Why is China smashing its tech industry? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#111

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

dotcommand wrote: post #88

jeswin wrote: post #45

Asia is headed towards war - it almost seems inevitable. Xi has publicly committed to not leaving Taiwan invasion to the next generation. China is focused on building an industrial base that complements its military power while generating cash, and internet software startups aren't going to help. For the rest of Asia, they'd do well to militarize; for Japan and Australia to consider getting nuclear weapons or hosting…

> For the rest of Asia, they'd do well to militarize; for Japan and Australia to consider getting nuclear weapons or hosting them, The idea that we'd ever let Japan have a nuke is ludicrous. Do you really think we'd let a country we nuked twice have such weapons? There is a reason why we are still occupying Japan 75+ years after ww2. And no, it isn't to "protect" japan. > and for India to rapidly increase stockpiles.…

Japan and the US are close allies based on common interests: Japan is one of the few countries that hates China more than the USA.

The people of Japan and the US have very favorable opinions of each other[1]. Of the two, Japan has more favorable views of the USA than the other way around.

The US would love to station nukes in Japan, but this would cross a red line for China.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2015/04/07/americans-japa...

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2016/09/13/hostile-neighb...

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#112

Post by Gollapalli » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

This probably isn't a popular opinion, but I think China may be genuinely right here. Innovation requires solving genuinely hard technical problems. Consumer Internet is, in general, not that.

I genuinely hope that America makes a similar shift in it's own VC sector.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#113

Post by lucasyvas » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #53

caeril wrote: post #11

> China may simply see things differently. It’s possible that the Chinese government has decided that the profits of companies like Alibaba and Tencent come more from rents than from actual value added Excellent observation, and I hope, for China's sake, that this is the reason. The United States is likely in for a long-term rude awakening when it finally realizes that an economy predicated on negative-value-add acti…

Hijacking this comment a bit, but I haven't watched real TV in a very long time but have been tuning in again because of the Olympics and Jeopardy. I'm seeing an incredible amount of ads for companies that let you gamble real money on your phone. Sometimes it's back to back to back to back commercials for online app casinos. This seems really dangerous and a sign of a tragically unhealthy and predatory economy - I ca…

I live in Canada and noticed these same ads - what is this garbage? It seemed insanely predatory and unethical.

I've never seen anything like this in my life and had the exact same reaction.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#114

Post by geodel » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

johnnyApplePRNG wrote: post #76

I thought it was well known why Jack Ma/Ant were being crushed? He spoke out against and essentially insulted the government in a speech last year, and immediately disappeared from the limelight. [0] [0] https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/the-speech-that-cost-jack-m...

Jack Ma was essentially engaging in payday loan type shady business. Being some kinda free speech warrior is western media POV.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#115

Post by neutronicus » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #53

caeril wrote: post #11

> China may simply see things differently. It’s possible that the Chinese government has decided that the profits of companies like Alibaba and Tencent come more from rents than from actual value added Excellent observation, and I hope, for China's sake, that this is the reason. The United States is likely in for a long-term rude awakening when it finally realizes that an economy predicated on negative-value-add acti…

Hijacking this comment a bit, but I haven't watched real TV in a very long time but have been tuning in again because of the Olympics and Jeopardy. I'm seeing an incredible amount of ads for companies that let you gamble real money on your phone. Sometimes it's back to back to back to back commercials for online app casinos. This seems really dangerous and a sign of a tragically unhealthy and predatory economy - I ca…

I listen to a lot of basketball podcasts and they are all, even the biggest national ones, trying to get people to gamble

It seems like it's gotten a lot worse after COVID, though

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#116

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #85

triceratops wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook, sure. Why Netflix? TV and movies have always been around. The US owes its status as a cultural superpower to Hollywood. Too much TV and movie-watching isn't good for a nation, sure, but you could make that argument about any pastime.

Netflix provides on-demand all you can view content. It doesn’t require any “cooling period” before the next episode. You don’t have to engage with family, friends or work. You can stream all day and live in fantasyland.

> You can stream all day and live in fantasyland.

I tried that. It soon becomes utterly boring, no matter how good the show is.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#117

Post by fksadfji12 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

volta83 wrote: post #40

> There are certainly those in America who believe that Facebook and Google produce little of value relative to the profit they rake in; maybe China’s leaders, for reasons that will remain forever opaque to us, have simply reached the same conclusion. Arguably, capturing most of your country's top talent with absurd salaries and putting them to work on world-critical challenges like... how to generate more revenue fr…

Even if you get rid of FAANG companies, it's not like NASA is going to pay you more.

You just lose the choice to work at a FAANG company for 10x the salary...

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#118

Post by majormajor » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

techbio wrote: post #58

jjoonathan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the day I realized that the economic notion of value was weighted according to the wealth of those creating the demand, while the colloquial definition generally isn't, a lot of mismatched puzzle pieces fell into place. It was probably the single most successful update to my worldview (measured in terms of predictive power) that I have ever made.

Can you expand on this insight about weighting value and its predictive power or share a source?

I have a similar but different take on the weighting around politics.

Our politicians are influence (unavoidably!) by the people who have the most time and money to spend lobbying them. Even if you reformed lobbying, this would still be the case - even if it was all just letter-writing with no money attached. Wealthy people could send way more letters than harried poor ones.

So the more you have, the more influence you get. BUT the more you have, the more you can fend for yourself, so also the less you need much of that influence! And then the government being unaligned with the needs of most people starts making a lot of sense, without even needing malicious conspiracies.

There's neither profit for businesses nor politicians in giving poor people what they need.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#119

Post by dotcommand » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #106

dotcommand wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the rest of Asia, they'd do well to militarize; for Japan and Australia to consider getting nuclear weapons or hosting them, The idea that we'd ever let Japan have a nuke is ludicrous. Do you really think we'd let a country we nuked twice have such weapons? There is a reason why we are still occupying Japan 75+ years after ww2. And no, it isn't to "protect" japan. > and for India to rapidly increase stockpiles.…

> The idea that we'd ever let Japan have a nuke is ludicrous. Do you really think we'd let a country we nuked twice have such weapons? Not ludicrous at all - Trump was open to Japan and Korea acquiring nukes. [1] > After all, it wasn't china that sanctioned india when they developed nukes... That was at a time when India's wasn't clearly aligned to the US. Subsequently it was the US which drafted the Nuclear Supplier…

> Not ludicrous at all - Trump was open to Japan and Korea acquiring nukes. [1]

Don't link to paywalls. Who is talking about Trump? I'm talking about the US. Also, Trump was open to a lot of things. Including Mexico paying for the wall.

> That was at a time when India's wasn't clearly aligned to the US. Subsequently it was the US which drafted the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) exemption for India.

Countries like india, china, russia are never "clearly aligned" with anyone. They are too big for that.

> What liberation? People hold favorable views of the West (compared to China) in East Asia, South East Asia, or India.

That's because we are the dominant occupying power with dominant propaganda and wealth. The leaders of these "subjugated" nations could easily turn the propaganda against the US. Look how quickly our propaganda was able to turn the sentiment against china. How easily do you think Japan, Korea, Philippines, etc could turn their nations sentiment against the US.

> Many of them are now in disputes with China, which often involve violence.

What disputes, violence? The only real dispute seems to be with the US and the west ( aka china's and asia's former european colonizers ). That's another danger, that asians, africans, etc are going to pick up on.

> The situation is different in West Asia - but it's always been that way.

What violence? Is it china that invaded afghanistan, iraq and sanctioned iran?

> Modern western influence is largely positive compared to the alternatives.

No. It hasn't been. Not for the aborigines. Not for the natives. Not for the africans. Not for the indians. Etc. That's the point. It's actually modern chinese influence has even been more positive. Considering the wealth of japan, korea and much of asia has been due to trade with china. And that's why we are "pivoting to asia" - a place we do not belong. A place, btw, we caused the deaths of tens of millions of innocent people.

But we shall see how history pans out.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#120

Post by neutronicus » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #97

bennysomething wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point I'm trying to make is people often use the term "value to society" like it's an answered question. We know it's not answered as that people's values vary. Centrally deciding what is useful has proven to be disastrous (see the Soviet Union and every other centrally planned economy). Free markets allow us to express our values at an individual level rather than having an authority deciding what to value.

I know the point you're trying to make; it's ubiquitous . The point I'm making is that "free markets" won't answer the question either, and often result in things that are obviously against "value to society." One little thing I find annoying is that whenever someone points out some issue with free markets, someone always seems to reply with something that amounts to "have you considered free markets?" Whatever the p…

I also think it's wrong to assume that the example of the Soviet Union proves anything.

Maybe Free Markets were the best you could do with the quantitative decision-making tools available to Stalin, and maybe central planning with modern AI/ML/Operations Research techniques would be more successful than a free-market approach.

Or maybe, the Soviet Union would have done just fine if there were no United States trying to thwart it at every turn.