You compared China of today to Japan of the 80s. That is laughable garbage, my comment was to show how moronic that thought process is.
1,011 karma · joined June 21, 2012
It's a simple statement of fact with minimal subjective opinion on my part, as evidenced by the fact that you babble a gamut of excuses instead of answering my questions. Let's see:
> gunpowder, papermaking, printing, the compass, mechanical clock, iron and steel smelting, etc were major inventions at the time.
A drop in the ocean. I can list similar revolutionary inventions by just about any culture. Again, if after 5000+ years, that's all China can brag about, I wouldn't be bragging. A truly intellectual country, a country where people are free to pursue their own creativity/interests without fear of taboo or censorship can produce orders of magnitude more innovation. See: 1700s-1900s USA. How this is even arguable is beyond me.
> Where did you get this percentage from? How do you compare technological jumps and innovation of the last 100 years to the ones that happened in the Tang dynasty or even the Roman Empire?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/innovati...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_invention...
Another non-arguable point. No matter what objective metric you want to use, the 1900s-2000s will win out. Nobody debates it, not scientists, not historians, nobody. You're deluding yourself if you can't even concede that point, and are probably more brainwashed then I originally believed.
> In the West we are obsessed with China's corruption, pollution, inequality, etc. However we forget that India, is more corrupt, more polluted and more unequal than China.
India isn't bullying its neighbors, engaging in imperialism, building military bases outside its borders, nor is it the second largest economy which is continuing to grow. Your attempt at a deflection is exactly that; a deflection. A poor one at that. India doesn't pollute as much as China, it pollutes 4 times less in fact. And India is LESS corrupt than China. See here: https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results
> To paint 1.38 billion people as the same is ridiculous.
You misunderstood my point. It's the government I am painting. The government has total control. Its controls has lead to China's current culture. I'm not pointing at the people, I'm pointing at the government.
> It has only been 40 years ago since around 90% of China's population lived in poverty as peasants in the countryside. How can you expect a country to innovate and create such products when this was only 40 years ago? Give it time
What about all the other countries who have no problem with innovating despite having less than a fraction of the wealth, GDP, and people as China? S. Korea was in a WORSE position than China, but look at it now. Innovation coming out the yinyang.
I guess my overall point here is that capitalism >>> communism. Don't get me wrong, I'm not lumping socialism in with communism -- I actually prefer a social democracy. A capitalistic economy/system with extremely strong social safety nets (like universal healthcare, gauranteed income, etc). I just don't like China's absolute control it has and I believe it will eventually be their downfall. When someone has total control, they're bound to make a mistake. We are, after all, human. We're fallible creatures by nature.
With that said, the current PRC is stifling innovation, creativity and freedom. They have 1 billion people; China should be the most innovative country on the planet with all those chances for genius. Think of all the chances for Einstein, Hawking or bill gates... But what comes out of China? What product, computer program or device is China known for? Why aren't they inventing the latest iPhone, Windows OS, Mercedes Benz or Viagra? Why aren't they writing the next Game Of Thrones (can't with all the censorship going on) or bringing us the next high capacity lithium battery? Or Carbon Nanotubes? China isn't known for innovation in virtually any industry. They always rank near the bottom when it comes to innovation.
And why is that? It's because the PRC stifles their society with all the controls and limits their creativity. Everything has to be government approved, and go through miles of bureaucracy (or straight up corruption/bribes). People forget, China ranks 100th on the corruption index released by transparency.org. There are 99 countries less corrupt than China.
> Yes, some intellectuals were killed and many more subject to physical and mental abuse, but to say "all" were killed is absurd.
Worse, he killed intellectualism itself. While he may not have killed every intellectual, their society isn't set up for individuality and creativity -- things which breed intellectualism.
Copying? Reverse-engineering? Sure, what country doesn't do that? That's the baseline. China is doing something completely different and on an entirely different level. The sheer volume and amount of IP theft and espionage they engage in is jaw-dropping. Whether they're using useful idiots/nationalists to steal the space shuttle plans, or running their hacker groups targeting corporate/governmental entities 24/7/365, it's moronic to equate that to Japan in the 70s/80s.
Again, Japan wasn't known for their espionage efforts because they engaged in so little in comparison with everyone else. Hell, Russia was the bigger threat in the 80s thanks to the cold war. Japan was a complete non-factor. Japan had a growing economy that people were scared would supplant the U.S but that's where the similarities end. I'm befuddled how this nonsense is allowed to stand here on hackernews. It's reddit level garbage.
Actually, it isn't. Over the last 2-3 years, China has been soliciting reporters and writers to come out and visit some of their "ghost towns", specifically, the few they've actually put some people in. They pay for the entire trip and basically give them the emperor treatment while there. The hope is that these writers will come back and write fluff pieces like this, they want to change public perception. I know they do this first-hand because my ex-roommate is a writer for a large well-known website and received such an offer. He had to turn it down because his wife was 8 months pregnant otherwise he would have went.
Oh, and your article talks about reasons for delays in getting people in there. I think the entire article is a load of BS (it's forbes, after all). Many of those ghost cities are beginning to fall into disrepair due to how long they've remained empty. At that point, justifications and excuses become a moot point.
See here about ghost cities - "The unreal emptiness of China's Ghost cities": http://www.wired.com/2016/02/kai-caemmerer-unborn-cities/
So they have to steal IPs to be competitive. Whether it's plans for the space shuttle or the latest iPhone, China will steal literally anything with virtually no shame. Unfortunately, they don't see the side-effect of this IP theft. That is, it reduces innovation even more. When you shortcut your way to the top (or in this case, the middle), you don't have that same foundation for innovation. A huge part of innovation is the process itself -- it lays the foundation for future innovations. A framework or path. That foundation is just as, if not more important that the innovation itself. And that's what China is missing out on.
They're being left behind while IP theft is going to get harder and harder for them as countries/businesses wise-up.
If you trust any numbers China puts out publicly, I got a bridge to sell you...
China builds completely empty ghost cities to try and hold onto their GDP growth rates. Many of the older ghost cities are falling into disrepair because nobody is using them. They're becoming decrepit. Sure, there are a couple here and there where people actually moved in and use them, but the vast majority are still vacant and due to lack of maintenance, falling apart.
If that doesn't scream "hollow numbers" I don't know what does. Not to mention, China has routinely shown they will fudge the numbers without hesitation or care.
Japan's Yakuza hasn't been a thing since the U.S mafia was a thing. They have similar political influence these days; little to none. They've either all gone legit, gone into grey area markets (pachinko, porn, etc) or flat out folded. Many have actually gone white-collar, getting into internet start-ups and investing in the stock market.
See here, "Where Have Japan's Yakuza Gone?": http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/09/where-have-...
Japan has cracked down on the Yakuza governmental/political corruption so much so, that it doesn't exist anymore.
Don't get me wrong, the yakuza exists, sorta, but not in the same way they existed back in the 1970s or 80s when they ran the show. Things have changed dramatically since.
He said the only exception to this is Japan. He says they have, hands down, the best service in the world. Whether you're in a family owned shop out in a rural area or some upscale joint in Roppongi, the people there actually care if you've enjoyed your food (and will nearly be offended if you try and tip them).
Thought his opinion was a bit odd, but I think it might be valid considering his experience and the fact that he's not a naive, anti-establishment 20-something. He's fairly pragmatic and a realist.
Now before you or anyone says that Pokemon is larger, it's not. Puzzle and Dragons might not be as large in America (it's close though), but in Japan, 10% of their entire population plays the game. More people play that game, probably 3 times over, than play Pokemon Go.
Gungho's Puzzle and Dragons is one of the most profitable games of all time; it was the first mobile game to break 1 billion in revenue per year. It was released to the NA market 3 or 4 years ago and has continued to increase its player base month after month. Not only that, but they have unprecedented retention. People are still playing it 3 and 4 years later, you just don't get that with any other mobile game.
Imagine if a game like Soul Caliber or Street Fighter took away the fighting aspect of their game. You may think the main fun part of soul caliber is unlocking stronger/hidden weapons, or selecting the right match-up in street fighter, but a majority of people enjoy the combat aspect.
I continued to play after they took out tracking because I thought it was only temporary. Now I finally realize it's permanent so I haven't logged in to Pokemon Go in 7 days now.
Didn't they though? At the very beginning of the game, you had footprints you could track and use to "hunt" down nearby pokemon. They took it out because it was hurting their servers. Maps allowed similar hunting. I would say that Niantic did in fact, change its mind.
Let me ask HN a question; when you were 20, did you think you were smarter/wiser than when you were 10? How about when you were 25? Did you think you were wiser than your 15 year-old self? Those of us that hit or broke 30 think we are miles and miles smarter/wiser than our 20 year old selves in exactly the same way we were smarter/wiser than our 10 year old selves when we were 20. That increase in wisdom/life experience does not stop when you hit some magic age. Sure, you may stop growing maturity wise, but you never stop learning. At least I haven't yet, and I'm approaching 40. I look back at my 30 year old self and laugh because I was a complete moron who thought he was starting to finally figure some things out. Nope. Not even close. Still not close yet but I finally understand that you will never have anything figured out.
Millennials take that life experience for granted because they don't have enough yet to even know what it is.
When your country ranks 100th on the world's corruption index, it's not "unfairly stereotyping". It's a fact backed up scientific data and hard evidence. China IS corrupt. No amount of mental gymnastics is going to reason away all the hard evidence. I experienced it first hand, and I'm not some amateur traveler. Again, I've been traveling for the better part of 2 decades.
One of the first steps in correcting any problem is admitting you have one. China, Chinese nationalists and Chinese expats who jump to defend the country on internet message boards like this one and reddit have an impossibly hard time with that first step. It's going to keep China languishing in mediocrity for some time to come.
The point is the inconsistent enforcement of laws. And you can be assured that if someone was wealthy enough, the laws don't apply to them. I think that's what the author was talking about when he said 25 people who had tested positive for drugs were let go and not held. They were probably connected somehow, or paid a bribe. China is an incredibly corrupt country where bribes are standard practice. (Source: Bribes the Unspoken Rule in China: http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardlevick/2015/01/21/new-dat... and Corruption Index: https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results )
Moreover, their inconsistent enforcement of the law is why they have such a shitty environmental record/problem. China has laws on the books regarding pollution and the environment comparable to that of the U.S believe it or not. But they do not enforce any of them. They don't have the equivalent of the EPA who's sole job it is to go after offenders. Some inspector shows up wanting to see your carbon scrubbers on your exhaust towers? "Oh, I must have forgot your birthday, here's a wad of cash. See you next year." I witnessed something shockingly similar to that happen on a plant tour in 2013. I was dumbfounded and speechless. The plant manager thought it was a big joke.
I have nearly 2 dozen unique stamps in my passport over the last 15 years. China is the only stamp I will never have a duplicate of. I've been to some pretty bad areas and countries and China's wasn't "I fear for my safety bad", well, if I'm being honest it was a little, but I like that. It's exciting. No, it was "Holy crap this culture is complete backwards and toxic." People care very little about their fellow man/neighbor and I was disgusted by it. It seemed like everyone was trying to pull a scam on everyone else. I felt slimy watching it happen.
The U.S doesn't enforce most of its obscenity clauses. With the exception of Child pornography, etc... And if you're asking what harm does that cause, well, it harms the kid getting sexually abused. Most of the obscenity laws are related to minors. Either in the the consumption of pornography or production.
> Communism Control Act
What about it? It's irrelevant here. In fact, anything that hasn't been challenged in the supreme court is irrelevant because the supreme court is the law of the land, not local, city or state governments. Per wikipedia: "the Supreme Court of the United States has not ruled on the act's constitutionality. Despite that, no administration has tried to enforce it. The provisions of the act "outlawing" the party have not been repealed. Nevertheless, the Communist Party of the USA continues to exist in the 21st century." It's quite obvious which way they'd rule if it were to be challenged, as even lower courts in NY ruled against it in the 70s.
And I think that's the most important thing here; In germany, for example, you can't challenge their free speech law regarding the holocaust. It's set in stone. In the U.S, unless the supreme court has ruled on it, it is not set in stone. And the supreme court of the U.S has an incredibly good track record when it comes to defending our freedoms. Sure, it's laid a couple stinkers here and there, but 99% of the time, its ruling is favorable towards those who value freedom, liberty and independence. It's kept us from fascism and helped keep us from turning into a theocracy.
You feel those countries are strong enough, politically and even militarily to resist corruptive influences? England might be, maybe Canada since the U.S is next door, but Switzerland, Brazil and S. Africa? No way. People forget; the U.S is incredibly powerful. It has the strongest military in the world. Nobody has attempted to "mess with the internet" because it meant messing with the U.S. Take it away from the U.S and it immediately becomes more vulnerable by default.
Most other countries have similar limits on free speech. The U.S limits aren't of political origins, but actual physical safety. And I think that makes a world of difference.
At the end of the day, someone(s) will be in a position to "pull the plug" or just alter the machine in some way. I think your view is a bit naive. The machines have to be physically located somewhere and they're going to be open to vulnerabilities because someone needs to perform routine maintenance. There will also need to be a group or organization to oversee the day-to-day operations and handle things a machine can't. It's yet another avenue for corruption. Your ideal "control" simply doesn't exist and cannot exist. Someone has to be in control.
It reminds me a bit of the whole superpower conundrum. There are those who want the U.S to step down as the world's police. The question then becomes, who would replace them? This question confuses those people because they do not grasp the whole "nature abhors a vacuum" aspect of the problem. They also ignore the human element, which is that people are greedy, corrupt and power driven. Especially leaders of countries. These people want the U.S gone but won't connect the dots further to see what would happen, and what life would be like without them acting as the world's sole superpower. What would happen is another entity would step in and fill the role. That is guaranteed. It's a certainty because nations have been fighting wars for that mantle since before WW1. And I'm sorry, but I prefer the U.S to China or Russia. They're simply the lesser of the evils. And not by a small amount.
To deny it is to deny the fact that Russia and China would stand aside and not make an attempt to grab that power. Do you honestly believe China or Russia won't leap at the chance? Let's say you honestly do. Ok, so then the question becomes, "What about 25 years from now after Putin has died and there's a completely new administration at the helm. Can you say that they won't grab for power?" It doesn't require people not leaping to grab that power today, but for all time in the future. And believing that someone won't eventually grab for it is beyond naive because it's denying human nature.
As another user points out, the limits placed on our free speech are all directly related to actions that can harm other people. Like yelling fire in a crowded theater. That can/will result in a stampede which will hurt or even kill other people. It isn't limiting what you're saying because it's some dislike political opinion, it's limiting what you can say so you don't kill people. There's a huge, huge difference.
I think that's why reddit grew so large, so quick. It does what forums do (provides similar discussions), except better.
One of the biggest differences between slashdot, and a site like reddit is simply size. Reddit is now the 8th or 9th largest website in the U.S according to Alexa, it's getting as big as Twitter, and is larger than Netflix. Slashdot at it's peak popularity wasn't even a drop in that ocean of traffic & pageviews. When you get that big, your problems are of a different sort, requiring different solutions. Hell, I think reddit has single subreddits that are bigger than Slashdot was at its peak.
This is important because it's easy to have "high quality" when your traffic is low. It's easy to moderate and easy to keep people on-topic. I speak from experience -- I moderate one or more default subreddits on reddit, as well as smaller subreddits, and the smaller ones are much easier to handle. They're virtually on autopilot with minimal moderation required. The larger ones on the other hand... It's like a non-stop war.
Wormholes are more than likely impossible because to hold one open for travel, you would need some sort of negative matter/negative energy. That isn't forbidden by physics, but it's unlikely that it exists since we haven't seen any. Without negative energy/matter to hold a wormhole open, even if you could create one, just a single proton or electron would cause the wormhole to become unstable and collapse in on itself, and doing so faster than the proton could travel through.
Pure heroin is quite harmless by itself (provided you didn't take too much). People can live a full and complete life totally addicted heroin with probably less risks than even pot. The problem of heroin is never direct -- it kills/harms via overdose (misjudging a dose, or doing the same amount after your tolerance drops) or the most common "overdose" we hear of is when Fentanyl gets cut into your heroin (Yes, Fentanyl is way more potent than heroin and hospitals prescribe it all the time). The other ways people die is by mixing heroin with other stuff, namely xanax. You virtually never hear of someone just dying from heroin alone. And have you ever heard of someone getting lung cancer from their heroin?
The drug itself isn't like crack or meth where doing it for an extended period of time can permanently turn you crazy (Psychosis). Or kill you from exhaustion/sleep deprivation. People can take it for decades and show no obvious signs (functioning addict). The drug is always labeled "super hard" by the same people carrying around Percocets in their purse. But that's OK because they got it from a dentist/doctor. Percocet is oxycontin mixed with Acetaminophen and Oxy is almost as strong as heroin per mg. Demonizing heroin while you're taking vicodin or oxy is so hypocritical that there should be a new word invented for it, something that means "more than hypocritical".
Heroin's problem lies in that it really doesn't have a great medical application. What it does, other drugs now do literally (not figuratively) 1000x better. But heroin is incredibly cheap to make (relatively speaking) and provides a unique rush when taken IV. There are other drugs (like Demerol) which provide that same rush but hospitals instead inject it into your fatty tissue (ass) so it's slow to release (so you can't get the rush). So why don't drug kingpins make that stuff instead? Because those pharmaceuticals (like Vicodin, Demerol, and Fentanyl) require complex processes (many steps) and expensive labs to make well, and it's way more expensive than Heroin. Not just cost-wise but also time-wise. When you're out in some back-country in Afghanistan mixing your freshly dried Opium in a vat of Acetone to dissolve it, you're on the clock to get in and out with the product or the boss is going to be pissed.
I realize I'm starting to rant but that's because I myself always though "drugs are bad!" then I tried pot. Realized it wasn't that bad, safer than alcohol. That same "Well that's not so bad" happened to me with heroin. After snorting it I was actually disappointed and thought I was ripped off. I didn't realize it wasn't stronger than Oxycontin. I thought it was orders of magnitude stronger than these harmless little pills my dentist gave me when I got my wisdom teeth pulled. I was wrong. And that lack of understanding is what almost threw me down the rabbit hole.