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Chinese doesn't have tense at all. That's why China has been utterly unable to plan anything over the past 30 years whereas the United States with their nicely

Chinese doesn't have tense at all. That's why China has been utterly unable to plan anything over the past 30 years whereas the United States with their nicely tensed language has deftly planned and organised lots of infrastructure for the future.

biorach 1y ago
wonderful rebuttal
adityaathalye 1y ago
What do you mean? Their relationship is always tense.
thaumasiotes 1y ago
Oddly, standard Mandarin does have tense, but it only shows up in negative sentences. You have to negate verbs differently in the past tense. An English speaker will feel right at home with which negation to use when. Indo-European languages tend to have a subjunctive mood, and while it's nearly gone in English, we still have the robust distinction between real and unreal situations that mood reflects. This is much hazier in Chinese; it's hard (for an English speaker, and I assume any Indo-European speaker) not to notice that Chinese sentences often don't bother to make a distinction.
PurpleRamen 1y ago
China has not really a good track record in terms of planning, especially when it's time related. They plan and build too much and end up with unused ruins, or even infrastructure which breaks down on the first whim. Of course this is not because of language, but in this context here it's a funny twist.
- suddenlybananas 1y ago
  They clearly plan better than the US, at least in recent history.
  - PurpleRamen 1y ago
    Not sure about that. They scrapped 70% or so of their planned coal plants some months ago because of over-planning. They've built housing for 3 billion or so people, which nobody will ever use. They are building big train stations, for a tiny amount of passengers, just because maybe in some decades somebody will use them. The thing about western countries like the USA, which people often don't get is: they are old, they've built their sh*t decades and centuries ago, they were the first one building and use new fancy technologies, and now they have to live with it and can't just switch them as easily as people wish for it. Countries like China, who just now start building modern stuff have the benefit of coming late to the game, have not technical debt and old expensive infrastructure they have to honor. So they advantage is not better planning, or throwing more money at it, but mainly being late to the game and learning from the mistakes of others.
    - skyyler 1y ago
      >They've built housing for 3 billion or so people, which nobody will ever use. Planning for future capacity is a mystery to English speakers for some reason. >So they advantage is not better planning, or throwing more money at it, but mainly being late to the game and learning from the mistakes of others. Have you ever looked at the five-year plans the Chinese government publishes? It's quite interesting how much of their economy is planned in advance.
      - PurpleRamen 1y ago
        >>They've built housing for 3 billion or so people, which nobody will ever use. > Planning for future capacity is a mystery to English speakers for some reason. There was no planning involved, it was just a housing-bubble which busted some years ago and devastated some companies along the way. USA had this in 2008 too. Also, do you seriously think china will reach 4+ billion citizen in the next 10 years? They have less than half of this now and aim to have even less. > Have you ever looked at the five-year plans the Chinese government publishes? It's quite interesting how much of their economy is planned in advance. Yes, it is, and so do other countries. And all those plans are also struggling and failing regularly, in all countries. China is overall as good or bad as every other country in what they are doing, it's mainly their situation which makes a different in the outcome.

biorach 1y ago

wonderful rebuttal

adityaathalye 1y ago

What do you mean? Their relationship is always tense.

thaumasiotes 1y ago

Oddly, standard Mandarin does have tense, but it only shows up in negative sentences. You have to negate verbs differently in the past tense. An English speaker will feel right at home with which negation to use when. Indo-European languages tend to have a subjunctive mood, and while it's nearly gone in English, we still have the robust distinction between real and unreal situations that mood reflects. This is much hazier in Chinese; it's hard (for an English speaker, and I assume any Indo-European speaker) not to notice that Chinese sentences often don't bother to make a distinction.

PurpleRamen 1y ago

China has not really a good track record in terms of planning, especially when it's time related. They plan and build too much and end up with unused ruins, or even infrastructure which breaks down on the first whim. Of course this is not because of language, but in this context here it's a funny twist.

suddenlybananas 1y ago
They clearly plan better than the US, at least in recent history.
- PurpleRamen 1y ago
  Not sure about that. They scrapped 70% or so of their planned coal plants some months ago because of over-planning. They've built housing for 3 billion or so people, which nobody will ever use. They are building big train stations, for a tiny amount of passengers, just because maybe in some decades somebody will use them. The thing about western countries like the USA, which people often don't get is: they are old, they've built their sh*t decades and centuries ago, they were the first one building and use new fancy technologies, and now they have to live with it and can't just switch them as easily as people wish for it. Countries like China, who just now start building modern stuff have the benefit of coming late to the game, have not technical debt and old expensive infrastructure they have to honor. So they advantage is not better planning, or throwing more money at it, but mainly being late to the game and learning from the mistakes of others.
  - skyyler 1y ago
    >They've built housing for 3 billion or so people, which nobody will ever use. Planning for future capacity is a mystery to English speakers for some reason. >So they advantage is not better planning, or throwing more money at it, but mainly being late to the game and learning from the mistakes of others. Have you ever looked at the five-year plans the Chinese government publishes? It's quite interesting how much of their economy is planned in advance.
    - PurpleRamen 1y ago
      >>They've built housing for 3 billion or so people, which nobody will ever use. > Planning for future capacity is a mystery to English speakers for some reason. There was no planning involved, it was just a housing-bubble which busted some years ago and devastated some companies along the way. USA had this in 2008 too. Also, do you seriously think china will reach 4+ billion citizen in the next 10 years? They have less than half of this now and aim to have even less. > Have you ever looked at the five-year plans the Chinese government publishes? It's quite interesting how much of their economy is planned in advance. Yes, it is, and so do other countries. And all those plans are also struggling and failing regularly, in all countries. China is overall as good or bad as every other country in what they are doing, it's mainly their situation which makes a different in the outcome.