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The Future, Made in China

newyorker.com

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Re: The Future, Made in China

#21

Post by aerodexis »

bell-cot wrote: post #2

Long-winded, as anyone familiar with the New Yorker would expect. But still very good. Whatever its other weaknesses, China has the enormous advantage that the people really in power are focused on raising China to global dominance. Vs. those really in power in America are, at best, worried about their personal status and wealth at the end of the next fiscal quarter.

The Chinese desire to raise China to global dominance is exactly a concern w/ status and wealth. It's naive to think that America and China are any different in the degree to which leadership is driven by these concerns. One simply hopes that the facts-on-the-ground (i.e. geography) structures this pursuit in such a way to provide peace and prosperity to normal people.

America, for a time, made appeals to things beyond power and status when it talked about "freedom". Nowadays this has been debased to just mean the freedom to attain power and status. Americans are deeply resentful about this, and their thinking will remain incoherent until they move past this.

China never made appeals beyond power and status. Communism essentially claiming that power and status are all that exist, and that peace is produced by removing the ability for specific people to asymetrically amass it, which is equally incoherent as the Americans just on a different time-scale.

Because of better middle-term planning, China is in the better position to amass status and wealth. But this is not all because they are somehow less concerned with status and wealth.

Both powers have near zero long-term planning, because anyone with an iota of wisdom knows that status and wealth are fleeting.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#22

Post by recursivedoubts »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #16
derelicta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily for the rest of the world, your elites have made that mistake.

The Capitalists Will [outsource the manufacturing of] the Rope with Which We Will Hang Them -- original quote attributed to various famous communists https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/02/22/rope/

lol I almost included that quote, but the reality is that china isn't communist in any meaningful way

Re: The Future, Made in China

#23

Post by Hasz »

> Common sense says countries rise and fall in cycles

Oh common sense. If you believe all countries are autocracies, maybe. But to examine the trajectory of the US on a "Chinese timescale", the US rejected autocratic rule, built a system that decentralizes power, uses ambition to check ambition, and provides for frequent, peaceful transfer of power. To an autocratic Chinese bureaucrat, this is all wasteful shortsightedness, but allows the US to pivot, change, adapt, etc at very fast pace, at least for government.

I do not believe the autocratic bargain that China has made with its people is stable, lasting form of government, even as they seek to export it elsewhere. The fundamental trade is individual voice in politics for breakneck growth and dramatically increased standard of living. However, if you are one of the few young people born in China recently, what breakneck growth? A vicious gauntlet of schooling, the great filter in the gaokao, only to work for 996 company until you cannot anymore.

We can see what happened in places like Venezuela or Argentina when the government breaks their end of the bargain, as will likely happen to other autocratic states.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#24

Post by ToucanLoucan »

jalev wrote: post #12

The article is exactly what you think it's going to be: "China is moving ahead, but at what cost?" and the usual breathless Sinophobia that comes with it. At the very least when this happened in the early 80s with Japan's "oh shit they're going to outdo us technologically!!!" we got really cool fiction out of it for the next two decades.

The mass media loves to talk about ANYTHING besides the ongoing decay of the west, largely facilitated by it's own ineptitude at the game it designed. We're losing because we outsourced everything for short term gains and have let supercorps run completely without oversight, buying each other left and right, until every "American" product left is owned by one of four conglomorates, and none of them know what they actually do anymore and the only way they can keep "growing" is by cutting costs to the bone.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#25

Post by recursivedoubts »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #5

Maybe we shouldn't have moved the entire supply chain to asia. "we"

It's been funny watching the slippery slope fallacy fallacy at play w/the supply chain:

- We'll only move cheap plastic toys to asia

- We'll only move low-value clothing to asia

- We'll only move inexpensive electronics to asia

- We'll only move TVs to asia

- We'll only move computer assembly to asia

- We'll only move low-value semi-conductors to asia

- We'll only move CPU production to asia

Only thing really left is IP and frankly I expect asia to outperform the west in that soon enough (my understanding is that they already are in some areas, I am not an expert)

Re: The Future, Made in China

#26

Post by kibwen »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #24
jalev wrote: post #12

The article is exactly what you think it's going to be: "China is moving ahead, but at what cost?" and the usual breathless Sinophobia that comes with it. At the very least when this happened in the early 80s with Japan's "oh shit they're going to outdo us technologically!!!" we got really cool fiction out of it for the next two decades.

The mass media loves to talk about ANYTHING besides the ongoing decay of the west, largely facilitated by it's own ineptitude at the game it designed. We're losing because we outsourced everything for short term gains and have let supercorps run completely without oversight, buying each other left and right, until every "American" product left is owned by one of four conglomorates, and none of them know what they act…

Surely you realize that this article is, in fact, about the ongoing decay of the West.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#27

Post by bell-cot »

WhyComboNadir wrote: post #6
bell-cot wrote: post #2

Long-winded, as anyone familiar with the New Yorker would expect. But still very good. Whatever its other weaknesses, China has the enormous advantage that the people really in power are focused on raising China to global dominance. Vs. those really in power in America are, at best, worried about their personal status and wealth at the end of the next fiscal quarter.

What you said about "next fiscal quarter" is exactly right, and goes along with us (in the US) only thinking politically in 4 year cycles... which means on average we are thinking only 2 years ahead. China is the master of the long-game. It's shortest cycles are 5 year tactical plans. Their strategic plans go far beyond. I don't know what the solution is in the US (and West in general) to be able to think 25+ years a…

> ...only cultural/society/civilizational goals make someone think that far ahead ...

Not saying I was paying close attention to America from 1850 to 1950, but a variety of cultural and social factors - especially less hyper-individualism, and people's futures being far more closely tied to the success of their families, neighborhoods, towns, etc. - lead to very priorities.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#28

Post by aerodexis »

dominotw wrote: post #19
jalev wrote: post #12

The article is exactly what you think it's going to be: "China is moving ahead, but at what cost?" and the usual breathless Sinophobia that comes with it. At the very least when this happened in the early 80s with Japan's "oh shit they're going to outdo us technologically!!!" we got really cool fiction out of it for the next two decades.

yea history always repeats in patterns and nothing new ever happens.

It is utterly fascinating the ends to which people will go to insist the opposite.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#29

Post by Qworg »

WhyComboNadir wrote: post #6
bell-cot wrote: post #2

Long-winded, as anyone familiar with the New Yorker would expect. But still very good. Whatever its other weaknesses, China has the enormous advantage that the people really in power are focused on raising China to global dominance. Vs. those really in power in America are, at best, worried about their personal status and wealth at the end of the next fiscal quarter.

What you said about "next fiscal quarter" is exactly right, and goes along with us (in the US) only thinking politically in 4 year cycles... which means on average we are thinking only 2 years ahead. China is the master of the long-game. It's shortest cycles are 5 year tactical plans. Their strategic plans go far beyond. I don't know what the solution is in the US (and West in general) to be able to think 25+ years a…

This was the role of those "unelected bureaucrats" in the US that some folks decry.

It is far shorter than a fiscal quarter - the next market open is all that matters.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#30

Post by Eueudhsbsj32 »

tw04 wrote: post #10
WhyComboNadir wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you said about "next fiscal quarter" is exactly right, and goes along with us (in the US) only thinking politically in 4 year cycles... which means on average we are thinking only 2 years ahead. China is the master of the long-game. It's shortest cycles are 5 year tactical plans. Their strategic plans go far beyond. I don't know what the solution is in the US (and West in general) to be able to think 25+ years a…

> I don't know what the solution is in the US (and West in general) to be able to think 25+ years ahead, as no material incentive would do the job Eliminate share buybacks. Raise the top tax bracket to 95% on earnings over $10m. Executive shares cannot be exercised until retirement if you really want to get aggressive. The nuclear option would be stocks cannot be used as collateral for loans, it would shore up 90% of…

Why would the elites ever agree to that?

It's already too easy for those in power to control popular opinion, and only getting easier, so you're not going to get mass protests or revolutions that upset the status quo.

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