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You're totally right about the hokey notion of imagination. Just because an idiot can conceive of something mildly unique on a local level doesn't mean he has t
by kolbe 9y ago
You're totally right about the hokey notion of imagination. Just because an idiot can conceive of something mildly unique on a local level doesn't mean he has the prowess to be truly innovative. I'm talking about diversity within the >99.99th percentile. In all fairness, though, where you (and China) are totally dismissive of the kid who grew up in a nudist colony and self-studied his way into having some solid intellectual skills at age 18, the US welcomes that person as a potential source of innovation and puts resources into cultivating him, even if he only got a 1450 on the SAT and his parents don't have any important political connections.
In this same vein, what happens with the people who have no intellectual influence is of little consequence to this discussion. So, yeah, banning Facebook would help the 50th percentile be more intelligent. So would a lot of things. And in this realm, China is beating the shit out of the US. It's not even close when you compare the average American to the average Chinese: they're easily 15 IQ points higher. Like I said, though, I'm more skeptical of China's ability to make one of those Einstein types who transcend being the best test taker alive, and who truly advance human knowledge.
To your final point, China will (has) take(n) over. But I'm not convinced that they will be able to carry the torch of top dog as well as western countries have. Much like their failure to participate in the Industrial Revolution because their society was not flexible to change, it looks a lot like the same thing is happening now. They tore down the old regime to make way for one that works really well in 2017 (espionage, slavery, and education), but it's hard to see how they can evolve as the world does.
- indubitable 9y agoI suppose we'll see in the relatively near future. China is setting themselves up to completely dominate solar in the future. Not only by investing and developing heavily in their own country but also having the prescience to start doing things like buying up cobalt resources throughout the world -- perhaps inspired by the success of the petro dollar. But their development for now is mostly just one of taking something, refining it, and producing at scale. If they intend to go the whole 9 yards with solar they're going to need to come up with innovative deployment and load balancing solutions that will be first in the world. Similarly with things like electric vehicles, which they're also investing heavily in. Will they simply have the equivalent of 'electric gas stations' everywhere or actually take things to the next level with ideas like wireless as-you-drive charging? And they're also pursuing automation in their factories as wages rise. That in turn will lead to interesting technological, and social, problems. And they've also put forth interest in working on completely revolutionary projects, such as a permanent manned moon base. So I suppose this will be answered in the near future. For now I just don't see any reason to expect them to suddenly fumble. I think you're dramatically underestimating the difficulty of what they're achieving. Like I mentioned in the first post, if their 'secret' was just "espionage, slavery, education" then it makes one wonder why all developing nations (most of which pay far lower wages that China) aren't on their way to becoming a technologically advanced industrial civilizations.