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I believed it until China started scoring own goals kneecapping their tech industry and their best and brightest kept coming to the West... Someday though, my V

I believed it until China started scoring own goals kneecapping their tech industry and their best and brightest kept coming to the West... Someday though, my VEMAX investments will look like a good decision.

anonporridge 5y ago
One of America's secret sauces is that everyone in the world is welcome to defect from their home regime and come here. Hell, there's even a chance we'll make your children our leaders (Obama and Harris for example). And you personally have a chance to start a business and become a billionaire or advance up the corporate ladder to CEO of existing giants. The inverse is not true. The best and brightest Americans (regardless of race) can never effectively defect to China. Maybe if you're ethnically Han Chinese your children will have a chance to be fully integrated and accepted, but definitely not if you're any other race. The gravity of best and brightest migration is still one way into the American singularity.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  We’ve substantially curbed immigration into the US, so I wonder how that might affect this “secret sauce”.
  - yakz 5y ago
    Have we? With the exception of 2020 due to the pandemic, how much has immigration declined?
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Oh I guess we haven't, that's good. Looks to have more or less steadied out over the past decade or two. [0] [0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/annual-number-of-us-legal-permanent-residents https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/ann...
jeffreyrogers 5y ago
They kneecapped some of their consumer internet industry. They're still investing a lot in all other forms of technology.
- notacoward 5y ago
  Exactly. China is very deliberately not allowing the ad-click business to divert talent from more strategic sectors. Whether you think it's a good idea or not, acceptable or not in the sense of market freedom, it's a rational move.
  - djohnston 5y ago
    My counterpoint is that you can make a rational decision and still be wrong. Ad click business is how they can build a facial recognition database of 3 billion people, and China is uniquely positioned to immediately apply that dataset to training ML with military applications.
    - notacoward 5y ago
      It's absolutely possible to be rational and yet wrong. It's also entirely possible to promote or allow something for a while and then decide it has finished serving its purpose.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > It's absolutely possible to be rational and yet wrong. It's also entirely possible to promote or allow something for a while and then decide it has finished serving its purpose. Yeah. Also, generalizations can be true but misleading in a particular instance. I think a lot of people make that mistake with China, assuming because in general democracies have been more successful than autocracies [1], they can be complacent because China will fail. There's no reason autocracy with a talented leader (or one who's lucky) can outperform a democracy. [1] People also often say that free markets are "more successful" than less free markets, and it's probably true to an extent, but there's also a lot of problems/disagreement defining what "success is." For instance, the US has traded away a lot of its general manufacturing capacity leading to more "success" by some financial metrics but failure by many others.

anonporridge 5y ago

One of America's secret sauces is that everyone in the world is welcome to defect from their home regime and come here. Hell, there's even a chance we'll make your children our leaders (Obama and Harris for example). And you personally have a chance to start a business and become a billionaire or advance up the corporate ladder to CEO of existing giants. The inverse is not true. The best and brightest Americans (regardless of race) can never effectively defect to China. Maybe if you're ethnically Han Chinese your children will have a chance to be fully integrated and accepted, but definitely not if you're any other race. The gravity of best and brightest migration is still one way into the American singularity.

TameAntelope 5y ago
We’ve substantially curbed immigration into the US, so I wonder how that might affect this “secret sauce”.
- yakz 5y ago
  Have we? With the exception of 2020 due to the pandemic, how much has immigration declined?
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Oh I guess we haven't, that's good. Looks to have more or less steadied out over the past decade or two. [0] [0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/annual-number-of-us-legal-permanent-residents https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/ann...

jeffreyrogers 5y ago

They kneecapped some of their consumer internet industry. They're still investing a lot in all other forms of technology.

notacoward 5y ago
Exactly. China is very deliberately not allowing the ad-click business to divert talent from more strategic sectors. Whether you think it's a good idea or not, acceptable or not in the sense of market freedom, it's a rational move.
- djohnston 5y ago
  My counterpoint is that you can make a rational decision and still be wrong. Ad click business is how they can build a facial recognition database of 3 billion people, and China is uniquely positioned to immediately apply that dataset to training ML with military applications.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    It's absolutely possible to be rational and yet wrong. It's also entirely possible to promote or allow something for a while and then decide it has finished serving its purpose.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > It's absolutely possible to be rational and yet wrong. It's also entirely possible to promote or allow something for a while and then decide it has finished serving its purpose. Yeah. Also, generalizations can be true but misleading in a particular instance. I think a lot of people make that mistake with China, assuming because in general democracies have been more successful than autocracies [1], they can be complacent because China will fail. There's no reason autocracy with a talented leader (or one who's lucky) can outperform a democracy. [1] People also often say that free markets are "more successful" than less free markets, and it's probably true to an extent, but there's also a lot of problems/disagreement defining what "success is." For instance, the US has traded away a lot of its general manufacturing capacity leading to more "success" by some financial metrics but failure by many others.