I really hope one day we learn that FSJ = SJ.
Learning NP = P is more likely.
China and "our standard of living"
21–30 of 97 posts
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#22Of course we do not care man. It is not like the Chinese gave us the wealth. We invented stuff, we traded with other countries and shared our knowledge, they decided to close up, to live in some island, and now that they are opening up they will have to start at the bottom no.
You may ask whether the birth lottery is any fare and I do not know about that one really, it is, it goes really deep and it effects everyone, but being a practicalist, although this one event may be unfortunate, until the Chinese government opens up fully and adopts our values, there is not much we can do really. So stop crying and start working on making those super cool macs cheaper :)
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#23This exposes the truism that there is always a standard of living continuum in society. In a different era there were Kings and Lords and Peasants. Now we have Europeans and Americans and Chinese and Indians. If globalization can succeed at improving the standard of living for those at the bottom of the continuum, it will have to be at the expense of those at the top. It's a zero sum game.
How is it zero sum? I'd make you a bet that right now, more people are living happily than ever did in the past. The bar constantly rises.
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#24Wow, spot on! Likely not news to anyone here, but I really wonder how many people out there are smart enough to realize how amazingly cheap the stuff we buy is, and really think of where it comes from.
Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem watered down and made of the weakest thinnest plastic that the masses will put up with. This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.
Are you saying that products like the iphone are crap? Sure, you can buy the cheapest thing possible from walmart and save money, and sure, it'll break faster than a a higher-quality product. Its called choice. Even the high quality stuff coming out of china, like an iphone, is made much more inexpensively than we could make them in the states.
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#25This applies to the food industry as well, like how we get our meat. We'd be better off if the things we buy were responsibly produced and priced. It's hard to know what we can do about it besides voting with our dollars and educating others.
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't really, tho'. For product X you could spend $y every year on Chinese-made because it's broken or obsolete, or $10y just once on German qualitat that will last for the rest of your life. We could all own fewer but better things, all made by workers who were decently paid and it would be cheaper . The difficult question is, why do so few people even want that?
No, you couldn't. You spend $10y on a computer or a cellphone made in Germany, it'll still be completely useless within a decade or two. Tech is different .
But that isn't true. 10 years ago were you having less fun on the original Playstation than you have on a PS3 now? What about 10 years before that on the Sega Megadrive?
The upgrade treadmill is just fashion and marketing.
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#27Wow, spot on! Likely not news to anyone here, but I really wonder how many people out there are smart enough to realize how amazingly cheap the stuff we buy is, and really think of where it comes from.
Well not quite spot on. It did mention that these people were willing to do what ever to get away from the hellish alternative they were born into. But if you blinked you missed it, you missed the most important point:
People are doing this voluntarily. Rumors of forced labor are greatly exaggerated. Perhaps somewhere in Burma but in China and India and other places, people do this hard work because the alternative is harder. This is how you work your way up from a very low starting point.
England wasn't always a workers' paradise either. Wages in China will rise.
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem watered down and made of the weakest thinnest plastic that the masses will put up with. This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.
Are you saying that products like the iphone are crap? Sure, you can buy the cheapest thing possible from walmart and save money, and sure, it'll break faster than a a higher-quality product. Its called choice. Even the high quality stuff coming out of china, like an iphone, is made much more inexpensively than we could make them in the states.
[deleted]
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem watered down and made of the weakest thinnest plastic that the masses will put up with. This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.
Are you saying that products like the iphone are crap? Sure, you can buy the cheapest thing possible from walmart and save money, and sure, it'll break faster than a a higher-quality product. Its called choice. Even the high quality stuff coming out of china, like an iphone, is made much more inexpensively than we could make them in the states.
Actually, I must agree with the parent. While the iphone is really great and stuff, you can bet that everything that's not absolutely necessary and even a bit more has been engineered out of it, in the name of cost-efficiency. Otherwise it would be very expensive and unsuitable for mass production. Because it is a product of mass production, the iphone is definitely not a unique, luxury item even though it's very well designed and marketed as a high-endish phone. The average middle class consumer doesn't really have a lot of choice in this matter, there are differences in quality and price but middle class people can't really afford any product that hasn't been engineered for mass production.
Re: China and "our standard of living"
#30Of course we do not care man. It is not like the Chinese gave us the wealth. We invented stuff, we traded with other countries and shared our knowledge, they decided to close up, to live in some island, and now that they are opening up they will have to start at the bottom no. You may ask whether the birth lottery is any fare and I do not know about that one really, it is, it goes really deep and it effects everyone,…
It's obvious the birth lottery isn't "fair". It's just as obvious that fairness is irrelevant.