Earlier quoted context omitted.
> “we must recognize the fundamental importance of the real economy… and never deindustrialize.” This hasn't been really put to the test yet, has it? What's the cost of labor delta compared to the places where outsourcing from China would be attractive currently?
> This hasn't been really put to the test yet, has it? Yes. Their textile industry has been gradually leaving for much of the past decade, as cheaper production exists in several other countries at this point. Textile dominance by China peaked around 10-15 years ago. They will lose labor cost sensitive industries to their cheaper competitors as their economy continues to climb, as labor costs continue to climb. It to…
Why is China smashing its tech industry?
281–290 of 401 posts
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the Netherlands gambling is either done by the state owned company with all profit going to state treasury or heavily regulated when done online. All to prevent gambling addiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Casino It seems harmful to let gambling be unregulated... Even loot boxes in games are illegal https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/10/30/netherlands-rules-...
I lived in Eindhoven for two years and passed by its Holland Casino every week. I never knew it was run by the Dutch state! There is a Chinese Internet slang "智商税" ("IQ tax"), used to describe products with questionable actual value, like pseudoscience-based health products, luxurious goods with crazy price tags. The idea is that only people with poor judgement would buy such products, and in doing so are being taxed…
We also have state-run casinos in Québec, as well as state-run lotteries. They have a legal monopoly on gambling, except for some exceptions for bars and online betting which is practically unregulated.
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
The violence and suppression in the Soviet union started immediately. Trying to control the economy from the centre requires individuals give up choice not just in what they buy, but where they work. As troksky said "In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall n…
Wasn't the rise of fascism in Germany directly caused by crippling and humiliating terms levied at Versailles
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#284Earlier 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.
> Free markets allow us to express our values at an individual level rather than having an authority deciding what to value. This is not correct. The authority is there, it's just less visible. Market forces are extremely unequal: a small percentage of humanity, e.g. 0.1% influence 90% of the value of the housing market in all popular cities in developed countries.
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Interestingly, despite not having large, obvious, centralized manufacturing hubs, the US is not far behind China in overall manufacturing output, despite putting far less effort into it. https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scor... US is at 18% of global manufacturing vs China's 20%, but the US only gets 12% of it's overall GDP from manufacturing compared to China's 27%, and with about half the per…
If the US had to manufacture the products that are currently manufactured in China, the amount of dollars generated would be lower, or the share of people employed in manufacturing would explode. GDP would of course decrease.
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#286Earlier 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)
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don’t actually know why anyone in power does anything. One thing I do know is we as the West need to figure out how to come together and defend democratic and liberal values, as without them we are seriously lost. We should start by not giving any more money and technology to a Chinese state that clearly do not have our best interests at heart. I think the west is in real danger of just falling apart over the next…
What I do notice is that the Chinese "rulers" seem to be more concerned about long-term well-being of its people, rather than trolling and performative assholery on Twitter. You might describe it as a dictatorship, but it's more data-driven than you might suspect. The Chinese keep the pulse on decisions they make, and if it's unpopular - it's gone. Of course there is a line - you can't go head-on against the Party an…
More serious response: I don’t want to live under a dictatorship where a generational change could lead to corruption and suffering on a much bigger scale. I think America as a project might also be lost and we should consider if this crazy idea (democracy, freedom of religion, free speech etc.) is worth fighting for. I think it is and I believe in the values that the US has, despite some very obvious mistakes America isn’t ethnic cleansing Muslims or having a press that can’t criticise the government. I will bet on America not because China won’t win but because I still believe the (relative) peace and prosperity of the post war period isn’t worth throwing away as easily as some want. We need someone focused on this in a clear way and to get Americans stop arguing amongst themselves and look at the bigger picture.
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#288China 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 w…
> This is where the future power is - not in social networks and ad sales, it's in stuff.] I strongly disagree. The US was not able to win the Vietnam war with 100x the amount of military stuff. Stuxnet halted Iranian nuclear research. US elections were interfered with by foreign hackers. Microsoft’s revenue is >$100B a year, and it’s mostly software driven. Information, data, data-analysis, networking and intelligen…
And then what? If we think future wars will be won by hackers in hoodies, it's our funeral. An out-of-control hacking war will have to escalate to bare metal war. People will want to see explosions on TV, as they lose power and are unable to gas up their cars.
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or even more succinctly: financial value != value to society. Sometimes there's alignment, but very frequently there is not.
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.
A further productive update to your worldview might be "The degree of centralization of power is proportional to how far out of equilibrium a market can get." This doesn't just function at the macro level (i.e. Google/Facebook/Bezos being able to horribly misallocate capital based on their past successes). It also explains things like bad executives within a corporation: because decision-making is centralized and the results of a decision won't be seen for years, a bad executive can waste billions of dollars and thousands of man-years, but ultimately they're going to get kicked out (or the company goes bankrupt) and the organization will return to market norms. This is also one reason for the liquidity premium (and hence high compensation) for executives: since the consequences of a bad hire are so bad and so future-loaded, companies tend to be overcautious in their hiring, which means only people with excellent pedigrees are considered and they can demand a premium for it.
Also very relevant to historical China, which had this habit of centralizing extreme power with the emperor. Things would go great if you had a good emperor. But occasionally they'd make a blunder (like the cessation of the Ming treasure fleets) that profoundly altered the course of human history. The European powers had much more decentralized decision-making. When Columbus was turned down by the kings of England, France, and Portugal, he tried Spain, and the rest is history.
Re: Why is China smashing its tech industry?
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
The violence and suppression in the Soviet union started immediately. Trying to control the economy from the centre requires individuals give up choice not just in what they buy, but where they work. As troksky said "In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall n…
Wasn't the rise of fascism in Germany directly caused by crippling and humiliating terms levied at Versailles
No. That, along with the rise of Communism in Russia, the rise of Italian fascism, and...was among the indirect causes.