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“The slow one now will later be fast / for the times they are a Changin’” -Bob Dylan Loved reading “Principles” by Dalio. Great read. I find it apparent that

“The slow one now will later be fast / for the times they are a Changin’” -Bob Dylan Loved reading “Principles” by Dalio. Great read. I find it apparent that the U.S. is declining while China is in a prime position to reach new heights. The U.S. greatest competitive advantage has been culture which is quickly being copied by the new middle class in China. The U.S. has allowed the wealth gap to grow to levels that are pretty scary. The U.S. has continued to elect inept and crony politicians who wish to look backward instead of bring the nation forward.

cscurmudgeon 6y ago
> The U.S. has allowed the wealth gap to grow to levels that are pretty scary. China has scary levels of wealth gap too. I think it is probably has more. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2019/04/06/income-inequality-is-growing-fast-in-china-and-making-it-look-more-like-the-us/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2019/04/06/income-inequali... > The U.S. has continued to elect inept and crony politicians who wish to look backward instead of bring the nation forward China is perceived to much more corrupt than the US. It is not even a competition. This index is not perfect but this is the closest we have to measuring corruption uniformly across different systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index If the US is declining and China is ascending, why do we so many Chinese PhDs students (many of them my friends and hate going back) who want to stay back in the US with many years of wait time? https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/ https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/ Let us please stick to facts and data. (All the falsifiable statements in this parent comment are false but for some reason it is on top.)
- seibelj 6y ago
  It’s amazing that someone who has a deep nuanced view of American politics and critiques the minutia of American current events from the inside, then blindly believes vague propaganda from China (“China united and strong! Great and competent leader!”). Super common perspective from upper-middle class Americans who argue on HN and Reddit. If you don’t live in China, don’t speak Chinese, didn’t grow up in China, have no Chinese family, then you simply have to idea what the fuck is really going on there.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Seconding this opinion. China may need no help from US to jeopardise its ascendancy. So far, China's progress came at a greatest expense of its political establishment. For long, people have expected that at some point the people in power will decide that they need to put a leash on the country that gets too far ahead of its political leadership, and prevent it from getting "too successful" for them to manage. They way Xi's administration not simply acting on that, but like tripling and quadrupling down on it in the last few years is the biggest proof that they have passed that point.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Yeah, this is a pretty common affliction among well-to-do Americans, and I just do not understand it. Remember when Sam Altman said it's easier to discuss controversial ideas in Beijing than San Francisco?
    - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
      That is just plain scary. Reminds of this old Soviet joke. Q: Is it true that there is freedom of speech in the USSR, just like in the USA? A: Yes. In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, "Down with Ronald Reagan”, and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, "Down with Ronald Reagan",and you will not be punished. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_political_jokes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_political_jokes
  - dang 6y ago
    Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? You have a good point here, and this way of making it just makes everything worse. We've had to ask you this kind of thing many times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22543721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22543721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17822100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17822100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667959 ... and that's just for starters. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended from now on? I appreciate the good comments you make here and don't want to ban you, and at the same time, there is a problem.
option 6y ago
Agree (sadly) about the decline of US. But for new hegemony look elsewhere other than China. China is a dictatorship and they inevitably fail or reform, and right now China is not heading towards reform. Also, have you seen wealth gap in China?
basch 6y ago
What does declining mean in this context? Getting worse? More rudderless? Not improving as quickly? Overvalued? The US could be improving and be overvalued at the same time. There is still a lot of innovation coming out of the US despite it maybe being a bit inefficient.
- adaisadais 6y ago
  Declining as in the machine that is the U.S. is broken and there is no apparent fix in sight. This generation won’t experience famine or regress into a developing nation but we will experience a decoupling of some of the preconceived notions of what being an American is. I believe if we make some changes we can push the U.S. back to being the beacon of freedom that it has the potential to be. We have a lot of brilliant minds here.
  - dchyrdvh 6y ago
    I have a controversial hypothesis about what creates freedom in nations: it's the self sacrifice of people willing to make others free. In the US it was the independence and civil wars. Then the lazy descendants carelessly waste this freedom until none left, and the nation folds into an authoritarian black hole or enough people start the new cycle by sacrificing themselves. In some sense, creating freedom is like donating all your money to a neighbor and they dying on streets.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jarsbe 6y ago
> The U.S. greatest competitive advantage has been culture I'd argue it's being the global reserve currency not culture.
- namenotrequired 6y ago
  According to the article,being global reserve currency is a the result, not cause, of having competitive advantages

cscurmudgeon 6y ago

> The U.S. has allowed the wealth gap to grow to levels that are pretty scary. China has scary levels of wealth gap too. I think it is probably has more. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2019/04/06/income-inequality-is-growing-fast-in-china-and-making-it-look-more-like-the-us/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2019/04/06/income-inequali... > The U.S. has continued to elect inept and crony politicians who wish to look backward instead of bring the nation forward China is perceived to much more corrupt than the US. It is not even a competition. This index is not perfect but this is the closest we have to measuring corruption uniformly across different systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index If the US is declining and China is ascending, why do we so many Chinese PhDs students (many of them my friends and hate going back) who want to stay back in the US with many years of wait time? https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/ https://www.boundless.com/blog/visa-bulletin/ Let us please stick to facts and data. (All the falsifiable statements in this parent comment are false but for some reason it is on top.)

seibelj 6y ago
It’s amazing that someone who has a deep nuanced view of American politics and critiques the minutia of American current events from the inside, then blindly believes vague propaganda from China (“China united and strong! Great and competent leader!”). Super common perspective from upper-middle class Americans who argue on HN and Reddit. If you don’t live in China, don’t speak Chinese, didn’t grow up in China, have no Chinese family, then you simply have to idea what the fuck is really going on there.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Seconding this opinion. China may need no help from US to jeopardise its ascendancy. So far, China's progress came at a greatest expense of its political establishment. For long, people have expected that at some point the people in power will decide that they need to put a leash on the country that gets too far ahead of its political leadership, and prevent it from getting "too successful" for them to manage. They way Xi's administration not simply acting on that, but like tripling and quadrupling down on it in the last few years is the biggest proof that they have passed that point.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Yeah, this is a pretty common affliction among well-to-do Americans, and I just do not understand it. Remember when Sam Altman said it's easier to discuss controversial ideas in Beijing than San Francisco?
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    That is just plain scary. Reminds of this old Soviet joke. Q: Is it true that there is freedom of speech in the USSR, just like in the USA? A: Yes. In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, "Down with Ronald Reagan”, and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, "Down with Ronald Reagan",and you will not be punished. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_political_jokes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_political_jokes
- dang 6y ago
  Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? You have a good point here, and this way of making it just makes everything worse. We've had to ask you this kind of thing many times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22781294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22543721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22543721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22343386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19010638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17822100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17822100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21667959 ... and that's just for starters. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended from now on? I appreciate the good comments you make here and don't want to ban you, and at the same time, there is a problem.

option 6y ago

Agree (sadly) about the decline of US. But for new hegemony look elsewhere other than China. China is a dictatorship and they inevitably fail or reform, and right now China is not heading towards reform. Also, have you seen wealth gap in China?

basch 6y ago

What does declining mean in this context? Getting worse? More rudderless? Not improving as quickly? Overvalued? The US could be improving and be overvalued at the same time. There is still a lot of innovation coming out of the US despite it maybe being a bit inefficient.

adaisadais 6y ago
Declining as in the machine that is the U.S. is broken and there is no apparent fix in sight. This generation won’t experience famine or regress into a developing nation but we will experience a decoupling of some of the preconceived notions of what being an American is. I believe if we make some changes we can push the U.S. back to being the beacon of freedom that it has the potential to be. We have a lot of brilliant minds here.
- dchyrdvh 6y ago
  I have a controversial hypothesis about what creates freedom in nations: it's the self sacrifice of people willing to make others free. In the US it was the independence and civil wars. Then the lazy descendants carelessly waste this freedom until none left, and the nation folds into an authoritarian black hole or enough people start the new cycle by sacrificing themselves. In some sense, creating freedom is like donating all your money to a neighbor and they dying on streets.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jarsbe 6y ago

> The U.S. greatest competitive advantage has been culture I'd argue it's being the global reserve currency not culture.

namenotrequired 6y ago
According to the article,being global reserve currency is a the result, not cause, of having competitive advantages