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Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

economist.com

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Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#141

Post by greglindahl »

mncharity wrote: post #128
Canada wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With over a billion people in the country, the highest levels of leadership can't easily stop the kind of corruption that most businesses are victimized by: Extortion by local officials. It's like, they walk in to your factory, claim your fire extinguishers are not regulation, and demand that you buy a dozen of them from their friend and no one else, and it's going to cost you 50,000 RMB ($7k USD). And if you don't g…

> Our systems aren't perfect, but it's rare we have to put up with shit like that. I'd love to see a breakdown of the US economy, sketching which rules apply where. Including gray and black markets. When a couple of Boston-NYC gray bus operators went legit, incumbent Greyhound fought them in various ways, including leveraging corruption in federal law enforcement. The sole battered survivor had to hire a DC lobbyist.…

SpaceX patenting ITAR-covered technology is a landmine of problems.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#142

Post by csa »

sharun wrote: post #138
Hexcles wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Chinese who's been living in the West for a few years, I feel obligated to speak out against this: Although I hold strong dissent against Chinese government in many aspects (in particular censorship, e.g. GFW), although I agree the traditional norm of Chinese culture and society does not commend rebellions, your argument is a slippery slope at its best. Essentially, you are exaggerating from both ends: a.…

As an Indian all I can say is don't even bother addressing western delusions about themselves. Time will be the judge on the quality of innovation a culture built on celebrity worship, instant gratification and mindless consumption can produce.

While I agree that your characterization of "innovation" might be accurate in terms of measures like column-inches or click-through rates in today's online media, I think history will look much more favorably on the lasting contemporary innovations from western nations that withstand the test of time.

While I have great hope for innovation in various Asian countries moving forward, I'm not sure that there will be many purely homegrown major innovations from these places for the next decade or three.

FWIW, I think that the catalyst for Asian innovation will be the exploration of areas that many religious westerners find inappropriate -- stem cell research, genetics research, etc. The question is whether then will be truly independent, or whether there will be a brain drain from the west that helps lay the foundation (much like Europeans did for the US in the twentieth century).

Regardless, we are in exciting times.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#143

Post by KON_Air »

chaostheory wrote: post #13
KON_Air wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, given Shenzens whole shtick since its inception is just that I'm pretty optimistic about its "freedom".

Shanghai gets jealous of rivals and potential rivals and the higher your status, the more Beijing watches you. we'll see how this plays out

Of course there is always that but I think the necessity of a "at least one free trade zone even with free in quotation marks" will always outweight petty rivalry.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#144

Post by idra »

aub3bhat wrote: post #120
chaostheory wrote: post #9

> The common perception that China is incapable of innovation needs re-examining. No one is saying Chinese people can't innovate. The real question is whether Chinese people can innovate while inside China. (I wonder what percentage of current captains of industry in China studied abroad?) Why? Because innovation is essentially disrupting and rebelling against the status quo. ie breaking rules, disobedience, oppositi…

Good lord, this is a ridiculous comment, its truly shameful that its most upvoted. Before you call out Chinese government on Great Firewall, What about Patent Trolls? Or the upcoming Physical wall south of the border? Painting an entire culture with a broad brush is stupid. >> The real question is whether Chinese people can innovate while inside China. To decisively refute your argument. The current leading company i…

> Also they brought the most populous country in the world from extreme poverty to a near superpower status

Before that, they first had to bring the country into extreme poverty (see "The Great Leap Forward"). This is like boasting about stopping to beat your wife.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#145

Post by foldr »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #89
foldr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Western world isn't doing a great job of advertising democracy at the moment. There's no natural progression towards free speech and democracy. It will happen if a majority of Chinese people are persuaded that it's a good idea. When they look at Trump and Brexit, I'm not so sure that they will be.

Having more control over their lives makes people intrinsically happier. As a result, even if everything else about their lives is the same, people in a democracy will be happier than people in an autocracy. The Chinese people are riding a wave of growing affluence that is smoothing over the oppressive nature of the regime, but when growth stalls things are going to look very different.

Maybe. The future isn't that easy to predict, in my opinion. It's not as if every affluent society with low growth has become a democracy.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#146

Post by EliRivers »

sharun wrote: post #138
Hexcles wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Chinese who's been living in the West for a few years, I feel obligated to speak out against this: Although I hold strong dissent against Chinese government in many aspects (in particular censorship, e.g. GFW), although I agree the traditional norm of Chinese culture and society does not commend rebellions, your argument is a slippery slope at its best. Essentially, you are exaggerating from both ends: a.…

As an Indian all I can say is don't even bother addressing western delusions about themselves. Time will be the judge on the quality of innovation a culture built on celebrity worship, instant gratification and mindless consumption can produce.

It does seem to have worked out well for them so far.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#147

Post by muninn_ »

sharun wrote: post #138
Hexcles wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Chinese who's been living in the West for a few years, I feel obligated to speak out against this: Although I hold strong dissent against Chinese government in many aspects (in particular censorship, e.g. GFW), although I agree the traditional norm of Chinese culture and society does not commend rebellions, your argument is a slippery slope at its best. Essentially, you are exaggerating from both ends: a.…

As an Indian all I can say is don't even bother addressing western delusions about themselves. Time will be the judge on the quality of innovation a culture built on celebrity worship, instant gratification and mindless consumption can produce.

Because people in China and India don't have celebrities or Facebook accounts? If you want to be critical, at least try to be fair.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#148

Post by nihonde »

sharun wrote: post #138
Hexcles wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Chinese who's been living in the West for a few years, I feel obligated to speak out against this: Although I hold strong dissent against Chinese government in many aspects (in particular censorship, e.g. GFW), although I agree the traditional norm of Chinese culture and society does not commend rebellions, your argument is a slippery slope at its best. Essentially, you are exaggerating from both ends: a.…

As an Indian all I can say is don't even bother addressing western delusions about themselves. Time will be the judge on the quality of innovation a culture built on celebrity worship, instant gratification and mindless consumption can produce.

It's like knowing that the emperor has no clothes and letting him show his bare ass until the inevitable cold of winter claims him.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#149

Post by sokoloff »

nojvek wrote: post #140
candiodari wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, there is justification for lobbying, and to some extent I would even say it is a strength of our society rather than a weakness. Lobbying informs decision makers, in a non-neutral manner, about what they regulate from the perspective of people actually subject to the regulation produced. That is a very valuable thing if you compare it to the alternative. In societies where this is absent it leads to incredi…

Like intuit lobbying for not making tax simple? Like Microsoft lobbying that US govt use their cloud? Or the big military suppliers lobbying to increase military budget? Or health insurance companies and big pharmacy lobbying hard so Americans would rather commit suicide than get proper healthcare? The system has been effectively well gamed by the big cos and politicians.

Be careful. By excluding causes you disagree with from lobbying, you may well find yourself excluding causes that you do.

Should a group be allowed to lobby to keep/make abortion legal? To increase the number or amount of social support programs? To decrease the number or amount of same? Lobby for civil rights changes that have happened over the last 60 years (and those that still need implementation)? Lobby to increase (or abolish) the minimum wage? Lobby to exclude teaching young-Earth creationism (or evolution) in schools?

Lobbying is inherently done out of self-interest (or at least perceived self-interest). You point to examples where many people don't share that same interest, but if everyone did share the same interests, there would be no need to lobby for those interests, of course...

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#150

Post by nojvek »

SexyCyborg wrote: post #92
gjkood wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, buying Bunnie's "The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen" [1] was what motivated me to make the trip. I was motivated enough to spent 7+ months learning basic Mandarin before making the trip. Not to mention the WIRED videos on Shenzhen featuring Bunnie [2]. Learning the Mandarin number system made negotiating prices a breeze. I just got the Hardware Hacker a month or so ago. Great read. [1] https://w…

I made audio files of all words and phrases in "The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen" and posted it here: https://soundcloud.com/sexycyborg/sets/shenzhen_bunnie-huang

This is awesome. Would love to visit China and learn basic mandarin.
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