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America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

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Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#291

Post by russli1993 »

decimalenough wrote: post #86
imtringued wrote: post #6

China is known to scale out in the low end market without having a strategy to go upmarket. Reading this article I honestly got the opposite impression. China is hopelessly behind Japan in both high end machine tools and robotics.

I take it you haven't seen any Chinese cars lately. Particularly in the EV space they're demolishing the competition in price and quality, and a huge part of that is thanks to automation with the robots described here. Check out eg the Xpeng G6, which delivers an Audi ride but undercuts the Tesla Model Y on price: https://www.xpeng.com/g6

And the 2025 xpeng g6 is so much better than previous model, 5C charging battery, better ride, even better energy efficiency, better looks, better interior design, 30% of car parts are updated. And they delivered this update 2 years after the first model, when normally it takes other companies 5 years for an upgrade of this size. They have positive margins on a 17-20k RMB, 270 miles+, 350KW charging, FSD like autonomous driving EV, even though they have to price it this low due to ultra-competitive market. They can't do this without Chinese supply chain. Speed of iterations, innovations, fast time to market, efficiency is this all about.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#292

Post by csomar »

yannis wrote: post #5

How I hate articles like this, painting everything as "existential" threat. Feeding the paranoia that has grubbed the US. Everything is viewed as a threat.

The sub-title of the article is completely unhinged:

> China's Dominance Playbook, General Purpose Robotics Is The Holy Grail, Robotic Systems Breakdown, Supply Chain Hardships, The West Is Positioned Backward And Covering Their Eyes, China's Clear Path to Full Scale Automation, Call For Action

I closed the page quickly despite the subject matter is something I am interested in. Also the AI generated images that have no raison d'etre of being there.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#293

Post by intended »

roenxi wrote: post #222
yibg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this is a consequence of the political systems of China vs the US. China tends to think and plan longer term, where as the US seems much more transactional; what will win me the next election / midterm etc.

> China tends to think and plan longer term... Pull the other one, we saw how they went in the 20th century. Large centralised governments have never managed to systemically outplan democracies. The issue is US culture has been giving priority to anti-industrialists. As a result they aren't the leader of the industrial world. This has been planned for a long time and a bunch of people were celebrating it the entire w…

> The issue is US culture has been giving priority to anti-industrialists

> Huge chunks of what China did are illegal. Running a successful industrial economy seems to violate a host of western employment & environmental laws as well as many regulations.

Come on. For the west to combat the “anti-industrialists”, you would have to suppress the choices and decisions of normal people, who don’t want to see others die for the sake of factory owners.

Just outright say that democracy doesn’t work, and that Chinese style autocracy does.

Get to the actual heart of the debate. Trying to replicate the Chinese economic model, while dodging the moral and philosophical choices that supports it, results only in deception and prevarication.

Anti-industrialists is arguing via classification and nouns; it just grants a short term win which fails to live up to its pomp when it hits an obvious counter point.

Seize the major question, have people accept and acknowledge the tradeoffs in all their misery and glory.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#294

Post by csomar »

chii wrote: post #270
Animats wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. China's five year plans are translated into English and are quite readable. Here's the 14th Five Year Plan, 2021-2025.[1] Wikipedia has a summary.[2] This is China's business plan. The top level is expanded into more detailed plans at lower levels. For example, here's the plan for Fujian province.[3] Further down, here's the transition plan for IPv6.[4] You can go back and read previous five-year plans. The succ…

What makes these plans go so successfully, when the soviets have historically not been able to make such plans successful (despite being richer and more powerful at the time)? This video about Argentina's economic failures mentions why free market capitalism failed in argentina, and why a "similar" opening up in china didnt fail (but not so much detail that another country could follow it and replicate the success).…

Free market capitalism and soviet state socialism or communism is just editorial masturbation. Regardless of the economic system, the everyday tasks are done by regular humans. The system can organize them but if they don't want to do the work, the work won't get done. There is no magic system for that.

Over a decade ago, I worked in a public hospital with a really tight budget. The Pneumology section was clean, orderly and provided service to patients as they came with no waiting time. The service in the building nearby could well fit in the definitions of crimes against humanity. Same hospital, same financing, same system, just a different boss.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#295

Post by ActorNightly »

chii wrote: post #271
ActorNightly wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not gonna happen. On the 1% chance we have a fair election next time around and Dems get elected, they will be too busy cleaning up the Republican mess, and nobody will notice. Just like what happened under Biden. China ironically can end US by simply providing easy immigration for qualified tech workers.

> simply providing easy immigration for qualified tech workers. I dont believe those tech workers would wish to move, unless the political system in china changes to one that is more amenable to democracy; not to mention that having high salaries in the US, it will be impossible to achieve similar levels in china after migration (even if the PPP remains the same!).

I mean, you are going to see an exodus of tech workers regardless as US economy withers up and other countries (probably in EU) pick up the slack.

China won't even have to have high salaries, all they would need to do is basically set up immigrant neighborhoods that have all the familiar things that US people like, and through the nature of just being around people of similar status, whatever the salary everyone gets paid gets normalized - there isn't anything you would be able to buy to "flex" on your peers, and everyone would be in the same boat.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#296

Post by chii »

bobthepanda wrote: post #289
woooooo wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The early industrialization 5 year plans actually worked better for the Soviets than the Chinese, and I think it comes down to execution? Stalin being the more numerate psychopath? The last 30-40 years it's different, the Chinese have navigated market liberalization and transitioned from copying to leading in a number of areas, while still having a central planning aspect. It could be that some amount of central plan…

China to a large extent is following the Japanese and South Korean playbooks, to the point where the Chinese financial system runs under the concept of window guidance invented by the Japanese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_guidance The question is whether or not this blows up in China’s face when they stop accurately picking winners. We are already seeing the property bubble collapse in a manner similar to Ja…

> the question is whether or not this blows up in China’s face

Japan didn't "blow up" due to picking wrong. The US and allies negotiated the value of the yen up (the plaza accords) when the trade imbalance started to rack up against the US. This popped japan's bubble, which ultimately caused their lost decade.

China, on the other hand, would be unlikely to sign any sort of similar treaty with the US. Their property bubble collapsed, but i dont think to the same extend as the japanese one. Not to mention that it was triggered by gov't, so it popped earlier than japan's one in the lifecycle - therefore, it must be the case that it's less bad.

https://old.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/rvid0x/why_did_japan... has some details in the comments.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#297

Post by jongjong »

The problem is that, at some point, the west decided to stop rewarding excellence in tech and started rewarding people for their social networking abilities. Now we have a lot of people who are good at talking and few people who are good at tech who have money to invest in robotics. Had I been even moderately rich, I'm certain I would have been investing in robotics right now. But instead, I'm working on document management software for government... While extroverts who got rich from Facebook IPO get to build Instagram for dogs...

I think the decline coincided with the crackdown against cryptocurrency. Had it been allowed to develop normally instead of being suppressed and corrupted (by governments), things might have looked very different.

Now I don't believe the system has any integrity so it makes no sense for me be productive. I actively look for the highest paid, most unproductive jobs I can find... Fortunately, there are MANY of those available in our system.

I've made it my life's mission to exploit the system's flaws, while simultaneously complaining about them. Helping the bad guys self-destruct while earning a living is about as rewarding as it can be for me.

A lot of other people my age are in the same boat, some knowingly, most unknowingly. I hope situation will change soon. There are some signs but it's going to take some big changes.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#298

Post by roenxi »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #290
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you presume that? CCP has become far more autocratic, and the goals of autocracy: 1) maintain the autocracy 2) have a strong police to preserve the autocracy from rebellion 3) have a good enough economy to defend the autocracy from external threats ... ten more "for the autocracy" points ... improving the country for the people Also, Zeihan overselling or not, China is facing an unprecedented demographic de…

I'm a strong China hawk. But Beijing currently has an opportunity to craft a global alliance that balances the U.S. in a way that America has historically excelled at. Put another way, the idiots who voted this man in have turned America into an Axis power.

That is normal; the world worked that way prior to 1990.

The real change is that the US economy isn't obviously superior to the next however many economies combined. Consequently the US is losing the ability to impose its opinions on others as fundamental truths. It looks like everyone in the West will have to re-learn negotiation and it'll probably be a rocky process.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#299

Post by Sabinus »

HFguy wrote: post #249
UltraSane wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The account was created 3 months ago. Might be actual person. But also might be troll or bot. I do know real people that hold views like this, but they also apply similar lens to other large countries with global footprint. So at least a consistent approach.

I agree. With how much time we collectively spend online, money spent on online propaganda would be extremely high value for money for belligerent governments.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#300

Post by watwut »

chrisco255 wrote: post #182
watwut wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America seems to be trying to make war, unexpectedly with Canada. Also, the only coalition America seems to be interested in is the one with Russia. Also, multiple foreign countries like Russia are trying to make war right now.

America is nowhere close to going to war with Canada. Tariffs are import taxes, not weapons of war. Good lord.

America repeatedly threatened annexation and wanted water. It demands registration of goverment citizens. They call premier governor. Tariffs seem ti be preparatory steps meant to weaken Canada as a preparation for further attacks.

In general, conservatives are nowhere near to do the awful thing they say loudly they will do - and then, each time, they do that exact thing. Again again and again. These are plans and ignoring them is a self delution.

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