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China's Superior Technologies
paRcat writes "Still think China is a land too far away from everything? This article compares some of China's common uses of technology to what we're accustomed to in the West. With the genius traffic lights and the cell phone coverage... I'm kinda jealous."
A lot of these items were not technology related. Slipcovers for coats and purses @ resturants? Nice, but I'm not counting that as points to superior technology. Gotta admit that stoplight timer technology sounds good.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
I must say they have adopted better uses for the technology. Technology is supposed to make your life easier and that is somethign they are doing that western culture isn't.
China has something western society should model after. It kills me how often I hear, "We have always done it that way, why change"
Evolution or ID?
I've known of one traffic death from a yellow before green in Europe way back. Giving someone a accurate way of determining when they can be moving the microsecond the light turns green is bad given that people have incoporated not just the delayed green but the delayed start after green in their calculations of how late they can run a red light.
Almost every developing nation has a higher rate of cell-phone coverage than the US (and many other "western" nations.)
The Bell System and the various state-owned monopolies built reliable, universal landline networks across these countries almost a century ago. Since the majority of the infrastructure has already been made and paid off decades ago, use of these networks today is commonplace (and very affordable.) The technology is often proven, well tested, and reliable (often regulated.) Cell phones, on the other hand, are more expensive and less reliable.
In developing nations, the landline systems are often unreliable and not much cheaper (if at all) than mobile systems. Users in these countries have every reason to invest in mobile phones. I wonder if this will continue to be the case with the deployment of VoIP systems.
Are they seeing the same ones that I saw when I was there? ;).
I was a bit disappointed with these ten points. I live in Sweden and compared to our standards this list isn't that impressive. Our mobilephones work everywhere and they cost you 10 cents to buy (honestly!). We have computer seating maps in the theaters and movie theaters. And parking signs contain the number of free spaces.
Sure, we don't have everything on the list though. I'd love to have those intelligent stop lights for instance.
I guess the bottom line is that Canada is pretty far behind.
What about Western Europe? There is much more existing infrastructure in the Western European countries than in the U.S. However, they also seem to embrace technology faster than the U.S. I feel it is due to population density. The U.S. has a low population density. The denser the population the greater your market in a particular area. No surprise that technology hits those types of markets sooner than later.
They have some cool ideas in China. The Styrofoam in the super markets might not work in the US because people might find it unsanitary. I like the traffic light idea and I've always thought about the system of identifying free parking spots every time I'm hunting for one in a large, crowded lot.
However, some of these seem great because they didn't have to replace old technology. They mentioned how landlines were never popular, so they went from no phones straight to cell phones. The US had to piggy back the new system on the old system.
So in 20 years, will they still be cutting edge, or will they be surpassed by other countries that either are just technologically developing or have been developed for a while and are "upgrading".
Another topic where half the posts will be comments that contain nothing but jingoism and nationalist comments rather than examine China's genuine potential for growth.
Remember people, this is the world's biggest nation (by population), with the real potential to be the world's biggest manufacturer and the world's biggest marketplace. And, remember, that that potential is starting to be realised: China already has a import surplus of billions with most Western countries, including the US, and China is now starting to become a real consumer culture in its own right.
They may have given everyone else a head-start but then so did Japan and Germany post-WWII, and look at how powerful their economies have become.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
it is superior use of existing technology and better organization. Sadly we're far behind in many aspects. Hopefully we can catch up.
I actually cancelled my subscription to the Globe and Mail for sponsoring her articles about 7 years ago. Mean and vindictive, she had no place in journalism. She's a shrew and a thoroughly despicable person. Although it might be only me, I remember getting the impression that she was a bit of a Chinese communist sympathiser, so her writing an article on the technology 'innovations' of China does not surprise me.
Regarding innovation, you are 100% correct -- that is the US' prime advantage. That plus abundant natural resources which can be exported, or at least support self-sufficiency. Even regarding oil, I believe the US only gets 30% of its supply from OPEC.
Fortunately China is beholden to the US still in many regards. Its needs the US markets to sell products too; it relies upon the US currency to supply economic stability and prevent inflation in China while they go through this boom; and they need North America to provide raw materials and resources. We're a long way from the sunsetting of the American empire, but the US will be facing a new world power as a competitor (if its not already).
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
You can't drink the water from the tap
Hocking loogies in public seems to be a national pastime
Air pollution so bad that on some days it looks foggy
Diseases like malaria and dengue fever (more a 3rd world than 1st world problem)
China may have cool tech, but the basic infrastructure sucks.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
China's innovation relies mostly upon remaking things already patented in the West, just doing it cheaper by not paying the patent rights on it. This could be huge problem in the future, as many nations will require that they start honoring these agreements. I once worked with a client who did some of his manufacturing in China (toys, mostly) - he was stunned how quickly their products would turn up as black market ripoffs once they manufactured there - the plant managers typically run a shift a day making your stuff for you, then a shift at night making your stuff for them. They pulled their manufacturing from China after that. Also, I don't see China being much of a leader in alternative fuels - they are cutting deals with the Iranian mullahs now to become their primary oil supplier, and have much looser pollution standards that the U.S. or Europe (in fact, they use the U.S. pollution standards from the 1980's for their cars now). China will probably start making more alt fuel cars when the west demands it - meaning for export, not for domestic use. If you want to talk Asian innovators, Japan is still way, way ahead of China.
China a "modern country"?
)
With a "government for the people"?
Hello? Is there anybody home?
In China you get into jail for saying what you think. People are imprisoned and tortured. Human rights violated. How much a nerd does one need to be in order to trade cellphone coverage for freedom?
(Amnesty International's report on China is worth a read: http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/chn-summary-eng
I'll take my basic freedoms and liberty any day over technology.
Seriously. Don't you think there's a cost to all this? Do you really think a republic like the US could do something like this?
The fact is -- it would be easier for us to modernize Iraq than it would be to modernize the US. Authoritarian control makes everything a ton easier for the government at the expense of the people.
Pick your poison.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I was in China earlier this summer and despite their "genius traffic lights" and cellphone coverage, you can still walk behind the internet bars and savvy shopping marts and find dirt roads, people living on other's garbage and sewage in the streets.
The modernization of Chinese technology is less important than the quality of life of its people. In my opinion, they need to focus less on getting every single person in their country internet and more on getting every single person in their country fed and clean.
Who moderates this stuff? China and Europe have personal residences and restaraunts older than your counry. Boston's a swaddling baby compared to them.
Thanks for the false dilemma. Either we accept corporate hegemony and end-times theocracy or we accept godless Communism? How about freedom, which resembles neither?
This is one of the tradeoffs between free markets and command economies. Although free markets are great from the point of view of moving quickly to a local optimum in resource utilization, their coverage and consistency are spotty. Command economies tend to pick winners too early and their implementations can be inefficient and hang around too long, but they usually achieve complete coverage and relative consistency.
The best of both worlds is when you "let a thousand flowers bloom" in the early stages, pick a winner for full implementation, and revisit the infrastructure choices on a regular basis to reopen debate. Of course, ideologues of either stripe would usually disavow this solution, as that might force them to widen their narrow models of the world - far too painful to comptemplate!
That is all.
Ahem. United states has almost six times the proportion of people in prison as China. Now, it is possible that China is simply not reporting many of the imprisoned people, or that the simply use alternative methods which we may find less savory than imprisonment, but...
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
How much a nerd does one need to be in order to trade cellphone coverage for freedom? This is a trick question, right :)
www.aleo.no
The United States executes juveniles and the retarded. We detain Muslims. We invade countries then torture their populace.
Why is that insightful?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
You gotta be kidding right? Who do you think owns a good chunk of the US debt? China is fast becomming the next world military superpower, Little articles like this show they have the inclination. In fact they may well be already. We are just to stupid to see it.
Look at the big picture. Large country, large population, technical savy, individually not wealthy but as a country very wealthy, and most importantly very secretive. Not much news gets in our out that they that the gov. doesn't control. Even internet access is managed.
They could kick a little US ass without blinking an eye. They could lose an entire US population worth of soldiers and still come out smiling.
Look at the N. Korea issue. US didn't have to deal with it, just nicely asked China to speak with them. After some humming and hawing China sends over a low level Gov. official and N. Korea goes quiet. Like the freakin mofia.
Scares the crap outa me when I think about it to hard. I have to stop now.
lalala.....flowers and trees....lalala.....
"Let a thousand flowers bloom," is an interesting quote. This comment was made by Chairman Mao in the 1970's to see who really opposed his policies by letting everyine express themselves. There was a period of free speech and outpourings of democratic writings, especially on college Campuses, that was followed by brutal repression and jailings of many university students and professors when Mao felt like it had run it's course.
"Let a thousand flowers bloom," was more or less a political tactic by Mao to exterminate his enemies in the Communist Party. Not sure what this has to do with economic policy and such.
I think a major issue that arises in Capitalist countries is that profit is the main (only?) motivator for most technologies. In other words, if it isn't going to sell more copies, or reap more profit it's not worth doing. Many of the items mentioned in the article would have existed long ago in other countries had it been profitable to do so. Unfortunately, modern capitalism seems to trend towards maximizes proft, and minimizing cost (for both the businesses and consumers). This means that most people will suffer incoveniences to benefit from lower prices.
Supermarkets and other retail outlets are perfect examples of this. It's the classic service vs. price.
Even the stop lights in the article are an example of this. Most citizens would rather have dumb traffic lights and lower taxes than smart ones and higher taxes. Unfortunately this leads to a lifestyle that is filled with minor incoveniences.
A sad indicator of this is how surprised we are when someone gives us good service without charging us an extra fee.
abu-gharaib.
We even export our human rights violations.
I'm so glad we're free.
Amnesty International's report on the USA is worth a read as well: http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/usa-summary-eng
Actually Japan collapsed for another reason.
Though part of it is what you are talking about.
Their research isn't progressing where it needs to yet. Their country devoted itself singlemindedly to the war, then to industrial and economic growth, now they feel they are better than everyone else so they are essentially wanking.
If you go for a haircut there will be 6 haircutters, people sweep the streets in business suits. Basically their entire economy went from manufacturing to service in a generation.
Service economies are total bullshit, guess what YOU CAN DO IT YOURSELF!
The U.S. went from a manufacturing economy in the 50's to a pure greed mentality in the 80's to a purely consumer driven society in the 90's. It's amazing how changes like this can sweep a whole nation.
Unfortunatly all these trends are negative, it's just the ignorant bouncing around. The people really gettting work done just say, hey there's this thing, might be worth doing, let's do it.
You should also check the one on France and Germany. Infact you should check on it for what every country you live in. IF you can not get to the website then you know you have some real issues. Can the people in China read the report on China?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The one thing I like about Japan's stagnation is that there is no poverty there. It is amazing that in a country as rich as the USA, 12% of the people there live in poverty. Guess what, that is the same as in China.
In USA when the economy suffers, it is mostly the poor on whom it is taken out on. They lose insurance, they lose their jobs and so on. In Japan, they stop growing but guess what, they are not really sweating it. They value different things. Americans value riches and expensive cars. The Japanese actually do get by with Toyotas. Witness how the Lexus brand ws only recently introduced in Japan after being in USA and Europe for the past 20 odd years. And it is owned wholly by a Japanese company. Because the Japanese do not have such big brand mentality, they will be buy a Toyota for the equivalent of $80,000. Americans will have none of that.
USAs GPD per Capita is inflated by the very rich. Japan has one of the smallest, if not the smallest Gini coefficients in the world. There is much more even wealth distribution than in USA. The USA is a country full of individuals, but Japan is more of a community.
In many ways Japan is far ahead of the USA. They still produce higher quality goods than USA and indeed just about every other country.
I am an American student, fluent enough in Swedish, working on a degree in Sweden. I can tell you as an insider that they are neither hot nor blonde--anymore. Those women went extinct in the Eighties. Right now, they are my professors and bosses--not my peers. A list of grievences:
100% dead-serious: At our student union building, we have an annual Bad Taste Party, where one dresses in bad taste, naturally. I could not tell--I honesty sat through a half-hour of our pre-party without noticing that was the theme.
In conclusion, if you are coming to Sweden to have good-looking lovers, only do so if you are a gay man--you'll save yourself a lot of disappointment.
Very few Americans know much at all about China.
People THINK they do but to someone like me (i.e. a white guy who spends months at a time each year in China, is married to a Chinese woman, is well versed in China's history both recent and ancient and speaks Mandarin), listening to American folks discuss China is almost always very frustrating.
The country is not nearly as oppressive as some of you seem to think. Communism is really just a WORD over there... not an ideology... not anymore. Yes the government has it's problems and for the most part are not too well liked but daily life in China (well, for city dwelling, college educated people anyway) is little different from life here. People own pets, they don't eat them, they have cars, cell phones, high speed internet, live (and thus, not so controlled by the government) news on TV, they go shopping, walk in the park, meet friends for coffee, hit the clubs on Friday and Saturday night or go see a soccer match, whatever.
Many places in China would strike the most ardent neo-conservative as the very height of capitalism. Contrary to what one person posted you CAN talk about/criticise/make fun of the government. I have talked with so very many Chinese about their government and they are usually quite frank. No one is hiding behind their hand whispering, no one is "disappeared". Last time I was there (May-August 2004) there were even some fairly large labor protests in a nortern city. Protests that were not crushed, put down, blocked. We just don't hear about this sort of stuff in the states. Viewed objectively (my wife, a professor of communications, has done much research in the area of media coverage between China and the USA), our government's opinions regarding China, the average citizens beliefs on China and the stories we get about China from our media leave us with a general impression that is, quite simply, wrong and negatively biased.Statistically about equal to the bias you would find in the Chinese press about the USA.
Technologically, China IS rapidly pulling ahead of the U.S.A. in many areas (cell phone technology and IT in particular) and China has it's "Microsofts" waiting in the wings eyeing the world market (the Lenovo Group (formerly known as Legend Group) in particular). Bottom line is, most Americans don't know enough about China to make any sort of accurate commentary regarding it. Yes there are many problems in China and with it's government but it is much closer to life here (once again, in the cities, not the countryside) than you probably think.