Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think parsing out what kind of freedom would help here. The US has a lot of “freedom of” but not a lot of “freedom from.”
Any freedom. For example you don't have the freedom to own guns in China.
Who cares?
Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
111–120 of 446 posts
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a linear relationship where you trade one for the other. You don't just get a more competent government by giving up freedoms.
There is a relationship here. It is not a perfect one, but it is real, and pretending otherwise just avoids the tradeoff. Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory. The result is predictable. I will never see a functioning high speed rail sy…
>Now look at China. They decide to build it, and it gets built.
Look up "Nail Houses". The USA used eminent domain heavily in the same situation back when they were still building new infrastructure.
>Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object.
It's not the result of many individuals objecting. It's the largely the result of a few wealthy individuals objecting. Elon Musk has admitted to publicizing hyperloop largely to take the wind out of the sails of the proposed high speed rail. American democracy is for the rich.
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
> Less corruption there's been, in 2025, 983 000 people receiving disciplinary sanctions[0]. then: 1. either there's no corruption, and people are getting sanctioned for no reason 2. there's corruption > Less incompetency one thing they seem to do correctly in China, is to select their leaders not based on pure political skills, but on actual thinking skills: many of them come from technical backgrounds, and have bee…
>there's been, in 2025, 983 000 people receiving disciplinary sanctions[0]. then:
>1. either there's no corruption, and people are getting sanctioned for no reason
>2. there's corruption
> Less incompetency
You're just compressing reality so the logic becomes simple. But your analysis loses the nuance. First of all no one said there's no corruption in China. Corruption is everywhere... saying there's none is a practical impossibility.
Second. In 2025 983,000 people received disciplinary sanctions.... If what China claims is true or even partially true it means corruption was reduced on a scale that cannot be replicated in the US.
You analysis is valid, but inconclusive.
>furthermore, in my experience, Asian people, and Chinese in particular, also have better working habits − stronger wills − than most Westerners. >I'd still be careful about assuming they're really _that_ more competent. intellectual theft, propaganda, rushed work, all could contribute to a temporary illusion of superiority.
First of all let me be frank. I am asian. I am genetically Chinese and culturally western. My comment was purely about centralized systems of government and how THAT effects competency and not at all about the competency of the population seperate from that.
That being said, average IQ in China is higher than the US, that is a statistical fact. I did not comment on how that translates into this argument or what IQ even means in reality. I'm going to avoid that argument because I have no opinion on it.
>this is a watered-down description of the actual situation. >you can get jailed, beaten up, tortured, killed, etc. religious groups seem to be the main target of the most violent treatments[1]. there's really no reason to target peaceful people, via such extreme means.
You're right. I did water it down. But I still stand by my point. I won't in actuality participate in activities that will lead to these types of consequences so restricting me of these freedoms is something I practically don't care about.
The religious argument is valid. But what do you think of scientology? Cults. Basically the religions that China cracks down on are religions it considers to be similar to scientology. Ultimately these things are bullshit. I'm not religious so, again practically speaking it doesn't affect me. I think most HNers are also atheist or agnostic.
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#114I mean, we need all the electricity we can get to run all of these datacenters, right? So I think this might be one of those things that the Republicans quietly allow to continue so that the corporate interests can maximize electricity production
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
A wet towel could go against JD Vance, but what if Vance shutters polling stations in blue districts? Because "terrorism".
Weird to see this so downvoted on the same day that Trump asked republicans to "Nationalize" elections in 15 places. Whatever that means. > “Republicans should say, ‘We want to take control of this. We need to take control of voting in at least 15 places.’ Republicans should nationalize voting,” [Trump] said on the podcast of former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, which was relaunched on Monday.
> Whatever that means
It means Trump is sucking the oxygen out of the room. Again. I wish we would quit reacting to every stupid thing he says.
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think parsing out what kind of freedom would help here. The US has a lot of “freedom of” but not a lot of “freedom from.”
Any freedom. For example you don't have the freedom to own guns in China.
Is that a freedom? You're defining everything as though the US were the optimal model of society. Couldn't I just as easily define the freedom to be safe from guns?
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Less corruption there's been, in 2025, 983 000 people receiving disciplinary sanctions[0]. then: 1. either there's no corruption, and people are getting sanctioned for no reason 2. there's corruption > Less incompetency one thing they seem to do correctly in China, is to select their leaders not based on pure political skills, but on actual thinking skills: many of them come from technical backgrounds, and have bee…
> one thing they seem to do correctly in China, is to select their leaders not based on pure political skills, but on actual thinking skills: many of them come from technical backgrounds, and have been trained to think rationally. Is that true?
Not strictly true. There's more of a tendency for this to be true-ish.
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#1183 more years. I don't know who the Dems can elect to go against JD Vance, maybe Tim Walz, but they need somebody.
3 years of Trump getting progressively weaker as more and more Republicans in purple districts decide they are more likely to be reelected by going against Trump than by supporting him. Not to mention the midterms will at least make it impossible to get any legislation passed that they want (which, thankfully, they have been mercifully incompetent at so far).
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#1193 more years. I don't know who the Dems can elect to go against JD Vance, maybe Tim Walz, but they need somebody.
> maybe Tim Walz https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/2026/01/29/tim-walz-say... > MINNEAPOLIS (Gray News) - Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he will not run for elected office again. > Walz touched on his political plans in a recent interview with cable news channel MS Now. > “I will never run for an elected office again,” Walz said. “Never again.” > The 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nominee said he plans to “do the…
I would guess that many politicians (of both sides, see also MTG) suddenly start to rethink how bad they want the public job when Trump turns the firehose of death threats their direction.
Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a linear relationship where you trade one for the other. You don't just get a more competent government by giving up freedoms.
There is a relationship here. It is not a perfect one, but it is real, and pretending otherwise just avoids the tradeoff. Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory. The result is predictable. I will never see a functioning high speed rail sy…
> Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory.
That has absolutely nothing to do with civil liberties and everything to do with the adversarial legalism of the Common Law code and with property rights, which are quite a different matter. There are any number of Western countries in which individual or household property rights are not taken to constitute an arbitrary veto on otherwise legal state action: if a train is scheduled to get built, it gets built, and compensation is paid but vetoes cannot be exercised.