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

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#231

Post by pm90 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

ativzzz wrote: post #177

pm90 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The argument I get from the article is that the video game industry will not strengthen the U.S. geopolitically versus China compared to investing into "hard" technology like better semiconductors or more advanced military hardware.

I don't understand why it has to be a choice.

The Video Game industry seems like its doing just fine without Government assistance. The Government can focus on investing in creating manufacturing hubs in the US instead.

Shortage of labor? Create a new Visa and citizenship pathway specifically for electronics engineers, while investing in US universities to expand the EE departments and scholarships related to EE.

Its all possible if the US Government wants to.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#232

Post by mc32 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

vikiomega9 wrote: post #214

mc32 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be quite interesting to see a cleaving between us in the “West” and those who follow China’s model. I can see the disadvantage of the saccharine part of our economy and the advantages of focusing on nuts and bolts. It’s the difference between letting people decide what’s right for them and having a more planned society. Obviously planned societies have been a recurring theme in history, most notably socialis…

One idea that seems to make sense to me is that social mobility is the equivalent of starvation in a socialist setup. What we see today with the poorer sections of society especially African Americans is a strong indicator that all systems of power should be viewed critically and with compassion. The vast majority of the poor in America for example are obese and that's one cost I can think of that we pay for the curr…

It doesn’t help that in much of the media and mainstream culture we admire slackers and dumbing things down. Get high, get drunk, watch dumb shows and have fun doing dumb things.

It’s less so in Asia. On the other hand we keep on shipping jobs overseas so people on the bottom keep on getting sold out for even lower prices.

People used to be able to get by as a janitor or landscapers. Janitors and landscapers have been replaced by low cost labor. We can have foreign workers and have economic viability for people who don’t go beyond high school. We still have mechanics, but not sure how long that will be an option with electrification of autos where there are diff requirements.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#233

Post by epivosism » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

exceptione wrote: post #207

epivosism wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a name for the question of distinguishing useful economic activity from rent-seeking? It seems tied up in lots of other system/corruption/control related questions - cancer, budget spending, regulation etc. It feels like there can never be a trustable implementation of a "value or rentseeking?" oracle, since the system implementing it would also be under selection and pressure from the virtual gains to be ha…

I think you are looking for the term Real Economy? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_economy "The real economy concerns the production, purchase and flow of goods and services (like oil, bread and labour) within an economy. It is contrasted with the financial economy, which concerns the aspects of the economy that deal purely in transactions of fiat money and other financial assets, which represent ownership or…

Hmmm, that's an interesting distinction; But someone who intelligently evaluates startups and picks a more genuinely productive one (likely to discover new pure gains) to give money to seems to qualify as a valid outcome. Unlike things which are very hard to justify, like directly impeding such people for selfish reasons.

Perhaps it's about selfishness?

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#234

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

mountainb wrote: post #199

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…

China produces more steel in a month than the US does in an entire year of all types. US steel production is around 7% of Chinese steel production. Could the US ramp up steel production etc. on a crash basis under war conditions? Yes, but the overall picture is not great, given that China could also ramp up its production under the same constraints.

[deleted]

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#235

Post by fma » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

Gollapalli wrote: post #112

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.

Haven't read the article - but this is my sentiment for many years. I went to undergrad for computer engineering, then a masters in electrical engineering...hoping to do actual engineering work. And I end up having a career in web app development because that's where the money is at.

I am surprised that those who continue to work on "genuinely hard technical problems" do so when web app/dev has so many jobs with pretty damn good pay.

As an anecdote, my wife has a PhD in chemistry from a top program. Majority of her peers in grad school ended up taking classes in CS, Data Science, drop their program and work at a tech company.

When she graduated...I remember sitting with her at a career website and just looking at the differences in quantity of jobs for hard sciences vs IT (my wife's career now has nothing w/ her hard earned degree)

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#236

Post by papito » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

China is "cooling" certain sectors, to spur growth in physical tech and manufacturing. This is where the future power is - not in social networks and ad sales, it's in stuff. Just look at what happens when we can't manufacture our own chips. Car factories halt. Personal computing prices spike. Military tech sputters.

China is doing what the U.S. would normally do in an effective anti-monopoly action, if our system was not broken and the government not bought with its guts by billionaires floating in tax-cut windfall.

Now we have entities that have more legal resources than the government, which is a recipe for disaster (and runaway legalized corruption).

China sees what happens when you let money run loose through power structures, and it does not want the same fate.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#237

Post by dematz » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

f00zz wrote: post #74

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…

> "That's just from EU consumers, never mind the rest of the world - spending so much on mobile netlink that companies can clear more than thirty billion in profit, in profit alone, over two years. Think of the gross! So you tell me - is that the best way of spending humanity's money, webbing friends, playing games on the bus? A fraction of a single percent of that money, we could have bases on Mars in five years. De…

I mean, I can see the point. Maybe facebook is getting money but not actually creating value for people.

...but if we get Mars bases, so what? I'd rather play video games on earth than farm potatoes on Mars. Call it a lack of imagination but yeah.

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#238

Post by toss1 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #211

toss1 wrote: post #16

The Western financial elites thought they were exploiting cheap Chinese labor by promoting outsourcing of manufacturing - it would make for far greater profits. Meanwhile the Chinese were exploiting the West's myopic focus on quarterly profits to gain access to and experience in fabricating and designing the top western technology. The scale of this strategic blunder by the Western societies will be considered of his…

> The analysis in this article brings that into focus as well as anything I've yet seen. If the West does not rapidly regain focus on the things that matter -- real manufacturing, engineering, and AI (not consumerist opiates for the masses) -- we are soooo screwed. When China can build a decent airplane then I'll be interested. Until then, they produce/replicate relatively simple tech and for whatever massive scale t…

Excellent points, about leadership in innovation - there are many ways in which the West still leads, and in many ways China is still merely a copycat - e.g., note how critical China sees it to get access to the tech and local ownership.

But, China is advancing, making some genuine homegrown breakthroughs and is certainly much further along the learning curve than the West in many areas such as solar panels.

Mostly, it is key to note that China recognizes this, has a long term strategic plan and is executing on the plan.

Unless we make appropriate structural & strategic changes, at the very least, treating a far wider swath of tech as sufficiently strategic to require development & production at home or among allied countries, we are on a slippery slope.

Edit: Plus, by the time we see them making stuff as good or better than in the West, it will be too late to catch up. Those growth curves tend to be exponential (compound interest on knowledge gains, network effects of multiple experts or multipl6field leadership, etc.).

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#239

Post by TylerLives » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

aoleinik wrote: post #224

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…

Out of curiosity, what _should_ the US be working on? The only two things I can think of that really needs more man hours is space travel and quantum computing, but those fields are generally far from being revenue generating and require mountains of initial investment. I agree that ad tech and social media are net negatives, but what are the alternatives? A dead economy, where most of the money circulates on necessi…

Medicine, robotics, social media that improves people's lives, maybe fix universities (or create an alternative. You can learn a lot on the internet, but social aspect of it can be improved), ...

Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?

#240

Post by I-M-S » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 8:02 PM UTC

deltasixeight wrote: post #68

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…

War is unlikely. Globalization of all economies means everybody loses in a war. The devastation will harm everyone in a significant way. The most likely outcome is just perpetual political squabbling and the continuous feeling that war is omnipresent but realistically will never occur. China likely plans to dominate the US from a prestige standpoint. Better GDP, higher technology, that kind of thing and they already…

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