In principal this is good for humanity so long as the research isn’t directed towards tools to improve efficiency of repression.
I wouldn't say it's that clear cut. Even if the R&D is not directly for technology for repression, it increases that power and prestige of a state that has few qualms with using repression for political ends. Those increases could mean that other states will come under its influence or emulate its repressive example (when they would have otherwise emulated less-repressive or non-repressive examples).
Even the Athenians had slaves.
They do it, but they have a lot of qualms about it.
No, that's false. An easy example is waterboarding. One administration used it (on foreigners), but it was enormously controversial domestically.
The EU didn't bomb Libya, France and Britain did.
It'll be interesting to see how it develops, they're clearly more of a governing body than the UN, but also seem to have steered clear of anything close to a security issue.
With time, as it entrenches and everyone believes in their hearts that the EU is going nowhere, then it will be less nice.
"What about literally everyone else, in all of time" is what I said.
I think that rising D&I budgets are a recognition of this truth.
It seems like common sense to me, but I'd be interested to know if it has been studied/measured...
What can be a drag on innovation is if there is nepotism. If the leader appoints his good-for-nothing nephew to science minister. Or if there is corruption, and well connected incumbents throw up endless barriers for innovative upcomers. Or if organized crime steal too much value from the productive people.
Unless you innovate in some field detrimental to the government, e.g. education, anonymity, freedom etc.
In the US, they're only doing this at hire time for D&I so far. We'll see where it goes from there.
Even if the repressive societies have lower overall research effectiveness, it may be higher in some areas that really matter geopolitically (e.g. military R&D). IIRC, many talented Western scientists boycott military projects for moral reasons, because they live in societies that celebrate taking personal moral stands like that. The talented scientists in a repressive society have different social influences, any may be far less likely to have a problem with military research.
But in the real world, its never just in the right hands.. Sigh yet it will still be perfected.. :|
The most obvious value I'd see is getting rid of the scan in for the amazon stores, so it's a real walk, in walk out experience
A good proportion of Chinese research is still rampantly fraudulent and of the legitimate research only a small fraction ends up being truly innovative. This implies a low return on R&D investment.
The same applies to software projects. At least in the OSS world you rarely see quality projects coming from China nowadays. The ones that do are almost always from companies with a US presence. Perhaps collaboration is difficult?
Re: Face recognition— this is something that is so clearly going to be used as a tool for oppression yet when I speak to those currently in the mainland they sing its praises in dealing w/ COVID. We will see how the cards fall when COVID is over. My guess is you won’t see ethnic Uyghurs living in mainland China 15 years from now.
Of course, every time a post about China comes up someone goes “oh but the US is the same”. No, it’s really not. The US has its fair share of issues with domestic spying and definitely some degree of repression but we still have a free and open internet, open discourse is permitted, and tools like strong encryption are widely available and even assisted in development by the government (eg; Tor).
What does this matter ? Can't they stay in China ?
> This implies a low return on R&D investment.
Whatever about the ethics of it, the work has been done by others they are stealing it from, im not sure how that's a low return..
> from companies with a US presence. Perhaps collaboration is difficult?
Or easier to do business in the US with offices there..
Honestly your whole point just seems to look for stereotype-ish grievances to air.
Considering the Uyghur population doubled in the last 50 years, they're not doing a very good job at it.
The US has a lot of places with names like Sioux Falls, but where there's no Sioux living there anymore