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Is China's Space Race An Opportunity For the US?
Hugh Pickens writes "Lieutenant General Frank Klotz (ret.), the former vice commander of Air Force Space Command, writes that it's worth considering whether aspects of the U.S.-Russian experience with space cooperation can be pursued with China to serve long-term American interests. 'China has in many respects already reached the top tier of spacefaring nations — with profound implications for America's own interests in space,' writes Klotz. While initially starting well behind the two original space powers, China has slowly but steadily added accomplishments to its space portfolio, conducting nineteen space launches in 2011 — twelve less than Russia but one more than the United States. It's worth recalling that even in the darkest days of the Cold War, the United States and its archrival at the time — the Soviet Union — embarked upon cooperative efforts in space, most famously with the joint Apollo-Soyuz docking mission in 1975 and today the first stage of one of the rockets that currently lofts U.S. national-security satellites into orbit — United Launch Alliance's Atlas V booster — uses the powerful RD-180 rocket engine, which is made in Russia. Washington has called for enhanced dialogue with Beijing on strategic issues and for military-to-military exchanges to help reduce uncertainty and potential misunderstandings, however, in May of last year, the House inserted a provision into the NASA appropriations bill prohibiting the US from spending any funds 'to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company' and blocking the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or used by NASA. 'This legislative action reportedly reflected deeply held concerns about protecting American intellectual property and sensitive technologies in the face of aggressive Chinese attempts to glean scientific and technical information from abroad,' writes Klotz. 'However, in the process, it foreclosed one possible avenue for gaining greater insight into China's intentions with respect to space.'"
writes Klotz. "However, in the process, it foreclosed one possible avenue for gaining greater insight into China's intentions with respect to space."
Luckily that avenue is risky and useless. Isn't a very early step in the decision making process "exclude the really bad ideas"?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Low cost labor, unabashedly stealing IP, billions of dirt cheap workers, totalitarian rule - There is no doubting who will win this battle.
Most of the cooperative efforts with the USSR/Russia were very limited in scope and only done begrudgingly. Even international efforts like ISS have frequently led to U.S. bitching (like the time the Russians sent up a space tourist to the ISS and NASA reacted like a bunch of pissy children). I find it highly unlikely that NASA is going to be working with China on anything signfiicant anytime soon. We're talking an agency that still holds a grudge against Russia 20 years after the Cold War.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
nice info tq
The European aerospace industry seems to see the recent US ban on cooperation with the Chinese space program as an opportunity, and is stepping up cooperation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
You can either cooperate. It means you have no unique intellectual property (IP) position, but through the widespread use of your IP you might get some benefits back like cheaper space flight. Also, with some luck, new orders for your own local economy, where that IP originated and where the most knowledge is available.
Or you can protect the IP. No cooperation. Create an inflexible closed operation. Costs increase and without cooperation you'll have to invent everything yourself, or buy it under a license agreement. The best case scenario you succeed at being the first at everything. In a worse scenario, you pay for knowledge. In the worst cases, you either have no access, or you're violating someone else's IP.
Look at the money being squandered on patent battles in courts in the IT and also manufacturing industries. Don't get space flight locked into a similar situation, because there's no way out.
Cooperation through openness is the way forward. But it takes some balls to start doing that. (And please note that top managers and politicians, who think only short term, generally don't have those).
As people say, China will get old before they get rich. Please don't interpret me as saying America doesn't have several problems they have to work through, but at the very least they don't have a demographic problem (compared to most parts of the developed world).
China's one child policy is ultimately going to bite them. I know the general sentiment on Slashdot is Malthusian, but the number one resource of a nation is people. And if you have a demographic of population decline (eventually), a lot of single males, and too many old people relative to young people, that's not a long-term trend for success.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
You act like trade benefits one party and doesn't benefit the other.
Due to China's low cost labor, we, in the US, have been able to enjoy a -much- higher standard of living than we otherwise would be able to have. In exchange, China is getting a huge amount of capital which raises their standard of living, although, due to not having a free market it really only raises the standard of living for those at the top.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Wages are rising rapidly, the export sector is only marginally profitable, and ties between the two states are increasingly unbreakable. Two thirds of global GDP is found in east Asia. A rising, stable, and prosperous China is good news for the US, and we'd be wise to welcome them to the party.
The sad part is, China has almost become more capitalist than a good chunk of Europe and the US.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Since its topical, and in "space articles" we often get real rocket scientists reading, how does the oxygen rich preburner in the RD-180 work? I don't mean the "duh" stuff like how do you adjust the mixture, but what in the world are these guys doing for metalurgy such that you can basically pipe a metal cutting torch's flame around the innards of an engine? Or is it something totally bonkers like they use nozzle style film cooling inside the pipes and stuff (which doesn't help with the turbopumps, but...)
I would assume if the russians ship working hardware to the DoD that whatever the answer is, its probably not classified.
Also I might be dense here but isn't it harder to maintain stable combustion when oxidizer rich rather than fuel rich? Or maybe its just "different" for an industry used to running fuel rich?
Do they use oxidizer rich preburner gas to cool the nozzle? I'm guessing they aren't that crazy and use the traditional nozzle coolant of fuel. Now a oxidizer regeneratively cooled nozzle would be bonkers, I don't recall anything that crazy. Maybe one of those weird solid fuel/liquid ox hybrids used liq O2 to cool the nozzle. I would imagine a pinhole leak in a oxy cooled nozzle would be a pretty spectacular failure whereas a pinhole in a fuel cooled nozzle is pretty much irrelevant until its a big enough leak to affect flow rates...
The background is that the 170/180 are the only engines I can think of off the top of my head that run oxidizer rich... every one else preburns fuel rich because a traditional welder's cutting torch is an oxidizer rich flame and putting what amounts to a cutting torch inside a engine seems a recipe for disaster. On the other hand oxidizer rich would seem to eliminate carbon/tar/gunk buildup issues. Maybe if you're stuck using heavy tarry parafiny filthy liquid fuels, like cruise ship heavy bunker oil as a fuel, the oxidizer problems are easier solved than creating a whole new fuel refining infrastructure... Would be interesting to know the design tradeoff, assuming its not just "too many bottles of vodka"
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
China is getting a huge amount of capital which raises their standard of living, although, due to not having a free market it really only raises the standard of living for those at the top.
How is that different than the USA? Wages have been stagnent for all but those at the very top for decades. Real income is actually slipping.
On the one hand, it sounds reasonable to work with China now when they have a reason to work with us rather than wait until they've passed what NASA can do. On the other hand, given their history they would almost certainly learn whatever they can however they can, then cease cooperating once they've sucked away all the technology anyway. I don't see any benefit to the US in working with them.
Oh, *that* was it? Slashdot editorial quality is in the toilet, really. I've come to accept incessant grammatical and spelling errors in summaries. But this is just lazy sloppy work. Please make a *summary* that is short, clear and explains why I should read the rest of the article.
Or, to put it in terms that even slashdot editor could understand:
tl;dr;
Because in the USA you can choose a better job and there are plenty of better ones out there if you have the skills/aptitude for them. In China, unless you have a family member in the Communist party, you're pretty much stuck doing either factory labor or agricultural labor. Starting your own business in China is nowhere near as easy as it is in the US unless you have political connections.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Actually class mobility in the USA is pretty much at an all time low.
I know that conflicts with your American Dream mythology, but that is all it ever was a myth.
Starting your own business in the US is easy, making it big pretty much requires political connections or connections with already established big business.
Seems like the Chinese are run by government bureaucrats and we are run by Corporate bureaucrats.
Don't most countries want the same info from the US? I suppose some places have more respect for IP, etc, but I got the impression the US wasn't that friendly with Russia not too long ago, and they still managed to work together on space stuff at the time. Can anyone elaborate on why the US doesn't want to work with China at this point in time and how that's different from Russia in the past?
Isn't that our capitalist victory over the communist bastards? :)
It seems that it never occurred to anyone that by winning the cold war, the communist countries would start playing the game by our own (rather ruthless) rules.
When they were commies, we could block them out. Now we have to allow them to play the game. Not sure what was a bigger threat for our western economies.
Not forgetting the IP minefield. Google's $12.5bn purchase of Motorola Mobility wasn't for its love of phones.
A Space Race is usually a race to be the first at something, like going to the moon was. Unless they plan on racing to put a human on Mars, there is no Space Race worth devoting billions to.
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
China has a short term strategy.
Low Labor Costs, are based on supply and demand. There are a lot of Chinese (A big supply) bigger then their demand for work. However as they grow more, they will get more skilled, and begin to diversify their jobs, and demand more pay. Even in a totalitarian government, if the gap between their actual worth and what they get paid is too wide, there will be increase in under the counter work, or they will go to an other country (Brain drain in china).
Stealing IP, Isn't a strong model to work off of. As the people who they are stealing it from get better mechanisms to prevent it. Sure they can find more ways to bypass them. But as some point you need to figure that you are putting more R&D time trying how to steal Other Ideas, then you could put in making new ones yourself.
Totalitarian rule. Most of China's success has been in their gradual moving away from the communist ideas and embarrassing more capitalistic ideas. With more people who have stuff, they have more stuff they want to protect from someone else. That will lead to more revolts, or less Totalitarian actions from the Chinese to prevent chaos.
Can China be #1? Possibly it is the worlds most populous nation, and has a lot of resources. However just because the US could be regulated to #2 it doesn't mean US will loose out.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That was great and all, but 1975 hardly qualifies as the darkest days of the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis was certainly darker, and was right at the start of the space race. Kennedy had set the goal of reaching the moon just a month earlier, and no one would claim there was any collaboration in space for the next decade. Lobbing humans into orbit and lobbing nukes aren't all that different, after all. There were other dark times during the 1980s, and I doubt anyone would claim that was a great time for space collaboration, either.
Just cancel out debt owed to China in proportion to the actual damages. Triple that canceled debt if there is criminality under RICO.
Then if guys like Klotz want a more open relationship and technological exchange with China, all the government policy measure involves lifting trade barriers to let our space entrepreneurs do business with Chinese companies. Again, if the Chinese act as an organized crime syndicate to violate the IP of the entrepreneurs, cancel out debt to China. Keep doing it until the debt is gone and -- if necessary -- reversed.
Oh, and this idea that it is ok to trade with countries that routinely engage in human rights abuses is essentially participating in slave trade. It should be US policy not to engage in slave trade nor to allow domestic companies to engage in slave trade.
Finally, if you REALLY want to get US innovation going, reverse the current tax situation in which the only national asset tax is the patent fee and the rest of the revenue comes from taxes on economic activity:
Tax only property net rights at their liquidation value at a rate equal to the national debt, and exempt inventor owned patents from any taxes or fees.
Seastead this.
75%-80% of all people earning about $500,000 per year did not come from wealthy backgrounds. Mobility is not as difficult as your make it to be. The bigger issue is that it now takes time and money to move between financial classes. You must have a skill and you must put the time into developing it.You must also be willing to take some risk. Hard work at your job alone is no longer enough.
I am surprised the the parent is modded up. It is unsubstantiated opinion and bordering on pure fiction.
Indeed, USA is nowadays characterized by the lowest social mobility among western countries. The only other country that comes close is the UK.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
*relegated
Sometimes I wish I were a neutral observer far removed from the earth simply waiting to record the results of this most fascinating human societal experiment. Which system will prove the most successful, the one that is willing to suffer short term losses for long term gain or the one that focuses solely on providing the greatest reward in the shortest amount of time? Fascinating indeed!!
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
with profound implications for America's own interests in space
What are the implications? That China will advance beyond the U.S. in space? That China will do something else first? That China will look superior in some way?
There's one simple way to resolve any such concerns. The U.S. simply has to engage their space program rather than mothball it.
Confucius say; nation that sit on ass get left with egg on face.
The best places to get rich today is in fact the Nordic countries... Damn those tax rates are keeping people from being successful lol.
What background did they come from? Impoverished? Or well-to-do or above?
And how many people are we talking about anyway?
Citation needed.
The way social mobility is kept low is because poor people do *not* have time, have no money, have no opportunity to develop skills and cannot afford to take the risk. These problems are far from as trivial as you make it sound. Work a poorly paid 18 hour day, and be forced to decide between medical care, food, and education, and realise that financial failure means starvation, and you will see how easy it is to be trapped in poverty.
China has a one child policy? What are you stuck in the 1970s when it was implemented?
There are so many loop holes in that policy one can drive a truck through it.
There are exemptions if your first child was a girl, many regions of China now have locally implemented a two child policy across the board, Ethnic minorities (there are 55 in China) are allowed 2 Children in urban areas, or 4 in rural areas, with Tibet's Autonomous region declaring there is no limitations to the number of kids one has. These exceptions mean that as long as you follow a birth spacing of 3-4 years depending on the area, nearly 65% of all China are allowed more then one child.
Plus there are exemptions if you want to pay a fine (equal to the average disposable income in the area your living in the year the child was born, and doesn't need to be paid till the child is 5 years old and starts school, WITHOUT penalty/interest for being late), or if your a business owner the fine is larger and much stiffer, and you need to do math based on your income.
20,000×6+(INCOME-20,000)×2 = Fine in Chinese yuan.
I know we bai gui's in the west still act like China is still in the 1970's but Mao has been dead for 34 years, and most of his policies are either totally gone or have been swiss cheesed since then.
It seems to me that the current state of cooperation with China is adequate. It's comparable to cooperation one sees between competing companies in whichever commercial engineering realm. As such, the US is incubating innovative home-based endeavours that will beat competitors hands-down (at least as long as the US leads in innovation of course).
I wonder if China is willing to go all out and use Nuclear Rockets in Space. If they are willing to take the risks and the International Heat. They could leap frog the rest of the world. A nuclear rocket makes the manned trip to mars and back not only possible but doable with today's tech. It also brings the price of a moon base down a hell lot. I would guess better then 150% to that of International Space Station per kilogram. A throttlable nuclear rocket could make several supply runs from LEO to the moon and still have plenty of power left over to enter a decaying orbit around the sun.
This would probably be so crushing to the West that they too would be forced to revisit their nuclear powered rocket designs. It would be in a word a game changer. Of course one reactor explosion would put an instant end to the nuclear rocket race. The big unknown for me is disposal how are we going to get rid of the rockets once we're done with them. Should we just park them around the sun in a lower orbit. Sounds good for a couple hundred rockets but you start putting thousands there it could hamper our ability to reach Venus. Of course maybe the right choice is just to park'em for now and when there enough use one rocket to collect them and send them to burn up in the sun. Of course Jupiter wouldn't know the difference if we feed it a couple thousand rockets or not.
Breather Reactors in the Rockets could make the list a hell of a lot longer, yes they would need more propellent but that would be cheap to send vs sending an other rocket. Of course it's probably better to retire the rockets early rather then risk potential problems as the rockets age.
As an overall percentage, it's down. In the 1970s, 36% of US families stayed in the same income quintile. In the 1980s, 37%, and in the 1990s, 40%. That's reduced class mobility. How significant this is debatable, but it's not "unsubstantiated opinion and bordering on pure fiction".
http://www.economist.com/node/3518560?story_id=3518560
A lot of the demographic problem those policies created still exist though, and will until the "problem generations" die off. And even if the child restriction only really applies to the least-fortunate 1/2 or 1/4 of the population that's still an ongoing contributor to demographic imbalance
On the other hand the bulk of their population is still agrarian, and as they industrialize the surge in per-capita productivity will likely outstrip the demographic problems. It doesn't really matter much to the economics of the situation whether the new labor pool is coming of age or immigrating from near-subsistence rural areas.
In fact China may be in a better position than most developed nations in that it's industrialized population growth is phenomenal, whereas in most nations developed it's relatively stagnant if not slightly negative.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I don't agree. Family or school connections make things much much easier but making those same connections without a privileged background is certainly not out of reach. You do have to be arrogant, determined and willing to take risks while keeping your reputation clean (no powerful family to back you up).
The American Dream btw was not that anyone could become an elite power broker. It was that anyone can make their own destiny. There are a million millionaires in America that prove that one.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
If the US really is in a cooperative mood, how about not backing out of the ISS program in 2016 or 2020? It hasn't even been completed yet and they already planning how to deorbit it.
In fairness though our addiction to consumerist culture exacerbates most of those problems dramatically. Immigrants from less materialistic cultures can often do quite well for themselves on the exact same income, and boggle at native-born Americans claiming they have no opportunities while simultaneously pissing away their income on enough housing to hold all the junk they buy. (Illegal immigrants have it worse since they are much more vulnerable to exploitation)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
*relegated
Obviously you're not factoring in the eventual Chinese dominance of international law :-P
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
OK, it's not *all* our technology, but they got a leg-up. Read up on the Cox report. While controversial in some aspects, it did result in two Federal prosecutions for technology related to ICBMs which are a dual purpose technology. Some sources (yes, [citation needed]) say that the Chinese ballistic missile program wasn't doing very well until they got our technology.
The two defense contractors got "the largest fines ever". 10s of $millions, which is a slap on the wrist. I'm not sure what the Chinese actually got.
High income taxes are the primary means the rich use to eliminate competition; they are a huge barrier to anyone trying to raise enough capital to build a small business, while they have little impact on the rich because most of their income isn't classed as 'income'.
They rely on the 'tax the rich!' useful idiots such as yourself, then laugh behind your back at how you're supporting taxes they use to screw you.
...until the "problem generations" die off.
Oh I like this. really? That us right?
If you look at actual numbers rather than relative numbers: "Most Americans (84 percent) exceed their parents income at a similar stage....Among sons, 59 percent had higher inflation-adjusted wages and salaries than their fathers." (source).
I 100% agree with your implicit argument that we should tax the shit out of capital gains.
-
A lot of the demographic problem those policies created still exist though.
Verses what our baby boom generation?
You do realize that our demographics are more screwed up then theirs already right? Under 9% of China's population is over 65, but in the US, the figure is already at 13%, and in Canada 16%. Or look at their close neighbour the Japanese, with a whopping 23% over the age of 65!
And even if the child restriction only really applies to the least-fortunate 1/2 or 1/4 of the population that's still an ongoing contributor to demographic imbalance.
It is not the "least fortunate" who are still blocked from having more then one child, seeing as China's least fortunate populations are rural and they have had easy exemptions and tiny fines for years. Its the upper-middle and upper class who face drastic fines that tend to be unable to have more then one child due to their unwillingness to spend the money. Which is why just about every news article talking about the One Chile Policy in China today always ends up referring to people with "successful businesses" as they take the blunt of the fines.
I'm very confused, a simple look up of population statistics would have shown your argument to be invalid, but it is like I said in my previous post, people have a strange fascination with old Cold War propaganda about China, and its hard for them to change their minds. While we in the west treat our actions as perfect and yet we face the larger demographic problems with out baby boom generation, and our inaction to protect and expand our own industries and resources so that we may continue the life we once had in the 1950's and 1960's.
How does that jive with reality?
Where some of the nations with the highest levels of class mobility also have the highest levels of income tax?
Why can we not classify all income the same way, including investment income for the purposes of taxes?
the number one resource of a nation is people. And if you have a demographic of population decline (eventually), a lot of single males, and too many old people relative to young people, that's not a long-term trend for success.
Because having billions of starving young people fighting for resources is so much more fun!
it really only raises the standard of living for those at the top.
Fortunately we have The Free Market (tm) or this could be happening here too! Oh, the horror...
Nice try. For a country where you still need to apply for a "permission to give birth"...how can anyone say that tyranny is not still there? Yes, China has this, it's alive and well, and yes it applies when one parent is a foreigner. To say nothing of Americans who think that "breeders" are a huge problem and dream of implementing a similar program here to control the number of new Americans born to the natives. They exist.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
it really only raises the standard of living for those at the top.
The proportion of impoverished Chinese fell from 65% of the population in 1981 to 4% in 2007, during which time more than HALF A BILLION people were hoisted above the poverty line. (source)
The US felt safe until 1957 protected by thousands of miles of oceans. Maybe a few subs or balloons snuck in during the world war. But the first orbiting satellite in 1957 showed there was no place on Earth out of reach. Plus something going over you every hour and a half possibly spying on you. People felt very unsafe then.
Wages have been stagnent for all but those at the very top for decades.
But real total compensation has risen over 100% from 1968 to 2008. You just don't see the increase in real wages because tax laws encourage more of your total compensation to go into benefits such as medical insurance.
Where some of the nations with the highest levels of class mobility also have the highest levels of income tax?
Yes, it is easier for rich kids who go to college become poor kids in countries where income taxes and labor laws make these kids just out of college unemployable. Because they move down in the relative scale, poorer kids who can get blue collar jobs move up the relative scale.
That is why it is better to look at what children are making compared to their parents in absolute terms rather than looking through the viewpoints of class and income relativism.
In Spain only 40% of college graduates get a job in their field.
Everyone already knows that we have space alien technology gleaned from the crash in Roswell. China, pfffft lolz.
As an overall percentage, it's down. In the 1970s, 36% of US families stayed in the same income quintile. In the 1980s, 37%, and in the 1990s, 40%. That's reduced class mobility. How significant this is debatable, but it's not "unsubstantiated opinion and bordering on pure fiction".
Measuring economic mobility by using quintiles is incredibly misleading. It punishes more powerful economies where there is more room between quintiles.
In 1971, there was a $25,200 gap between the average income of the 2nd and 4th quintiles in the US (in 2005 dollars).
In 2005, there was a $36,600 gap between the average income of the 2nd and 4th quintiles in the US.
This means the 3rd quintile grew by $5700, or 45%.
Average Income By Quintile
Considering the increased size of each quintile, it is obvious that mobility between quintiles would reduce. Someone at the middle of the 3rd quintile in 1971 would have to increase his income by 15.7% to reach the 4th quintile. In 2005, a similar individual would have to raise his income by 21.8%
That means it takes a 40% greater income increase for the middle quintile to move up in 2005 than it did in 1979. Considering the percentage of people who stayed in the middle quintile only rose by 8%, I would say income mobility is growing rapidly.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
By 'more powerful economies', you actually mean more *unequal* economies don't you?
China has kept their interest and intentions hidden. As such, it is difficult to know what is going on. While I prefer to have peace with them, it is obvious that the communist party is in a cold war with the west.
As it is, I would rather continue working with our current allies on the ISS and getting into space with private space. Our allies want to go to the moon with USA. I say that it makes sense. However, we need to have them picking up more of the tab for what is going on. It is stupid that we have paid 10's of billions to Russia and EU EACH to do work that we could have and more importantly, should have done cheaper.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sure. Give us your IP address and we will be sure to take care of you.
Yup, it worked well for USSR.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Do you actually know any mainland Chinese ? I do, they are of course middle class engineers and the like, and they are following the one child policy. It sees pretty real to me.
HAHAHAHHAHAH!! I needed a good laugh
The American Dream btw was not that anyone could become an elite power broker. It was that anyone can make their own destiny. There are a million millionaires in America that prove that one.
Tush. Count the hits, ignore the misses. By that reasoning, there are several more million non-millionaires that disprove it.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
They could just enforce a national age limit.
Spain is terrible economy no matter what. Has been forever.
Look at Norway then tell me those taxes are hurting them.
Look at Norway then tell me those taxes are hurting them.
Norway gets 20% of GDP from oil, so they can afford to be socialist!
Spain: "Government spending has increased to a level equivalent to 45.8 percent of GDP. The budget balance has fallen into deficit, and public debt has grown to around 60 percent of total domestic output."
Norway: "Government spending has risen to a level equivalent to 46.4 percent of total domestic output, but the budget balance remains in surplus due to oil revenues."
(Source: 2012 Index of Economic Freedom)
Great! Why don't you move to China then?
Looking forward to hearing how you get on, especially when you don't bribe the right people.
I think some competition is probably good, for both sides. I think most of the advancements we, and the Russians for that matter, have made in space so far are largely based on the competition of decades past. Since the competition ended, both sides have done a lot of stagnating.
Dear Mr. Canuck,
Please note that "then" and "than" are separate terms, and in your post you mean the latter; "than" is a comparative, "then" a...?er...let's say "ordinal" (helps to order things). Such as in "if...then", or "b after a", but not just between series of events, but also temporally, e.g. for "at that time". Not wanting to be pedantic, but somehow "then" has spread across the internet with astonishing regularity; maybe it's that vowels are approximants; maybe it's just the Dyslexia induced in the next two generations of Americans from massive exposure to television and the internet (more than me, and that is scary).
On second thought, it might be easier just to blame the Chinese...
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
You do realise kid that a dose of Shakespeare will probably cure that year 5 spelling bee fixation? I see your post as an example of a failure of education in English instead of the assertion of superiority that you are attempting, which is even more sad because it's misplaced anyway. This sort of "fuck the topic, I won the spelling bee" grammar nazi bullshit is a waste of space.
I know some Chinese Koreans - see the above post by JimCanuck as to why they could grow up in a family of 5 children in China in the 1970s.
They consider more factors than the ones you referred and place US as one of the worst. The actual research is located here. Do dig into the data (There is a link in the right half of the page)
HAHAHAHHAHAH!! I needed a good laugh
They can always "fix" their demographic problem by implementing the Qin social reforms.
The Russians didn't have any choice. We destroyed their economy and have been making sure that it never recovers ever since. In the case of the US the choice was deliberate on the part of the "leadership", no more long-term planning for, well, anything ever again. Just short-term pillage for their political patrons, which is better and more unaccountably accomplished through military spending.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The Chinese got contracts to launch the satellites they were now building.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The Chinese are useless
Wow, and I never ever thought I would read something like that on a respectable site such as Slashdot
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The Space Race had been pretty much over for nearly 10 years before the Star Wars program (Strategic Defense Initiative) that the Russians overextended themselves attempting to counter.
Not a spelling whiz; actually I have a lot of linguistics training at university and personally care little about spelling except for that it permits everyone to read quickly with less uncertainty and by following conventions one doesn't "irk" someone unnecessarily. When I write "please note" it's out of the assumption that you may truly not know--perhaps you're foreign to English? I don't know because it's the web, and it's impersonal, but what I do know is that "errors" like that are used as "tells" (aka Shiboleths) by people when they decide whether they want to interact with or do business with or acknowledge other people, so letting people know about "little" mistakes like that is worth my while: it may help someone significantly whether or not they realize it.
And Shakespaere isn't a good reference authority as he precedes spelling standards of durable fixity: even the King James Bible had varied spelling, and he precedes that. But "then" and "than" represent terms with significantly different vowel sounds, and these terms are now fixed as distinct in writing, in every form of English writing convention, no matter the pronunciation of the vowels in a given dialect. In other words, from an orthographical view to confuse them is a true error: even when fast speakers might vocalize them nigh identically. It's not being a grammar Nazi to point this out, it's a grammar Nazi that (incorrectly) condemns conjugations beginning a sentence, or every case of a dangling participle or so-called incomplete sentence regardless whether a given case is intelligible (therefore grammatical) in its context, or insists upon use of "that" for impersonal objects and "who" for personal ones every time (see "that" following "Nazi" above). A description of my action could consist of that I was simply pointing out the axiomatic fact that on paper these are distinct forms.
Despite involvement with editing projects of centuries-old manuscripts (where one does see "then" used for "than" because spelling was not fixed as much, and vocalization might have suggested "e" to many writers), Latin reading groups, and studies in Ionic Greek, Spanish (include old forms), and whatever else suits my fancy at the time, even I get irked at this! And I "can hardly care" about many kinds of complaint or formalism, so there. I am about the most laid-back guy you would ever find involved in such projects and circles, and yet when I encounter things like this...it's about as bad as the general English reaction to swapping or dropping the definite or indefinite articles by Asians: few even pretend not to disdain someone who does this (though personally I get interested in learning about their psychology from instances like that).
The appellation "Shakespeare" according to the OED is more properly spelled "Shakspere", but we all ignore that because there is a commonly accepted, widely recognized form, i.e. as you and I have spelled it: the same for "then" and "than". Differences like "-ize" and "-ise", however...now those are truly debateable: acceptable standards vary throughout the world on them: they are both etymological and recognizable.
And yeah, I spoke on that and not the topic because this doesn't tend to occur in contexts where people are discussing "then" and "than". I am also sure by the way that this sort of thing can mean the difference between getting a job or being passed over: unfortunately certain formalities matter to people, and ever since the banishment of spelling free-for-alls, written convention tends to be one of them.
"a failure of education in English" -- how trite.
"the assertion of superiority that you are attempting" -- wasn't attempting any. Quite honestly I was just annoyed, queue: http://xkcd.com/386/ I have been dealing with someone with dementia 24/7 for over eight months straight now with almost no help, so I am on edge all the time; and actually I LOVE when people inform me of little errors I make, especially when I didn't know that something was incorrect. Apologies, however, for the tone of what I wrote, with caveat that "Dear Mr. Canuck" was meant respectfully.
: )
http://xkcd.com/386/
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
Fair enough, I thought you were just another of the long stream of kids pretending to be English teachers just to put somebody down instead of someone that actually knows what they are writing about. At one point there were dozens attached to every story - I even had one idiot try to correct my spelling of "aluminium". When a programmer called Raster who writes as if he's texting at high speed on a small phone had one of his blog entries linked nearly every comment here was about his spelling instead of the actual subject matter.
My point was really that I do not think spelling and grammar are of great importance on an international site where the language is effectively broken English and IMHO I think corrects here are as irrelevant as correcting something from Shakespeare's time instead of just reading around the different spelling and getting some meaning out of it. That's my opinion anyway and why I reacted to your post instead of just taking it as your opinion. I'm sorry about my angry post above which is really directed at someone else.
The word "corrects" should have been "corrections".
I'm sorry about my angry post above which is really directed at someone else.
You too!!!? : D If you were in the Denver Metro of Colorado I would say we should go get a beer and rant about people who piss us off.
/. and people type on phones, overly quickly as they glance articles at work...Dear Slashdot: apologies for correcting something silly while I was in a foul mood, hope however that further posts added fodder for thought, and even better, perhaps criticism that will say YOU'RE WRONG (and give sources, or things to look up). Speaking of which: as much as we downmod offtopic comments, going off on tangents is what makes forums so great and interesting.
/r/ vs. /l/, and even more when you realize they still can't perceive the difference!!!
As far as broken English, with regards foreign people you would be surprised how many WANT correction. I remember a guy from Mexico who was going around telling everybody who talked too loud (a LOT of people in America) to just "shut up" because that's all he ever heard Americans say on the street (where he learned English, literally by walking-up to groups and attempting to engage them in their own language: he said it took a while...but not as long as his compatriots who can still barely speak it, while he is fluent). People who realized his mistake were too polite to "offend" him by offering correction, which he gratefully received when someone finally spoke-up: from instances like that I don't try to be "nice" all the time, or worry as much about offending people as my time in academia--and then sales--would have me believe should be important.
But I also get it's
But no worries man: I really may become an English teacher, actually. : ) At least while reviewing materials to return to school and finish the medical track. It's always fun to teach Asians the phonetics of
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
Other then my wife? Plenty actually.
Heck even she has siblings (note plural not singular) who they themselves have more then one child. Legally, using the exemptions already legally allowed there.
As for having only one child, a lot of it is cost related. Since parents can devote the share of expenses only onto one child, prices for some services in China (such as day care and tutoring) are priced accordingly. So having more then one child can still be a burden even with the rule changes that have been happening since nearly the start of the one child policy.
Your confusing Singapore who requires foreigner women who wish to give birth in Singapore to get permission (mainly have a legal way out for the government not to grant the children citizenship) with China.
In China you only need permission to give birth to more then one Child. Its a standard government form.
Utterly and completely wrong. You need to apply for Permission to Give Birth for your first child. Otherwise how will they know if you've already had one? Duh. It's a standard step. Doesn't matter if one parent is a foreigner or not. I've never been to Singapore so obviously I can't be confusing things.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Because in the USA you can choose a better job and there are plenty of better ones out there if you have the skills/aptitude for them. In China, unless you have a family member in the Communist party, you're pretty much stuck doing either factory labor or agricultural labor. Starting your own business in China is nowhere near as easy as it is in the US unless you have political connections.
Though, it is clear that Chinese system is much more efficient than that of the U.S. ; they achieved within decades what took Americans centuries to achieve....in extreme short.
Sorry about that. It appears I assumed that you were somebody that is very different from you based on probably no more than the first sentence.