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Comment by squeegee5 | Hacker News Reader

The natural order of human civilization derides IP. In the absence of a supremely powerful, globe-spanning government, enforcement is impossible. In the presence of honest intellectuals, it is impossible to deny that all progress is gained by standing on the shoulders of giants. Yesterday's Nobel is today's homework. Attempts to embargo knowledge are not just backwards, but thermodynamically futile.

Intellectual property management is archaic. And your other claims are borderline racist.

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I am very sorry if I came across that way at all. I have nothing against chinese people, I am talking about the government here. If this style was prevelant in, say Russia, or the USA I would hope I would have the same opinion. I could be wrong about the government, and thats totally fine, but please please do not think I am at all racist.

You seem to have an overly simplistic view of human nature which may have triggered gp's racist alarm. Look back into the history of Western science: plenty of creativity from scientists who grew up in the eras before creativity gained it's current exalted status. Likewise Chinese people won't all turn into automotons just because the Chinese government policy does not maximize their creative potentials.

I have never thought of myself as understanding people well, so thats no surprise. I guess what was interpreted was that I said "Chinese people are not creative", rather than the more moderate "Authoratian governments do not foster creativity as well as Democracies, and this will harm their AI research". I dislike arguments being taken to extremes, and was hoping to gain insight into what other people thought on this topic, instead of being critized for "being borderline racist". Other commentors have succesfully critized my argument, and I love being shown I am wrong. But I expected more from this forum on not taking things too far.

You do not have much life experience outside of the west, or professional experience in China, but you feel some kind of cultural superiority that roused you to suggest that democratic traditions encourage creativity and authoritarian government discourages it.

Your priors are wrong. I work in the US, public and private grants are shrinking year over year, and anti-intellectualism is rampant. Meanwhile my Chinese colleagues, at the same place in their career, are practically local celebrities and receive unprecedented (in the US) resources to do decade longitudinal research and increase headcount. In reality, China is on the bleeding edge in AI because their government and private industry has the social cohesion to focus on scientific advancement. Besides the vast intellectual capital at their disposal, they can cheaply afford to iterate quickly as the means of manufacturing and production are local.

I think creativity is the wrong thing to focus on if you are interested in where China may fall short as it largely depends on personal initiative. People are creative despite of their government and society, which all exert conforming pressures wherever you are. If the saying "necessity is the mother of all inventions" rings true at all, people in the developing world certainly face more necessities to be creative.

Where China may fall short is actually when people become overly "creative": authoritarianism conditions people to individually work around rules they don't like instead of working together to change the rules. When rules are ignored you have rampant corruption and heavy pollution despite rules on the book.

As I cannot reply to squeegee5 comment I'll reply here:

So, because I don't have the right experience I shouldn't voice my opinion, in a way that suggests I am willing to be proven wrong? I never said I was correct, I said this is what I think and wanted to know what others thought. I never claimed to be qualified, I actually implied I wasn't. It seems you have more experience in this area than I, so I learned something from your comments. Again my issue with your comment isn't that you're telling me I'm wrong, its that you are telling me I am racist

FYI: it's possible to say racist things unintentionally - i.e. without being racist. I'm not saying that's what you did in this thread: but you shouldn't assume that someone is calling you a racist when they say "[...]your other claims are borderline racist"

Your opinion sounds incredibly racist to gp (and me). And he told you that. So what's the issue?

S/he is criticizing a culture, not a race. Spurious accusations of racism are so tiring...

Conflating culture with race was, incidentally, a classic rhetorical device used by American South proponents of slavery.

There are certainly elements of jingoism at work here, too.

So I cannot critize elements of a goverment style without being racist? I am not saying that "Chinese people are not creative", I am simply saying that I do not thing this style of government fosters creativity. And I am very open to that being wrong, however I would prefer (as other commenters of done well) to be shown counter examples to my belief and provided evidence. Telling my I am being racist for critizing a method of governance, of a county that the article is talking about is absurd.

There are many things that the Chinese government is fantastic at, for example energy. Their transition to green energy has been fantastic for both the industry and the planet as a whole, and I wish other governments would follow their example. If I critized the green energy policy of the American government would I then be anti-USA?

Generalizing and taking arguments to extremes is something I didn't expect on this forum and am dissapointed to have to respond to.

Wait, do you think culture doesn't describe any objective reality in life? That there aren't any cultural behavioral norms?

I'm trying to figure out what your comment means.

The parent is attempting to 'teach the controversy', by trying to convince others that there -even is- reasonable debate among informed people on this subject (that government policy creates cultural norms, and these norms are suppressed creativity and intellectual conformity). The lie then becomes a kind of half-truth, automagically. These accusations aren't exclusively associated with race (the same was said of the Japanese, Soviets before them, Americans circa 1800s, etc), but that is merely cover when you accuse China of IP theft and the very concept is an intellectually deficient product of trade protectionism.

Deriding culture on the basis of tenuous claims is a deceptive way to evade accusations of racism.

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