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Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

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Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#131
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People claimed I was writing a propaganda piece apparently, when I note that this was a failure of losing empiricism and pragmatism that America had, as a philosophy since 1878 that propagated into the New Deal, because of the Soviet threat.

I admit that I did consider whether that was a possibility when reading it, but I also felt like the analysis you presented was straightforward enough for people to be able to discuss on its own merits rather than needing to reflexively dismiss it. It didn't strike me at all as being in bad faith even if I'm still not totally sure how much I agree with it or not, and I certainly found it more thought-provoking than t…

> I guess the irony is that dismissing points of view about how things could be improved here because they aren't sufficiently dogmatic is pretty much exactly what I understood the thesis of your article to be.

Exactly, yep!

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#132
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China uses “non-traditional collectors” https://www.economist.com/china/2024/12/26/how-china-turns-m... "Despite being one of the most populous countries in the world (1.4 billion), second only to India, China has an exceptionally low percentage of foreign nationals, at only 0.05%, as of 2023" https://directhr.cn/pdf/Direct%20HR%20-%20Hello%20China%20or...

It is because it is populous that it does not have space for foreigners?

The population density of China is about the same as United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Indonesia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

In absolute numbers India is more populous than China and yet has 10x foreigners.

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#133
post #95
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably just him trying to survive Mao's insanity

Wrong. Mao didn’t have full control at the time. Before the Lushan Conference in 1959, China had a system of collective leadership, and Mao more or less respected it. Mao was always insane, even before the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference and the Cultural Revolution, but Qian was definitely not under pressure, he simply enjoyed his alliance with Mao so much that his last words were: ‘毛泽东思想活着,中国就永远年轻’ (‘As long as Mao…

You might be right, I don't actually know Qian that well, but this idea of collective leadership misses the point that Mao had all the power and backing of the military/peasants.

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#134
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they did make a biopic about a Charles Wilson and a war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War_(film)

That one, about a member of Congress, has a sex scene in a hot tub. It had movie potential. The Roy Krock movie worked because audiences understand McDonalds. Trying to explain the relationship between R&D policy and defense spending is much tougher. Although see Heinlein's "Destination Moon".

A lack of a hot tub sex scene never stopped an enterprising Hollywood writer's room from adding a hot tub sex scene
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