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

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#141

Post by dash2 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #129

danjac wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet you could pick up a random op-ed from a 1960s Readers' Digest and someone would be making the argument that Americans spend too much time watching TV and pouring their creative energies into advertising, cosmetics and pop records while the Soviets are conquering outer space and South East Asia.

And at least back then you could point to statistical trends indicating that American poverty, income inequality, and standard of living were all trending in a desirable trajectory. Also, the moon landing.

Yes, but it was also a time when Paul Samuelson and other economists predicted that the USSR would overtake US GDP by 1984: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/01/so...

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#142

Post by pm90 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

rakmos wrote: post #134

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…

You missed the giant gaping time sink that is the video game industry. I also think including this in the discussion will, perhaps, emphasize the nuance of what I believe you're indirectly referencing -- the economics of how humans choose to spend their time (sometimes referred to as the "Attention Economy"). I believe literally optimizing for something such as GDP fails to take into account freedom / liberty which i…

The video game industry is one of the key factors to the success of the US technology industry. Some of the most innovative software is written by game developers. As we move into a future where AR/VR and digital worlds will become commerce hubs, the US is arguably incredibly well set up to take advantage of it.

Video game bashing seems like another moral panic to me. People are spending more time playing video games than slaving away flipping burgers. So what?

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#143

Post by senko » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #109

411111111111111 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been the case with books before Netflix too... To be fair, the quantity and availability of novels/fictions was pretty low before the fifties, so I guess there is some truth to it... Though the timeframe is definitely longer then only Netflix's existence

With books you have to actually read. It’s an active thing. Vegging out on the couch or bed even, is passive. Often you don’t even have to think because it’s mostly action with lots of repetition and little mystery.

You're moving the goalposts. Whether reading is better than watching is an interesting debate unrelated to the topic at hand.

I'd happily veggie out on a couch with a favorite book series and live in fantasyland for days (alas, real world interferes...).

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#144

Post by dash2 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

itmayno wrote: post #77

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…

The native citizens will come to HN and offer some rationalization. The non citizens will offer others. The reason is very simple. The dictator is paranoid about losing control and getting killed. Simple as that. Long version: when you are facing internal party conflicts, alliance between US-UK-Japan-Australia-India-Taiwan-South Korea-EU which accounts for 90% of worlds wealth and war power 10x the magnitude and is a…

This is the basic story that Acemoglu and Robinson tell: ultimately, inclusive political institutions (their rather fluffy term for liberal democracy) will win because they allow for creative destruction and renewal in the economy. Dictatorship never creates lasting economic growth, because the dictator is supported by the status quo elites, who eventually become dinosaurs.

I'm not sure I believe it, but it's a bold prediction and worth thinking about.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#145

Post by throw_m239339 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

danjac wrote: post #123

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…

I'll bet you could pick up a random op-ed from a 1960s Readers' Digest and someone would be making the argument that Americans spend too much time watching TV and pouring their creative energies into advertising, cosmetics and pop records while the Soviets are conquering outer space and South East Asia.

The big difference here is that US manufacturing didn't over rely on the soviet back then, nor where they massively buying US bonds...

What's the equivalent of Shenzen in US?

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#146

Post by whydoibother » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #31

I believe we're seeing yet another example of an ossified and hierarchal Chinese Communist Party struggling to maintain control over real or imagined internal threats. Under the CCP, the "rights" pendulum swings wildly for society and the economy, alternating between openness and crackdowns. Some policies seem well thought out, and then you have edicts which seem impulsive and extreme with little regard to long-term…

Why do you have the same poorly informed take posted twice? (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27976920) Couldn't find any other anti-CCP talking points to use?

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#147

Post by dash2 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

andyzweb wrote: post #127

neutronicus wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. - Arthur Jensen (Network, 1976)

Red Plenty is a fabulous book about exactly this attempt to develop tools to plan the economy. Not a success, in the end, but it gave rise to great advances in the maths of dynamic optimization.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#148

Post by triceratops » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:13 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.

TV has been like that since the advent of cable.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#149

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

deltasixeight wrote: post #54

cainxinth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s some truth to that, but call me cynical, when asked to guess whether a nation’s actions are primarily motivated by power seeking or philosophical principles, I usually assume power was the dominant factor.

Power is an important factor, but to assume it's the only factor is irrational. Think about it like this, China built the biggest high speed rail network in the world and doing such a thing wasn't just about "power" it was done because the regime cares about it's people. Centralized governments aren't automatically evil. Like all people in general, more likely a central power has complicated motivations that span acr…

> Think about it like this, China built the biggest high speed rail network in the world and doing such a thing wasn't just about "power" it was done because the regime cares about it's people.

The US built its massive interstate highway system for various reasons, including to enable more rapid movement of military assets in times; to enable rapid evacuation of cities in case of nuclear strikes; to promote better connectivity between major population centers; to enable white people to flee the cities; and to destroy prominent black neighborhoods. You'll note that by the latter elements, there is definitely a sense of punishing certain political outgroups that was sometimes pretty explicit in the designs. So did the US government care about its people or not?

I don't know how the micropolitics of China affected the location of right-of-way choices to help or punish local residents within urban areas, but there are definitely areas of China's internal planning that are rather explicitly designed to punish political outgroups, such as encouraging Han migration to dilute the indigenous populations of Tibet and Xinjiang. And of course there's the Hukou system, designed to prevent rural people from moving to cities.

> Sort of a tangent but California can't even ring the shitty bart around the bay. Likely because not enough of the key people in critical places care.

The US planning process has a notorious effect in that it makes it very easy for local activists to block projects (NIMBY--Not In My Back Yard). This was adopted partly in response to projects like the Cross-Bronx Expressway that actively destroyed the local neighborhoods for the benefits of people who lived elsewhere.

Is being responsive to the people who are going to bear the brunt of your development really a sign that you don't care about your people?

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#150

Post by Animats » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

China is not "smashing its tech industry". It's cracking down on private Internet companies that acquired too much power through network effects. This is completely consistent with CCP doctrine. Anything that central has to be state-owned.

Xi declared this year that while digitization is important, “we must recognize the fundamental importance of the real economy… and never deindustrialize.” Right. China, remember, has a national industrial policy. It's expressed in the national 5 year plan, which is taken seriously and used to set priorities.

What those priorities are is no secret. The current 5 year plan, the 14th, lists them.[1] Specific technology goals are in blue boxes. Semiconductors, gas turbines, biotech, new energy vehicles, robotics, advanced agricultural equipment. Internet services are mentioned in the Plan. One key line section out here: "We will strengthen the economic supervision of internet platforms in accordance with laws and regulations, clarify platform enterprise positioning and regulatory rules, improve the laws and regulations concerning the identification of monopolies, and crack down on monopolies and unfair competition. ... We will intensify anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition law enforcement and judicial efforts and prevent the disorderly expansion of capital."

If you think this isn't to be taken seriously, go back and look at the 13th 5 year plan and check off the completed items.

[1] https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/t0284_14th_Fi...