3 ms·

> The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompat

> The latter attribute, creativity, is something I have always thought was necessary to foster with freedom in thought and expression, two things I see incompatible with the authoritarian system currently in place in China. This is such oft repeated nonsense. Creativity exists in authoritarian systems. Creativity existed during slavery. Creativity existed during the dark ages. It existed during the age of kings. It existed during religious tyranny. It always exists. > Maybe I'm naive and romantic about the Canadian/Western style of education and China will inevitablly dominate AI through force of will. What is canadian/western style education? It's so funny how we mock our education system as producing factory drones incapable of thinking but whenever china is mentioned, we pretend like our education system fosters creativity. People constantly regurgitating the trope about "creativity" and "china not having it" just shows how well brainwashed we are. I wonder how the chinese built their own unique civilization if they weren't creative? > Would be very curious to hear others thoughts on this, perhaps from people further along than I (still a lowly undergrad). It's a simple matter of wealth. If china can develop enough and get enough money to be able to spend time doing the research, then they will make progress. It's simply a matter of wealth, people, resources and stability. China has the people obviously. They have stability so far ( I doubt anyone is going to invade them and destabilize them a la opium wars ) and they appear internally stable as far as any can tell. They have a large enough territory. So it's simply a matter of wealth. Can they get wealthy enough to build universities, companies, etc to fund research? Creativity, research, etc has nothing to do with the political system. The authoritarian soviets were able to send people to space. Nazi germany was able to advance research on everything. So did imperial japan. The authoritarian and tyrannical european colonial powers ravaging most of the world made great contributions to science/knowledge. So did we while we were busy exterminating the natives and enslaving blacks. The system doesn't matter. People are just as creative in china as they are here. The system doesn't matter. It's a matter of wealth/funding and stability.

clvcooke 9y ago
Thanks for the reply, I guess we can agree to disagree on some points ha. I tried to keep my answer diplomatic and open to being told I was wrong so glad someone took me up on that :). In terms of your question on education, I have only experienced Canadian education but I have never thought of it producing "factory drones" , exactly the opposite. Some of the most creative thinking I have seen has been in the classroom, with professors/teachers asking us to point out their flaws, or think of better answers than they presented.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
It isn’t that the western education system fosters creativity, they are just less effective in beating it out. In china, you have to compete very hard, you can’t slack off, you must get a good score on the gaokao to assure your future, and don’t fall asleep too much in your patriotic indoctrination classes. In the west, meh, it’s a fact that there is less pressure, and you can even refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance if you want (in the usa, I still find the whole pledge during school thing wrong). China still has a lot of creative people, but the structural differences of the Chinese education system can’t be ignored, and I cringe whenever politicians say we should have schools more like theirs.
- Nokinside 9y ago
  China is not just single block. Chinese education is evolving and experimenting with new things. Example: Shanghai (25 million people) decided to do something new. They learned from other countries with good PISA results and adopted it to their system. Less tests and more long term projects. Little more autonomy for theaters and better rewards. Their experiment was a success and they reached the same level in PISA studies as Finland and Singapore.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Given China's backwards residency system, you have to exclude people in Shanghai who don't hold Shanghai hukou, so you get around 13 million rather than 25 million. But ya, Shanghai students do really well on the PISA exam, which is one of the things that is promoted a lot. But I don't see how performance on an exam relates to creativity at all.
    - fspeech 9y ago
      I think this has been much relaxed recently. You just need to prove that you live in Shanghai for more than 6 months (rental is okay) and either pay social security taxes or are registered as seeking employment. Thanks to the one child policy, if they don't relax enrollment policy the schools are going to run out of students. The condition for enrolling in public schools: http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/nw2/nw2314/nw2319/nw12344/u26aw55084.html http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/nw2/nw2314/nw2319/nw12344/u26aw55... The condition for obtaining residency registration: http://zwdt.sh.gov.cn/zwdtSW/zwdtSW/juzhuzheng/lsjzz.jsp http://zwdt.sh.gov.cn/zwdtSW/zwdtSW/juzhuzheng/lsjzz.jsp

clvcooke 9y ago

Thanks for the reply, I guess we can agree to disagree on some points ha. I tried to keep my answer diplomatic and open to being told I was wrong so glad someone took me up on that :). In terms of your question on education, I have only experienced Canadian education but I have never thought of it producing "factory drones" , exactly the opposite. Some of the most creative thinking I have seen has been in the classroom, with professors/teachers asking us to point out their flaws, or think of better answers than they presented.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

It isn’t that the western education system fosters creativity, they are just less effective in beating it out. In china, you have to compete very hard, you can’t slack off, you must get a good score on the gaokao to assure your future, and don’t fall asleep too much in your patriotic indoctrination classes. In the west, meh, it’s a fact that there is less pressure, and you can even refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance if you want (in the usa, I still find the whole pledge during school thing wrong). China still has a lot of creative people, but the structural differences of the Chinese education system can’t be ignored, and I cringe whenever politicians say we should have schools more like theirs.

Nokinside 9y ago
China is not just single block. Chinese education is evolving and experimenting with new things. Example: Shanghai (25 million people) decided to do something new. They learned from other countries with good PISA results and adopted it to their system. Less tests and more long term projects. Little more autonomy for theaters and better rewards. Their experiment was a success and they reached the same level in PISA studies as Finland and Singapore.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Given China's backwards residency system, you have to exclude people in Shanghai who don't hold Shanghai hukou, so you get around 13 million rather than 25 million. But ya, Shanghai students do really well on the PISA exam, which is one of the things that is promoted a lot. But I don't see how performance on an exam relates to creativity at all.
  - fspeech 9y ago
    I think this has been much relaxed recently. You just need to prove that you live in Shanghai for more than 6 months (rental is okay) and either pay social security taxes or are registered as seeking employment. Thanks to the one child policy, if they don't relax enrollment policy the schools are going to run out of students. The condition for enrolling in public schools: http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/nw2/nw2314/nw2319/nw12344/u26aw55084.html http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/nw2/nw2314/nw2319/nw12344/u26aw55... The condition for obtaining residency registration: http://zwdt.sh.gov.cn/zwdtSW/zwdtSW/juzhuzheng/lsjzz.jsp http://zwdt.sh.gov.cn/zwdtSW/zwdtSW/juzhuzheng/lsjzz.jsp