Comparing the riots in England against what is happening in Syria is just another sign of moral relativism run amok with a good amount of idiocy added to the mix for good measure.
"But then you have riots at home and our precious security feels endangered". So we should just throw out any attempt aimed at maintaining a level of security that doesn't involve sending troops and tanks into the city to kill anyone actually making a fuss or looking like they might?
Chaotic masses of angry people have other options besides wide spread indiscriminate violence against their own citizens because they are angry? If people really want change they need to do more than just protest AGAINST something they need to protest FOR something.
In the software development arena there are people with awesome skill sets that even a felony conviction would not automatically count against them out unless their conviction happens to be directly related to the position being filled or involves sex crimes and murder. They would also have a harder time obtaining any position that requires a security clearance. About 25 years ago I was charged with simple drug possession because I had half a joint. I have had no trouble getting a security clearance or working for major banking companies including the Federal Reserve.
Sure they designed their hardware but they have also relied on using the past 40+ years of NASA's and the participating contractors successes and failures as their starting point. It's not like they developed a warp engine or anything. At most they have made minor improvements on existing concepts and models.
Lay offs suck no matter how they are implemented but this guy has pretty much guaranteed he will never work in the industry again for anyone that even does a cursory background check. It's very easy to get a hold of peoples criminal records today and pretty much SOP at most of the mid and large corporations. Employers are willing to overlook some things but any crimes related directly to the position being filled are not.
I have never been a big Office user except when it involves creating interfaces between it and custom consumer applications so my opinion on the latest release from a user perspective is pretty shallow. I certainly don't use all of the functionality in Office but I can't recall having any issues with creating documents, spreadsheets, or PowerPoint presentations. On the other hand IE8/9 has been easier to target in multi-browser application development projects. Windows 7 seem pretty stable both at home and at work, including the security aspects. The latest development tools also seem to be pretty good. Things like the ASP.NET MVC framework and the MS Enterprise Library provides excellent application cross cutting functionality and saves a ton of development time.
The did sound united during the protests concerning elections and I believe they will have elections eventually but elections do not guarantee outcomes that are favorable for the majority. They had elections in the West Bank and a government who thinks terrorists attacks on their own civilians represent a normal campaigning strategy. Saddam Hussein had elections in which he ended up receiving 99% of the votes. In the last round of Iranian elections the incumbent was declared victorious 3 hours after the polls closed. How in the hell did they manage to count all of the votes in that short period of time? Even assuming they are the most efficient government in the world there is no way all of the votes were officially counted and verified. When the US declared their independence from English rule they had already had a constitutional convention prior to firing the first shots to hash out what would happen if their military resistance efforts succeeded. It was by no means perfect but it was a sign someone was thinking ahead.
And why should MS give a shit about whether you trust them or not? I would say the MS dominance on desktop systems for the past 25+ years demonstrates that honesty doesn't really effect the bottom line. And you are right about experience being important and if MS has anything it is a wealth of experience to fall back on when necessary. Their latest product offerings have actually been pretty decent. Since IE9 got a positive review the naysayers are convinced that the study conducted was faulty. If IE9 had come up last everyone would be praising the study and it's methodologies.
If the Pakistani computer guys are so competent why haven't they developed any of their own tech? They relied on N. Korea to jump start their nuclear tech. Also anyone purchasing advanced US tech is totally reliant on the US for parts and accessories. Dissecting the software and hardware is not easy. Efforts to dissect the CPU's, encrypted software, and other hardware components will most likely result in destroying the components in the process which would basically make the very expensive aircraft or other tech useless.
The military took over because the protesters did not offer up any feasible and realistic alternative. When the Iranian revolution happened their were representatives from all political groups involved in the protests. This included the young liberal and progressive university students, those wanting some sort of representational government, and the hard line religious parties. While the progressives and liberals focused on antagonizing the US with the hostage taking fiasco this provided the religious parties with the time to organize and embark on a plan to make sure their goals were achieved primacy. The hostage takers distractions let the religious parties seize the initiative and the rest is history. This even resulted in a lot of the original protesters being arrested and killed by the theocracy run government. The religious parties were in the minority before and during the revolt but were able to overcome that because they were disciplined and had a plan on how to get the kind of system they wanted. It's ironic that one of the main reasons the revolt occurred in the first place was complaints about the Shah's security forces cracking down on dissenters but the vast majority of these dissenters were the hard line religious party members. Iran went from a relatively open and modern country to a 7th century caliphate. Sure the Shah's government had it's problems, just like any government, but anyone even remotely connected to that regime ended up being systematically arrested, forced to emigrate, and killed by the Mullah ruled government.
"But with mediums like social networking Web sites, which enable easy manipulation of identity, it is getting difficult to separate the actual threats from the bystanders." This is one of the better observations I have heard regarding the current state of the Internet.
"protesters" who had better be ready to wear name tags and stand neatly in the free speech zone" This is just your interpretation of what he actually said or do you really know what he is thinking and consider yourself a fucking psychic truth detector?
If your cause is so damn righteous eventually you will need to step forward and identify yourself to make any changes or do you think people will just listen to someone standing in the shadows screaming about the injustice they have to put up with. By the way if I hack into any databases containing information about you such as your financial account balances, criminal records, spending habits, tax returns, home address, work address, children's schools, or any other pieces of information readily available in the digital world would I be a good guy or a bad guy in your eyes? What if I only did this to people that don't happen to share your political ideology and ideals on how the world operates? Would it be OK in that instance?
How many US citizens have been prosecuted under this "Terrorism Act" that were not in the process of building homemade bombs or going on an indiscriminate shooting spree? How many US political dissenters have been rounded up and put in jail and prosecuted for their political ideals? Storming the barricades is all fine and dandy but it would be monumentally helpful if the dissenters actually have a realistic plan on how to implement the changes they are demanding after the revolt is over. The people in Egypt joined hands in brotherly love and friendship to oust the government but once that was done the protesters immediately reverted back to their internal power struggles and have not achieved any concrete results outside of handing the government over to military rule. Oh and by the way most political dissenters complain they are being persecuted when anyone happens to disagree with their version of an ideal world.
A couple of other reasons for providing military hardware to other countries, whether free, discounted, or full price, is that it generates jobs in the US. Plus if the US found itself in a military conflict with a country that has been supplied with US military tech it would be easy to exploit that. Do you think the US would supply advanced weaponry without building in the means to hack them during battle? The first time a military launches a US made missile at a US aircraft they would most likely be in for a surprise when the missile reverses course and targets the plane that launched it, blew itself up, or failed to respond to any navigational input. Embedding a backdoor into the control systems, even at the chip level, would be relatively straightforward and hard to identify. After all people have claimed for years that MS has built-in back doors to their OS products to provide government access but to my knowledge no one has every discovered this backdoor and I doubt it is because no one has been looking for it. Almost 90% of the military aid the US gives to Israel or others require them to spend that money on US tech. In addition the US doesn't give away all of their advanced technology such as the F-22. And who really knows what technology the military has that no one has every heard of? The F-117 was one of the most closely guarded military secrets in modern times. The helicopter destroyed in Pakistan during the Bin Laden attack was also something that took people by surprise. No matter how incompetent the US government is they do manage once in a while to maintain a high level of security at times.
They don't claim all the technology they employ is 100% US made. They get a a lot from Israel, which includes a great deal of the drone technology the US uses. However, they have created the vast majority of the tech being used in the military. China and all the other countries lacking the resources to innovate anything rely on buying or stealing obsolete Russian technology and just plain stealing US tech whenever they can. Your statement only highlights the fact that you are a class A idiot.
Say what you want but don't be surprised when statements like those posted by the blogger provides the final piece of motivation and justification to those who will gladly start the killing. Freedom of speech in any country has never come guaranteed freedom from risk or consequences. Such as approaching someone in the US and expressing your freedom of speech in their face which they happen to take exception with and end up knocking your teeth out. As long as your speech wasn't physically threatening immediate physical harm you have the ability to address this violation of your rights in court but only after you finish gathering up your teeth laying on the floor. In most of the middle eastern or African countries currently going through upheavals exercising freedom of speech presents a much more dire risk and it requires a substantial amount of courage to attempt to go beyond the current boundaries. A blog post such as the one in question targeted against the US President or high government official might not get you arrested but you would no doubt be getting a visit from the Secret Service so you can clarify your statements and intentions.
I am a little skeptical that the current ICBMS are even that reliable. They have been sitting in their silos for 30+ years. I think the Russians actually predicted they would have a 30% - 40% failure rate so that's why they made so many to begin with and I guess the US followed suit.
I pointed out that quantity does not equate to quality and using that 1 metric is not a very accurate or realistic way of measuring real world scientific achievements. What percentage of published scientific papers address things that are actually useful in the real world? What percentage of published scientific papers contain only theoretical concepts? The original claim was that China is producing more IP because their quantity of published papers is increasing and I don't think that can be claimed as a factual statement.
I think the US got a tremendous jump start on the rest of the world because of WW2 not because Americans were any smarter or capable than others around the world. The US was practically the only country with no damaged infrastructure and masses of traumatized citizens just trying to put their lives back together to deal with. The US lead in production and economic metrics has been shrinking over the years as other countries become able to concentrate more on their international relationships instead of their internal domestic concerns. As far as the number of research materials being generated in China even the article you linked to admitted the current figures represent only quantity not the quality of the research. And I am sure China is not the only country by a long shot that publishes fraudulent and idiotic scientific papers. There is a lot of international cooperation in scientific pursuits which makes it hard to say any particular country is 100% responsible any new scientific achievements. The thing that amazes me is that the people with the raw intelligence and potential come from all races and geographic locations in the world. The shame is that some of this intelligence can be wasted if there are no resources available to support and nurture those who are gifted. There are probably a few people in places like Somalia with the raw intelligence and potential of any great scientist but they usually have no way to fulfill their potential.
According to a lot of people China is supposed to pass the US in about every category but I have seen little evidence this actually happening unless you are talking about rising energy consumption, deteriorating environmental conditions, or rising inflation. Even with China's much lauded manufacturing base the US is still the #1 manufacturer in the world with a 1/4 of China's population. China's cheerleaders have based their forecasts on China continuing to maintain the same growth rate without encountering any problems, in other words, using idyllic conditions to predict future results while discounting and minimizing any negative factors entering into the equation. Add in some wishful thinking and you have the perfect propaganda to attack the US with. And people continue to assume that there is not an elite and privileged class in China that rivals any in the US and they will extract the bulk of the benefits of any new IP they happen to develop except they don't have to tolerate any real opposition from the general public because they always need more help on the prison farms with no Wi-fi coverage available to tweet any discontent.
China does not create intellectual property they steal,"borrow", or buy it from others. Why waste money on R&D when you can just take advantage of someone else's work. It's really not such a bad idea if you think about it. And there is little anyone can do because reverse engineering an existing piece of technology is easy. The only leverage available to prevent this from getting out of hand and harming the people who actually developed the technology is to raise import tariffs on products from the offending country.
You are correct their currency manipulation has helped to keep export prices low but they are limited on how much manipulation they can get away with before other countries raise import fees to compensate. The US and China are in constant discussions regarding currency manipulations.
China's economic rise has depended on one thing, low labor cost. They are not known for either quality or innovation and they are becoming vulnerable because of the other countries that are able to compete on the labor cost. China appropriates technology from those countries who actually innovate and make cheap copies, slap on a new name, and declare success. Their space and military technology is built on top of old Soviet technologies and anything they can steal from the US. By the time they get around to outfitting a single carrier group the US will have deployed orbital based kinetic weapon systems that will make any surface ship useless. They would be better off concentrating their efforts on stealthy submarine technology.
I said the people were "partly" responsible for the situation they find themselves in. Why did it take 25 years for the Egyptians to get a thumb out and do something about their situation? What exactly are the protesters in England trying to accomplish? And spare the "truth and justice" bullshit and layout some concrete reasons and realistic solutions to correct the problems. Running government officials out of office might make the mob feel good until they stop and look around and find no one running the store and realize they can not blame anyone except themselves since they no longer have a government to blame. And someone above mentioned violence being a good way of changing things and I totally agree. It's good to have a forest fire every now and then to clean out the dead wood and reinvigorate growth but running through the streets stealing and burning isn't going to accomplish anything. The next global war will most likely be the only solution to changing the entire paradigm of our current civilization. Hopefully enough people will survive and they can start over from scratch and apply the lessons learned if there are actually any records remaining to learn from.
China has increased it's import of food by a factor of 5 from the US just over the past 6 years. On the other hand China makes nothing the US can not produce domestically or import from other emerging countries who can also pay their employees a dollar a day to create cheap products. China has also started reporting trade deficits and inflation is driving their export prices up past the point where their currency manipulations can control. Doing anything to really piss off the US would threaten 30% of their current export market while the US might see a slight increase in prices for imported goods.
Violence just perpetuates the hate used to drive these types of conflicts. Protesting only works when you actually protest for something and not just against something. You need more than empty slogans and rhetoric if you expect to really change anything. Look at the protests in the Egypt, the protesters were more than willing to organize to storm the barricades but once they achieved their goal of removing the person they felt was responsible for their misery they have reverted to fighting and arguing amongst themselves and have not accomplished anything to improve their society. The downtrodden masses in London or in any other country never accept that they themselves are partly responsible for their situation. Personal responsibility and the willingness to improve your own life plays a big part on the quality of life. The organized marches in DC during the fight for minority rights are a good example of how to achieve positive results using public protests. Throughout the country protesters and their supports were attacked violently and yet they still continued on with their cause until they were either killed, beaten down, or arrested. At the same time the leaders of these protests displayed both intelligence and competence that heled to demolish the stereotypes of that era. The protesters in the 60's knew exactly what they were protesting for which was equal protection and rights under the law and they achieved that goal without resorting to mindless violence. Had they done so they would have failed in their quest. Of course racial discrimination did not end overnight and it is still an ongoing struggle today but who could have even entertained the idea in the 1960's that the US would elect a black president? None of these efforts used to achieve this goal resulted from the type of violence and anarchy sweeping England or other countries today. The rioters in England have focused the public's attention on the violence instead of the underlying reasons they use to justify their violence.
Slashdot Mirror
Comparing the riots in England against what is happening in Syria is just another sign of moral relativism run amok with a good amount of idiocy added to the mix for good measure. "But then you have riots at home and our precious security feels endangered". So we should just throw out any attempt aimed at maintaining a level of security that doesn't involve sending troops and tanks into the city to kill anyone actually making a fuss or looking like they might? Chaotic masses of angry people have other options besides wide spread indiscriminate violence against their own citizens because they are angry? If people really want change they need to do more than just protest AGAINST something they need to protest FOR something.
In the software development arena there are people with awesome skill sets that even a felony conviction would not automatically count against them out unless their conviction happens to be directly related to the position being filled or involves sex crimes and murder. They would also have a harder time obtaining any position that requires a security clearance. About 25 years ago I was charged with simple drug possession because I had half a joint. I have had no trouble getting a security clearance or working for major banking companies including the Federal Reserve.
Sure they designed their hardware but they have also relied on using the past 40+ years of NASA's and the participating contractors successes and failures as their starting point. It's not like they developed a warp engine or anything. At most they have made minor improvements on existing concepts and models.
Lay offs suck no matter how they are implemented but this guy has pretty much guaranteed he will never work in the industry again for anyone that even does a cursory background check. It's very easy to get a hold of peoples criminal records today and pretty much SOP at most of the mid and large corporations. Employers are willing to overlook some things but any crimes related directly to the position being filled are not.
I have never been a big Office user except when it involves creating interfaces between it and custom consumer applications so my opinion on the latest release from a user perspective is pretty shallow. I certainly don't use all of the functionality in Office but I can't recall having any issues with creating documents, spreadsheets, or PowerPoint presentations. On the other hand IE8/9 has been easier to target in multi-browser application development projects. Windows 7 seem pretty stable both at home and at work, including the security aspects. The latest development tools also seem to be pretty good. Things like the ASP.NET MVC framework and the MS Enterprise Library provides excellent application cross cutting functionality and saves a ton of development time.
The did sound united during the protests concerning elections and I believe they will have elections eventually but elections do not guarantee outcomes that are favorable for the majority. They had elections in the West Bank and a government who thinks terrorists attacks on their own civilians represent a normal campaigning strategy. Saddam Hussein had elections in which he ended up receiving 99% of the votes. In the last round of Iranian elections the incumbent was declared victorious 3 hours after the polls closed. How in the hell did they manage to count all of the votes in that short period of time? Even assuming they are the most efficient government in the world there is no way all of the votes were officially counted and verified. When the US declared their independence from English rule they had already had a constitutional convention prior to firing the first shots to hash out what would happen if their military resistance efforts succeeded. It was by no means perfect but it was a sign someone was thinking ahead.
And why should MS give a shit about whether you trust them or not? I would say the MS dominance on desktop systems for the past 25+ years demonstrates that honesty doesn't really effect the bottom line. And you are right about experience being important and if MS has anything it is a wealth of experience to fall back on when necessary. Their latest product offerings have actually been pretty decent. Since IE9 got a positive review the naysayers are convinced that the study conducted was faulty. If IE9 had come up last everyone would be praising the study and it's methodologies.
If the Pakistani computer guys are so competent why haven't they developed any of their own tech? They relied on N. Korea to jump start their nuclear tech. Also anyone purchasing advanced US tech is totally reliant on the US for parts and accessories. Dissecting the software and hardware is not easy. Efforts to dissect the CPU's, encrypted software, and other hardware components will most likely result in destroying the components in the process which would basically make the very expensive aircraft or other tech useless.
By insuring the money giving away is spent in the US which ends up basically subsidizing US arms industry.
The military took over because the protesters did not offer up any feasible and realistic alternative. When the Iranian revolution happened their were representatives from all political groups involved in the protests. This included the young liberal and progressive university students, those wanting some sort of representational government, and the hard line religious parties. While the progressives and liberals focused on antagonizing the US with the hostage taking fiasco this provided the religious parties with the time to organize and embark on a plan to make sure their goals were achieved primacy. The hostage takers distractions let the religious parties seize the initiative and the rest is history. This even resulted in a lot of the original protesters being arrested and killed by the theocracy run government. The religious parties were in the minority before and during the revolt but were able to overcome that because they were disciplined and had a plan on how to get the kind of system they wanted. It's ironic that one of the main reasons the revolt occurred in the first place was complaints about the Shah's security forces cracking down on dissenters but the vast majority of these dissenters were the hard line religious party members. Iran went from a relatively open and modern country to a 7th century caliphate. Sure the Shah's government had it's problems, just like any government, but anyone even remotely connected to that regime ended up being systematically arrested, forced to emigrate, and killed by the Mullah ruled government.
"But with mediums like social networking Web sites, which enable easy manipulation of identity, it is getting difficult to separate the actual threats from the bystanders." This is one of the better observations I have heard regarding the current state of the Internet. "protesters" who had better be ready to wear name tags and stand neatly in the free speech zone" This is just your interpretation of what he actually said or do you really know what he is thinking and consider yourself a fucking psychic truth detector? If your cause is so damn righteous eventually you will need to step forward and identify yourself to make any changes or do you think people will just listen to someone standing in the shadows screaming about the injustice they have to put up with. By the way if I hack into any databases containing information about you such as your financial account balances, criminal records, spending habits, tax returns, home address, work address, children's schools, or any other pieces of information readily available in the digital world would I be a good guy or a bad guy in your eyes? What if I only did this to people that don't happen to share your political ideology and ideals on how the world operates? Would it be OK in that instance?
How many US citizens have been prosecuted under this "Terrorism Act" that were not in the process of building homemade bombs or going on an indiscriminate shooting spree? How many US political dissenters have been rounded up and put in jail and prosecuted for their political ideals? Storming the barricades is all fine and dandy but it would be monumentally helpful if the dissenters actually have a realistic plan on how to implement the changes they are demanding after the revolt is over. The people in Egypt joined hands in brotherly love and friendship to oust the government but once that was done the protesters immediately reverted back to their internal power struggles and have not achieved any concrete results outside of handing the government over to military rule. Oh and by the way most political dissenters complain they are being persecuted when anyone happens to disagree with their version of an ideal world.
A couple of other reasons for providing military hardware to other countries, whether free, discounted, or full price, is that it generates jobs in the US. Plus if the US found itself in a military conflict with a country that has been supplied with US military tech it would be easy to exploit that. Do you think the US would supply advanced weaponry without building in the means to hack them during battle? The first time a military launches a US made missile at a US aircraft they would most likely be in for a surprise when the missile reverses course and targets the plane that launched it, blew itself up, or failed to respond to any navigational input. Embedding a backdoor into the control systems, even at the chip level, would be relatively straightforward and hard to identify. After all people have claimed for years that MS has built-in back doors to their OS products to provide government access but to my knowledge no one has every discovered this backdoor and I doubt it is because no one has been looking for it. Almost 90% of the military aid the US gives to Israel or others require them to spend that money on US tech. In addition the US doesn't give away all of their advanced technology such as the F-22. And who really knows what technology the military has that no one has every heard of? The F-117 was one of the most closely guarded military secrets in modern times. The helicopter destroyed in Pakistan during the Bin Laden attack was also something that took people by surprise. No matter how incompetent the US government is they do manage once in a while to maintain a high level of security at times.
They don't claim all the technology they employ is 100% US made. They get a a lot from Israel, which includes a great deal of the drone technology the US uses. However, they have created the vast majority of the tech being used in the military. China and all the other countries lacking the resources to innovate anything rely on buying or stealing obsolete Russian technology and just plain stealing US tech whenever they can. Your statement only highlights the fact that you are a class A idiot.
Say what you want but don't be surprised when statements like those posted by the blogger provides the final piece of motivation and justification to those who will gladly start the killing. Freedom of speech in any country has never come guaranteed freedom from risk or consequences. Such as approaching someone in the US and expressing your freedom of speech in their face which they happen to take exception with and end up knocking your teeth out. As long as your speech wasn't physically threatening immediate physical harm you have the ability to address this violation of your rights in court but only after you finish gathering up your teeth laying on the floor. In most of the middle eastern or African countries currently going through upheavals exercising freedom of speech presents a much more dire risk and it requires a substantial amount of courage to attempt to go beyond the current boundaries. A blog post such as the one in question targeted against the US President or high government official might not get you arrested but you would no doubt be getting a visit from the Secret Service so you can clarify your statements and intentions.
I am a little skeptical that the current ICBMS are even that reliable. They have been sitting in their silos for 30+ years. I think the Russians actually predicted they would have a 30% - 40% failure rate so that's why they made so many to begin with and I guess the US followed suit.
I pointed out that quantity does not equate to quality and using that 1 metric is not a very accurate or realistic way of measuring real world scientific achievements. What percentage of published scientific papers address things that are actually useful in the real world? What percentage of published scientific papers contain only theoretical concepts? The original claim was that China is producing more IP because their quantity of published papers is increasing and I don't think that can be claimed as a factual statement.
I think the US got a tremendous jump start on the rest of the world because of WW2 not because Americans were any smarter or capable than others around the world. The US was practically the only country with no damaged infrastructure and masses of traumatized citizens just trying to put their lives back together to deal with. The US lead in production and economic metrics has been shrinking over the years as other countries become able to concentrate more on their international relationships instead of their internal domestic concerns. As far as the number of research materials being generated in China even the article you linked to admitted the current figures represent only quantity not the quality of the research. And I am sure China is not the only country by a long shot that publishes fraudulent and idiotic scientific papers. There is a lot of international cooperation in scientific pursuits which makes it hard to say any particular country is 100% responsible any new scientific achievements. The thing that amazes me is that the people with the raw intelligence and potential come from all races and geographic locations in the world. The shame is that some of this intelligence can be wasted if there are no resources available to support and nurture those who are gifted. There are probably a few people in places like Somalia with the raw intelligence and potential of any great scientist but they usually have no way to fulfill their potential.
According to a lot of people China is supposed to pass the US in about every category but I have seen little evidence this actually happening unless you are talking about rising energy consumption, deteriorating environmental conditions, or rising inflation. Even with China's much lauded manufacturing base the US is still the #1 manufacturer in the world with a 1/4 of China's population. China's cheerleaders have based their forecasts on China continuing to maintain the same growth rate without encountering any problems, in other words, using idyllic conditions to predict future results while discounting and minimizing any negative factors entering into the equation. Add in some wishful thinking and you have the perfect propaganda to attack the US with. And people continue to assume that there is not an elite and privileged class in China that rivals any in the US and they will extract the bulk of the benefits of any new IP they happen to develop except they don't have to tolerate any real opposition from the general public because they always need more help on the prison farms with no Wi-fi coverage available to tweet any discontent.
China does not create intellectual property they steal,"borrow", or buy it from others. Why waste money on R&D when you can just take advantage of someone else's work. It's really not such a bad idea if you think about it. And there is little anyone can do because reverse engineering an existing piece of technology is easy. The only leverage available to prevent this from getting out of hand and harming the people who actually developed the technology is to raise import tariffs on products from the offending country.
You are correct their currency manipulation has helped to keep export prices low but they are limited on how much manipulation they can get away with before other countries raise import fees to compensate. The US and China are in constant discussions regarding currency manipulations.
China's economic rise has depended on one thing, low labor cost. They are not known for either quality or innovation and they are becoming vulnerable because of the other countries that are able to compete on the labor cost. China appropriates technology from those countries who actually innovate and make cheap copies, slap on a new name, and declare success. Their space and military technology is built on top of old Soviet technologies and anything they can steal from the US. By the time they get around to outfitting a single carrier group the US will have deployed orbital based kinetic weapon systems that will make any surface ship useless. They would be better off concentrating their efforts on stealthy submarine technology.
I said the people were "partly" responsible for the situation they find themselves in. Why did it take 25 years for the Egyptians to get a thumb out and do something about their situation? What exactly are the protesters in England trying to accomplish? And spare the "truth and justice" bullshit and layout some concrete reasons and realistic solutions to correct the problems. Running government officials out of office might make the mob feel good until they stop and look around and find no one running the store and realize they can not blame anyone except themselves since they no longer have a government to blame. And someone above mentioned violence being a good way of changing things and I totally agree. It's good to have a forest fire every now and then to clean out the dead wood and reinvigorate growth but running through the streets stealing and burning isn't going to accomplish anything. The next global war will most likely be the only solution to changing the entire paradigm of our current civilization. Hopefully enough people will survive and they can start over from scratch and apply the lessons learned if there are actually any records remaining to learn from.
China has increased it's import of food by a factor of 5 from the US just over the past 6 years. On the other hand China makes nothing the US can not produce domestically or import from other emerging countries who can also pay their employees a dollar a day to create cheap products. China has also started reporting trade deficits and inflation is driving their export prices up past the point where their currency manipulations can control. Doing anything to really piss off the US would threaten 30% of their current export market while the US might see a slight increase in prices for imported goods.
Violence just perpetuates the hate used to drive these types of conflicts. Protesting only works when you actually protest for something and not just against something. You need more than empty slogans and rhetoric if you expect to really change anything. Look at the protests in the Egypt, the protesters were more than willing to organize to storm the barricades but once they achieved their goal of removing the person they felt was responsible for their misery they have reverted to fighting and arguing amongst themselves and have not accomplished anything to improve their society. The downtrodden masses in London or in any other country never accept that they themselves are partly responsible for their situation. Personal responsibility and the willingness to improve your own life plays a big part on the quality of life. The organized marches in DC during the fight for minority rights are a good example of how to achieve positive results using public protests. Throughout the country protesters and their supports were attacked violently and yet they still continued on with their cause until they were either killed, beaten down, or arrested. At the same time the leaders of these protests displayed both intelligence and competence that heled to demolish the stereotypes of that era. The protesters in the 60's knew exactly what they were protesting for which was equal protection and rights under the law and they achieved that goal without resorting to mindless violence. Had they done so they would have failed in their quest. Of course racial discrimination did not end overnight and it is still an ongoing struggle today but who could have even entertained the idea in the 1960's that the US would elect a black president? None of these efforts used to achieve this goal resulted from the type of violence and anarchy sweeping England or other countries today. The rioters in England have focused the public's attention on the violence instead of the underlying reasons they use to justify their violence.