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China has one big advance over the US. A government willing to throw unlimited funds and specific science or engineering problems. To get that kind of commitm

China has one big advance over the US. A government willing to throw unlimited funds and specific science or engineering problems. To get that kind of commitment you the strong backing of senators from a dozen different states. It rarely happens in non military projects, and when it does it's a boondoggle. Look to the SLS project, $12 billion spent to recycle space shuttle engines from the 70s and 80s.

azan_ 3y ago
And do they actually solve more science or engineering problems than US?
- LargeTomato 3y ago
  Not yet but the US has a big head start. The gap is closing every day.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  I'd argue it helps them more with engineering and manufacturing/building problems than science ones. The latter, under any government type, don't have a great track record of massive government investment accelerating progress. Proof of concept level grants, sure! But it doesn't seem to scale past that. IMHO, a free market is a better GTM-stage+ capital allocator.
  - btown 3y ago
    It's worth noting that, at least on the electronics manufacturing side (which is indeed what we're talking about here) the undeniable success story of TSMC was very much a government-led capital structure from the beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#History Government can often be a failure-prone capital allocator, but it can also result in improved alignment when an entire industry with wide socioeconomic implications is about to be born.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      TSMC, Korean chaebols, Japanese corporations. But I'd still hazard the exception rather than the rule, globally.
    - Seanambers 3y ago
      What you are describing is basically subsidies. Taiwan lowered the capital cost of TSMC thus made them more competitive than their competitors. The Chinese did much of the same with their tech sector especially Huawei if I remember correctly with gigantic tax breaks and cheap financing.
      - h0l0cube 3y ago
        > What you are describing is basically subsidies In this case, subsidies (and incentives) are 'governments throwing money at engineering problems'. The US does the same for SpaceX, EV manufacturers, and the entire military industrial complex – with the latter making tech controlled by the government
- hyperbovine 3y ago
  If you count émigrés, hell yes.
dekhn 3y ago
The annual NIH budget is >$50B and they earmark large portions of that for specific problems. This has paid off well for the US which became the world's leader in biotechnology and has maintained it for some time. NSF is another $11B, DOE another $50B (part of which is military, I admit). Those only have a limited dependence on dozens of senators; the NIH typically gets most of what it asks for every year. The US has funded science at spectacular levels in a bipartisan way for some time (that may change in the future). Of course there is still a lot of political bargaining, I'm not going to deny that. What's interesting is that we could clearly spend even more if we felt it was a priority. There's so much that could be taken from military spending without having a direct impact on our defense. But I don't think we want to do that; during my grad school career, the NIH budget almost doubled, which led to a huge bolus of grad students minted as PhDs, who then had no jobs beccause the size of faculty positions didn't change nearly as quickly. I admire China's efforts and I see a lot of similarities in China to the US around 1900: the time when the balance of industry and technology shifted from EU to US, but growing your industry super-fast runs the risk of overheating and meltdown.
- themerone 3y ago
  How many hundreds of thousands of projects fall under that NIH budget? China recently allocated $41 Billion just to improve chip production. The US hasn't spent like that since the Apollo program.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    Yes, NIH funds many projects. Everything from individual investigators who discover new things to massive projects involving hundreds of sites. In fact, they funded so many projects that they found money to fund virus research in china (why????). But my real points are: "allocation" is not actual spend. And if they do spend that much, they will grow the industry so fast it runs the risk of collapsing or at least not being sustainable, with the inevitable crashes following.
selimthegrim 3y ago
LIGO?

azan_ 3y ago

And do they actually solve more science or engineering problems than US?

LargeTomato 3y ago
Not yet but the US has a big head start. The gap is closing every day.
ethbr1 3y ago
I'd argue it helps them more with engineering and manufacturing/building problems than science ones. The latter, under any government type, don't have a great track record of massive government investment accelerating progress. Proof of concept level grants, sure! But it doesn't seem to scale past that. IMHO, a free market is a better GTM-stage+ capital allocator.
- btown 3y ago
  It's worth noting that, at least on the electronics manufacturing side (which is indeed what we're talking about here) the undeniable success story of TSMC was very much a government-led capital structure from the beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#History Government can often be a failure-prone capital allocator, but it can also result in improved alignment when an entire industry with wide socioeconomic implications is about to be born.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    TSMC, Korean chaebols, Japanese corporations. But I'd still hazard the exception rather than the rule, globally.
  - Seanambers 3y ago
    What you are describing is basically subsidies. Taiwan lowered the capital cost of TSMC thus made them more competitive than their competitors. The Chinese did much of the same with their tech sector especially Huawei if I remember correctly with gigantic tax breaks and cheap financing.
    - h0l0cube 3y ago
      > What you are describing is basically subsidies In this case, subsidies (and incentives) are 'governments throwing money at engineering problems'. The US does the same for SpaceX, EV manufacturers, and the entire military industrial complex – with the latter making tech controlled by the government
hyperbovine 3y ago
If you count émigrés, hell yes.

dekhn 3y ago

The annual NIH budget is >$50B and they earmark large portions of that for specific problems. This has paid off well for the US which became the world's leader in biotechnology and has maintained it for some time. NSF is another $11B, DOE another $50B (part of which is military, I admit). Those only have a limited dependence on dozens of senators; the NIH typically gets most of what it asks for every year. The US has funded science at spectacular levels in a bipartisan way for some time (that may change in the future). Of course there is still a lot of political bargaining, I'm not going to deny that. What's interesting is that we could clearly spend even more if we felt it was a priority. There's so much that could be taken from military spending without having a direct impact on our defense. But I don't think we want to do that; during my grad school career, the NIH budget almost doubled, which led to a huge bolus of grad students minted as PhDs, who then had no jobs beccause the size of faculty positions didn't change nearly as quickly. I admire China's efforts and I see a lot of similarities in China to the US around 1900: the time when the balance of industry and technology shifted from EU to US, but growing your industry super-fast runs the risk of overheating and meltdown.

themerone 3y ago
How many hundreds of thousands of projects fall under that NIH budget? China recently allocated $41 Billion just to improve chip production. The US hasn't spent like that since the Apollo program.
- dekhn 3y ago
  Yes, NIH funds many projects. Everything from individual investigators who discover new things to massive projects involving hundreds of sites. In fact, they funded so many projects that they found money to fund virus research in china (why????). But my real points are: "allocation" is not actual spend. And if they do spend that much, they will grow the industry so fast it runs the risk of collapsing or at least not being sustainable, with the inevitable crashes following.

selimthegrim 3y ago

LIGO?