261–270 of 317 posts
Why ignore the elephant in the room? The U.S. is more unequal than it has been since before WWII [1], and that is a big reason why its growth is stagnating.[2] It's time to stop taking seriously any analyses that do not address this. [1] http://www.epi.org/publication/income-inequality-by-state-19... [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/income-inequa...
Why ignore the elephant in the room? The U.S. is more unequal than it has been since before WWII [1], and that is a big reason why its growth is stagnating.[2] It's time to stop taking seriously any analyses that do not address this. [1] http://www.epi.org/publication/income-inequality-by-state-19... [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/income-inequa...
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…
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Thanks for the reference, at least you cared to search and show it! 10% of 25,000 for that particular exam does sound a lot, and that's probably why it made national news in the first place. Does it mean 10% of all Chinese students (in China) cheat? Is it a proof that "Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic."? Definitely Not. I can find way more examples where 0% of Chinese students cheat in national level exams…
Yeah, this is why I didn't bother constructing a more robust argument showing the clear trend. Consider that you may be unwilling to entertain the possibility that this phenomenon actually exists.
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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. Th…
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…
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"Geeks always seem to worship autocrats and dictators for whatever reason." I do not think this is entirely correct. You don't see widespread support for the majority of the world's autocrats. I think geeks want technocrats, not simply autocrats. In that sense, it is important to distinguish between different types of autocrats. There is a reason you see more pro-China pieces than pro-Russia, pro-Syria, pro-Cuba, or…
>There is a reason you see more pro-China pieces than pro-Russia, pro-Syria, pro-Cuba, or pro-Saudi pieces for example. I'm fairly political so I imagine I pay attention to this stuff more than most, but you bet your bottom dollar people here and on reddit and slashdot sing the praises of Cuba, Syria, and Russia. Usuallly the sentiment come from Europeans and others with an anti-US bone to pick. As someone who has do…
I think its a lot more common that American Exceptionalists mistake arguments of the form that, e.g., Cuba does better on some narrow measure than the US despite its much poorer, economy, so one might want to consider how the US could do better, or that abuses being complained about in Russia have parallels in the US, or that US government (or popular media) complaints about Syria are hypocritical in light of the same sources defense of regimes with the same features, in greater degree, than Syria shows as "singing the praises of" Cuba, Russia, or Syria.
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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?
By this standard, no one could ever say anything about "China" at all. Sam Altman says that the Chinese economy passed the U.S. Was that the Uighur economy? Tibetan economy? Subsistence farming economy? City-dwelling economy? See how these questions add nothing to the conversation? If the conversation is about China collectively, then it's not invalid to make other statements about China collectively. If you disagree…
I'm saying I have no idea what a statement like "the Chinese value hard work" means. It is not testable or quantifiable, and it's genuinely meaningless. Now maybe you could publish some survey data that shows Chinese people more value hard work. That might add something to the conversation.
There are a lot of great issues discussed here, and I'm going to say that most of it is valid and on point. After living and working in SF, I moved to china 6 months ago and have come to understand that Chinese compared to US simply have hugely divergent values. And they work hard. From a very young age, they are conditioned to do so; and with 1.4 Billion people competing, there's no other option. The US is still, an…