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blog.samaltman.com

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Re: China

#111

Post by mikeash »

tdees40 wrote: post #47

I don't mean to eye-roll, but Sam on economics tends to be, well, meh. The thing I always remind people when they say that China will take over the world is that everyone said the same thing about Japan in the 1980s (remember the movie/novel Rising Sun?). What happened? Well, the mercantilist economic toolkit has an endgame. Neither Sam nor I knows when it's going to let them down, but building an entire economy on c…

An important difference is that Japan is a considerably smaller country, and to surpass the US they'd have to pull off something really remarkable and raise their per-capita GDP 2-3x above that of the US to surpass it absolutely.

China is more interesting and realistic because all they have to do is achieve a per-capita GDP somewhat similar to the US, and their vastly larger population makes their economy (and power) much bigger too. Japan didn't eat the world, but they did achieve a per-capita GDP about 2/3rds that of the US. If China just gets that far it'll already change the game beyond imagining.

Re: China

#112

Post by mercurialshark »

bernardom wrote: post #67
mercurialshark wrote: post #31

Regarding exceptionalism, I had a course in law school taught by Justice Scalia. His first words were, "I believe in American exceptionalism and if you don't, you can find the door." His intentions were to provoke us and he was baiting a brave law student to disagree with him. Required reading for the course included De Tocqueville's - Democracy in America - as to "leave it to a Frenchman to explain America to Americ…

That's really interesting. Did he expound on why he thought this was the case? I agree; as sama said, the volume of inventions made here are highly disproportionate to the population share. Laser, semiconductor, airplane, assembly line, nuclear power, etc. I think two of the key drivers were the form of government (a republic "by and for the people") and a demographic boon of immigrants willing to work themselves to…

Yes, his focus was on the "separation of powers." He said the Soviet Union had more guarantees than our Constitution, however without separation of powers they were "mere parchment guarantees." He also touched on innovation and industriousness being in our DNA. Which all tied back into individual liberty and the role of government (to protect individual autonomy, as the people don't exist to serve govt).

However, most everything circled back to the separation of powers.

Re: China

#113

Post by tdees40 »

kirse wrote: post #88
Afforess wrote: post #55

I disagree with a lot of this. The Chinese value the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic. Chinese companies regularly publish misleading or outright fraudulent earning statements and quarterly reports. While the Chinese government seems to be taking steps to reverse these trends, it will take a long time to undo their culture of corruption. Contrast this with…

China's growth has long since been an organism that feeds on the back of the gorilla of US growth. If the US economy would hit a major recession, China would come crashing down with it. On the other hand, if the Chinese economy would have a major collapse, the US would suffer, but still be able to re-route core-value manufacturing processes to new countries (or back home). I agree with your cheating note, many of the…

The US economy did hit a major recession, and Chinese growth slowed marginally, but generally did okay.

Re: China

#114

Post by dkural »

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.

Working too much, to the detriment of your health, sleep, family, and friendships, for any amount of money, even if you are the founder, is dumb. Perhaps Steve Jobs would've caught up with science and stopped his cancer earlier if he took a break.

I run a start-up with 100+ people. Vacations, family time, sleep - these are good and ultimately productive things. The normal person works so they can live, be healthy. They don't live so they can work.

Re: China

#115

Post by harryh »

api wrote: post #77
atom-morgan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably the single biggest factor that's keeping me from moving out to CA. There's a lot of great companies out there and I think I could learn a lot but I also don't want to go broke. Edit: How are people making it without a really high salary or living with three other people?

I call real estate the "evil sponge." As a region becomes more affluent, the price of real estate appreciates at least in step with this. Due to the leveraged debt financing of RE, the reality is often that price appreciation is a multiple of wage appreciation. This takes pretty much all the surplus capital in a region -- among everyone but the rich -- and locks it up in an inert asset. Think of it this way: a starte…

This sort of appreciation isn't a universal truth. It's mostly driven by land zoning policies that artificially limit supply.

Re: China

#116

Post by GFischer »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #95
Umalu wrote: post #34

Two disparate observations: 1. US GDP per capita is still almost 8x that of China: $53,042 US vs. $6,807 China ( http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD ). While there are other ways to measure this (such as the PPP Sam cites), the magnitude of difference remains large. So even if China's economy in the aggregate is larger than the US's, the US is still much richer per capita. 2. As China grows richer, I e…

US GDP per capita is still almost 8x that of China One reason this might not be the right metric is because absolute power of a country matters more than power per citizen. Imagine a country with only one citizen, but a trillion dollars. The country wouldn't be very relevant. Even if the citizen tried to hire a military and use it, they wouldn't get very far. They wouldn't exert much influence economically either, in…

"Imagine a country with only one citizen, but a trillion dollars"

A real world example (not that extreme) would be the Sultanate of Brunei:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei

It's " the fifth-richest nation out of 182, based on its petroleum and natural gas fields", yet it's hardly ever mentioned.

The Sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, has an inmense fortune: "Forbes for example estimated the Sultan's total peak net worth at US$20 billion in 2008"

Re: China

#117

Post by Alex3917 »

Afforess wrote: post #55

I disagree with a lot of this. The Chinese value the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic. Chinese companies regularly publish misleading or outright fraudulent earning statements and quarterly reports. While the Chinese government seems to be taking steps to reverse these trends, it will take a long time to undo their culture of corruption. Contrast this with…

> Contrast this with the American culture of honesty; fraud and cheating are national scandals, not the norm.

Fraud is basically the biggest national industry in the U.S. Just look at:

- The 30% of all medical spending that is wasted.

- The rise of for-profit colleges with super low graduation rates and even worse employment prospects. Same with law schools.

- The fact that the majority of people who graduate high school and college are functionally illiterate.

- The massive pharmaceutical settlements for faking safety/efficacy data, illegal marketing, bribing doctors, etc.

- The complete lack of food safety regulations and/or enforcement. E.g. a third of fish sold aren't even really the species that they are claimed as, 80% of supplements sold don't contain any of the ingredients they are claimed to have, etc.

- The crumbling of the train systems, city water systems, etc.

- The massive subsidies on fossil fuels that are causing climate change and destroying the oceans.

- The financial system

- The fact that the vast majority of science isn't replicable, or isn't accurate even when it is replicable.

Etc. The main reason corruption seems worse in China is because of the billion dollar propaganda campaigns that use schools and the media to systematically blind people to the underlying issues, and the fact that the vast majority of activists get arrested and threatened with life in prison if they ever protest again.

Re: China

#118

Post by tdees40 »

Afforess wrote: post #55

I disagree with a lot of this. The Chinese value the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic. Chinese companies regularly publish misleading or outright fraudulent earning statements and quarterly reports. While the Chinese government seems to be taking steps to reverse these trends, it will take a long time to undo their culture of corruption. Contrast this with…

There's a billion people! You can't make any generalizations about "hard work". It's just overly broad stereotyping at that point.

Do Uighurs value hard work? Tibetans? Subsistence farmers? City-dwellers? I don't really know what people mean when they say that the Chinese "value hard work". Which Chinese?

Re: China

#119

Post by paul »

pen2l wrote: post #110
paul wrote: post #91

It's difficult to explore this question without being accused of racism, but I'd like to better understand why some cultures are so much more economically successful than others. The Chinese are such a great example of this. Wherever they go, they seem to end up being very successful. For example, in the Philippines it's claimed that Chinese are 1% of the population, but control 60% of the economy ( http://opinion.in…

> why some cultures are so much more economically successful than others They're not. You're falling prey to selection bias. The Indians, Chinese, Bengalis, Nigerians who have chosen to go abroad are unique and special. They're the ones who take this courageous initiative to go into a land of unknown, likely other Chinese who are not travelling abroad - if they would, they probably wouldn't do as well.

There are many other immigrant populations that are not nearly as successful and usually end up in very low-paid positions wherever they land.

Also, your explanation doesn't do much to explain why Chinese control 60% of the economy in the Philippines.

Re: China

#120

Post by LiweiZ »

Afforess wrote: post #55

I disagree with a lot of this. The Chinese value the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic. Chinese companies regularly publish misleading or outright fraudulent earning statements and quarterly reports. While the Chinese government seems to be taking steps to reverse these trends, it will take a long time to undo their culture of corruption. Contrast this with…

One thing that I do admire from the article is that Americans do worry about the future in a good way even they still have big advantages. This is a key trait most contemporary Chinese are somewhat lack of. And this alone can tell a lot. For this purpose, it does not matter which competitor the op chose to mention in this article.

[edit]typo

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