201–210 of 467 posts
steal this startup idea: you can't buy BYD in the USA (thanks to Biden actually, not current admin) BUT there's a loophole to have a car from Canada in the USA for a year so lease them from Canada to USA buyers for a year at a time
...if they're not banned from entering the USA altogether, which seemed to be the way the US President was leaning already.
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Who cares? China is revving up energy production in renewables to out eat the fossil production, but all of these processes are energy hungry, and you have to pay the non renewable cost to create the renewables. But then you don’t need the fossil fuels anymore. My solar panels will produce for the next 30+ years and power my EV with very little effort or maintaining, whereas the fuel I used to drive my ICE car to the…
The US with its high natgas generation is much cleaner than a majority coal driven generation scheme. I'm puzzled why we talk about "US decline" when we're pretty much creating paeans to marginal energy construction. Sure China's trajectory is good. But it's still not at the point where it's cleaner per capita than the US and it's still quite far from that. Let's talk about reality here. The US shouldn't rest on its…
It's literally just a mind virus and folks hear it on the news and like the Chinese hypersonic missiles they just hear some capability or reporting and then don't know what to do with it except to parrot it.
They don't think about China's lying down culture [1], for example, ghost cities and over-building doesn't seem to phase them [2] (communism tends to waste a lot of money and drive economic inefficiency), China's over-capacity for manufacturing and now struggling to find markets for goods [3], local corruption, disappearing of folks who disagree with their government, and more. Even with respect to infrastructure. Yea they built a lot. Good luck maintaining it at an affordable cost. China has more manpower to do literally throw bodies at the problem, but economic physics will still win out and China's declining population and demographic crises and xenophobic culture don't help.
Now, with that being said, China has done some absolutely amazing and wonderful things. But we shouldn't confuse China's progress with a corresponding American decline. Instead, the more sophisticated model is looking at both American and Chinese progress while other nations, and the EU are struggling.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers-tangping.html
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/sp-i-china-property-slump-worse-than-expected.html
[3] https://www.ft.com/content/6822f01a-147a-4b04-a9d6-edeefc25d0d8?syn-25a6b1a6=1BYD has to me become an icon of US decline vs Chinese expansion. It’s just one example among many of China charting the way forward and innovating while the US recedes further into backward-looking, protectionist policy. See: US politicians on both sides trying to ban BYD imports rather than incentivizing stiffer competition from US automakers. Another example: massive growth in Chinese renewables while the US opens…
The problem the US has, at least in this area, is that it's manufacturing is in the dumps and that's not even plainly bad thing. No US born child in the last 30 years aspired to working a factory job. The US is an advanced economy with advanced jobs. We get degrees, we sit at desks, maybe even sit at home, work on computers, and generate an order of magnitude more wealth than our screw turning counterpart overseas. I…
Generate wealth for whom, though?
That's also ignoring the entire economic underclass that system creates of service & gig workers that can no longer afford to live in the cities in which they work. Not everyone has the ability or desire for knowledge work.
The US still needs to catch up too. We have an infrastructure problem. Where is our high speed rail and public transit? Cycling infrastructure? Renewables? Housing in high demand areas? Socialized healthcare? Safety nets for said economic underclass?
We are behind in so many ways because we view wealth generation for the top xy% as the only metric of success.
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I have two chinese-born coworkers (who spent 20-30 years here in the us) in the same room. When we talk about china's expansion, I am always jealous of the public projects, infrastructure, housing, etc. They always point out the huge unemployment of young people, declining birth rate, and other social ills. They say they're worried when the building stops. Even more people will be out of jobs. And when the nation age…
China will likely become the go-to place for immigrants within couple decades. Just like any other developed economy had.
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BYD has pretty amazing tech to be honest, but putting protectionism as an argument against the US and pro BYD in the same sentence is naive at best. The CCP allowed BYD to exist and the CCP can end BYD in a single weekend regardless of any human right concerns elsewhere.
And, more to the point, BYD exists because the CCP has been aggressively protectionist of its domestic companies and has been strongly involved in growing, supporting, and protecting its domestic industry to ensure it has one. BYD is not a cautionary tale about protectionism, it's a sales pitch for it.
The CCP's protectionism is because China is going for a cultural victory. It wants Chinese products to be available and inexpensive and purchased around the world. It puts resources to that end.
The US's protectionism is for the enrichment of the CEO, board members, stockholders, and Executive Branch's family members. It wants to protect the domestic market from sending money somewhere other than the relatives of the people in power.
While they're both "protectionism" they're not the same policies.
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That's pretty much everywhere, especially China. If you have ambitions that are contrary to that of the Party, well, they're going to get what they want, one way or another. It doesn't matter if you don't want to deal your AI to the military or if you'd rather not sell your home so that a highway can be built over the lot.
Some countries have stronger rule of law protections and social customs that enforce them, but the US has been on a speed run to dismantle all of them in the past year.
BYD has to me become an icon of US decline vs Chinese expansion. It’s just one example among many of China charting the way forward and innovating while the US recedes further into backward-looking, protectionist policy. See: US politicians on both sides trying to ban BYD imports rather than incentivizing stiffer competition from US automakers. Another example: massive growth in Chinese renewables while the US opens…
That's certainly a take. China just has this decades long history of targeting foreign industries, flooding the market with that product, and then being the only one left standing. The idea that we should allow cheap vehicles to flood the domestic market because that will "cause the US auto manufacturers compete" ignores the wholly uneven playing field at work here, and the government backed goal of one side. Just th…
If you think that keeping China is good for the consumer, you'll have to present a stronger case than "we must protect our companies".
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The problem the US has, at least in this area, is that it's manufacturing is in the dumps and that's not even plainly bad thing. No US born child in the last 30 years aspired to working a factory job. The US is an advanced economy with advanced jobs. We get degrees, we sit at desks, maybe even sit at home, work on computers, and generate an order of magnitude more wealth than our screw turning counterpart overseas. I…
> China is where the US was 75 years ago Quite a wild claim
But trust me, all those people working in poor conditions for cheap pay in China will do everything they can to ensure their kids don't work those jobs. And just like the US, that fountain of cheap labor will go away and everyone will want their comfy high paying desk job.
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> As an american i feel it How do we have a productive discussion about our feelings on a tech site?
You start with a non-sequitur on China using coal to generate electricity. Because that, too, is feelings. In this case, insecurity.
Bizzare mix, but pretty fun with controversial topics
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It’s other capitalists that stole the tech. China is a country of capitalists living under a communist regime.
capitalists the communists put up with because it's better for communism in the long run
"Communism" is a theoretical concept. The CCP is what they are protecting, an authoritarian power structure.