China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert • Hacker News Board

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#111

Post by ben_w » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 9:32 PM UTC

throwawaymaths wrote: post #74

oivey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t the traditional thought process on this topic. Traditionally, it was thought that the ills of resource allocation under democracy were far outweighed by the automatic optimization of the free market. The Soviets did a lot to suggest that the free market was actually better than central planning. China is showing that with 21st century needs, technologies, and planning that may no longer be the case.

> China is showing that with 21st century needs, technologies, and planning that may no longer be the case. maybe. a considerable number of chinese projects are very flashy and the planning doesn't take into account upkeep. a good example is country gardens forest city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_City,_Johor

What I've heard — and I don't claim any real expertise — is that the city was built by a significant amount of private money and certainly private companies, and what made the city fail was several different governments all deciding that they didn't want this sort of thing, specifically China wanting houses to not be investments and restricting how much money Chinese citizens could take out of the country, while Malaysia started off in favour of it but then decided that "foreigners" (which in the face of Forest City would have been Chinese) shouldn't be buying up housing in Malaysia.

That's not really a sign of central planning failure, any more than, say, California City — failure, sure, but not due to what distinguishes economic central planning from capitalist diversity's self-balancing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#112

Post by youngtaff » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 9:33 PM UTC

pmalynin wrote: post #108

gmuslera wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget bailing out banks that fueled bubbles. With the money that went into that we could had by now a the Sahara rainforest.

Have you actually looked into "bailing out banks" (which is called Troubled Asset Relief Program), because if you have you would have learned that the US Government actually made ~$15 billion in profit after selling off the toxic assets 6 years later. Not to mention the money the government made thru preferred stock repurchase by corporations and other things (interest etc) the US Treasury booked a total profit of ~$…

Yes, the US government did make a profit on those assets but what did the bailing out the banks cost everyone else?

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#113

Post by DanTheManPR » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 9:44 PM UTC

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #67

[flagged]

Is Chinese high speed rail infrastructure really substandard or lacking maintenance as you claim?

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#114

Post by Aloisius » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 9:47 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #94

oivey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t the traditional thought process on this topic. Traditionally, it was thought that the ills of resource allocation under democracy were far outweighed by the automatic optimization of the free market. The Soviets did a lot to suggest that the free market was actually better than central planning. China is showing that with 21st century needs, technologies, and planning that may no longer be the case.

Centrally planning a project is not bad and it was not bad even in USSR. What usually goes wrong is the implementation, where lack of ownership and widespread corruption makes the resource utilization perform pretty bad. Socialist or Communist countries did some good projects, I saw quite a lot. Implementation, management and long term operation went bad.

A good plan is one that can be executed. Assuming no corruption where widespread corruption exists is a failure in planning.

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#115

Post by jonstewart » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 9:52 PM UTC

oivey wrote: post #41

emptysongglass wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the point of democratic institutions, though: centralizing a lot of these directive powers leads to explosive efficiencies at the cost of liberty to, for example, surface objections as you illustrate. Or, more dramatically, throwing people who object into dark cells. That's how autocratic regimes can take on megaprojects without a lot of the red tape that leads to, for example, a paralytically slow rol…

This isn’t the traditional thought process on this topic. Traditionally, it was thought that the ills of resource allocation under democracy were far outweighed by the automatic optimization of the free market. The Soviets did a lot to suggest that the free market was actually better than central planning. China is showing that with 21st century needs, technologies, and planning that may no longer be the case.

Maybe, but China has also poured so much capital into infrastructure projects that don’t deliver ROI. This has harmed their longterm growth. We didn’t do enough when interest rates were low and we have a hard time with complicated projects, but China isn’t perfect at this, either.

Also they march people out into fields and execute them at point blank range. Worth keeping in mind.

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#116

Post by hnmullany » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 9:52 PM UTC

mlinksva wrote: post #107

Very interesting topic but the article strikes me as being blogspam adjacent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(China) cites https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-completes-3-000-km-11254926... which is one of many press articles that only cites (but does not link) state media. The Economist has paywalled writeup https://www.economist.com/china/2024/12/05/will-chinas-green... that is a bit skeptical of the p…

Vegetation-type is determined by temperature and precipitation. You can't un-desertify a true desert unless you irrigate. Most of these projects that "succeed" - miraculously correlate with good rainfall experience.

Most of the Sahel revegetated all by itself, when the decadal drought ended in the 90's.

Re-vegetation projects can help put vegetation back when it's been removed by shitty management practises like severe over-grazing.

It can also help speed revegetation if there are no nearby seed sources and dispersion speeds for those species are low. But dry-adapted vegetation seeds can usually persist for very long periods of time waiting for water.

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#117

Post by throw310822 » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 9:53 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #85

cassepipe wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S need to spend a ton to defend their "imperium" even though it is a bit different from how empires have worked in history. If it doesn't another country will take place and assume leadership of the world. The nice thing about the Pax Americana is that it is based on voluntary alliances that benefit from the relationship and more neutral third-party that are not punished for their neutrality (and thus are not a…

This smacks of "we need to commit war crimes because otherwise somebody else will commit war crimes". Theoretical atrocities are never justification for actual atrocities. The "voluntary alliances" you speak of are basically the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. Africa, the Middle East and Asia didn't sign up for the absolute devastation we've inflicted on them, first with "normal" colonialism, now with economic colo…

> Theoretical atrocities are never justification for actual atrocities.

If only that were true...

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#118

Post by sophacles » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 9:59 PM UTC

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #52

Etherlord87 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China is not without its issues but neither is the US government and at least China is investing in long-term infrastructure for their people. Do you claim USA doesn't invest in long-term infrastructure?

>Do you claim USA doesn't invest in long-term infrastructure? Do you have any examples of where it has invested in long-term infrastructure? I ask, because I can't think of any, beyond 'roads'.

There's plenty:

The us army corps of engineers has been working on waterways for a very very long time. Their projects allow huge swaths of rivers stay navigable, provide irrigation and/or flood control, and so on. There are huge swathes of farmland that are able to provide a stable and steady supply of food as a result of htis effort.

TVA and Bonneville are government infrastructure programs that provide millions of people with hydroelectric power, and broader grid stability as a result of the infrastucrue they put in. Not to mention rural electrification via special welfare programs for farmers - the tax for that is listed as a line item in your electric bill.

The telecom system (including the Internet) is the result of government investment - in the form of: special taxes that city folk pay for rural folks access, research investment, direct research in various agencies, investment in cables being installed (for example - billions in grants were given to AT&T, verizon, et al to upgrade trunk and last mile lines to fiber), foreign policy to allow open communications and standards, and adoption by the military and other large agencies.

A whole bunch more too in the form of setting standards and providing grants to state and local governments to meet those standards (education, water and sewage systems, rail infrastructure, farm subsidies, crop and flood insurance, and so on) - some of these are more infrastructury than others, but included because (e.g.) having stable farms leads food security and therefore social stability and is kinda necessary for the rest to matter.

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#119

Post by timoth3y » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 10:12 PM UTC

bloopernova wrote: post #2

It took 46 years to create the 1,900 mile, ~3060 km green belt around the 130,350 square miles (337,600 km2) desert. The linked article doesn't say anything about negatives, but the positives seem to be very beneficial for the area. I really wish other major powers would commit to similar projects. In my opinion, communities need larger goals to strive towards, to provide a sense of continued belonging and reinvestme…

The US "Shelterbelt" project in the 1930s in response to the dustbowl was of a similar vein. It involved planting over 220 million trees.

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

Re: China completes green belt around Taklamakan Desert

#120

Post by redeeman » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 10:14 PM UTC

throwawaymaths wrote: post #77

abeppu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's kind of the point of democratic institutions I think the problem is that American "democracy" is frequently undemocratic. If a clear majority of voters support a project or policy, it may still be blocked through various political/legal/regulatory means.

> If a clear majority of voters support a project or policy thing is, projects run into reality. if a majority voted to build the starship enterprise today would it make sense to do it just because a majority wanted it

heres a radical thought, if a group of people, be it 2, 5 og 250 million wants to build the starship enterprise, how about we say "sounds fun, have at it", and let them mind their own business? and in this pristine new reality, how about we DONT let them put their grubby fat hands into the remaining peoples pockets to fund it? In exchange, when the naysayers to the enterprise projects wants to make something, the enterprise fans will also not loot pockets.

Now we have utopia