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So far. China has been focused on becoming a world's factory for 30 years. They started moving up the food chain fairly recently. Give it another generation an

by ptero 2y ago

So far. China has been focused on becoming a world's factory for 30 years. They started moving up the food chain fairly recently. Give it another generation and if China will not walk off the ledge with either government or societal issues (which, granted, is where they are slowly going IMO) they will own the UX and design as well. My 2c.

ninetyninenine 2y ago
They’ve been moving up the food chain for 30 years. The only difference is recently that upward movement has begun to surpass the US. Given that the US has been number one for a really long time now it doesn’t sit well with a lot of the patriotic identity people have about the US. People either can’t accept reality or the make up some excuse about unfair economic practices. The last thing they want to admit is that China is more competent or more superior.
- ptero 2y ago
  > They’ve been moving up the food chain for 30 years. Organically, sure. If a company has an opportunity to build higher value components profitably it would likely take it. But that is slow. What I mean is state pouring massive amounts of money, every year for many years, into as-is unprofitable areas to build not just the products but education, infrastructure and support needed for the local companies to become competitive. WSJ had a good article in the last few days on China's containership building which AFACR said the government poured over 10 billion at the time to become the world's shipbuilder. This is the time of effort I am talking about and, as far as I know, it is fairly new.
  - ricardobeat 2y ago
    $10B is a drop in the ocean. If all it took was a bit of money the US could have stayed ahead. For perspective, they’ve earmarked $800B for clean energy subsidies, that AI fund is $500B. You can’t buy back entire supply chains and a workforce, it takes generations.
    - ptero 2y ago
      It was 10B 20 years ago when China was significantly poorer. And it is not just money. It is planning, oversight and various care and feeding activities (china-style, including executing officials for corruption) for almost 10 years before that part of the system became mature and economically self-supporting.
- asimpletune 2y ago
  The moment I realized this was going to be the truth was when the Chinese government essentially purged a bunch of unicorn social media companies overnight, erasing billions of wealth on paper. It seemed like the motive was to value and encourage actual economic value over worshipping whatever makes the line go up. When I saw they had the guts and wisdom to do that I realized that they may have a better grasp on philosophy. Previously I always thought democracy was a slow but eventually correct system of producing wisdom. And to a degree there’s been truth to this. However the missing ingredient has been what do we do with that success once we’ve had it. The west would never have the guts to delete a billion dollar industry even if they realized it was a net negative. We simply don’t know how to guard against our passions, pleasures, and handle success in a responsible way. I think cccp has many flaws but taking bold action against this kind of problem isn’t one of them. I do hope that I’m wrong about this though and that a democratic system can see its way out of a local maximum built upon an unsustainable way of doing things. I think the belief in the market as some kind of oracle that knows value and price is its language has a lot to do with this track we’re on.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    Which social media companies have been removed? They still have large clear leaders at the moment.
    - selimthegrim 2y ago
      Jack Ma’s
  - ProjectArcturis 2y ago
    I agree with your comments about the West. The fact that we continue to expand legal gambling is evidence enough that we don't care about the negative consequences of an industry. But let's not pretend China is perfect. The purge had much more to do with a) eliminating a potential competing power to the CCCP, and b) Xi's boomer-era gut instinct that new media forms are bad.
    - 2y ago
- otabdeveloper4 2y ago
  The USA hasn't been number one in anything for decades. So really nothing will change, Americans will keep thinking they're number one and life will go on as usual.
  - pupppet 2y ago
    USA is number one in believing they are number one.
    - ninetyninenine 2y ago
      The US is still number one I making software and space. Though I doubt we have much longer to hold onto this.
      - otabdeveloper4 2y ago
        The only US-made software with global reach is Microsoft Windows, and I doubt that thing can be considered "number one".
        ninetyninenine 2y ago
        Software nowadays is cloud based. Google. Facebook. Global reach. Oh yeah Mac OS. Global reach. iOS global reach. Android global reach. Minecraft global reach. I know Minecraft was from Sweden but since Microsoft bought it Europe can’t take credit for it.

by ptero 2y ago

ninetyninenine 2y ago

They’ve been moving up the food chain for 30 years. The only difference is recently that upward movement has begun to surpass the US. Given that the US has been number one for a really long time now it doesn’t sit well with a lot of the patriotic identity people have about the US. People either can’t accept reality or the make up some excuse about unfair economic practices. The last thing they want to admit is that China is more competent or more superior.

ptero 2y ago
> They’ve been moving up the food chain for 30 years. Organically, sure. If a company has an opportunity to build higher value components profitably it would likely take it. But that is slow. What I mean is state pouring massive amounts of money, every year for many years, into as-is unprofitable areas to build not just the products but education, infrastructure and support needed for the local companies to become competitive. WSJ had a good article in the last few days on China's containership building which AFACR said the government poured over 10 billion at the time to become the world's shipbuilder. This is the time of effort I am talking about and, as far as I know, it is fairly new.
- ricardobeat 2y ago
  $10B is a drop in the ocean. If all it took was a bit of money the US could have stayed ahead. For perspective, they’ve earmarked $800B for clean energy subsidies, that AI fund is $500B. You can’t buy back entire supply chains and a workforce, it takes generations.
  - ptero 2y ago
    It was 10B 20 years ago when China was significantly poorer. And it is not just money. It is planning, oversight and various care and feeding activities (china-style, including executing officials for corruption) for almost 10 years before that part of the system became mature and economically self-supporting.
asimpletune 2y ago
The moment I realized this was going to be the truth was when the Chinese government essentially purged a bunch of unicorn social media companies overnight, erasing billions of wealth on paper. It seemed like the motive was to value and encourage actual economic value over worshipping whatever makes the line go up. When I saw they had the guts and wisdom to do that I realized that they may have a better grasp on philosophy. Previously I always thought democracy was a slow but eventually correct system of producing wisdom. And to a degree there’s been truth to this. However the missing ingredient has been what do we do with that success once we’ve had it. The west would never have the guts to delete a billion dollar industry even if they realized it was a net negative. We simply don’t know how to guard against our passions, pleasures, and handle success in a responsible way. I think cccp has many flaws but taking bold action against this kind of problem isn’t one of them. I do hope that I’m wrong about this though and that a democratic system can see its way out of a local maximum built upon an unsustainable way of doing things. I think the belief in the market as some kind of oracle that knows value and price is its language has a lot to do with this track we’re on.
- viraptor 2y ago
  Which social media companies have been removed? They still have large clear leaders at the moment.
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    Jack Ma’s
- ProjectArcturis 2y ago
  I agree with your comments about the West. The fact that we continue to expand legal gambling is evidence enough that we don't care about the negative consequences of an industry. But let's not pretend China is perfect. The purge had much more to do with a) eliminating a potential competing power to the CCCP, and b) Xi's boomer-era gut instinct that new media forms are bad.
  - 2y ago
otabdeveloper4 2y ago
The USA hasn't been number one in anything for decades. So really nothing will change, Americans will keep thinking they're number one and life will go on as usual.
- pupppet 2y ago
  USA is number one in believing they are number one.
  - ninetyninenine 2y ago
    The US is still number one I making software and space. Though I doubt we have much longer to hold onto this.
    - otabdeveloper4 2y ago
      The only US-made software with global reach is Microsoft Windows, and I doubt that thing can be considered "number one".
      - ninetyninenine 2y ago
        Software nowadays is cloud based. Google. Facebook. Global reach. Oh yeah Mac OS. Global reach. iOS global reach. Android global reach. Minecraft global reach. I know Minecraft was from Sweden but since Microsoft bought it Europe can’t take credit for it.