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China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

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Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#441

Post by taneq »

jkestner wrote: post #216
torginus wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One nice thing about these developing countries is due to the power infrastructure tends to be not very good - which prompts people to take things into their hands and install solar, not to save the planet but to stave off brownouts, and be able to run the AC around the clock to stave off the heat. For residential, solar + batteries straight up beats legacy infra on cost, and with the upcoming cheap sodium batteries,…

Like how mobile payments took off in Africa early because they weren't held back by existing infrastructure.

In fact mobile infrastructure in general kind of leapfrogged land lines in many developing nations. Why run tens of thousands of kilometres of land lines when you could just dot self-sufficient wireless comms towers around the place?

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#442

Post by mulmen »

School-Cotton wrote: post #127
mulmen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita emissions aren’t relevant to climate impact. Neither are relative emissions between countries. This is a global issue.

Per capita emissions are relevant in the sense that if China broke into ten separate countries tomorrow, with each new country maintaining their current level of emissions, the effect on the planet would be the same even though an entity called “China” is no longer at the top of the leaderboard. There is some per capita carbon emissions budget such that if each human on earth stayed within that budget, climate change…

I don’t see the value of expressing a supply side issue in terms of demand. You can’t just ask people to choose clean energy. That happens from the top, not the bottom.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#443

Post by yanhangyhy »

dgfl wrote: post #407
yanhangyhy wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can answer this question. I’m a native-born Chinese, and I’ve never studied abroad. This year I just completed my first trip overseas, visiting the UAE. First of all, I don’t think China is a fully democratic system, but it’s not an outright dictatorship either. At the same time, I don’t think the two-party voting system in the U.S. qualifies as democracy either. One of the biggest drawbacks of Western criticism of…

Don’t you think you’ve been influenced by propaganda? You have admitted yourself that you couldn’t even find information on Naomi Wu. I’ve lived in Europe my whole life. I’ve never been robbed or felt unsafe. It’s also a very diverse region so it’s hard to generalize. But the supposed “decay of the west” is mostly internal propaganda from our very own anti-migration right wingers. But regardless, I’d take having a 0.…

> But the supposed “decay of the west” is mostly internal propaganda from our very own anti-migration right wingers.

it's not propaganda, i am talking some thing like 'yelp', real people share real experience after travel to EU. sure there are many good ones, but lots of bad ones.

> unable to acknowledge your sexual orientation

you can. but not in the public media. people share LGBT content on the Internet all the time. Right now the most popular influencer on chinese tiktok is a crossdresser

not intent to change your view, just some clarification.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#444

Post by cobbaut »

dgfl wrote: post #407
yanhangyhy wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can answer this question. I’m a native-born Chinese, and I’ve never studied abroad. This year I just completed my first trip overseas, visiting the UAE. First of all, I don’t think China is a fully democratic system, but it’s not an outright dictatorship either. At the same time, I don’t think the two-party voting system in the U.S. qualifies as democracy either. One of the biggest drawbacks of Western criticism of…

Don’t you think you’ve been influenced by propaganda? You have admitted yourself that you couldn’t even find information on Naomi Wu. I’ve lived in Europe my whole life. I’ve never been robbed or felt unsafe. It’s also a very diverse region so it’s hard to generalize. But the supposed “decay of the west” is mostly internal propaganda from our very own anti-migration right wingers. But regardless, I’d take having a 0.…

> I’ve lived in Europe my whole life. I’ve never been robbed or felt unsafe.

Really, where?

I have been robbed in Belgium and in France, have had a knife on my throat on a Sunday morning, and have had burglars twice (once in Antwerp, once in Leuven). About five of my bikes were stolen, and I've been conned by construction workers several times.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#445

Post by bell-cot »

tossandthrow wrote: post #424
shubhamjain wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. They haven't, imo. I am from India, and I have been hearing for the last two decades how we have avoided same mistakes as China and the latter is headed for a demographic collapse. China is only marching forward, and focusing more on automation to hedge its bets. While overpopulation in India has choked almost every city in Ind…

The main issue with a demographic decline is that fewer people can live of their wealth. This is in particular a problem for the older generation. But if you are not a big believer in retirement, then there are no issues with demographic shifts.

> But if you are not a big believer in retirement, then ...

Unfortunately, "believer" or not, modern Western medicine has gotten extremely good at keeping infirm elderly people alive.

From a Capitalist medicine PoV, that's optimal for extracting their wealth.

From a macroeconomic PoV - "retired" or not, the net economic input from the top decades of the demographic curve will be nothing so positive as you seem to assert.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#446

Post by somenameforme »

Arainach wrote: post #341
somenameforme wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that people turned against the government just randomly. Who was the last genuinely socially motivated President we had? I idealize JFK, but I think that's largely because of his charisma, how he ended, and obviously the space program. Yet how did he not just immediately condemn and completely dismantle the entire CIA when the proposal for Operation Northwoods [1] reached his desk, and was one signature away…

LBJ made more progress on social issues than any President with the possible exception of FDR. Certainly dramatically more progress per year in office. Jimmy Carter was also socially motivated. Reagan changed the game, Newt Gingrich destroyed cooperation, and now we're living in the world they created.

Modern politicians are really good at framing everything as being the most socially motivated thing in the world. And I think LBJ is the grandfather of this stuff. When you read of his private discussions, socially motivated is just about the last thing he was. He wanted absolute political power and understood that he could create systems of dependency to achieve it.

It just so happens that systems of dependency can also be framed positively as 'solving hunger' or whatever. The fact that 60 years later 'solving hunger' has translated to having more than 41 million people completely unable to feed themselves without government assistance is not a coincidence. It a third stanza of that old saying 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Give a man a fish every day and he'll do whatever you want to keep getting that fish.'

There's countless ways we could have spent that war money (no different during LBJ times with Vietnam) to help create ways for people to be able to genuinely provide for themselves. But I don't think this was ever the goal.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#447

Post by XorNot »

bell-cot wrote: post #445
tossandthrow wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue with a demographic decline is that fewer people can live of their wealth. This is in particular a problem for the older generation. But if you are not a big believer in retirement, then there are no issues with demographic shifts.

> But if you are not a big believer in retirement, then ... Unfortunately, "believer" or not, modern Western medicine has gotten extremely good at keeping infirm elderly people alive. From a Capitalist medicine PoV, that's optimal for extracting their wealth. From a macroeconomic PoV - "retired" or not, the net economic input from the top decades of the demographic curve will be nothing so positive as you seem to ass…

Not at a whole-population scale level to any real significance though. There are just an abnormally large number of baby boomers, exacerbated by the subsequent massive fall in birth rates following them.

It's a "law of large numbers" problem - if you have a big population, you'll just have more people who live longer within that population then a similar, but smaller population.

US life expectancy has actually been falling somewhat recently - the whole "people are living longer" thing has always been a massive over simplification of long term historical effects and pressures (i.e. life expectancy didn't change all that much with the discovery of medicine, but it changed a lot because infant mortality stopped dragging down the average).

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#448

Post by grumpy-de-sre »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #440
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth acknowledging that Mao became increasingly erratic with age. Some of his early achievements are still very much seen in a positive light (eg. as a nation builder).

yes. in my earlier age, the offical statement from CCP of him is 70% achievement and 30% fault. but as the inequality increase in china, people has more positive view of him.

Yep, nationalism isn't something you can turn on and off at will.

For an example I'm reminded of the recent public backlash to the K visa scheme [1].

1. https://www.ft.com/content/01a0029c-9f7c-4b31-a120-d1652f198...

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#449

Post by matheusmoreira »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #233

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

I'm envious of China's ability to define long term goals and execute them somewhat competently... In democracies politicians only care about reelection, and most people's voting patterns do not take long term strategy into account. Quite the opposite: short term profits and benefits are favored above all else.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#450

Post by yanhangyhy »

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #448
yanhangyhy wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. in my earlier age, the offical statement from CCP of him is 70% achievement and 30% fault. but as the inequality increase in china, people has more positive view of him.

Yep, nationalism isn't something you can turn on and off at will. For an example I'm reminded of the recent public backlash to the K visa scheme [1]. 1. https://www.ft.com/content/01a0029c-9f7c-4b31-a120-d1652f198...

This question is actually quite interesting. It’s basically connected to almost every issue China faces today — the national confidence born out of a century of humiliation, population decline, the rise of Han nationalism, soaring unemployment, and so on. The overall domestic response has been quite negative, though I don’t have a clear personal view on it.

It’s somewhat like the Tang dynasty at its most prosperous — when envoys from all nations came to pay tribute, and many Japanese and Central Asians studied and worked in Chang’an. But interestingly, I’ve noticed that in recent years, public opinion toward the Tang dynasty has gradually become less positive, which might be related to this.

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