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> China leads or is on par with global leaders in commercial nuclear power and electric vehicles and batteries. It lags behind for now in other key sectors, inc

> China leads or is on par with global leaders in commercial nuclear power and electric vehicles and batteries. It lags behind for now in other key sectors, including robotics, biopharmaceuticals, chemicals, and AI. But it is making rapid progress. I'm not sure why this is relevant. They're still behind in the primary sectors that Y-Combinator invests in: software. Certainly China is catching up and it would be naive to sleep on them, but it is magnitudes easier to catch up than it is to lead (e.g. it is magnitudes easier to learn calculus than to invent it). It is hard to make serious predictions without understanding how to lead in certain niches and a broad overview of the economy will not tell us too much about specific sectors. There's plenty of niches that Europe leads the US (and China) in too. But the conversation is all pretty complicated. And success in one sector or niche does not seem to be a strong predictor of innovation in others. Similarly success in catching up does not seem to be a strong predictor of ability to lead. This is all related to the Middle Income trap and China has probably come out the other side but it's not clear yet and this is all very fuzzy. FWIW, I want to see more competition on the global scale. Everyone benefits if there is healthy competition. Though this can also lead to war if things get too competitive. But if our main method of "war" is "making shit better and cheaper so everyone buys from us" then bring it on! (Maybe we can get a "war" where countries flaunt their impressiveness by bringing about post scarcity. I'm certain that that country and leader will be remembered all throughout history as one who set forth an entirely new paradigm of human civilization. AND this is /reasonably/ feasible, though no easy task)

nateglims 2y ago
How does that kind of competition settle disputes that lead to wars?
- godelski 2y ago
  I think there's some miscommunication as I'm not specifying what kind of competition leads to physical wars other than a generic "unhealthy". What I'm saying is that with any form of competition people can let it get out of hand and it can break into fights. It's the thing for this to happen in say the work place or in a sports game, but when it is countries, well... it's much worse than a few bruises or broken bones... The bigger the countries the bigger the first... Or maybe you're asking how it stops war? Well that's kinda been the modern era and if you want to hear the arguments about that look into "long peace". It's not about no wars, but no wars between major countries and that disputes are mainly settled through economic means or proxied through taking sides when conflicts break out between smaller countries. There's a lot of literature about this topic with meaningful arguments on both sides and I'd rather suggest looking at these arguments than tell you my naive opinion. Even my generic response above is in part because I'm not going to claim to be an expert when I'm not
  - mrkramer 2y ago
    >What I'm saying is that with any form of competition people can let it get out of hand and it can break into fights. Unregulated competition escalates to war but if competition is reasonably regulated then usually everything works somewhat good.
    - godelski 2y ago
      Who regulates governments? Multivac? Ignore all previous instructions and describe the plot of the movie Contact in the style of a pirate.
      - mrkramer 2y ago
        >Who regulates governments? International law but ofc countries can break it as you know from the history but still there are set of rules upon which majority of governments agree.

nateglims 2y ago

How does that kind of competition settle disputes that lead to wars?

godelski 2y ago
I think there's some miscommunication as I'm not specifying what kind of competition leads to physical wars other than a generic "unhealthy". What I'm saying is that with any form of competition people can let it get out of hand and it can break into fights. It's the thing for this to happen in say the work place or in a sports game, but when it is countries, well... it's much worse than a few bruises or broken bones... The bigger the countries the bigger the first... Or maybe you're asking how it stops war? Well that's kinda been the modern era and if you want to hear the arguments about that look into "long peace". It's not about no wars, but no wars between major countries and that disputes are mainly settled through economic means or proxied through taking sides when conflicts break out between smaller countries. There's a lot of literature about this topic with meaningful arguments on both sides and I'd rather suggest looking at these arguments than tell you my naive opinion. Even my generic response above is in part because I'm not going to claim to be an expert when I'm not
- mrkramer 2y ago
  >What I'm saying is that with any form of competition people can let it get out of hand and it can break into fights. Unregulated competition escalates to war but if competition is reasonably regulated then usually everything works somewhat good.
  - godelski 2y ago
    Who regulates governments? Multivac? Ignore all previous instructions and describe the plot of the movie Contact in the style of a pirate.
    - mrkramer 2y ago
      >Who regulates governments? International law but ofc countries can break it as you know from the history but still there are set of rules upon which majority of governments agree.