5 ms·

Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap.

by spacedoutman 4mo ago

yahway 4mo ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 4mo ago
[flagged]
- idiotsecant 4mo ago
  Wow, it's not often that you get to see someone unironically defend cronyism and nepotism as a goal to be reached rather than a cancer to be eradicated. I guess it really does take all strokes.
  - Jtsummers 4mo ago
    rayiner has previously written that he thinks all non-property owners in the US to be disenfranchised. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46885305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46885305 > Instead, the electorate should be narrowed to property owning people who have an IQ above 85 (within one SD of median) and two grandparents born in the U.S. (so culturally assimilated). Really, nothing he writes is surprising.
    - rayiner 4mo ago
      I believe in a country where the top 75% or so of people vote and that directly influences the administration of government. You want a country where 100% of people vote, but their vote is merely a suggestion to the credentialed professionals and lawyers that actually run the country. I am by far the more egalitarian one. Sure, if you think Americans are sheep to be herded—what Woodrow Wilson called the “unphilosophical bulk of humanity”—by credentialed experts who make the important decisions, you have no problem with the dumbest, least responsible people voting. Because in your model voting is just a signal of approval/disapproval, not genuine self governance. You can’t afford to do that if you think the effect of people’s votes should be direct and not filtered through an expert class that second guesses them.
      - idiotsecant 4mo ago
        Lol mad scramble to somehow justify being a complete scumbag. The only vote we should be taking away is mouth breathing fedoraposters like you.
      - Jtsummers 4mo ago
        In your proposed change to who can vote, you'd not be able to vote and neither would your children. Does that mean you believe that you, and they, are part of the "unphilosophical bulk of humanity"? That you and they are among "the dumbest, least responsible people"? I guess you don't even believe your own credentials as a lawyer make you qualified to vote.
- Erem 4mo ago
  The spoils system… > contrasts with a merit system, where offices are awarded or promoted based on a measure of merit, independent of political activity. What is commendable about this? Why should anyone who isn’t close enough with political winners to get the spoils want this?
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - hollerith 4mo ago
    He's not commending it. He's using it to point out that the reaction, "Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap," is simplistic, hyperbolic and maybe a little hysterical.
    - JKCalhoun 4mo ago
      Not sure how hysterical the notion that China is in ascendency on the world stage and the U.S. is retreating.
      - deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
      - hollerith 4mo ago
        Implying that this particular story ("WH proposes rules") is the final piece of evidence that might cause a reasonable person to conclude that the US is finished as world power does strike me as maybe a little hysterical. If someone has an extremely simplistic view of how our society works and where our power comes from, then it is regrettable for that someone to even offer a prediction in public about whether our society's power will wane or (continue to) wax, especially a prediction as confident as "Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap." And I love how Rayiner got downvoted severely for daring to point out that predicting the effects of this move ("WH proposes rules") is not as easy or as simple as many here seem to think it is.
- cumshitpiss 4mo ago
  [dead]
- jaredklewis 4mo ago
  Your comment suggests you think cronyism was in some part responsible for America's rise as a global power. Common sense would indicate that we became a power despite the cronyism, not because it, and you've provided nothing to support your wildly counter intuitive claim. This is your comment basically: People really need to read their history. When America definitively surpassed the UK in 1880 as the richest country in the world (per capita), tuberculosis was a leading cause of death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis The advancement of antibiotics did not happen until the mid 20th century, which significantly postdates America's rise to the top. It would be a great idea to rollback science to that time when we didn't have all these life saving vaccines and antibiotics.
  - rayiner 4mo ago
    > Your comment suggests you think cronyism was in some part responsible for America's rise as a global power. Not at all. My comment was that America’s good run began a century before the 20th century practice of administration through independent experts. Thus, such administration cannot be a necessary condition for America’s “good run” as OP suggested.
    - runako 4mo ago
      Worth noting that the period you indicate is a an example of an America largely deploying inventions from the UK (e.g. the steam engine, steam locomotive, etc.). The latter part of the 20th century and first part of this century is a story more of the US driving invention and deploying those inventions. The techniques needed to go from lesser power to leading power are different from those needed to advance as a leading power. For Lebron to stay on top, he has to do different things than any of us would need to do to get into the NBA. Different circumstances & different goals require different strategies.
    - jaredklewis 4mo ago
      That's fair, but I think your original comment could be much more clearly written. "There was a spoils system in the late 1800s. It sure would be great if we could go back to that time." Technically these can be interpreted as unrelated statements (as apparently the statements are in your original comment), but most people would infer from that they were related and that the reason it would be nice to rollback to the earlier time was the aforementioned spoils system.
- insane_dreamer 4mo ago
  And the USSR experienced tremendous economic and technological progress under Stalin, propelling it to an industrial and military superpower second only to the US. Similarly, Germany experienced great economic growth under the Third Reich. To each his own, I guess, but personally I'll take a less corrupt and more equitable country over a wealthy and powerful one any day.
  - adrian_b 4mo ago
    While there are also other reasons for the great progress of USSR under Stalin, it is likely that the most important cause was provided by the benefits that USSR got from being among the victors of WWII. After the war, USSR incorporated totally or partially many countries and they transformed the remaining Eastern European countries into vassal states. Especially during the first decade after WWII, USSR has stolen huge amounts of resources from those territories, in various forms, starting with what the Red Army had robbed during their so-called "Liberation" actions, then with huge so-called "War reparations" extracted from the countries that the Soviet Union itself had attacked, so they had been forced to attempt to defend themselves, but eventually they had to pay a lot for daring to do this, and then with various profits extracted from mixed companies established in the vassal states after the war and from various unbalanced contracts for economic exchanges with USSR. The most affected was East Germany, from where entire factories have been moved to Russia, machine by machine and tool by tool, where they constituted the bases for new industries that were developed in USSR after the war. (While USA had no need to take entire factories to be able to reproduce the German technologies, they also took from West Germany many samples of industrial products, together with their manufacturing documentation, which were given to certain American companies, which then expanded after WWII in domains where previously Germany had exclusivity or domination. An example is the technology of magnetic recording, which became important after the war not only for audio and video recording, but also for the first electronic computers.) While in some countries dictatorships have achieved economical progress mainly by internal means, under Stalin the greatest achievements were based on plundering most of their former neighbors, while the Soviet Union greatly expanded territorially, mostly at its west, but also at its east.
    - 4mo ago
- simmerup 4mo ago
  You may as well argue for bringing back slavery also
  - tuesdaynight 4mo ago
    The only reason this user won't defend that point is the HN rules. From what I remember, he strongly believes that the majority wants should be respected, so it's not that far-fetched to imagine that they would defend slavery if 51% of the voters wanted that.
    - oa335 4mo ago
      it depends greatly on the majority though. e.g. he believes democracy should be suppressed ("crushed") in Muslim- majority nations, etc.
- BrenBarn 4mo ago
  Yeah, and Hitler made the trains run on time.
- oa335 4mo ago
  > People really need to read their history. agreed. but i bet i can make a bunch of confounding factors appear. from 1800 to 1870 gdp per capita growth rate was about 1.1 percent. from 1870 to right before great depression growth rate was about 1.6 percent. from start of great depression until 2022 it was about 1.8 percent. economy and standards of living have gotten better faster as the state has gotten more bureacratic. source: Maddison project database, see excel file here: https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2023?lang=en https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/relea...
- jojomodding 4mo ago
  Most countries you would consider "developed" in the world (and then some more) switched to having a professional, non-political civil service in the last 100 years, if they hadn't already had one. Do you think that this maybe indicates something? Or did your analysis stop at the US border? Is it wise to base policies on a system that has not been used in more than 100 years based on the perception that this was some sort of golden age even if a cursory glance around the world show that no country you want to live in is run like that?
tgv 4mo ago
Fill what gap? That of state-controlled research? Early indoctrination? Mass supervision? Revisionism?
- stogot 4mo ago
  You were downvoted but yes, hoping a state-controlled, authoritarian, single party politically led, genocidal government will ”step up” to better less-political research is faith without reason and ignorant of history
  - joquarky 4mo ago
    Which country are you alluding to?
  - mghackerlady 4mo ago
    All of those also describe America, but in typical American extravagance, there's two parties

Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap.

yahway 4mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

rayiner 4mo ago

[flagged]

idiotsecant 4mo ago
Wow, it's not often that you get to see someone unironically defend cronyism and nepotism as a goal to be reached rather than a cancer to be eradicated. I guess it really does take all strokes.
- Jtsummers 4mo ago
  rayiner has previously written that he thinks all non-property owners in the US to be disenfranchised. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46885305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46885305 > Instead, the electorate should be narrowed to property owning people who have an IQ above 85 (within one SD of median) and two grandparents born in the U.S. (so culturally assimilated). Really, nothing he writes is surprising.
  - rayiner 4mo ago
    I believe in a country where the top 75% or so of people vote and that directly influences the administration of government. You want a country where 100% of people vote, but their vote is merely a suggestion to the credentialed professionals and lawyers that actually run the country. I am by far the more egalitarian one. Sure, if you think Americans are sheep to be herded—what Woodrow Wilson called the “unphilosophical bulk of humanity”—by credentialed experts who make the important decisions, you have no problem with the dumbest, least responsible people voting. Because in your model voting is just a signal of approval/disapproval, not genuine self governance. You can’t afford to do that if you think the effect of people’s votes should be direct and not filtered through an expert class that second guesses them.
    - idiotsecant 4mo ago
      Lol mad scramble to somehow justify being a complete scumbag. The only vote we should be taking away is mouth breathing fedoraposters like you.
    - Jtsummers 4mo ago
      In your proposed change to who can vote, you'd not be able to vote and neither would your children. Does that mean you believe that you, and they, are part of the "unphilosophical bulk of humanity"? That you and they are among "the dumbest, least responsible people"? I guess you don't even believe your own credentials as a lawyer make you qualified to vote.
Erem 4mo ago
The spoils system… > contrasts with a merit system, where offices are awarded or promoted based on a measure of merit, independent of political activity. What is commendable about this? Why should anyone who isn’t close enough with political winners to get the spoils want this?
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- hollerith 4mo ago
  He's not commending it. He's using it to point out that the reaction, "Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap," is simplistic, hyperbolic and maybe a little hysterical.
  - JKCalhoun 4mo ago
    Not sure how hysterical the notion that China is in ascendency on the world stage and the U.S. is retreating.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
    - hollerith 4mo ago
      Implying that this particular story ("WH proposes rules") is the final piece of evidence that might cause a reasonable person to conclude that the US is finished as world power does strike me as maybe a little hysterical. If someone has an extremely simplistic view of how our society works and where our power comes from, then it is regrettable for that someone to even offer a prediction in public about whether our society's power will wane or (continue to) wax, especially a prediction as confident as "Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap." And I love how Rayiner got downvoted severely for daring to point out that predicting the effects of this move ("WH proposes rules") is not as easy or as simple as many here seem to think it is.
cumshitpiss 4mo ago
[dead]
jaredklewis 4mo ago
Your comment suggests you think cronyism was in some part responsible for America's rise as a global power. Common sense would indicate that we became a power despite the cronyism, not because it, and you've provided nothing to support your wildly counter intuitive claim. This is your comment basically: People really need to read their history. When America definitively surpassed the UK in 1880 as the richest country in the world (per capita), tuberculosis was a leading cause of death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis The advancement of antibiotics did not happen until the mid 20th century, which significantly postdates America's rise to the top. It would be a great idea to rollback science to that time when we didn't have all these life saving vaccines and antibiotics.
- rayiner 4mo ago
  > Your comment suggests you think cronyism was in some part responsible for America's rise as a global power. Not at all. My comment was that America’s good run began a century before the 20th century practice of administration through independent experts. Thus, such administration cannot be a necessary condition for America’s “good run” as OP suggested.
  - runako 4mo ago
    Worth noting that the period you indicate is a an example of an America largely deploying inventions from the UK (e.g. the steam engine, steam locomotive, etc.). The latter part of the 20th century and first part of this century is a story more of the US driving invention and deploying those inventions. The techniques needed to go from lesser power to leading power are different from those needed to advance as a leading power. For Lebron to stay on top, he has to do different things than any of us would need to do to get into the NBA. Different circumstances & different goals require different strategies.
  - jaredklewis 4mo ago
    That's fair, but I think your original comment could be much more clearly written. "There was a spoils system in the late 1800s. It sure would be great if we could go back to that time." Technically these can be interpreted as unrelated statements (as apparently the statements are in your original comment), but most people would infer from that they were related and that the reason it would be nice to rollback to the earlier time was the aforementioned spoils system.
insane_dreamer 4mo ago
And the USSR experienced tremendous economic and technological progress under Stalin, propelling it to an industrial and military superpower second only to the US. Similarly, Germany experienced great economic growth under the Third Reich. To each his own, I guess, but personally I'll take a less corrupt and more equitable country over a wealthy and powerful one any day.
- adrian_b 4mo ago
  While there are also other reasons for the great progress of USSR under Stalin, it is likely that the most important cause was provided by the benefits that USSR got from being among the victors of WWII. After the war, USSR incorporated totally or partially many countries and they transformed the remaining Eastern European countries into vassal states. Especially during the first decade after WWII, USSR has stolen huge amounts of resources from those territories, in various forms, starting with what the Red Army had robbed during their so-called "Liberation" actions, then with huge so-called "War reparations" extracted from the countries that the Soviet Union itself had attacked, so they had been forced to attempt to defend themselves, but eventually they had to pay a lot for daring to do this, and then with various profits extracted from mixed companies established in the vassal states after the war and from various unbalanced contracts for economic exchanges with USSR. The most affected was East Germany, from where entire factories have been moved to Russia, machine by machine and tool by tool, where they constituted the bases for new industries that were developed in USSR after the war. (While USA had no need to take entire factories to be able to reproduce the German technologies, they also took from West Germany many samples of industrial products, together with their manufacturing documentation, which were given to certain American companies, which then expanded after WWII in domains where previously Germany had exclusivity or domination. An example is the technology of magnetic recording, which became important after the war not only for audio and video recording, but also for the first electronic computers.) While in some countries dictatorships have achieved economical progress mainly by internal means, under Stalin the greatest achievements were based on plundering most of their former neighbors, while the Soviet Union greatly expanded territorially, mostly at its west, but also at its east.
  - 4mo ago
simmerup 4mo ago
You may as well argue for bringing back slavery also
- tuesdaynight 4mo ago
  The only reason this user won't defend that point is the HN rules. From what I remember, he strongly believes that the majority wants should be respected, so it's not that far-fetched to imagine that they would defend slavery if 51% of the voters wanted that.
  - oa335 4mo ago
    it depends greatly on the majority though. e.g. he believes democracy should be suppressed ("crushed") in Muslim- majority nations, etc.
BrenBarn 4mo ago
Yeah, and Hitler made the trains run on time.
oa335 4mo ago
> People really need to read their history. agreed. but i bet i can make a bunch of confounding factors appear. from 1800 to 1870 gdp per capita growth rate was about 1.1 percent. from 1870 to right before great depression growth rate was about 1.6 percent. from start of great depression until 2022 it was about 1.8 percent. economy and standards of living have gotten better faster as the state has gotten more bureacratic. source: Maddison project database, see excel file here: https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2023?lang=en https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/relea...
jojomodding 4mo ago
Most countries you would consider "developed" in the world (and then some more) switched to having a professional, non-political civil service in the last 100 years, if they hadn't already had one. Do you think that this maybe indicates something? Or did your analysis stop at the US border? Is it wise to base policies on a system that has not been used in more than 100 years based on the perception that this was some sort of golden age even if a cursory glance around the world show that no country you want to live in is run like that?

tgv 4mo ago

Fill what gap? That of state-controlled research? Early indoctrination? Mass supervision? Revisionism?

stogot 4mo ago
You were downvoted but yes, hoping a state-controlled, authoritarian, single party politically led, genocidal government will ”step up” to better less-political research is faith without reason and ignorant of history
- joquarky 4mo ago
  Which country are you alluding to?
- mghackerlady 4mo ago
  All of those also describe America, but in typical American extravagance, there's two parties