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China

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: China

#21

Post by kome »

The main fallacy in that article is that USA is important because innovation. The conservative solution proposed by the author is to go back to an hypothetical golden age "that encourages investment, welcomes immigrants, rewards risk-taking, hard work, and radical thinking, and minimizes impediments to doing new things", like the good old times before.

My question is: what are you talking about? The "social" America of the '50s and '60s? The America of the technological boom of the 90s?

America is even more innovative today than decades before. More risks are taken today than before (the crisis of 2008 is also proof of that).

Are you sure that lack of innovation is the problem? Do you think that china is getting bigger and bolder because more risk taking? LOL no. They are conservative and fatalistic and hierarchical as ever.

I think that the American disease should be explained in another way.

Re: China

#23

Post by epicureanideal »

The US could easily remain the world's only superpower if it was ruthlessly focused on doing that. Actually it would have been easier 40-50 years ago. The opportunity is fading away.

Interestingly, the US often behaves as if it wants to control the world. So either this is a misperception, and the leaders of the US don't want to control the world (and they're spectacularly bad at public relations), or they're spectacularly bad at implementing their plan.

With all the advantages the US enjoyed last century it would have been possible. Maybe actual control of the world territorially is unnecessary, and some group is content to control the world financially. Or maybe the people implementing whatever plan have some perspective that make whatever they're doing make sense to them.

I wonder if that perspective is actually good for the US (it probably is not meant to be, other than for the elite). Perhaps they're using a flawed model that will seem painfully obvious later. I'm guessing it is something like the banking crisis. Some guys are following a flawed model that they think should work, and other guys are looking out for themselves, and eventually the whole thing will fall apart.

Re: China

#24

Post by coolsunglasses »

sama wrote: post #13
akavi wrote: post #7

> One thing that I’ve found puzzling over the last ten or so years is the anger directed towards people who choose to work hard That feels somewhat disingenuous. If 'sama is referring to the sentiments expressed on this board, from what I've seen, it's not anger towards people choosing to work hard, but anger towards demands of hard work of others from those who stand to benefit at their expense. Ie, the anger is tow…

Certainly working really hard without an expectation of being compensated it (either with equity or cash) is dumb. I've argued a lot that startups should give employees more equity, and I think that's shifting. Also, most startups I'm aware of, at least in the bay area, pay large salaries at this point.

Equity is a fraction of a dollar bill attached to a line extending from a fishing pole.

Reel 'em in.

Re: China

#25

Post by melling »

chiph wrote: post #3

China has 3 times the population of the US. As soon as they started growing a middle class, it was inevitable that this would happen.

Can you provide any support for this statement? I don't believe population directly correlates with the size of your economy. I only ask because if America is going to remain relevant, its citizens need to stop making shit up as they go.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP...

Re: China

#26

Post by nawitus »

>My explanation is that this is simply what happens in a low-growth, zero-sum environment.

Or perhaps it's due to globalization. There are other cultures in the world that don't value working very hard at the expense of other things in life. Perhaps it's sometimes good to listen to the arguments at look at values from other cultures. For example, working hard might not maximize the well-being of a person.

Now that the internet is widely used more and more people in the United States are exposed to other cultures around the world. Especially Europe, which includes many countries that have a reasonable standard of living, yet work slightly less.

Re: China

#27

Post by olalonde »

I look forward to the day where nationalism is seen as an anachronism. I know this probably wasn't the primary message of this post and that YC has funded a number of non US startups but if you swap US and China in this post, I wonder what kind of reception it would get.

Re: China

#28

Post by Alex3917 »

> We’ve had an environment that encourages investment, welcomes immigrants, rewards risk-taking, hard work [2], and radical thinking, and minimizes impediments to doing new things.

I think a major reason the middle class was able to live a fairly cushy lifestyle without doing much real work was some combination of:

- A massive supply of overseas slave labor, coupled with a complete lack of environmental regulations both domestically and abroad.

- Being able to tax people overseas by deflating the dollar.

- Heavy investment in infrastructure.

- A large population boom.

In other words about 20% sound policy, and 80% finding ways to steal money from other people and future generations. Since we're no longer investing in infrastructure or doing much in the way sound policy, and we're also losing our ability to steal money from others, I don't really see how the U.S. is going to sustain itself regardless of hard work, innovative thinking, immigration policies, etc.

Re: China

#29

Post by Shivetya »

the US's government is finally becoming too burdensome to do business under. The taxation of American business is one of the larger handicaps they operate under.

however the biggest issue facing the US is this message that excelling isn't to aspired too, acceptance of who you are and who someone else is is all that matters. It is a self defeating mindset. Don't worry if you fail, you had no choice, you just can't do better. Here let us take care of you....

With regards to China, what percentage of their population is experiencing this boon? I was always under the impression (don't know the truth) that quite a bit of their population really doesn't matter to their economic output.

Re: China

#30

Post by ThomPete »

sama wrote: post #13
akavi wrote: post #7

> One thing that I’ve found puzzling over the last ten or so years is the anger directed towards people who choose to work hard That feels somewhat disingenuous. If 'sama is referring to the sentiments expressed on this board, from what I've seen, it's not anger towards people choosing to work hard, but anger towards demands of hard work of others from those who stand to benefit at their expense. Ie, the anger is tow…

Certainly working really hard without an expectation of being compensated it (either with equity or cash) is dumb. I've argued a lot that startups should give employees more equity, and I think that's shifting. Also, most startups I'm aware of, at least in the bay area, pay large salaries at this point.

But thats kind of the problem.

I mean we all love large salaries but it's a symptom of something more fundamental namely that there are a lot of people who work hard but don't have the skills the market need and don't have the means to re-educate themselves.

It's not like everyone is getting more, it's that there is a divide where some gets more and a lot gets less.

Thats what this is all about. It's no ones fault but it has nothing to do with who works hard or not.

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