuable than natural resources, but the concept remains. Why has Nigeria stuck to stealing a few of our dolla…

The point is that ALL superpowers and empires were created by some unilateral expropriation, and being able to defend that.

I was looking for a counterpoint to that. The "any random country" comparison wasn't what I was going for

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#97
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA's best and brightest minds are currently being used to figure out how to sell ads for corrupt social media companies

> USA's best and brightest minds are currently being used to figure out how to sell ads for corrupt social media companies Are they really the brightest if they can't find a way to make a high wage without working in advertising? :) Also LOL at calling advertising, a scummy but legal industry "corrupt" in a conversation about China https://web.archive.org/web/20081210040251/http://www.csis.o...

i called social media companies corrupt in a week where some of the most damning reporting about fb ever was published

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#98
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it has only had 2 successful authoritarian leaders, both of whom were competent and benevolent. Which ones were benevolent?

Don't be ridiculous. They have put their country first. You don't have to conform to the Western ideals of democracy and freedom to be benevolent. And compared to the historical record of monarchs putting their country first, China has done very well so far.

>>> but it has only had 2 successful authoritarian leaders, both of whom were competent and benevolent.

>> Which ones were benevolent?

> Don't be ridiculous.

What's so ridiculous about asking you to name the two Chinese leaders who you view as benevolent?

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#99
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USA's best and brightest minds are currently being used to figure out how to sell ads for corrupt social media companies Are they really the brightest if they can't find a way to make a high wage without working in advertising? :) Also LOL at calling advertising, a scummy but legal industry "corrupt" in a conversation about China https://web.archive.org/web/20081210040251/http://www.csis.o...

i called social media companies corrupt in a week where some of the most damning reporting about fb ever was published

> i called social media companies corrupt in a week where some of the most damning reporting about fb ever was published

Uh, ok? Sorry but your reply is a bit of a non-sequitur, I'm not clear where you're going with this point.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#100
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be ridiculous. They have put their country first. You don't have to conform to the Western ideals of democracy and freedom to be benevolent. And compared to the historical record of monarchs putting their country first, China has done very well so far.

>>> but it has only had 2 successful authoritarian leaders, both of whom were competent and benevolent. >> Which ones were benevolent? > Don't be ridiculous. What's so ridiculous about asking you to name the two Chinese leaders who you view as benevolent?

> What's so ridiculous about asking you to name the two Chinese leaders who you view as benevolent?

In terms of benevolent, probably Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping [at least, Xi hasn't made any major mistakes yet].

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