dirtyid

AI TTS still uncanny valley enough to distract. I prefer even more soulless traditional TTS which sounds "neutral" after habituation. To the point where my brain can start layering on characterization as if I was reading. AI TTS feels like listening to to medicore voice actor, where it's hard to overwrite their creative choices, so just left disapointmented and annoyed.

As for allied ports and rear support, US basing that enables operations against PRC in theatre, which basically US force structure requires at this point (hence all the wargames trying to convince JP to distributed basing), is IMO even more forgone. Various US partners signalled they wouldn't directly contribute to TW war but will provide rear support, but that's enabling US war regardless, so very likely they're going to get glassed. PRC systems confrontation and system destruction warfare is structured around destroying the softer/easier targets like support ships, tankers, ISR infra etc. Hitting them is doctrine. And ultimately, it's in PRC's long term interest to destroy as much US forward presence as possible, because that's historically how outside hegemons get kicked out, through sufficient force to demonstrate their strategic posture is no longer viable. And US having decades of build up abroad has more dependencies and more to lose if their security architecture becomes unsustainable.

As for unsupported carrier operations, IMO if you consider the sorties numbers their effects are close to negligible. Boat might be nuke powered, but there's only enough supplies (fuel/ordnance) for low hundreds of sorties, 50%+ of which will be buddy tanking / support due to how far PRC A2D2 has pushed standoff range, which leaves a even lower 100s of actual hitters. Assuming no interceptions. Barely enough to dent the 100,000s of targets from mainland. It's not that US CVGs are weak, just PRC operates on another scale, more targets, more concrete, more counter measures etc. Without constant replenishment carriers become single deployment assets with limited use and cost:vunerablity ratio not in their favour. And even then nuke propulsion need to return to dock, where they can be promptly hit with global strike.

The thesis of article is retarded because the opposite is happening considering PLA modernization under Xi dramatically reduced military personel (~10%) to trade quantity for quality needed to man modern platforms. Is there going to be more surplus technical talent flowing into PLA due to youth unemployment? Yes, which is good considering one of the primary impediments to PLA modernization since 2010s has been LACK of technical talent. Finally redirecting relevant tertiary overproduction that would prefer to go to civilian industry to PLA is good side effect. But we're talking about growing active personel from current 2M to 2.3-2.5M of 00s-10s under most aggressive expansion, not 3-4M of 80s-90s. Even absorbing 2M youth barely dents at the youth unemployment problem, absorbing a few 100k is rounding error. Meanwhile defense as % of GDP Is still ~2%, security states where defense drives substantial portion of economy is 10%+.

As you said the only human capita redirection that makes sense is DURING WAR, but it would mostly be drafting a few million youths who don't want to work in factories to finally crank out 100,000s of drones, missiles etc, while a few 100,000s drone operators and technicians bomb remote targets in their mainland bases. The primary media diet are going to be missile/gun cams of autonomous weapons blowing up TW wedding parties or Japanese LNG terminals interspliced with footage of PLA youths in their air conditioned drone booths. Ultimately, there simply isn't enough platforms to man/crew during modern war to meaningfully attrite PRC youth/population.

In terms of attrition, at PRC scale, even with shit TFR generate way too many bodies to burn for modern war, hence arguments that demographic crisis would eat away at PRC war making potential even more retarded. And most of the wars on PRC horizon are air/naval, requires very technical personel that are expensive to train. Which is why PLA modernization had dramatic personal reductions over the last few years. This piece is extra stupid because is it assumes increase in defense spending, which btw is still modest ~2%, is correlated to increased personel, when most of the money is going into hardware/acquisitions. A country with actual serious security delimma would spend much higher % of GDP on defense. PRC in the 80s was spending over 6%, or US/USSR during cold war was 6-10% for US, and 10-20% for USSR.

IMO US pretty much understands this as well, for as much reporting there is on dysfunction of navy and urgent need to fix, there hasn't been much actions instead we see doubling down on distributed land based fires and increasing aviation standoff range, and ultimately long range bombers strait from CONUS to reduce basing dependencies abroad.

The drama over King Yu / Xia historicitiy is whether his mythos / achievements was game of telephone. Whether he exists at all and hence whether Xia should be considered as China's first dynasty where ruler successfully tamed water. Whether that comes later is matter of debate, but I don't think anyone has seriously suggested a large culture (i.e. millions of people over vast territory) can self organize huge, sprawling capita projects without centralized authority.

Pretty much all negative coverage of JF17 (joint PRC+PK manufacturing but so far SOLD by PK) are sourced from Indian tabloid rags with no credibility. Myanmar airforce has 100+ PRC airframes, variety of models in the last 30 years with little issue. Pretty much the only useful piece of info so far is Myanmar doesn't have adequate experience operating tech in 4th gen fighters, most of their fleet is 3rd gen. IIRC Myanmar got the jets before they even got simluators, and then bought 4th gen trainers (JL9) from PRC.

>Thailand

Yuan subs aren't operational because PRC couldn't acquire original specified German engines after EU sanctions. There's a period where Thai Navy was deciding whether to accept PRC engines, which they did. Some analysts implied if Thai did not accept PRC engines it would imply they were unsuitable, even more retarded media then spung that as technical issues with PRC engines. Both complete misinformation narratives since there's no basis for evaluating those unintegrated PRC engines at all.

>aircraft carriers

Training carriers based off RU design that analysis suggest PLAN has more or less maximized sortie potential vs when USSR was running carrier ops on similar flight deck. Late 2022 USNI analysis on PLAN carrier ops is they're basically reached "true" blue water deployment, i.e. a few hundred nms near Guam, 1000nm+ from mainland, with no divert airfrields or aerial refueling as backup. Which is about as far as PRC none nuke carriers need to deploy given strategic considerations. Caveate being conservative sorties and pretty clean (light) load outs to compensate for lack of divertion and ski jump. The struggle with PLAN carriers is they won't have catapults and capabilites that brings until 003 and training was hectic because they only had 1-2 carriers training 3-4 crew rotations, somewhat alleviated by converted cruise/barrack ships. TLDR is I would not characterize as overall carrier ops capabilities as struggling as limited by hardware, which TBH is expected since carriers does not seem particularly high priority outside of prestige - given PRC ship building capacity, they could have rushed 10 carriers like US did Forrestal class. Basically most US analysis of various PRC military modernization is they're lacking and focusing on XYZ, but should get there in a few years. Occasionally throw in the word struggle because they watch CCTV7 where miltiary propaganda talks about how hard they work. A few years later, new analysis that they got there (i.e. asw, jointness), something something evolving, modernizing at astonishing rate, but here's the new struggle. Rinse and repeat. Combined with customary but no real combat experience (which no one has in modern peer warfare). But the underlying pattern if you look at meat of improvements year by year is PLA modernizing fast.

IIRC Tsinghua SSMB ring design has circumference of ~140m for kW EUV light source. My understanding, at least how SSMB was/is being sold is: storage ring technology mature, price per tool / light source will be relative low.

E: tsinghua ssmb update from last year

https://conference-indico.kek.jp/event/160/contributions/287...

Decades ago US basically wholey dominated semi and it was strategic lapse in judgement that industry has globalized so much, away from US control, something they're looking to regain and technically could if semi wasn't so entangled into US east asian security architecture. Current western semi industry is basically US+JP+DE+NL+SKR+TW. Aggregated effort of ~700M, where US is half that. And in US it's not well compensated job where industry had/has first dibs on talent. Nor extremely high industrial policy except in East Asia, but in general it hasn't gotten strategic priority until recently.

At the end of the day, PRC large enough that talent generation can match/exceed in terms of quantity. In terms of talent quality, TW, SKR, JP all have rote education which was still enough for them excel in different aspects of the supply chain, from equipment, to production, to inputs. Meanwhile even Chaebol and Zaibatsu culture was enough to produce absolute electronic giants. How much of Steve Job's vision was built by East Asian talent? Statistics alone will create outlier Steve Jobs, the hard part is building large pool of technical talent. Looking at current trends PRC pretty much only actor on trend to address semi/IC industry shortage by end of decade (most countries above projected to 100-300k shortage). PRC currently pumping about 30k IC graduates a year, still 200k short, 520k/720k out of # of IC talent 2018 white paper identified PRC would need for complete indigenous supply chain. Semi is a hard and large sector (like aviation), but (IMO) "do it yourself" is likely viable with talent base and proper industrial/talent policy. For reference US aerospace has about 700k jobs. They're currently the only major "do it yourself" aerospace power - they have the bodies to do it all essentially indigenously, vs next competitor, EU who has to work as a bloc.

Lots of decent mid level sheet steel and plastic furniture options now. Not to everyones taste, but they'll last decades + multiple moves.

Woods probably more sustainable, but access to nice / old quality wood isn't.

When DoD say tiny, I'm guessing they mean fighter sized loyal wingman tier drones, with 1500km combat radius. Attritable platforms that cost 10s of millions where savings is mostly pilot over head. And operating those at scale involved is still very dependant on complex logistics vs delivering platters of DJI to grunts given 10 hours of training. Having enough shelters, hardened, distributed... base access, and basically entire support and logistics chain because you're still going to need a fuck load of mechanics to support order of magnitude more vehicles. Maybe cheaper per whatever unit of KPI they're measuring but still going to be remarkably expensive program.

I don't think the idea is bad, but I think as solution for IndoPac (read China), this is a concept where PRC already and will continue to easily outscales US while having more flexible distributed basing options vs US access to partners in region. Really this is US following, and plugging gap while they figure out NGAD, B21, or other longer / stand off range delivery options AT SCALE over next decades as they net lose ability to bring fires into IndoPac/PRC near shore because it becomes increasingly unsurvivable for US carriers and air assets in region. Carriers because PRC ISR and missiles increasing/improving incredibly fast - much more than US can scale defense which is fundmentally limited by physical dimensions of ship hulls. Air because stealth workhorse F35 was designed for Europe, doesn't have range for IndoPac without vunerable tanking. Queue solution for distributed risks / soaking up missiles while maintaining capability. Only problem is PRC industrial bases can spam more missiles and more drones and better positioned to weather the attrition game.

It's not enough to make economics of having kids easier, you have to make not having kids harder.

PRC export value went from 2.5T in 2019 to 3.4T in 2021, to 3.6T in 2022. It increased more during 3-4 years of covid than previous 10 years combined (1.4T in 2009). Primarily because 0covid left most of PRC undisrupted, most of the time, which setup PRC to export to most of world, especially global south. Currently everyone's exports down due to global slow down, but PRC exports down from stupid high peak. It's more surprising how much of exports PRC is holding onto due to artificial conditions caused by covid. Reverting back to 2021 (3.4T) would be a 5 steps forward 1 step back situation vs, reverting back to 2020 (2.6T) which would be status quo.

Increasing youth unemployment last few years also has little NET growth impact because PRC is graduating MORE every year, 12m this year vs 8m from ~5 years AGO. What's happening is is MORE youth in absolute numbers are entering work force, even if relative youth unemployment is higher. And net unemployment is 5%, meanning youth get work eventually. They just have flexbility of chilling at home to find job they want, or fuck around and realize they have to do something - side affect of PRC having high youth live at home + high house hold savings rate + low student debt.

Industry has been closing in coastal due to land price for years. Low value/light has been moving abroad due to labour price. New (high value) industries are being shifted to interior industrial clusters. PRC export value grew by 1T in the last 4 years, more than the previous 10 combined. West might be trying to decouple, but PRC has been coupling more than ever, especially with global south.

Truth of the matter is PRC has just undergone the most intensive phase in globalization in human history, and exports down only due to weak global economy, but it's still a 5 steps forward, 1 step back situation. The lie is motivated useful idiots who pick a few indicators to rationalize dampening growth to 4-5%, aka nearly HALF, is still not enough, and real growth must be near 0 because PRC is collapsing due to exogenous crisis when in reality PRC proactively triggered 3RL and other policies in a MANAGED unwinding because they could do so and still have room to hit 4-5% growth.

There's about 100 attacks attributed to Uyghur seperatists over the years. This is 101 information. One would need to be mentally challenged to think PRC false flag 100s of terrorists attacks killing 1000s in their own territory over past 20 years as setup for XJ securitization. The reality is XJ is a poor, frontier region with restive minority that got radicalized during era where PRC had poor infra to XJ and couldn't assert control over population. 100 attacks (that western DB can indentify) doesn't happen without support base, either in sympathies/affiliation/funding. So entire region/minority gets the boot, punish those who needs to be punished, reeducate those who needs to be reeducated, even if behaviourly remotely adjacent to seperatism, and a few years later, zero terrorism attacks.

False positive excessive? Yes. Even in 2019/20 PRC estimates 5 years of strike hard caught ~13k terrorists in ~1500 organized gangs, ~30k people for ~5000 illegal religious activities. All of which is to say, even if you take CCP official figures, magnitude more people were wrapped up in securitization than the 40k attributed to terrorism problem. But that overbroad dragnet ensures you don't replace 1 terrorist with 2, and targetting 0.1% of the population to prevent future attacks is basically no shit correct political decision for domestic serenity. Which makse the entire genocide narrative even more retarded. PRC could trivially actually genocide, as in destroy, 100% of Ugyhurs in a few weekends with pocket change, but chose laborious/expensive reeducation system and securitization architecture that will need to be put in place for decades precisely because it doesn't want to genocide. If only because it would look bad on Xi's hagiography to reduce 55 minorities to 54.

The fact is, if Xi was Obama, he'd be collecting his Nobel Peace prize by now.

Appreciate the aesthetics vs rust belt and cottage country.

Frankly, (IMO) there isn't. You can mitigate via materials, or use regional venacular only so much. And we shouldn't even try too hard with design outside of suburban density. Can't control what gets built next in dense enviroments that will interact with urban fabric to fuck up passive designs. So many sustainable projects have ended up dramatically underperforming / duds, and they've already benefit from kids of attention/engineering 99% of buildings won't. There are some ways to standardize cost efficient, sensible designs. But better off figuring out how to get power cheaper to fuel those ACs.

(Urban) Youth unemployment is high because PRC talent pipeline is finally firing on all cyclinders and graduating largest cohort of 12m this year. Even 50% youth unemployment that's 6m new skilled entering workforce, trending towards 50-100m of just new STEM by 2050, when US set to expand by 40m population total. Broad unemployment 5%, meaning youth get jobs eventually. Is it a challenge to make so many skilled jobs? Yes, but reality is even reaping 50% is the greatest skilled demographic divident in recorded history concentrated in one country. And this is demographically baked in based on previous 22-30 years of birth (cohorts for future tertiary).

Geoeconomically, vs west who has talent shortage, youth unemployment curse / challenge is also blessing of not knowing what to do with excess talent, as PRC moves from 25% skilled workforce of developing country to 50/60/70+ of advanced economies by hammering tertiary according to plan. For reference current PRC has like (napkin math) ~25M STEM (many fresh) vs US ~35M. If she's @50% youth unemployment that's 4-5 years before eclipsing US in STEM pool. That's a recipe for an economy doing fine, where by fine is enough talent to compete with US/west in every sector. Hence even dogshit baseline of PRC 50% unemployment rate, as in permenant, 50% of PRC youths becomes NEET and not eventually finding jobs like current stats reflect (and basic common sense), PRC is still US/west bloc peer competitor territory. Potential of PRC doing dogshit is inherently very high due to scale, let alone fine.

Exports dropping because EVERYONE's exports dropping due to global contraction. Meanwhile PRC increased exports by 1T in last 4 years, more than the previous 10. It's categorically the largest expansion in globalism, also in recorded history. And currently holding on to much of it - her exports is dropping less than others who are MORE export depedentant as % of GDP (20% vs export dependent being 40-90%). This is a 5 steps forward 1 step back drop, not 1 step forward 2 steps back of media framing.

FDI has been neglible part of PRC domestic investment as % of GDP in PRC is ~40% vs EU/US/OECD 20-30%. Losing FDI is relative to PRC domestic investment, a paper cut. FDI value is so far = foreign investors have more experienced / risk taking / guidance. But that's a skill indigenous investors need to develop eventually, especially now that it's (again deliberately) unwinding RE so people stop sinking so much savings into housing to direct investment in more productive sectors.

TLDR is western reporting over inflates the challenges PRC faces. Some are difficult, maybe even serious. Certainly not "disaster"ous. But many signs people think are serious are not really. IMO nothing as challenging as 90s SEO / iron rice bowl reforms. Trends point to PRC being fine. And PRC being fine, relative to rest/west, is PRC comprehensive power growing greatly.