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China: the New Advanced Technology Research Hotbed
securitas writes "The New York Times' Chris Buckley reports that China is the new hotbed of advanced technology research and development for hundreds of global technology companies. The list includes household names like Oracle (which 'opened a lab in Beijing to tailor its Linux operating software to suit its Asian customers'), Motorola, Siemens, IBM, Intel, General Electric, Nokia and others. Microsoft Research Asia hopes Google-surpassing technology comes from a group of '10 researchers ... working on new ways to drill deep into the Internet and select and organize the information found there.' Growth of the R&D sector in China is so rapid that 'within five years China could overtake Britain, Germany and Japan as a base for corporate research, leaving it second only to the United States.'"
Reg Free Link
OK, now let's argue over whether or not Slashdot counts as a "Blog", and whether or not we should be using the New York Times Link Generator to create links so that people can RTFA!
Yes, BugMeNot works too, but if you're going to provide an article to Slashdot, at least make it so everyone can read it without jumping through hoops...
China announces massive adoption of Linux.
A short time later, China emerges as a research-leader...
Of course you CAN do research with closed-source operating systems like Windows, but you have to wait until Microsoft ALLOWS you to.
*chuckle*
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
What's most fascinating about this, to me at least, is that in Western countries, this would be just a sort of emergent phenomenon, unpredicted and unplanned. But in China, odds are good that this is a deliberate strategy on the part of the Chinese government.
Which, incidentally, is something that a lot of people seem to overlook: China's economy is becoming more and more capitalistic, but China is still politically and socially very much a state-run nation. The increasing captilism is part of the government's plan to bring the Chinese economy to the forefront of the world, and I tend to believe that this surge in R&D is just as much a deliberate strategy on the part of the Chinese government.
Frankly, I find the whole thing fascinating.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
... to lift technology export restrictions. Right now. All of them. (Okay, with the exception of classified military research -- but we should also take a hard look at what's classified, and why, and whether keeping it classified does any good.) Once upon a time, when the US and its European allies were the only source for high tech, this policy made a certain amount of sense on national security grounds. But now, the restrictions only serve to weaken national security, by hurting the technology base in the US -- or are simply annoyances to be worked around by companies like Microsoft and Oracle, which are theoretically US companies but are in fact loyal only to themselves.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The irony of the "google beating search" is that it's being done in a country that heavily censors the internet. I wonder what they might use a powerful search engine for...?
"within five years China could overtake Britain, Germany and Japan as a base for corporate research, leaving it second only to the United States."
And within ten? Maybe we can do their tech support for them. Outsourcing's a bitch, but it works both ways.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
So are you treated better or worse over there as a research assistent than over here in the USA?
Engineering and the Ultimate
Growth of the R&D sector in China is so rapid that 'within five years China could overtake Britain, Germany and Japan as a base for corporate research, leaving it second only to the United States.'
Great, and within 10 years they'll probably surpass the USA. That is the direction everything's heading- outsourcing the skilled, high tech, and R&D work is going to hollow out the US economy until it collapses in on itself like a neutron star...
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
Sorry to say it, but I really don't find anything dissatisfying about the way Google selects and organizes information found on the Internet. Rarely do I ever even look at the second page of search results, because the first one always has the information I was after.
If Microsoft wants to beat Google, they're going to have to pick a different venue.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
Is the announcement trying to be buzzword compliant?
Many people make fun of Nixon, but his Sunshine Policy with regard to China has really helped China and the world. Can you imagine China as closed and belligerent as North Korea ?
And the other thing is competition is good for everyone.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Western languages like English use alphabetical glyphs which are combined to form words, which can recursively combine to form acronyms and abbreviations.
By in China, Mandarin, Cantonese and other dialects are all written using ideographs, where one glyph represents a single word. As a result, it is impossible to form acronyms. And as a result, technological progress is impossible.
Now, where's my company acronym dictionary again?
In other words, they don't want to have to pay american or european researchers fat salaries.
Come on where's all the expected whining? These are 'potential' American research jobs, aren't they? High paying, cutting edge positions. If this article was about India I am sure all the regulars would be coming out of the woodwork.
Maybe it just goes to show...
All money flows as fast as possible to where it can grow the fastest.
Think you can double you money fast in US stocks? Fat chance. But in China companies are growing like crazy.
The US has peaked because everyone is already consuming at 110%, about set for a complete economic meltdown. China has a billion poor people, just waiting to spend all their money on stuff, and they don't speak English. *gasp*
That and a PhD researcher will cost you like $US 200/month.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Considering that companies (MS, IBM, et al.) are patent whoring (whether be defensive or strategic in nature) in the US and reverse engineering is now considered to be a crime in most cases, it is stifling innovation. The US is now a sue-society where money talks and lesser companies/individuals are being held back my the corporate oligarchy.
Add to that the "bad stigma" associated with stem cell research here in the US...it's no surprise to me that the R&D in the US is declining and increasing in the world where people are less shackled by legal systems/lobbyist (now shackled human rights saved for another discussion)
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
China Tech News has great articles about the hotbed of activity there.
:-)
/. do we have? To keep up, I suggest we all Learn chinese characters!
And Kylin is supposed to be a windows, linux, unix and *BSD and MacOS beater ! Interesting stuff!
After the 2008 Olympics people will wake up to a reality, how advanced China is! I think it is great! Lets hope China becomes a huge adopter of linux!
How many Chinese
Looking forward to 2008. See you there!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Over a decade back China placed great emphasis on education in technology, now with a large pool of talent to draw from the country is in a great position to harness it's own technology future, as well as that of other countries.
Meanwhile in the US, students care about being cool, having the latest toys and what others think. Only nerds actually study.
Perhaps chinese youth will catch up to the slovenly and egocentric ways of the west. Some chinese diplomat, back in the 1800's said something to the effect of 'China already has everything and needs nothing, what can Europe offer to China?' Well, the answer was Opium. Maybe the next opium craze in china will be western fashion, television and SUV's.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...is if China views this tremendous opportunity for cooperation and collaboration as a chance to exercise "techno-nationalism". Recall recent technological initiatives by China, such as the E-DVD format, that have been criticized as efforts to strongarm international community to adopt China's own technological standards - standards which even its own manufacturers have trouble meeting and even denounce as unworkable. While other efforts have been more subtle (think "Red Flag Linux"), one can't help but wonder if China's own tremendous potential may be undone by its nationalistic bent. But for the time being, China is indeed in the "zone".
I saw someone crediting communism in this thread. Here is my reply to all those people:
I would not credit communism in this case. I call myself a communist and in my opinion (and most others) China is absoluteley not a communist nation.
I would credit the totalitarian system in china. If the leader(s) in such a system are working towards a goal, it will always reach that goal more effectively than a democracy (since the democratic process often slow things down - especially if it something that is unpopular - like terraforming a planet). However, more often than not, you end up with a leadership that spends most of its time on quelling resistance or abusing its powers, wich you do not want!
Totalitarian systems are verry bad things - even if it is more effective (like china) in some cases, for obvious reasons.
It's pretty obvious what a censoring, Big Brother state wants do with an extremely powersul search engine:
In Communist China, the search engine looks for YOU!
On the contrary, they're there because the chinese market is the last frontier, and it's the big one. To not be a player in China is to say you're comfortable in your niche until they come and take it away from you.
Sure, there will always be fly-by-night doctoral schools. Heck there are in the USA, where do you suppose John Gray (mars and venus) got his Masters and PhD? But that doesn't mean you can't screen them out and out of 1000 candidates find some who really know their stuff (same as in the west, I might add!)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As for "works on how to run a government" maybe the Chinese should read those themselves.
Umm, their government was totally crooked when the U.S. was trying to find the best way to exploit their workers. They beat the U.S. there.
The war is on. And the Chinese will win. All they have to do is stop shipping to the U.S. and it will hurt the U.S. faster than it will hurt China. They now have the ability to not only raise themselves to first world status, but the ability to lower others from first world to second and third world status. on a whim.
All the U.S. has is nukes. And they'll go about as far as its righteous indignation.
could it be that every company in the USA and most companies elsewhere is struggling to establish any relation it can with a million zillion chinese prospective customers?
Oh that involves investing a little bit? Well that's the nature of buisiness. What? You want us to put some jobs over there? Sure! How about some research jobs? They are egghead and cool-sounding, but that leaves us with the all-important administrative jobs still here in the west... wouldn't want to outsource ourselves now, would we?
After a few big companies get burned by having their IP stolen by the Chinese, I suspect that the lure of cheap, highly educated labor will wane.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Let's see THAT in China!
Let me help refine that:
1984-2004
stuff |
I'm not a pessimist about technology, but I'm disappointed in what has passed for technology since, say the 1960s. As they say --where's the flying cars damnit? It was supposed to be like radio, black and white TV, color TV, high speed Internet, holographic immersion, direct neural interface and beyond already. It's 2004! What happened? It's practically the same as the seventies.
You know, when the iMac counts as a technological breakthrough things are slow. No offense to the Mac lovers, but it was more of a design breaktrhough than anything. That's just one of many examples of that same thing where it's a new style as opposed to a radically new technology. Cars get this treatment all the time. The differnce between the new model and the old model is the freakin' plastic brake light reflectors. That's not an advance. That sucks.
The Internet itself is another example. Just because a series of factors made it seem to emerge suddenly, it isn't really the case that it happened suddenly at all. Mostly it was just a matter of merging rather dated defence research into the private sector. Same with a lot of chip designs. It's not really all that amazing or recent. It just took a long time to make it your way.
And as for CMOS process tecnologies and the whole Moore's Law thing. Give me a break, that was not and is not really about pusing the edge of technology as much as it was about markets being controlled by only a few players being able to afford to compete.
Immersion lithography which is part of what is making China so hot was experimented with decades ago and abandoned because it didn't fit the business plans of the likes of Intel or IBM at the time.
So, when I see this stuff about China being the new "technology research hotbed" it doesn't strike me as being all that meaningful. It's the new manufacturing center for chips. So what.
I mean besides CMOS chip technology which is already very, very mature its hard to point to real major technology that has been developed in the last forty years with any serious economic significance. Okay lasers, though for the most part just the small ones, have improved a lot and small motors are more reliable. Anything outside of IT though? Even MEMS is still mostly about IT. There's promises about ultra efficient fuel cells and nanotubes and such but there were promises forty years ago as well. They even had better promises back then. We're still building houses out of wooden sticks for crying out loud.
Technology outside of IT moves unbelievably slowly.
So, if China is where the chips are going to be made then naturally you'll have a lot of designers there making consumer products, but is that really a technology research hotbed? I'd call it more like a designer extravaganza.
I do hope it could be otherwise, but I don't know. Something tells me we're still going to have internal combustion autos a hundred years from now.
However, like I said, I'm not a pessimist. I think the revenge we will get is that we'll live incredibly long lives so we will eventually see the flying cars, space elevators and what-not. We'll just have to be very patient. All I expect out of China is cheaper PCs. As if they weren't cheap already.
The "one child policy" coupled with the practice of killing females newborns and fetuses has created a scarcity of women to distract the males. With no women to be chasing, there's nothing to do but work.
And chinese porn
If China ever stopped shipping to the U.S, there would be plenty of other countries lined up to take their place. Chinese firms have managed to provide products that are cheap and of adequate quality, depending on what your standards are. Other countries have cheap labor too, and as soon as there is demand they will be able to crank out manufactured products in almost the same way.
Yes, but does Microsoft Really NEED China? I don't think they do. I think with the average consumer (read: American), new features created from research in another country isn't going to matter in their operating system, other software on their computer, or the internet.
He speaks of China in there somewhere. Do a search but if you want read the whole thing. It's really interesting. http://www.operatingthetan.com/metameme.txt
Let's not forget inventing typeset printing -- that's _actually_ inventing it, not coming up with it magically thousands of years after someone else invented it... COUGH*Gutenberg*COUGH
t ory/General%5CThe_History_of_Printing-362967.htm . html
The first thing off of the Gutenberg press? The Bible. The next thing? Pr0n.
(clean history of printing) http://www.studyworld.com/newsite/ReportEssay/His
(brief mention of gutenberg's rapid switch to printing filth: R-rated link, sorry) http://www.robyncalifornia.com/writing/o_01-06-25
stuff |
Personally, I agree with you, I just don't think Arnie will though.
-Derek
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
And maybe then, people in the US will FINALLY realize that the US is not the center of the universe.
And yes, I am a born-and-raised American. I am just so friggin sick of this idea that the USA is the greatest country in the world and that it always will be. It isn't a big surprise that the "rest of the world" will catch up to and probably surpass us in lots of things. Think automobile production in the 70s. Think electronics. Think military. We are so used to being bullies and living in our own minds that we have forgotten the rest of the world. How many times have you heard something like: "France doesn't like our politics? Screw 'em, who needs the French anyway?" I have heard it way too much. The US is probably the least worldly nation on the planet. (that should be)
Not to start a flamewar, but this is what the Bush administration has been basing its entire existence on! And it hasn't just been Bush, it has been our entire government over the last XXX years.
Unfortunately, it will probably take something catastrophic like a shift in the tech sector, or even worse some military shift to wake people up in this country.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
> Silicon valley CA USA 199x-200x
What a young'n...
Silicon valley has been around much longer than 199x... That's quite a short sighted dot-bomb perspective.
Not saying that silicon valley does or doesn't have it's best years behind it (maybe, maybe not), but I always find it amusing how people forget about Fairchild/Intel, HP/Apple, and focus on the last business cycle...
The main thing keeping Si valley anchored where it is today isn't technology or technology people at all (there are tech people everywhere), it is the venture capital $$$ from firms based in the mid-pennisula area (eg. Palo Alto). They all seem to want to invest near home. That maybe change slowly (just as it moved from new york/new jersey to boston/route128 to paloalto/siliconvalley over time, money tends to move pretty slowly over time unlike technology...
Don't forget the compass and the printing press. Or their excellent martial arts.
Actually it should serve to make US lawmakers ask hard questions about US Companies "Offshoring" R&D to China. China is a major long-term security threat to the US. Giving them a major economic-techbological base "hands them the rope they'll use to hang us!".
One of the major problems is that we don't have enough people who are willing to pursue basic research, or who are intellectually up to the task. Someone has to step up and explain to students that science and engineering aren't dead end career paths! Not everyone can be a lawyer or investment banker, and almost no one can be a rock star or sports hero. Unfortunately for us, China still has central planning, and can dump everything into a project that it can (see the Great Leap Forward for an example.) Communist countries are well-known for forced industrialization efforts. The government could let the peasants starve for a few years and become the number one science power on the planet if they wanted to.
China .vs. US .vs. $10.98T .vs. 3.1% .vs. 2.1% .vs. $37,500 .vs. 186M .vs. 140M .vs. 159M .vs. 115,311,958 .vs. 1500+ .vs. 2.9M .57% .vs. .92%
GDP $6.449T
GDP Growth 9.1%
Inflation 1.2%
PerCap Income $5000
Phones (LL) 214M
CellPhones 240M
Internet Users 59M
Internet Hosts 156,53
TV Stations 3240
Population 1.2B
Pop. Growth
Interesting numbers (from another post I saw here). Maybe the most telling is how the average person makes $5000 (US Equiv), but how many more cellphone there are. Does this mean there is a higher willingness to adopt new technology in China? Or do they just like cellphones more than 'we' do? Maybe they don't have to put up with Sprint....
- Smart people - Top tier universities like Stanford and Berkeley provide the intellectual resources.
- Lots of money - Look where the top VC firms are, and you'll see that most of them are on sandhill road, just yards away from Stanford's campus. And when you outgrow the VCs, there are plenty of investment banks up 101 in SF.
- A nice climate - And this is what'll keep the two groups mentioned above here.
When you look at the returns that high tech delivers to both the investors and the entrepreneurs, the cost of living in the area is meaningless. It's no accident that practically every large wave of high tech innovation had its leading companies here (Genentech, Intel, Yahoo, Electronic Arts, HP).Sure, old maturing industries (notably software) will move on to places where it's cheaper to manufacture that kind of stuff. But good riddence. With the falling margins in such maturing industries do we really want them here anymore?
On the other hand I used to work at a contract research laboratory and they'd charge the full cost of running the research plus 200-400% overhead. It's hard to blame someone for not wanting to pay those prices.
Something's gotta give before too much longer. We're replacing well paying jobs with Wal-Mart parking lot attendants.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Porting a software package to Chinese is "advanced technology research"? Writing a new search function is "advanced technology research"? I don't see any other examples of what this "advanced technology research" consists of, other than Nokia moving its programming operations to China, which is also not "advanced technology research."
"Within five years China could overtake Britain, Germany and Japan as a base for corporate research, leaving it second only to the United States."
Yeah, maybe, if you define "corporate research" as "learning how to use ten year old technology."
And there would be plenty of countries lined up to take the surplus stock off of China's hands, as well as supply natural resources to China. The other countries couldn't produce fast enough for the U.S. initially.
It would hurt both ways, but it would hurt the U.S. more. Wal-mart alone would go crazy.
the target for WW3 will be China. I give it, say, 30-50 years. Of course, if your Chineese, the target will be the U.S.
The evil communist Chinese geniuses planned this going back to Mao and continuing with the Gang of Four and Deng and so on. Keep the masses low in power so labor costs are low so we can sucker the western world into outsourcing and thereby lowering themselves economically by raising us economically.
Riiiight. You've sold me on that idea, sonny.
I got offshored, and it's a bitch finding a job. I don't like it. But outsourcing and offshoring are a natural result of a free market, and if I believe in a free market when it comes to steel and cars, I'd be pretty hypocritical to suddenly stop when my own ox is being gored.
Repeat: outsourcing and offshoring are natural parts of a free market.
You know what I like best about having a global economy? It encourages cooperation and reduces the chances of war. The Chinese are learning that trade --> booming economy, and they like that. Sooner or later they will realize that huge primitive army is best converted to gainful employment.
The US used to know this, until Shrub found a golden opportunity to finish Daddy's war and help his oil buddies. The US is now going to learn it again, just as Microsoft has taught the rest of the computer industry that playing with Microsoft doesn't involve a level playing field, and Microsoft finds it harder and harder to find partners. Coalitions of the willing require partners, not the old style teamwork where the leader cracks the whip and the team pulls harder.
Infuriate left and right
Gunpowder. Rockets.
That benefited humans.
More likely the Chinese government will be gradually wedged open by all the research requirements. A few exceptions here and there for foreign companies to conduct proper research and development. A few domestic partners let in on the uncensored web. A few party hacks wanting uncensored access. Pretty soon it will be the norm.
Infuriate left and right
1) slashdot.org
2) slashdot.jp
3) slashdot.ch
4) ???
5) PROFIT (for china)!
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Competition can only be a good thing (after all, it is what cpitalism is built on). With more people working on nanotech and biotech and stem cell research, the right wing in the US can only back down on issues like stem cell research, which can only be good for us all, because if you look at it, the leading edge baby-boomers are now, what, 58, just look at clinton, he is recovering from his heart operation, a lot of aging processes are driven by genetics, which, after all, is genetic programs (dna) operating in your cells, so understanding how the "small computers" and other mechanisms in our cells operate and how we can modify them, and in the future, how we can build our own cells from scratch, we can reverse aging and get true indefinite longevity. Countries like china and india have stated that they will be world leaders, after all, it took japan about 35 years to go from crappy car technology (1968 era) to the superpower it is today, so we will have to stop wasting, what, 200 billion on wars in iraq, and start spending this money on fuuture technologies like nano and biotech, for the future is life extention, just look at the massive market out there, there are billions of people with a lot of money who do not what to get old, and countries that develop this technology will become the next world superpowers (biot/nano will be what the PC revolution was to silicon valley and the US economy of the late 70's, 80's and 90's), to develop these new technologies requires brainpower and both china and india have much more potential brainpower that for instance, the US has.
And toilet paper!
I think not having itchy bums from using things like corn husks and such has probably contributed more to world peace than any other single human invention. ;)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
I was impressed with the number MicroSoft Asia authors at the 2004 SIGGRAPH Meeting in Los Angeles last month. Something like 12% of the papers. Its very hard to get a paper accepted at that meeting- over 80% are rejected.
The research was solid, but not not super creative. There were things like you might do in a 3-D version of Photoshop, etc. The heavy duty mathematics came were still in papers from Stanford and CMU.
The big mystery is when MicroSoft is going release products from its impressive R&D lab. Most of its products are boring copycat stuff like the recent MS-Tunes.
Here's the rest of the story. One of those multinationals listed bought my company three years ago. Then last year they started bragging up their Asia division, and hinting that we were the bad guys because we weren't coming out with innovative products like they were. Well we finally got one of those "innovative" products in the shop and started poking into it. Turns out it was essentially *OUR* old product with a new skin!
I've got nothing against my company lowballing itself, but it really pisses me off that they're insulting the goose the laid their golden eggs.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Then add the INDUCE act, and the chilling effect it will have on new products, and there will be even *more* incentive to do business in China, including R&D.
Example: You invent the new Gizmo, and it starts to look like a market success. But then someone discovers that you can use it to store/swap music. Then it comes to the attention of the RIAA, who notifies the DA that the Gizmo has become a "criminal copright-breaking device." Litigation time!
Instead: Do all of the R&D in China. Sell in China, export to the US. When threatened in the US under INDUCE, simply withdraw Gizmo from the US market. Is the US market worth the legal hassles? If need be for additional protection, make sure Gizmo is developed and manufactured by a corporate shelter of some sort in China. Then the US company "just" markets it, and can completely disassociate itself from the product. I presume investment/ownership of the shelter company can be properly hidden by the right legal constructs.
Still, the net effect is that innovation has been driven out of the US. Voting this morning was really tough, because Leahy was in the Primary this morning, and I had to decide between the lesser of two evils, the INDUCE Act or giving up a senior spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The US is 'investing' (wasting) $200+Billion on a senseless war in Iraq while China is investing Billions on R&D.
Ridiculous software/tech patents are costing the US Billions in litigation not to mention the stiffling effect on innovation.
The US K-12 education system is a mess, while the Chinese consistently score much higher in math & science tests.
Nations rise and fall. Look at the long view of history. Go back one or two thousand years and you'll find that China was on top then when Europe was in the dark ages. We had our time in the Sun, maybe it's just about over.
China has the largest contigious block of people all speaking a couple of languages with mandarin being the most widely spoken in the world. This information network is not readily accessable by others, as few westerners speak chinese. China has a longer continious history than europe, streching back many thousands of years and dynasties. China's economic growth cannot and will not grow at the current rate for ever. The way to compete is not to create barriers amoung ourselves but to lower them in every market. Our strongest companies which play to our strengths will survive. software patents are undeniable evil. They are a contrivence fabricated by lawyers for large corporations to use to stop other companies. Other companies which will not now be the apples and microsofts and ibms of tomorrow. I long for the day when lawyers are not admired but as they were in the past seen as parasites who live off of human conflict. These people do not create anything. Society always follws cycles and eventually this dispisal will return. There must be a greater degree of integration between english speaking countries, including as a second language to provide a polar to china. india is not so much of a threat because the many different languages. the eu, nafta, and various affiliates should all lower barriers between each other, and most importantly stop frivilous patents. Patents were intended to act as a stimulous for research. so that a company or individual could be rewarded for creating something, for investing in something. instead it is being used by american corporations to stifle competition and innovation. This is encouraged by the republican government in my opinion. (A government which is a caraciture of all that is greedy, glutonous and to be depised in american society imho) I hope there is reform and enlightenment in your truly great country for without it i fear your slow gradual decline. Concerned brit.
Always remember to mount a scratch research assistant.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I can't think of a single thing to date the chinese have ever created that has benifited humans.
Gunpowder.
He said " benefitted humans".
Maybe because if everybody who dared think there might be something wrong with the country moved it would never improve?
Happy people make bad consumers.
Advanced technology research = Programing
While China climbs the tech ladder to success and power, America is climbing down into a miasma of faith and innuendo. Isn't it wierd how President Bush Sr. went from Nixon's UN ambassador to his GOP Chairman spinmaster to his China ambassador to CIA director to VP to President, then finally director of the giant multinational Carlyle Group as his son presided over the greatest transfer of wealth and power from the US to China? This will be a swell nation of bucolic christian farmers growing feasts for the Chinese mobsters running the globe, and the Bushes will have reaped a healthy reward.
--
make install -not war
I recall a TIME special magazine 1995 which was devoted to China as a whole: it says Gunpowder, Rockets, Dams, Silk, Tea, Finance, Strategies for War, Papyrus, Writing, Commerce, Printing, Banking was invented by China long before Europeans came down from trees, and long before US of A existed.
Don't show your ignorance of the world by mimicking Dubya. You are neither the President, nor his Lackey.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Huh? On what planet? The free market doesn't have to accomodate anyone. If the cheapest suplier isn't willing to sell for a price the highest bidder is willing to pay, guess what? No money changes hands and there's no deal. End of story. The "seller" isn't obligated to sell anything he doesn't want to, and the "buyer" isn't required to buy anything if they think the price is too high.
That's the whole point.
-- MarkusQ
Being as rampantly anti-american as i am (aka liberal) i welcome a future challenge to american political/economic hegemony. But looking at China's environmental history as evidinced in this book, including the mass devastation that occured in the three gorges dam project and the fact that China has allowed for themselves to become a major tech dumping ground for the worlds unwanted 386s and floppy drives and the like as became big news over two years ago. Perhaps this isnt the best thing for China and the worlds environmental health. Lets hope China's future bring both technological revolution and acknowledgement of environemtal respect!
...and it should be known by now
...and in other news, the USSR surpassed the US in aerospace science and technology in the 1950s with the launch of Sputnik. Experts predict that the Soviet emphasis on technical education and its outstanding ability to centrally marshal resources to a purpose mean grave times ahead for the US.
Five decades later, where would you rather be living? The former Soviet Union, or the US?
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
No the U.S. is not the center of the universe but we are certainly the center of the population that inhabits this earth. Our diversity is our strength and you dramatically and astoundingly underestimate it.
Also, where do you get off saying the country always bullies everyone? Last I checked we waited until Pearl Harbor to get involved with WW2. Yes there are examples that support your conclusion but the fact that in the average American donates more to charity than the average citizen of any other country.Also, by definition the United States is worldly. Our citizens come from every country on this earth.
Thank you for illustrating my point perfectly.
You read what you wanted to read, and missed the last half of that sentence where I said "and that it always will be." I DISTINCTLY put that in there. I never said this country wasn't great. But pride goeth before a fall, and there were many many more great civilizations before use that were around much longer. There is a good reason they aren't still around today. But you miss that point. You call me a commie because you are an ignorant, jingoistic fool. You say what I said is blasphemy, which is EXACTLY the point I was trying to make, yet I am sure you don't see why calling it blasphemy is making my point. You see donating money as being worldly.
I keep trying to think that people like you don't exist, and that there is hope for this country.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
By proxy, of course. :P
I was stating that the fact that the average american donates more money than the average citizen of any other country suggests that we are inherently not bullies. It has been this way since the 50's and continues to be the trend.
You might notice all of my references are dated in WW2 because the current Bush administration is indeed what I would call a bully.Did you ever think that our superiority complex may knock us down a few rungs on that ladder? They have moved a lot of our IT jobs overseas. Our manufacturing is already there for the most part. Now technology R&D? Pretty soon, we are going to be very dependent on other countries, and the tide may turn. Yes, we offer the world a lot. But we can't forget that we aren't the only country in the world. We can't treat other countries like they are beneath us, even if we are on top *for right now*. If the day comes when we aren't on top (and it will), then I can only hope that we have good international relations at the time.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
All the U.S. has is nukes.
About 10,000 to be exact... and we're finding more EVERYDAY!!!!
...and it should be known by now
Disclaimer: I'm not an economist, and I think economics is boring as hell. Real economists, please correct any of the points I screw up.
For those of us over 20 years old, you might remember another Asian economy that was steamrolling us. Everyone was complaining that the US was really going under this time, and fingers were pointing at all our shortcomings compared to that economy.
They've figured out a way to repeal or circumvent Adam Smith's laws. Our education isn't good enough. We work harder, not smarter. We don't work hard enough. We watch too much useless TV. We don't appreciate the power of multimedia. We aren't an ancient enough culture to appreciate the strategy of business. We're buying too many of the other country's products. We're selling too much of our real estate. We aren't pragmatic enough to give up drugs/religion/sexual habits/hobbies/music that holds us back.
Does anyone remember this attitude? I seem to recall people saying this about Japan when I was a kid. Anyone remember those guys? They're still recovering from an economic slowdown that lasted about 15 years. But they were pretty worrying at the time. They were an economic bogeyman -- Better work harder, or the Japanese will 0wn us. I recall a sarcastic commentator on some of the pushes for diversity education, "Diversity training is essential for the global marketplace. We've got to push for understanding and appreciation of other cultures. So we can beat hell out of the Japs."
I'm mentioning this because I see people in the thread saying all the same stuff we used to say about the Japanese. "There's nothing we can compete against them in. It's because we're conservative (it would be 'liberal' if Slashdot didn't lean to the left). It's because we're lazy." This attitude is not surprising; it's natural to assume that something that seems huge today is going to be even bigger in the future. It's why all William Gibson's futuristic books imagine a world dominated by zaibatsu.
Although I do believe that software patents, draconian laws regarding intellectual property, weird political bans on scientific research, etc are going to hurt us in several ways, I have trouble believing the extent of the gloomy scenarios imagined by Slashdotters here simply because I've lived through at least one of them. Really, all of us have lived through another, opposite one: The dot-com era. Remember how everyone was saying "It's the new economy! Everyone is making millions from web design and advertising! We're all going to keep getting richer, forever!" This, too, is a result of basing tomorrow's predictions on a literal interpretation of today's economic climate.
I'm sure China will end up dominating one or another sections of the market, and I'm sure a lot of blue-collar workers (such as call-center workers; they may have been "support engineers" here in the dot-bomb age, but let's face it, they're no more engineers than 1920s Ford factory workers) will be displaced. This happened the last time an Asian country figured largely in our economy. But most of the posts here rely on 1. The fallacy that economics is a zero-sum game, and 2. The assumption that we've got absolutely nothing to offer because China can manufacture many products more cheaply. Personally, I suspect that a glut will occur on some of these items (just how many curtain rods do you need, anyway?), and the laws of supply and demand will assert themselves.
The Japanese weren't magicians. They hadn't beaten supply and demand any more than anyone else. They make some great products, dominate in several fields, but they aren't going to make a world empire. I think, in time, history will show that the Chinese aren't any better magicians than the rest of us.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
Zhang Benyu looks like he's busy posting to /. to me.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
I'm not concerned. First off, if anything, China pushing hard to become reigonal/world power. To do that they need to compete with the United States on multiple fields. My concern now is if the United States can compete with China. This is a country that is aiming to put us in our "place". That is, not leting the US get away with it's current phase of overbearance. Hell people that I know are scared we are turning into a stagnat empire, instead of the republic that we are suposed to be. If "free" market practices are what you believe in, the US must stop diddlying around and start competeing.
What is happening is China is growing strong off of us. It's like a parasite, its sapping our current power to feed its own. The big shift your thinking about? That will be the end, when China no longer needs us and drops us like a hot potato. Just look at the currencies - if the chinese ever decide to stop tying their currency to the dollar and instead decides to fly on their own, our currency will plummet and theirs will skyrocket. They are in a much better economic position than we are. Much better and it will only get better as time progresses. So why don't they drop us? Because they still need us. A lot of people have fooled themselves into thinking that they will always need us. They can't imagine a global economic model were we are not the center of the universe. Right now, we are the only market capable of absorbing the amount of goods China wants to sell. That's all we are to the chinese: customers. We aren't business partners, I don't understand why people can't get that through their skulls. There was a time when china's economy was dependent on what we did. In five years, that will no longer be the case. In five years, their economy will be the one in control. Yet our politicians have fooled themselves into thinking we will always be the dominant economy (even as it shifts towards China). In 1996 my global studies teacher said that when China awoke as an industrial power, watch out because unless we were real careful we wouldn't even stand a chance of competeing with them. We have elected people that not only don't realize the extent of the problem, they refuse to acept the problem even exists. I know its cliched to say so but there is a parrellel here with ancient Rome in one respect. The ancient Romans believed that Rome was invincible and eternal. They were sure of it. When Alaric and the goths sacked Rome in the 300's AD, it almost caused the collapse of their society. Now 1700 years later, we find ourselves in a similiar situation. Everyone thinks the US is invincible and eternal. I can't wait till the chinese prove us wrong, this time not through military actions but economic conquest. Its funny really, we invented economic imperialism (the concept that if you control a country's economy, you in effect control the country without ever having to put a man on the ground.) Now we find the chinese using our own tactics against us.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Not a chance. Silicon Valley has 3 things going for it that will make it last forever.
No center of anything (cultural, technological, commercial, religious) will last forever. A cursory look at history shows that nations rise and fall.
China itself was once the technological, cultural, artistic leader of the world till about 600 years ago when Europe began to emerge from the dark ages.
No, eventually (and it could be happening now, or it could be in 100 years) Silicon Valley will cease to be the technological center of the world and it will go back to being one of the best farming areas in the world. One thing definately going against it now is the cost of living. That's certainly hurting it now. Also, when it comes to climate, you neglect the geological climate (earthquakes) - it has a very stormy one.
How about
- movable type
- the printing press
- paper (as well as paper money)
- meritocratic civil service
- 'gaussian' elimination
- so-called 'arabic' numerals and the base-10 number system
- gunpowder and rocketry
- the post office
- restaurants
- umbrellas
- porcelain (also called, simply, 'china' or 'china-ware')
- ketsup
- silk
- rice
- and soybean (including tofu and soy-sauce)
for starters?Yes, we offer the world a lot.
I was with you up until this point.
What exactly do we still offer the world? There's still some tech here, but it's moving away rapidly. Manufacturing is all gone, and engineering is fast on its heels.
I think the only thing America is still good at is producing food in huge quantities, and blowing things up. So I guess if you mean that we offer the world cheap food, and bullets and bombs if they piss us off, I'll agree with that.
I see this admittedly shocking figure thrown around a lot,
Yeah. Study was published last week.
but I think if you actually take the time to look closely at the study you'll find that the literacy rate in LA among English speaking (meaning English as a first language) residents is higher than 53 percent.
Ok. Doesn't change anything. Half the people in L.A. can't read.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
(Now with better formatting)
What is happening is China is growing strong off of us. It's like a parasite, its sapping our current power to feed its own. The big shift your thinking about? That will be the end, when China no longer needs us and drops us like a hot potato. Just look at the currencies - if the chinese ever decide to stop tying their currency to the dollar and instead decides to fly on their own, our currency will plummet and theirs will skyrocket. They are in a much better economic position than we are. Much better and it will only get better as time progresses. So why don't they drop us? Because they still need us. A lot of people have fooled themselves into thinking that they will always need us. They can't imagine a global economic model were we are not the center of the universe.
Right now, we are the only market capable of absorbing the amount of goods China wants to sell. That's all we are to the chinese: customers. We aren't business partners, I don't understand why people can't get that through their skulls. There was a time when china's economy was dependent on what we did. In five years, that will no longer be the case. In five years, their economy will be the one in control. Yet our politicians have fooled themselves into thinking we will always be the dominant economy (even as it shifts towards China). In 1996 my global studies teacher said that when China awoke as an industrial power, watch out because unless we were real careful we wouldn't even stand a chance of competeing with them. We have elected people that not only don't realize the extent of the problem, they refuse to acept the problem even exists.
I know its cliched to say so but there is a parrellel here with ancient Rome in one respect. The ancient Romans believed that Rome was invincible and eternal. They were sure of it. When Alaric and the goths sacked Rome in the 300's AD, it almost caused the collapse of their society. Now 1700 years later, we find ourselves in a similiar situation. Everyone thinks the US is invincible and eternal. I can't wait till the chinese prove us wrong, this time not through military actions but economic conquest. Its funny really, we invented economic imperialism (the concept that if you control a country's economy, you in effect control the country without ever having to put a man on the ground.) Now we find the chinese using our own tactics against us.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
It could be good because history has shown that there is nothing better for opening up a closed society than business. Trade has turned the former USSR into the USA's ally. Trade is what prompted the debate about normalizing US relations with Vietnam. So perhaps more trade with China will open up their society and lead to the easing of the restrictions placed upon their people.
It could be bad in that these big corporations could get used to having slave labor. Don't mistake it, people in China are slaves. The country limits how many children you can have. They will use force to prevent you from having children. They don't allow people to decide for themselves what to do with the dead bodies of their loved ones.
This could result in the exporting of all work to 3rd world countries. Instead of paying someone $36k per year, they can pay 36 people $1k per year. In Bangladesh, where people make nearly no money, this would be a fortune.
I look at this with guarded optimism.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Now we can have Advanced Technocolgy Chinese Finger Traps with 128bit encryption sporting a 200mhz Dragonball Processor.
Ok, but besides gunpowder, rockets, astronomical records, the printing press, martial arts, paper money and toilet paper what have the Chinese ever done for us?
Oh, and besides silk too.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Execution for embezzling, a little harse, isn't it?
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/14/news/internatio
Not to start a flamewar, but this is what the Bush administration has been basing its entire existence on! And it hasn't just been Bush, it has been our entire government over the last XXX years.
Was I the only one who read that as "over the last 30 years"? :)
(and don't come telling me "yes, and that's what I meant"... :) )
The filesystem is the package manager
Will the major corporations begin carving out territory now like the major governments did at the turn of the 20th century? We used Chinese labor to build our railroads and dig our mines, the only difference here is we are treating the workers slightly better. Many of these projects are not taking jobs away from Americans and will benefit the Chinese in the long run. I'm sure they'll do a good job. Wasn't one of the first UNIX programs "fortune"?
China has a billion poor people, just waiting to spend all their money on stuff
And a billion times zero is?
Unless you like to be paid in dirt.
When a billion non-poor people are hoarding money to spend - then I can take the ecenomic potential a little more seriously.
However, what that does represent is a great huge load of manpower that can be applied on projects of the governments choosing! It's so handy to have a billion slaves when you need to clean up a city for the Olympics, or other onerous tasks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yet, from an economic perspective, the US continues to be the center of the universe -- or at least the global economy on Earth. Last year, the US GDP was just about 25% of the world GDP. An even larger fraction of world economic growth for the past few years has been due to the US. The US has, for the most part, been quite willing to open its markets to foreign firms. To your point, Japanese auto makers led the way in developing reliable, well-engineered cars -- but would they have been able to do so without the US market in which to sell those cars? Much of the growth of the "Asian Tigers" has been possible because we were willing to buy their goods and services, to buy more from them than they were from us, effectively to share our wealth with them. It is interesting to note that when there were recent proposals to close US military bases in countries where their role has disappeared, the response was not "Thank goodness you're finally leaving!" but rather "Wait! We need you to keep spending that money in our country!"
As The Economist has noted on numerous occasions, the world economy is FAR too dependent on the US for anyone's real good. Put it in an example: the US can live without motherboards from Taiwan or DVD players from China; we're perfectly capable of building them ourselves, even if that would make them somewhat more expensive; but Taiwan and China would be much more seriously hurt if the US quit buying those products. Until the US gets to quit being the market of last resort for everyone else, the US is going to be the dominant player in the world economy.
And yes, I am a born-and-raised American. I am just so friggin sick of this idea that the USA is the greatest country in the world and that it always will be.
Actually, we copied that from China. China doesn't care about the rest of the world though. It knows it is the best in the world. China has known this for centuries. The US hasn't been around very long. We only had the USSR as a serious global challenge. The USSR didn't even last a century. Remember, the rest of the world has nothing that China wants. Will the US last 2-3 more centuries?
Actually, I was thinking of food when I wrote that. We export a lot. We also offer business - as in we consume a lot of the world's products. We offer entertainment, although other countries can certainly survive without that.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The unfortunate thing is that this means that the peace that the world has seen from the nuclear age will begin to end. The US isn't the center of the universe, true.. but it does have the most nuclear weapons. That's the entire problem.
The idea of assured mutual destruction also includes a period of peace, then a period of nuclear holocaust because of the destabilization of the power that wins the battle. Ultimately the war will be lost.
Hear that sucking sound? That's the money moving to china... or perhaps it's the sound of rockets fueling up.
About 10,000 to be exact ok im correcting my own lame statement even tho no one else prolly read it. No About 10,000 is not the exact number. :)
...and it should be known by now
The moveable-type printing press was also invented in China during the Song Dynasty (1040 AD). That's more than 400 years before Gutenberg.
As far as I know, moveable metal type was used first in Korea, about a hundred years before Gutenberg.
Just renember that high tech German economy in 1935, and all those prestigious investors who put their money in it.
One day we are going to half to learn the lesson that free markets are not about markets, but about freedoms. When you have freedoms, you get the growth AND the stability that won't lead to disaster down the road.
And renember how we sold out on Austria to Germany, well lets renember Hong Kong for a minute here too.
I went to China recently. Guandzhou, more precisely. A monster of a city. HUGE! More skyscrapers than in NYC (but mostly residential... which is actually scary).
Anyhow, as I walked through Guangzhou downtown, which is full of tall, glass-and-steel office-space skyscrapers, I thought to myself: why don't U.S. companies (and not just the MSFTs, GOOGs, and ORCLs) come here and open offices? It would make their money last SO much longer.
If I had a start-up, one of the things that I think I would do, is open an engineering office in China. Maybe even deeper in China, as people there are supposed to be even more hard-working than people in Canton. If my company was running on VC money, this would be a great move, IMHO.
Why aren't more _young_ U.S. companies doing this?
Simpy
I believe I mentioned food. That's our biggest natural resource, thanks to all the fertile land here.
Consumption is not an offering; you need to have money to give the other countries if you want to buy their stuff. Money is just an exchange medium that removes the need for bartering directly, but in order to trade, you still have to have something of value to use in trade. If all your country is doing is consuming, and not supplying anything else, then your money will be worthless.
A lot of our entertainment is actually coming from Canada (Vancouver specifically) because Hollywood is too overpriced. LOTR was made in New Zealand. We definitely don't have a monopoly on entertainment, but it is something I guess.
I didn't say invade. They could just stop selling to us and sell to the middle east and asia.
Umm, by DEFINITION, only a small fraction of people can be "rich". Period.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
You would have loved it back in the slavery days...IF you were one of the top five percent who could afford to own slaves. Otherwise, it sucked. The poor whites had to compete with free slave labor, and the slaves had it worst of all.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
BEIJING (Reuters) - China executed four people, including employees of two of its Big Four state-owned banks, for fraud totaling $15 million, the state Xinhua news agency said Tuesday.
n al /china_banks.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/14/news/internatio
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
While I am overall sympathatic to your point, it is far over-stated:
:http://nvnv.essortment.com/compasshistory_rumo.ht m
From the websites you mentioned:
"Arabic" numerals were developed in India. It is highly speculative that they were even inspired by something in China.
Rice: "If these assumptions are correct, then domestication most likely took place in the area of the Korat or in some sheltered basin area of northern Thailand, in one of the longitudinal valleys of Myanmar's Shan Upland, in southwestern China, or in Assam. " From this how did you conclude rice developed in china?
post office, restaurants & umbrellas??? That's very speculative.
You did forget the compass which was invented in China.
Also the I think there was the water clock or something like that which was an important chinese invention.
I agree that there is an euro-centric tendency to claim everything was invented in Europe. But balacing that with a Sino-centric is hardly any better.
Maybe Bush is not the one to blame in his crusades, but the (more than ) half-a-country that stands behind him (or at least does not stand against him, what equates to supporting him).
The US (government, but in representation of its people) has promoted war in many places of the world, and that has been the source of wealth in the US. "Free trade", in the US sense of "freedom", is not opposed to war, military stuff can be traded too. Closed markets can be "liberated" with weapons.
Hollywood makes the USA visible but I wouldn't be so sure the USA is the "center". The USA doesn't have a monopoly on diversity and other good things. The USA's population is also only 4.6% of the world's population, by some measures statistically insignificant.
Reminds me of Britain and the British Commonwealth, the empire where the sun never set, early in the last century. Britain had a policy of having a navy more than twice the size of the rest of the world put together. Look at where they are now.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
> current Bush administration is indeed what I would call a bully.
I believe that's what the original poster was referring to.
At least as I read his post, he was not saying that the US has always been arrogant, unworldly, and naive about change - he was saying that we are becoming complacent because our historical strengths have allowed us to be on top for so long. We're resting on our laurels, and that's a sure-fire way to be surpassed by someone who's still working full-bore.
I believe the original poster's point was that the US is a great nation, but that can change if we get arrogant or foolish. Without a little bit of the perspective that humility brings, we might not see our own fall until it's already over, and nobody wants that.
Tofu!
Also, where do you get off saying the country always bullies everyone? Last I checked we waited until Pearl Harbor to get involved with WW2.
Pearl Harbor was a response to USA bullying Japan and blocking their petroleum importation, which was serious economic warfare.
Actually, they're not as bad as you think. I set my locale to China and language to Chinese (Mandrake Linux v10). Directory listings and anything else with tables and column headings are aligned much more nicely because each heading is more or less the same length (2-3 Chinese words) rather than widely varying word lengths.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
That was not how I read it but you may be right and in fact, I would hope you're right in your interpretation. It sounded a lot like drivel I see in parts of the country. I grew around it so I assumed. I know its wrong to assume things but it sure sounded like it. Don't like referring to an entire country based on the current administration. I think its terribly short sighted to assume that everybody thinks like Bush. Although considering his approval ratings it seems like many do.
who keeps hearing the repeating chorus from the South Park episode with teh mormons? the one that plays DUMB, DUMBDUMB, DUMB over and over?
hello? these are the CHINESE this is not taiwan they're not friendly to us they will take our manufacturering facilities and high tech and USE THEM AGAINST US, i'm sure that out of several billion people they're not all bad but the ones in power sure are (just like here)
did we forget why we won ww2? an ocean and our manufacturing, guess what they have now
oh well at least corporate greed will be the undoing of the land of the "free", delicious irony, i wonder what canada's like this time of year
As for Britain, they dramatically underestimated the power of the rest of the world which is indeed a contributing factor. I don't believe the U.S. does that even though I do believe the current administration does.
Until that time we did not fire a single shot at Japan even though we did withhold oil. Of course we did hold the oil for a reason and it was in response to Japan's actions elsewhere.
Might also add that even if I ignored the above facts the U.S. did not get involved in the pacific in any meaningful way. We were expanding west and had no intention of fighting a war for land considering it was seen as a quest, not a mandate."within five years China could overtake Britain, Germany and Japan as a base for corporate research, leaving it second only to the United States"
Second? Not for long.
Students have already seen the offshore handwriting on the wall, and have started bailing out of tech programs in droves.
...this baby boomer hippie was the second in my circle of friends and aquantainces to own a computer, the first with a lot of transceivers, and the first with alternate energy, I got solar PV panels and a wind genny.
I know it's fun to generalise, but "alternative culture" also lends itself to innovation, dreaming, rejection of the staid status quo, etc. It's not just drugs and losers. Way back, when we shifted from being called "beatniks" to "hippies" WE were the ones to point out ridiculous illegal wars and draft slavery. We were the first ones to say "wait a minnit, why are all these global international corporations running our nation?" WE marched and took the gas on behalf of non priveleged minorites and in support of equal gender rights. We'd say stuff like "Hey, what do you mean we don't have full property rights, we want to build a yurt instead of a boring square stick frame box you insensitive clod!" And so on and so forth. Poison free food? Certainly wasn't the suits pushing that. Medical care that WORKS and don't cost an arm and a leg and don't all go to enrich global medical monopolies? Check who was a big part of that movement. And now to get to normal slashdotisms, who's pushing open source the most?
So, how about a little credit along with the deserved dissin, every generation and culture got good and bad to it.
The chinese were pretty shrewd. They dangled the bait of what used to be called "two billion arm pits" out to the west, a billion consumers waiting to buy WESTERN goods. Ok, that was the plan. then china goes, "but first, we need to develop our economy so that we can buy from you, how about giving us A TRILLION DOLLAHS OF FREE EVERYTHING first"
OK, the banksters fell for that scam, they have invested, tgiven tax breaks for corps to move over there, yada yada.
Now this is what happens. china becomes the worlds largest maker of STUFF. They no longer NEED anything else from the west, not even consumers! Once they have enough infrastructure in place, all they need is energy, oil, electric, whatever, and they are set and they can tell the west to kiss off, because their internal market will be big enough and integrated enough that' there will be little left that the west makes that they can't do for a few pennies on the dollar.
It's a sucker congame, and to make it worse, they are taking surplus cash FROM trading with US and turning it right back around buying our future labor in the form of government paper and mortgages.
They got to be laughing every day over this scam. Hollywood couldn't come up with a better plot, and we fell for it in exchange for a few cheap trinkets for a few years.
Sometimes it's actually embarrasing to see people still thinking this was a good idea.
China been running double digits a year in obvious force projection expansionist military.
Now let's see, who in their right mind would want to invade china? Answer = "no one".
So... why china need such a big military, why are they throwing so much effort at it?
Peak oil, peak water (very important, publically underreported and under rated), and other minerals and resources. They got engineers/emergency soldiers by the hundreds of thousands all over the planet now, in every place they can get them into, especially places with oil, strategic minerals, good geophysical locations like...panama canals and extremely large seaports and such like. Hmmm...
US= short term thinking in business and politics, this quarter profits, biennial political changes, never any consistency except lowest common denominator that just barely manages to work
China= long range views and planning in business and politics. They lose some on running fascistic controls, but gain on...the same thing..control!
They can lose a certain percentage intellectual brain drain to western countries, and the reason is easy to see--those people rarely go with their entire families. Leave enough of the family group at home, in a pinch you can still control the expatriate. Need classified R and D info from xyz western country? Not much problem, either the fools will give it to them gratis or their people in xyz country can slip the info out. In an international crisis/emergency, need some high tech local monkey wrenching inside xyz western nation? Again, not much of a problem.
I think in the future that the free/subsidised development of china will prove to be THE single most boneheaded move that western nations ever made.
"I was stating that the fact that the average american donates more money than the average citizen of any other country suggests that we are inherently not bullies."
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o reignaid.html
The average american donates LESS than the average citizen of most developed nations in terms of percentage of salary. The total donated is more, yes, but that's only because you have higher salaries.
http://www.foreignaidwatch.org/print.php?sid=79
Now look at this list. Who exactly is the recipient of your "foreign aid"? The biggest amount of money goes to buy Israel new tanks to destroy Palestinian villages with, or to Egypt as a guarantee that they leave Israel alone, and so on and so forth. Looking at that list, I see very little humanitarian aid coming from the US, it's all kickbacks to allies and 3rd world dictatorships that choose to support you.
But your (false) beliefs are understandable.
http://cfrterrorism.org/policy/f
"A 2001 poll sponsored by the University of Maryland showed that most Americans think the United States spends about 24 percent of its annual budget on foreign aid--more than 24 times the actual figure."
It must be nice thinking you're the center of the world.
If you stick to just the US, maybe so. But a global economy matches. We do get lower prices here, from Wal-Mart on. India, China, all sorts of places get better wages.
It all balances out. That's why it's a global economy.
Infuriate left and right
without which the Europeans might not have conquered the Americas....
that the problem lies more with lefties that think kids can learn or want to learn while shuffling between parents and daycare.
I would say that the real problem underlying our national demise is a lack of social stability. Birthrates are down, kids know that their world is so random that learning is arguably pointless so they don't.
While it's easy enough to blame George Bush for kids being put on prozac because their parents suck, maybe, it's time to start asking parents to grow up and give a shit about their children.
This is my sig.
I was stating that the fact that the average american donates more money than the average citizen of any other country suggests that we are inherently not bullies. It has been this way since the 50's and continues to be the trend.
I'd like to see some references for this, and I'd also like to know wether it's the amount an average person donates, as oppposed to the average amount donated per person... Having most of the worlds richest people and companies must definitely skew the former.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
We thought that in Britain, back when we were the ones ruling the world. We eventually found that the one thing we had that China did want was heroin. Once the Chinese government was, er... persuaded of the benefits of free trade as opposed to prohibition, a very profitable business ensued.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
We have a long history of it. I can state two very distinct instances where we behaved horribly.
1. destruction of Native Americans
2. Slavery
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You embargoed an island nation currently at war. What did you expect the response to be? Removal from Christmas card lists? ;-)
Those in charge at the time were either complete morons or they knew what they were doing. And as common conceptions about Pearl Harbour are debatable (e.g. radio silence), I'd tend to go for the later. Goggle for "Remember the Maine", this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.
Inmigrants lives in your country in "Ghettos". Why the people who comes to USA and are of different races or colors lives separated one of each-other? Thats is racism. My parents are grandsons of italians, spanish, jews, natives and black people. I dont identify with anyone of that people, im argentine. In your country italians, spanish, jews, natives and blacks never get married with other person that is from the same race. PD: I dont go to the job in mules. I use subway. Yes, there exist subway in third world! PD: I use a computer too.} PD: I speak spanish and a little bit of english, and soon, i speak chinese.
"Remember the Maine", this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.
Nor the last. (In fact, the Maine and Tonkin incidents are quite similar to each other, but different from Pearl Harbor- in that at Pearl Harbor, an actual enemy was present)
sig: America has never gone to war against a country that has McDonalds restaurants
That's only true if you consider Japan to be the last country the USA warred against. (Since it was the last time Congress officially declared war). Since then, the USA has attacked Bosnian cities hosting active McDonalds.
As for figures, I'd charge you to prove it wrong, but since that is no way to start a debate. here is an old article. I was actually having a hard time finding facts. This interview might also provide some insight. This place actually has some numbers. I'll leave it at this for now and see if you can counter my statements with numbers as well.
i think we differ on timelines.
i was referring to Ancient china, not the present communist thugs.
If we do take the present into account, their economic revolution is far better than Dubya's economic policies.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
You obviously don't know the history of Britain in India :-)
Huge country (by headcount). UK owned it, lock stock and barrel. Now that's economic control in action.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"