7 ms·

I know this is supposed to be about China, but is true of Russia and many poorer countries. The elite of the country can siphon money of simple industries like

by rr808 4y ago

I know this is supposed to be about China, but is true of Russia and many poorer countries. The elite of the country can siphon money of simple industries like oil and primary industries, but they can't control high tech. Kamil Galeev writes some great threads on this https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1501360272442896388 https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1501360272442896388

robocat 4y ago
Interesting, and that thread contains some great links. Reformatted: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1501360272442896388.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1501360272442896388.html
- anarmorarm 4y ago
  This deserves to be on the front page. Fantastic read.
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    Not without stretching the narrative though - he shows the images of Mexican mafia with armoured vechicles and guns and then arches towards calling Russian oligarchs and friends mafia: those don't rely on armoured vechicles and guns but on connections inside the Russian Federation state, making the whole piece somewhat dubious.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      From my own writer's experience, finding good images with reasonable licensing is hard. Unless you want to pay significant royalties (which may sink your writing activity to unsustainably deep red numbers) or risk being target of a copyright troll company, you are stuck with free and libre images, which often do not cover exactly what you want to.
      - usrusr 4y ago
        Not disagreeing, but that's not what's happening in the article: those pictures of Mexican cartel army are precisely about Mexican cartel army and not random stand-ins. And I think the author is making a very interesting point. That point is not at all about armoured vehicles and guns, it's about extractive business as opposed to something more complex. The claim is not that Putin generation oligarchs use the same cars and guns Mexican cartel power uses, it's that oil and gas have a lot in common with avocados. And that's a really valuable observation.
    - robocat 4y ago
      Oh, I think the articles theme is mostly bunkum armchair theory. Reads great, but is nonsense. The author’s premise is that: * oil+gas are not complicated * metallurgy is somewhat complicated * a drilling machine has a very complicated dependency Like, duhhhh, oil+gas is fiendishly complicated (drilling, transport, refining, organisational), with extremely complicated (and often single-source) dependencies; certainly more complicated than the CNC-machine-needed-to-make-a-mining-machine small business example. “Metallurgy” is complicated with complicated dependencies too (although plenty of Russian expertise available). Both of those are massive industries with very deep complexity. The story also has a strong “geek inherit the earth” narrative - which always scores well with engineers here on HN. The “mafia” metaphor didn’t work for me either. It does make me wonder who the author(s) want to influence and why? But still, I liked the links, I liked the story, and they wrote well (I am guessing English wasn’t their first language?).
      - enaaem 4y ago
        The product of tech companies is the tech itself. For oil, the tech is a means and can be imported. Drilling oil is technically complicated but you can hire foreign companies to do the hard work, just like most African nations. Russia relies heavily on foreign companies to drill oil. https://zeihan.com/the-end-of-russian-oil/ https://zeihan.com/the-end-of-russian-oil/
        thriftwy 4y ago
        Drilling Russian oil still involves maintaining and supporting whole cities in Siberian tundra. Not rocket science (though Russia also does it), but not your average mafia-driven business either.
holografix 4y ago
I guess you haven’t heard about what happened to Jack Ma recently
- cowmoo728 4y ago
  I see it as they can't control technology and academia without stifling it in the process
  - chii 4y ago
    I suspect that they will "merely" need to instill enough propaganda and "brainwashing" politically onto academia such that those who have the knowledge and skill would not go against the CCP. This effectively restricts the talent pool - those who are smart are likely able to see thru any propaganda. And those that are smart are also more capable of emigrating overseas where you make more money anyway. So it's not about stifling, but more about slowness. But with a large enough population, even a smaller % of talent is still a huge number.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      > This effectively restricts the talent pool - those who are smart are likely able to see thru any propaganda. This is rarely true. People can be, and often are, extremely smart in one field and idiots in others. The fact that they think otherwise is often part of the problem. Especially since propaganda is often layered - everyone knows something is propaganda, but that doesn't help you understand the truth, and there is often subtler propaganda that guides those who see the blatant propaganda to the "right truth".
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    The weakest link is the actual application of a discovery in real life. Brilliant scientists can be apolitical and so isolated from the rest of the society that they don't even realize what's going on. Notably, the Soviet Union produced a lot of excellent results in mathematics and physics. But when it comes to designing and selling actual products based on the theoretical discoveries, the inefficiency, stupidity and mendacity inherent in the authoritarian systems really comes to the fore and can't be dodged.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
China seems to be doing a good job controlling though. See how they totally re-educated the Alibaba guy after he spoke out of line. Still, their industry seems to grow fine including high tech. I think what's happening is that they split politics very strictly from business.
- boppo1 4y ago
  Yeah they re-educated the value of my BABA calls as well.

by rr808 4y ago

robocat 4y ago

Interesting, and that thread contains some great links. Reformatted: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1501360272442896388.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1501360272442896388.html

anarmorarm 4y ago
This deserves to be on the front page. Fantastic read.
- thriftwy 4y ago
  Not without stretching the narrative though - he shows the images of Mexican mafia with armoured vechicles and guns and then arches towards calling Russian oligarchs and friends mafia: those don't rely on armoured vechicles and guns but on connections inside the Russian Federation state, making the whole piece somewhat dubious.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    From my own writer's experience, finding good images with reasonable licensing is hard. Unless you want to pay significant royalties (which may sink your writing activity to unsustainably deep red numbers) or risk being target of a copyright troll company, you are stuck with free and libre images, which often do not cover exactly what you want to.
    - usrusr 4y ago
      Not disagreeing, but that's not what's happening in the article: those pictures of Mexican cartel army are precisely about Mexican cartel army and not random stand-ins. And I think the author is making a very interesting point. That point is not at all about armoured vehicles and guns, it's about extractive business as opposed to something more complex. The claim is not that Putin generation oligarchs use the same cars and guns Mexican cartel power uses, it's that oil and gas have a lot in common with avocados. And that's a really valuable observation.
  - robocat 4y ago
    Oh, I think the articles theme is mostly bunkum armchair theory. Reads great, but is nonsense. The author’s premise is that: * oil+gas are not complicated * metallurgy is somewhat complicated * a drilling machine has a very complicated dependency Like, duhhhh, oil+gas is fiendishly complicated (drilling, transport, refining, organisational), with extremely complicated (and often single-source) dependencies; certainly more complicated than the CNC-machine-needed-to-make-a-mining-machine small business example. “Metallurgy” is complicated with complicated dependencies too (although plenty of Russian expertise available). Both of those are massive industries with very deep complexity. The story also has a strong “geek inherit the earth” narrative - which always scores well with engineers here on HN. The “mafia” metaphor didn’t work for me either. It does make me wonder who the author(s) want to influence and why? But still, I liked the links, I liked the story, and they wrote well (I am guessing English wasn’t their first language?).
    - enaaem 4y ago
      The product of tech companies is the tech itself. For oil, the tech is a means and can be imported. Drilling oil is technically complicated but you can hire foreign companies to do the hard work, just like most African nations. Russia relies heavily on foreign companies to drill oil. https://zeihan.com/the-end-of-russian-oil/ https://zeihan.com/the-end-of-russian-oil/
      - thriftwy 4y ago
        Drilling Russian oil still involves maintaining and supporting whole cities in Siberian tundra. Not rocket science (though Russia also does it), but not your average mafia-driven business either.

holografix 4y ago

I guess you haven’t heard about what happened to Jack Ma recently

cowmoo728 4y ago
I see it as they can't control technology and academia without stifling it in the process
- chii 4y ago
  I suspect that they will "merely" need to instill enough propaganda and "brainwashing" politically onto academia such that those who have the knowledge and skill would not go against the CCP. This effectively restricts the talent pool - those who are smart are likely able to see thru any propaganda. And those that are smart are also more capable of emigrating overseas where you make more money anyway. So it's not about stifling, but more about slowness. But with a large enough population, even a smaller % of talent is still a huge number.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    > This effectively restricts the talent pool - those who are smart are likely able to see thru any propaganda. This is rarely true. People can be, and often are, extremely smart in one field and idiots in others. The fact that they think otherwise is often part of the problem. Especially since propaganda is often layered - everyone knows something is propaganda, but that doesn't help you understand the truth, and there is often subtler propaganda that guides those who see the blatant propaganda to the "right truth".
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  The weakest link is the actual application of a discovery in real life. Brilliant scientists can be apolitical and so isolated from the rest of the society that they don't even realize what's going on. Notably, the Soviet Union produced a lot of excellent results in mathematics and physics. But when it comes to designing and selling actual products based on the theoretical discoveries, the inefficiency, stupidity and mendacity inherent in the authoritarian systems really comes to the fore and can't be dodged.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

China seems to be doing a good job controlling though. See how they totally re-educated the Alibaba guy after he spoke out of line. Still, their industry seems to grow fine including high tech. I think what's happening is that they split politics very strictly from business.

boppo1 4y ago
Yeah they re-educated the value of my BABA calls as well.