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Comment by exelius | Hacker News Reader

Much of the interesting work is done by Chinese nationals, many of whom feel the startup field in the US is slanted towards white people, so they go back to China and take their knowledge with them.

US research institutes are top-notch, but our casual racism and xenophobia are killing us. Not that the Chinese aren't also racist and xenophobic, but the pendulum of power is definitely swinging back across the Pacific.

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I live in a country outside the US (not China) but every time people from the US talk about us they have this same story, which seems to come from US news sources, which is nowhere close to what is actually going on. That makes me wonder, is the same thing going on for China? I keep hearing on HN this same story "China is anti-democratic and anti-innovation, nothing interesting goes on there". But how much of that is actual truth, backed by facts, and how much is just the same story propogated amongst the population, but rarely double checked?

Americans tend to have difficulty believing that others can possibly have different values. Part of the core of American beliefs is that Democracy is the natural state for all nations; and I'm not sure that's entirely true. It feels like there is a tipping point of population size where an individualistic society just tramples over the tragedy of the commons, and collectivist societies introduce controls and social pressures to prevent it.

I expect World War 3 will eventually be fought over these differences; they are just too irreconcilable and eventually the Chinese are going to feel the need to impose some limits on the US -- likely over environmental issues. China will feel the need to "save the planet from US ignorance" once they feel they have the power to do so, and the US will disagree that they have the power, so China will have to prove it militarily.

> Part of the core of American beliefs is that Democracy is the natural state for all nations; and I'm not sure that's entirely true.

And that's funny because if there is something that the US is not it is a democracy. It is at best a partial democracy where votes from different individuals count very different towards the outcome and where there is a huge and concerted effort at the repression of certain groups of voters.

I am always genuinely curious about the statement "Americans tend to have difficulty believing that others can possibly have different values". I always think about the different types of cultures and living situations Americans tend to find themselves in and "around" compared to a country such as China who clearly has a clear set of cultural values and norms. It's almost as if having a value system outside of the norm of the Chinese is deemed inherently contrasting where as in America having a different value system is in part of American "culture". How can americans not be aware of different values when topics like gun control, healthcare, education, etc are freely discussed in the open? Are they not representing different values?

Those are all topics that America agrees are fine to debate about. There are other ways of being that most Americans would unanimously be against, or merely not even consider.

Americans tend to be insular. A very low percentage of Americans have a passport.

The healthcare debate is actually a good example. It’s entirely uninformed by how systems work elsewhere. As a foreigner it’s baffling to watch.

I forget the article I read this in, but basically here in the US there is a large percentage of the population with a "strict father" worldview (i.e. its up to each individual to save themselves so nobody gets a handout), while in China it's much more of a "nurturing parent" worldview (i.e. the most important thing is to take care of everyone rather than to ensure equality).

I think this is a good example, but I have a hard time understanding the "strict father" worldview. When political parties (left + democrats) tend to have agendas around welfare/public "handouts". Hopefully you can see what the nurturing parent value system can give you (as you said in another comment, father-head == dictator). I agree in some sense around the individualism aspect, I don't think however its complete with a "strict father" mentality.

Pretty sure you're talking about George Lakoff[0] and the "strict father : U.S. :: nurturant parent : China" is something you made up in your head.

0: https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lako...

There was another article I read recently that made that connection; but that article did reference George Lakoff.

Not quite sure how WW3 works exactly between nuclear powers. Proxy cyber wars? Dumping US bonds? That is not really military action. Have people just forgot there are thousands of nuclear weapons ready to go at a moments notice?

> Have people just forgot there are thousands of nuclear weapons ready to go at a moments notice?

I don't know if people have forgot about them, but I am pretty sure many - maybe most - have forgotten (or just don't want to contemplate) what kind of damage they can unleash, both immediately and over the long term - should a full global exchange occur.

> I expect World War 3 will eventually be fought over these differences

Only if war from general misery due to overpopulation and ecological collapse doesn't get us first. I hate thinking about the future.

You're under the mistaken impression that people in the U.S. care about what is happening in other countries. At most like 10% care in anything more than a cursory way.

Democracy and Capitalism have worked really well for us, so yes, there is a bias towards these ideas and a desire to share them.

I think it's mainly about perspective. Two people can take the same facts and based on their values, see the story in two different ways.

For example, a medication that has a 70% success rate can be seen as risky or not risky, depending on the person.

That is a good point but China is a dictatorship and a censoring anti-democracy regime. I can't imagine putting up with that either.

Chinese culture values harmony and stability over individualism and total freedom. The actions of the individual glorify the group; and they view "dictators" as more of a "father-like figurehead". They look at the US and see the problems we have (crime, gun control, health care, etc) and can point to their own society and say "well, we solved all of those so our system is better."

Many young Chinese who were educated in the US feel this way, so it's not a generational thing. This is a cultural tradition stretching back many thousands of years. The world view of a person from China is very different than that of an American.

Also, consider that an AI researcher returning to China is likely going to be in the top 1% of society. Dictatorial societies tend to be pretty good for the people at the top. The Chinese startup market is hotter than the US at this point too; and it's basically restricted to people born in a handful of Chinese cities. The Chinese government intentionally stacks the deck to get them to return.

Understandable for Chinese nationals to go back. But for someone like Ng, who was born and educated here, it seems very irresponsible.

You're making an assumption that he didn't feel like China would be a better option for him personally. If he fundamentally disagreed with the direction the US is headed, I wouldn't call it irresponsible at all.

All things considered, the US looks really bad right now internationally. We have vast military power, and our leader is a child elected on a wave of nationalist populism. This has happened before in recent history, and it didn't end well.

He was born in the UK and grew up in Hong Kong and Singapore. That hardly constitutes "growing up in the West"

Not only that, the trend of moving towards leftism in USA, i.e. nation-wide anti-intelligence movement(no-child-left-behind,everyone gets a trophy, merit-based effort is cursed on, AA at universities, each students gets free high-school diploma at CA, removing non-ranking from high schools,etc), basically, USA is shifting from 'equal-opportunity to equal-outcome',fast. That is what China tried for a few decades in the past and it did not work for them at all, and the Chinese origins knew it too well, and they just go back when they see what is going on in US these days.

It seems in China excellence and competition are truly appreciated, from family, school all the way to the government, even though some of them have to use VPN to use Google.

China sets a national goal each five years, education first has always be the first priority for the society, back in USA, we're debating how to borrow more debt, how to make sure people can choose no-gender(neither male or female), how to remove ranking from school because competition there hurt our 18-year-old-KID's self-esteem,etc, what a joke, we're doomed.

Your definition of leftism is a ridiculous. In the article it says that the Chinese government is pouring hundreds of billions of yuan into AI technology. Now thats leftism, and we would be smart to copy it.

USA is moving to the left, China is moving to the right, they swapped, guess who is to win in the long run?

sorry Trump, it is too late to fix, the tipping point has passed.

The Chinese government directing investments in the economy is moving to the right? I don't think you know what left and right mean.

USA directs money all the time too, it is not about how to direct money, it is about 'equal-opportunity' vs 'equal-outcome'. China has plenty of brain power to leverage that investment, as it has been encouraging teens to excel in the education system. While in US, it is eager to remove rankings from school instead these days because it will make some 18-year-old-little-KID depressed, and in CA it just allows everyone gets a high-school diploma for free, see the difference?

The US is, if anything, moving further to the right. The rest of the world is moving to the left. China's decision to abandon absolute equality and move to a less equal system is pragmatic and based on the idea that a rising tide lifts all ships.

I wouldn't call 50% state ownership of most if not all large companies anything but "socialist"; they just found a way to introduce incentives into a socialist system by abandoning the idea that everyone should be a "worker". But wealth redistribution is absolutely at the center of the Chinese system.

This comment breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you precisely not to do this, i.e. take threads in generic and inflammatory directions. The last thing we want on HN is generic flamewars over nationalistic rhetoric.

We've asked you repeatedly not to do things like this, and your comment history doesn't exactly show you using the site as intended. That's not cool. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this if you want to keep commenting here.

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