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Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

economist.com

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Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#151

Post by blacksmythe »

contingencies wrote: post #80
blacksmythe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I was motivated enough to spent 7+ months learning basic Mandarin That is impressive. I have tried learning Mandarin, and found that in the same amount of time that you could be communicating (at a very basic level) in another language (even one considered 'hard' like Japanese), with Mandarin I am still trying to get tones right.

Tones are hard but far less important than people make out. If you can copy someone else's sound, you will eventually just get tones right automatically. This is how Chinese learn. There's no need to learn them formally. (Source: 16 years, native English speaker, fluent Mandarin, some capacity with multiple tonal languages + dialects)

What was your path to getting started?

(from beginner to being able to make basic conversation)

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#152

Post by r00fus »

Nokinside wrote: post #40
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…

China is not Russian style system where oligarchs close to leader step in and steal your stuff if you get rich. China resembles (British) monarchy of the old. There are laws, but they are not same for the common man and to the noble (60 million members of the communist party). If you steer away from the politics, you can be entrepreneur and become rich. Corruption exists of course, but that's like taxation. You pay y…

> Bribing can sometimes allow more freedoms than completely lawful society, because it allows more.

Bribing allows one to buy more freedom, generally at the cost of those who don't pay. It's essentially pay-to-play.

One could argue that the Chinese system has more "devolved/decentralized" pay-to-play system as opposed to the US where the Federalization experiment (states allowed to experiment with different legal interpretation) has broken down.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#153

Post by chaostheory »

Hexcles wrote: post #105
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…

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.…

Maybe I should have elaborated more on a really sensitive issue. I'm not saying that it's impossible to climb Mt Everest with an extra 50lbs on your back that isn't useful for mountaineering, but it's much harder. i.e. Innovation may happen but the rate of innovation is much lower as well as the impact

If my post is 'utter nonsense' then prove it with better arguments

These comments remind me of the time when I refused to believe that Mao was behind a famine or the Cultural Revolution after years of living in the West; it got to the point where I was arguing with a professor in class...

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#154

Post by chaostheory »

jzwinck wrote: post #125
chaostheory wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look back at old Chinese teachers or masters of particular arts or culture. The Shaolin masters and their philosophy are pretty much gone. Today those who train just end up leaving the temples and either joining private security or the military for money. Culture and society's values aren't static. I'm describing what is reality today, and not in a past century. > Simply attributing the way things are in certain ar…

Fake rice does not exist. It's a persistent rumour aided and abetted by social media in Asia ("Rice from XYZ in China is made from plastic, forward this message to everyone you love!" is the text of one message I received). You will not find anyone who actually ate any of this mythical rice. Just friends of friends of cousins. http://www.snopes.com/plastic-rice-from-china/

Fake food and fake pharmaceuticals are not rumors. They are real and well documented. It's old news. Even pets and babies are affected. It's so bad that people who can afford it import baby formula.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#155

Post by chaostheory »

Retric wrote: post #98
ajross wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least some of that may be simple circumstance. When GDP growth is at 7%, it makes more sense for the oligarchs to invest in whatever is hot than it does to steal (everyone's getting rich, why take the risk and make the enemies?). The US remains mostly uncorrupt at 2.2%. Russia's GDP growth is at 1.3% per my quick google search, which is well underneath inflation. If you're sitting at the top with a mostly asset-do…

US has high levels of corruption at the top, it's just better hidden and less accessible to most people. The secret is changing how the rules operate instead of selective enforcement.

Yes the key word is 'at the top'. For example it is way harder and much more rare to bribe a police officer or a teacher to get out of a ticket or get better grades in the West. The difference is the pervasiveness and acceptance of corruption. This matters for innovation. When everyone doesn't respect the rule of law, then stuff like investing in intellectual property gets completely thrown out the door. In China's defense, the West is going the other extreme which isn't good either

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#156

Post by chaostheory »

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…

I'm not ashamed of calling out an embarrassing but true problem with China, nor have I said that the US is perfect; in fact overall I feel that the US is probably on a steady decline if things don't change but that's another subject that most people on HN are more familiar with, so I'm not as inclined to comment on that.

I am not saying world changing innovation is impossible in China. I am saying that it's much harder to achieve compared to other places given the current conditions. Given China's size and access to capital, if the bad conditions that I describe were to improve there would be a 1000 more DJI level companies.

> If the only innovation is some stupid IOT microwave made (with heart emoji) in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley has long existed before the 90's. Its tech culture is almost as old as the PRC itself if not older. This is the level of world changing innovation that I'm talking about that I feel currently eludes China: http://www.swinnovation.co.uk/2011/05/southwest-celebrates-5...

The only place China has a huge advantage in is with biotech, since Western culture as a whole has a lot reservations with its advancement in certain taboo areas.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#157

Post by Pica_soO »

candiodari wrote: post #122
enraged_camel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>US has high levels of corruption at the top, it's just better hidden and less accessible to most people. It is hidden... in broad daylight. For example, what is lobbying, if not legalized corruption?

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…

Lobbying is a abomination, and the argumentation for it not sound at all.

If you want a additional voice for the economic class within a democracy, assign them a fixed percentage of power (25 % percent of the seats in parliament e.g.), and let them vote every day in secret within that percentage with the taxes paid to the whole state . Suddenly, lobbyism does not look that necessary at all, does it? One can design systems that channel corrosive elements into a productive whole.

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#158

Post by icelancer »

leggomylibro wrote: post #61
icelancer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is also true in Seattle Especially with Metrix:Create completely abandoning hackerspacedom for blah structure. Extremely sad.

Metrix:Create...is that the place in Cap Hill with a laser cutter, poor lighting, unsupervised live-in children, a few tool drawers, a plastic mill, and a couple of 3D printers? Yeah, that place isn't even worth walking to when you're in the neighborhood. Surprised they're still in business.

Pretty much. What made it good was the open lab space and gathering area, then people would consume other services. I know I sure did when I was bootstrapping my startup.

The psuedo live-in children thing was kinda weird now that you mention it...

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#159

Post by deepnet »

toyg wrote: post #77
chaostheory wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it extremely clear if it wasn't already obvious, I'm Chinese and I've lived both on the mainland and in South East Asia. > This is a common misconception, especially by people who have never lived in China. They just have to be careful not to publicly blame any politicians for the issue or try to organize some group activity to protest it. You've contradicted yourself pretty quickly; you haven't disputed my m…

Check your history - the internet is decentralized because it was designed to withstand a nuclear attack, nothing to do with censorship.

FIDOnet's temporary connections over POTS copper is arguably more resistant to censorship of a populace.

FIDOnet is arguably the precedent to the Internet, certainly Net culture derives more primally from the BBS scene than any IP transported culture.

Broadband connects an IP addy to a blameable citizen.

This produces a fear of sharing a connection ( and thus liability ) - this is concurrent with the demise of public WiFi.

Wynn Wagner III (Opus BBS) reports a support request from a doctor in Vietnam,[1] who states the (Vietnamese) internet is censored but the phones are not.

For similar but different reasons Tom Jennings reports FIDOnet support requests from .ru domains.[2]

The internets current distribution model seems unlikely to survive massive infrastructure attack, major connection bottlenecks are too narrow now.

Radio HAMS remain the likely communication network of first resort after any large scale devastation.

Facebook is not particuarly more than a very large BBS, (with the addition of Jeremy Bentham's panopticon[3]).

"Though actual observation may be discontinuous, fear of observation is continuous. And, this constant fear of observation produces self-censorship, which, according to Winston, is a “habit that becomes instinct”. Consequently, the panopticon’s monopoly on the body gradually becomes a monopoly on the mind." [4]

[1] https://youtu.be/_Cm6EFYktRQ?t=17m50s

[2] https://youtu.be/_Cm6EFYktRQ?t=17m24s

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

[4] https://mylittleplanet.edublogs.org/2015/07/09/utopia/

Re: Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation

#160

Post by contingencies »

blacksmythe wrote: post #151
contingencies wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tones are hard but far less important than people make out. If you can copy someone else's sound, you will eventually just get tones right automatically. This is how Chinese learn. There's no need to learn them formally. (Source: 16 years, native English speaker, fluent Mandarin, some capacity with multiple tonal languages + dialects)

What was your path to getting started? (from beginner to being able to make basic conversation)

Alcohol.
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