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I really enjoyed: World GDP animation by country: - it is insane how near japan got to us even being such a small country - kudos to china for falling way ou

by fb03 8y ago

I really enjoyed: World GDP animation by country: - it is insane how near japan got to us even being such a small country - kudos to china for falling way out of the race to the top and then "out of the blue" reaching #2 at the very end -- shows exponential growth How camera lenses change the way we look: - at the first shot with the 20mm or so lens, the guy's nose looks huge and funny compared to the rest of the picture. - at the biggest lens the overall face looks very well rounded and good looking. insane change!

beat 8y ago
Reading Factfulness got me to pay attention to per capita GDP growth rates over decades, as opposed to static comparisons at the moment. China blew my mind. Their per capita GDP has increased around 130x (in constant dollars) since 1960, from the $60/year range to over $8000/year. I now use it as a rebuttal to the stock assumption that Western-style democracy, capitalism, and individualism are the only route to prosperity. It also got me thinking of the "developing" nations relative to the history of western nations. We sneer at the impoverished slums of the "Third World", without recognizing that was what America and Europe looked like, not that long ago. It's just a phase between an illiterate agrarian society and a modern prosperous middle class.
- nickles 8y ago
  > I now use it as a rebuttal to the stock assumption that Western-style democracy, capitalism, and individualism are the only route to prosperity. There are many paths to prosperity. Are you suggesting it's preferable to forsake democracy, capitalism, and individualism and implement a system of governance that encourages mass murder [0], famine [1], human rights abuses [2], industrial espionage [3], unsafe goods [4], and scientific fraud [5]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine [2] https://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/china/ https://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/china/ [3] https://www.newsweek.com/china-involved-90-percent-economic-espionage-and-industrial-secrets-theft-1255908 https://www.newsweek.com/china-involved-90-percent-economic-... [4] https://qz.com/1133484/buying-infant-milk-powder-is-still-a-really-scary-thing-in-china/ https://qz.com/1133484/buying-infant-milk-powder-is-still-a-... [5] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-fraud-scandals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-...
  - beat 8y ago
    Why are you assuming I'm "suggesting it's preferable"? Put down the pitchfork for a moment! I'm not arguing that Chinese-style communism is a better system. I'm arguing that the belief that western values and economics are the only path to prosperity is incorrect. I'd rather live in the American system. I'm sure there are a lot of people who grew up in China and would rather live in the Chinese system. As for your laundry list of "China bad!", I could come up with counterexamples of the US doing the exact same things at various points in our history. Chill.
    - nickles 8y ago
      > Why are you assuming I'm "suggesting it's preferable"? I asked a question for clarification, beginning by agreeing with your comment about paths to prosperity. What pitchfork? As to why I sought clarification, you are claiming that China's prosperity is independent from Western values. However, much of China's success comes from theft of Western intellectual property. This IP was not produced in a vacuum; it is a product of Western values. In fact, some have argued the Age of Enlightenment occurred due to these values, which produced a remarkable (and lasting) acceleration in GDP growth. > As for your laundry list of "China bad!", I could come up with counterexamples of the US doing the exact same things at various points in our history. Here you engage in the logical fallacy of 'whataboutery'. First and foremost, I did not mention the United States in my comment, so I'm not sure why you invoke its history of misdeeds in the past. The United States has absolutely enforced abhorrent policy in the past. Without attempting to enumerate all: genocide, slavery, detonation of nuclear weapons, forcible sterilization, concentration camps, unethical medical experimentation. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, what bearing does this have on the fact that China is currently doing horrific things at a scale far greater than atrocities perpetrated by the US? If, instead of relying solely on GDP per capita, we factored human costs into our assessments, we might see that the economic picture is not quite as rosy. To clarify, suppose a human life is worth $8mm [0] and a closed economy that has only two people. If one were to kill the other and use the deceased's skin to make a tent, GDP (and GDP per capita) would have increased due to the production, but the value of human capital in the economy declined by $8mm. > Chill. It's not really necessary to write things like this, as it seems like you're trying to avoid the content of the discussion by (incorrectly) labeling me as upset or agitated. Also, I'd request that you stop downvoting me simply because you disagree. However, I assume that your (self-described) "progressive politics" [1] are motivating your decision to downvote more than the content, so I'm not holding out much hope. [0] https://www.theglobalist.com/the-cost-of-a-human-life-statistically-speaking/ https://www.theglobalist.com/the-cost-of-a-human-life-statis... [1] https://twitter.com/davestagner https://twitter.com/davestagner
- earthicus 8y ago
  I think Russia itself could be used as another example of your rebuttable if you look a bit further back in time. At the end of the 19th century the country was still extremely agrarian - far less developed than the other great powers. But by the 1960s it had essentially made up for a century of lost time, at which point the famous stagnation set in. The classic line is something to the effect of 'capitalism is the best system of generating wealth, but not for distributing it'. That does seem wrong. Once the innovations exist, systems like russia or china seem to successfully and efficiently reproduce the wealth generation. What happens after they have caught up to some baseline of industrial prosperity is a different economic issue altogether. I don't think we have enough examples from modern history to draw any sweeping conclusions.
  - beat 8y ago
    I'm no expert, but it seems to me we're seeing something like a phase change in economics... nations start illiterate and agrarian and are basically stable for a long time, then they go through this sudden (2-3 generations) shift to modernism, and then... they're stable again. America isn't fundamentally more prosperous now than it was a generation ago. Worse, what economic growth is happening seems to be efficiently concentrating at the top. And it's not just America. European nations are like this too, Japan is like this. Eventually, China will probably be like this. What's the next phase shift? That's an interesting question. I'm hoping for the abolition of work.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mryingster 8y ago
Funny. I thought the shorter focal length made his face look more interesting and features look nicer whereas the 200mm lens made his face look like a big block with no definition and large neck. Crazy how subjective something like that can be!

by fb03 8y ago

beat 8y ago

Reading Factfulness got me to pay attention to per capita GDP growth rates over decades, as opposed to static comparisons at the moment. China blew my mind. Their per capita GDP has increased around 130x (in constant dollars) since 1960, from the $60/year range to over $8000/year. I now use it as a rebuttal to the stock assumption that Western-style democracy, capitalism, and individualism are the only route to prosperity. It also got me thinking of the "developing" nations relative to the history of western nations. We sneer at the impoverished slums of the "Third World", without recognizing that was what America and Europe looked like, not that long ago. It's just a phase between an illiterate agrarian society and a modern prosperous middle class.

nickles 8y ago
> I now use it as a rebuttal to the stock assumption that Western-style democracy, capitalism, and individualism are the only route to prosperity. There are many paths to prosperity. Are you suggesting it's preferable to forsake democracy, capitalism, and individualism and implement a system of governance that encourages mass murder [0], famine [1], human rights abuses [2], industrial espionage [3], unsafe goods [4], and scientific fraud [5]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine [2] https://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/china/ https://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/china/ [3] https://www.newsweek.com/china-involved-90-percent-economic-espionage-and-industrial-secrets-theft-1255908 https://www.newsweek.com/china-involved-90-percent-economic-... [4] https://qz.com/1133484/buying-infant-milk-powder-is-still-a-really-scary-thing-in-china/ https://qz.com/1133484/buying-infant-milk-powder-is-still-a-... [5] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-fraud-scandals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-...
- beat 8y ago
  Why are you assuming I'm "suggesting it's preferable"? Put down the pitchfork for a moment! I'm not arguing that Chinese-style communism is a better system. I'm arguing that the belief that western values and economics are the only path to prosperity is incorrect. I'd rather live in the American system. I'm sure there are a lot of people who grew up in China and would rather live in the Chinese system. As for your laundry list of "China bad!", I could come up with counterexamples of the US doing the exact same things at various points in our history. Chill.
  - nickles 8y ago
    > Why are you assuming I'm "suggesting it's preferable"? I asked a question for clarification, beginning by agreeing with your comment about paths to prosperity. What pitchfork? As to why I sought clarification, you are claiming that China's prosperity is independent from Western values. However, much of China's success comes from theft of Western intellectual property. This IP was not produced in a vacuum; it is a product of Western values. In fact, some have argued the Age of Enlightenment occurred due to these values, which produced a remarkable (and lasting) acceleration in GDP growth. > As for your laundry list of "China bad!", I could come up with counterexamples of the US doing the exact same things at various points in our history. Here you engage in the logical fallacy of 'whataboutery'. First and foremost, I did not mention the United States in my comment, so I'm not sure why you invoke its history of misdeeds in the past. The United States has absolutely enforced abhorrent policy in the past. Without attempting to enumerate all: genocide, slavery, detonation of nuclear weapons, forcible sterilization, concentration camps, unethical medical experimentation. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, what bearing does this have on the fact that China is currently doing horrific things at a scale far greater than atrocities perpetrated by the US? If, instead of relying solely on GDP per capita, we factored human costs into our assessments, we might see that the economic picture is not quite as rosy. To clarify, suppose a human life is worth $8mm [0] and a closed economy that has only two people. If one were to kill the other and use the deceased's skin to make a tent, GDP (and GDP per capita) would have increased due to the production, but the value of human capital in the economy declined by $8mm. > Chill. It's not really necessary to write things like this, as it seems like you're trying to avoid the content of the discussion by (incorrectly) labeling me as upset or agitated. Also, I'd request that you stop downvoting me simply because you disagree. However, I assume that your (self-described) "progressive politics" [1] are motivating your decision to downvote more than the content, so I'm not holding out much hope. [0] https://www.theglobalist.com/the-cost-of-a-human-life-statistically-speaking/ https://www.theglobalist.com/the-cost-of-a-human-life-statis... [1] https://twitter.com/davestagner https://twitter.com/davestagner
earthicus 8y ago
I think Russia itself could be used as another example of your rebuttable if you look a bit further back in time. At the end of the 19th century the country was still extremely agrarian - far less developed than the other great powers. But by the 1960s it had essentially made up for a century of lost time, at which point the famous stagnation set in. The classic line is something to the effect of 'capitalism is the best system of generating wealth, but not for distributing it'. That does seem wrong. Once the innovations exist, systems like russia or china seem to successfully and efficiently reproduce the wealth generation. What happens after they have caught up to some baseline of industrial prosperity is a different economic issue altogether. I don't think we have enough examples from modern history to draw any sweeping conclusions.
- beat 8y ago
  I'm no expert, but it seems to me we're seeing something like a phase change in economics... nations start illiterate and agrarian and are basically stable for a long time, then they go through this sudden (2-3 generations) shift to modernism, and then... they're stable again. America isn't fundamentally more prosperous now than it was a generation ago. Worse, what economic growth is happening seems to be efficiently concentrating at the top. And it's not just America. European nations are like this too, Japan is like this. Eventually, China will probably be like this. What's the next phase shift? That's an interesting question. I'm hoping for the abolition of work.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mryingster 8y ago

Funny. I thought the shorter focal length made his face look more interesting and features look nicer whereas the 200mm lens made his face look like a big block with no definition and large neck. Crazy how subjective something like that can be!