The US has turned into something much more vindictive and unpredictable, including threatening to invade Canada.
Couldn't the poor companies have simply chosen to not do business in China?
My "not comparable" comment was in regards to my post about the rules, not specifically the "you're not Han" issue.
All current AI companies are closed. What benefit?
Most things from Uni are published openly.
BTW, did people in US pay royalty to China for inventing paper?
Problem has always been ensuring that people who have brilliant ideas get appropriately rewarded for their contribution to humanity - but not disproportionately.
This doesn't happen anymore, and the sooner the contributors to our industry learn this, the sooner we can start fixing it.
Also does China publish it's companies IP publicly or is it just a one-sided relationship?
the claim is that chinese people in china must follow US law. presumably US people in US should also follow chinese law.
How many humans were stolen by USA alone?
Does it make it better? No.
But that's it. Everything is shit but while USA got rich through manufacturing in the past, now it's China turn
You would have to know all the above for it to be real.
Oh no, the poor trillion-dollar multinationals and multi-billionaires, whatever would they do?
Does it surprise you to find out that a lot of old money families in the US made their money smuggling opium and other similarly unethical things? We are a nation of crooks and thieves and always have been.
I ask anyone reading this comment to please study history more frequently, it will help you understand the world better.
Stealing IPs from universities almost look quirky in comparison.
Probably about the same as the US when it was a developing nation. "How the United States Stopped Being a Pirate Nation and Learned to Love International Copyright":
> From the time of the first federal copyright law in 1790 until enactment of the International Copyright Act in 1891, U.S. copyright law did not apply to works by authors who were not citizens or residents of the United States. U.S. publishers took advantage of this lacuna in the law, and the demand among American readers for books by popular British authors, by reprinting the books of these authors without their authorization and without paying a negotiated royalty to them.
> Despite political independence, the United States remained dependent on imports for manufactured goods. The conflicts between the European Powers and the Embargo of 1807 severely disrupted trade between the United States, Great Britain, France and Asia. Lowell reached the conclusion that to be truly independent, the United States needed to manufacture goods at home. In June 1810, he went on a two-year visit with his family to Britain. ... Lowell developed an interest in the textile industries of Lancashire and Scotland, especially the spinning and weaving machines, which were operated by water power or steam power. He was not able to buy drawings or a model of a power loom. He secretly studied the machines. In Edinburgh he met fellow American Nathan Appleton who would later become a partner in the Lowell mills. As the War of 1812 began, Lowell and his family left Europe and on their way home, the boat and all their personal belongings were searched at the Halifax port to ensure that no contraband was being smuggled out of Great Britain. Lowell had memorized all the workings of British power looms without writing anything down.
Or Samuel Slater - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater
> Samuel Slater (June 9, 1768 – April 21, 1835) was an early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution", a phrase coined by Andrew Jackson, and the "Father of the American Factory System". In the United Kingdom, he was called "Slater the Traitor" and "Sam the Slate" because he brought British textile technology to the United States, modifying it for American use. He memorized the textile factory machinery designs as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry before migrating to the U.S. at the age of 21.
---
Industrial espionage and acts that would be considered patent infringement in today's timeframe were key parts of the early independence for the United States.
Neither case would be considered patent infringement as the original inventions were too old to be protected by patents even had the British filed for patent protection in the US.
Moreover, Lowell made substantial improvements which would have been considered a new invention anyway - which is the whole point of the patent system.
Besides sibling comment, see "The Spies Who Launched America’s Industrial Revolution":
> Long before the United States began accusing other countries of stealing ideas, the U.S. government encouraged intellectual piracy to catch up with England’s technological advances. According to historian Doron Ben-Atar, in his book,[1] Trade Secrets, “the United States emerged as the world's industrial leader by illicitly appropriating mechanical and scientific innovations from Europe.”
* https://www.history.com/articles/industrial-revolution-spies...
As it's often said, "There is no honor among thieves":
https://www.nber.org/digest/mar18/confiscation-german-copyri...
To steal is to deny the original owner access to their property. That is true for physical objects, if I steal your wallet or your car you no longer have it.
But if I illegally copy some of your IP you still have access to it. Sure you may experience some financial prejudice from that but you still have it.
The fact that IP is unnatural and relatively new is probably the reason why so many people can't seem to apply the proper terminology around it.
And thanks to genAI, it will soon be obsolete.
The thing about China is that they are basically hard on the up slope of their advancement as a society/economy/nation, just like US was post ww2.
US on the other hand, has flatlined to the point where we think stuff like trans athletes in sports are a drastic enough reason to elect a president who is a convicted Felon.
China is def gonna outpace US in the next 10 years as the strongest economy, but the interesting thing is gonna be is if they are gonna fall in the same trap as US does in 20 or 30 years.
The population pyramid for 2045 for China is not favorable ( https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2045/ ). Currently the 30-39 bracket is 121 million, but by 2045 it will be about 83 million.
You could be arguing that the percent of skilled labor workforce in there will be going up over the next 20 years - but the size of the bracket is drastically decreasing while it becomes more and more weighted to the 65-85 age bracket.
1) Workforce is 20-60yos, conservatively ~600m (more with retirement reforms) in 2045, roughly 2-3x US workforce with disproportionate STEM bias. If current tertiary trend keeps up, that's 6-8x US STEM workforce backed by RoW combined in automation synergy, which will slowly decline over decades, and since white collar they can hang around much longer past retirement unlike blue collar. Now the 2045 demo pyramid is not favourable for 2065 talent generation and if no fix, trend towards disastrous by 2080s, but in terms of actual absolute high skill workforce advantage vs competitors, it's almost unassimilable amount combined with industrial density for like 50 years. That's within the timeframe of building hegemons.
2) For 2045s 65-85s - they are overwhelmingly old/poor (undereducated, left behind by modernisation). They "weigh" SUBSTANTILLY economically less than their actual headcount. The bottom 2 quantiles of PRC constitutes <10% of GDP, each skilled young-rich workforce making just median income replaces ~6 low productively elderly. People fixate on the 4:2:1 dependency ratios as if each generation is weighted the same like in advanced economies - they're not - PRC's income disparity is huge buffer against dependency ratio. Those 65-85s are tail gen of worth "less" cohorts who will also die magnitude richer than any generation before them. This also not considering PRC has 90%+ home ownership rate, some of the highest savings in the world, i.e. the 4:2 generation is brought up to depend on themselves. This is a very different cohort to caretake for - PRC is not advanced economy demo composition, where paycheck to paycheck new gen are increasingly less rich/young than previous gen but still has to prop up onerous social welfare net for rich/old. PRC is unequal society where new gen massively more productive than old gen, has high savings culture, many geographic income disparities to arbitrage COL, and high home ownership, i.e. you can throw all the elderly in a nicer tier4 city where COL is peanuts. People don't realize PRC old before rich is a FUCKING BLESSING, i.e. they're not even JP/SKR where old is now rich and a high burden, where they tapped out on skilled workers as % of workforce with lower home ownership and savings rate, and uniform geographic economy means they can't dump old in substantially cheaper COL regions.
Finally flip side of 4:2:1 ratio, where the 4:2 has high savings + property) is once older generation starts to croak = multiple wealth transfers to younger gen (at least in terms of property). If extrapolated (this is speculative but mechanically likely) much of current PRC TFR issues is combination of excess competition and delayed family formation due to absolutely brrting tertiary in compressed period where talent:job supply:demand are mismatched. Current cohorts are growing up in fucked period where 20m new grads were competing for 15m jobs, vs near future where 10m new grads are pick and choosing from 15m+ jobs. By 2030s, aka when most current skilled cohorts are established it's going to be MUCH easier justify having kids, because projected involution pressure will be gone, no need to be top 1% of gaokao etc, unless AGI and crazy automation because their kids will be guaranteed to enter society with stupid amount of job vacancies / opportunities, and likely multiple properties. Like the natural outcome of current demo structure is most PRC new gen will have roof over head, not live paycheck to paycheck, and once cost of competitive child rearing goes, because every child guaranteed job, all current factors stalling family formation disappears. Of course other factors can throw this off, but this is likely where current PRC demo + social economic factors will converge.
You see broadly different outcomes in many authoritarian countries, for example Russia. You might also argue that much of the short-term decision making we've seen from US industry lately is driven by the need to produce returns to stockholders, at the cost of long-term investment.
This is very one-sided and unfair. The trans stuff is indicative of a larger social movement. For example, in the U.S., it would be illegal to use IQ tests to hire employees while in China, that's practiced. China is far more meritocratic. The U.S. is driven far more by ideology, and the trans stuff is an example of that.
And someone on the other side of the aisle would point to the prosecution of Donald Trump as politically motivated, where opponents found an obscure law that he violated and charged him with 34 counts based on the 34 forms he submitted with the expense mislabelling.
I'm guessing you never lived and worked in China before? People who get jobs because of guanxi are not rare, even today, and ideology is far more important in China than in the US, it is just that the ideology is very different from what people are used to in the states.
Hobbesian self-interest refers to the idea that human actions are primarily motivated by the desire for personal gain or advantage. This concept is central to Thomas Hobbes' political philosophy, where he argues that without a strong governing authority, individuals would act solely out of self-interest, leading to a chaotic and violent state of nature.
- Adopting new science-based ideas for "innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development".
- Improving people's livelihood and well-being is the primary goal of development
- Coexisting well with nature with "energy conservation and environmental protection" policies and "contribute to global ecological safety".
As an American I keep trying to surmise what we're going to need to do to start repairing the damage from this massive self-own. It's kind of hard because we don't know where the bottom will be, but we at least need to start having these discussions on what constructive approaches might even look like - we can't have our milquetoast opposition party phoning it in yet again with entitlement as the less-bad option.
External context is key - one of the main goals of this hybrid warfare attack on the western world has been to disrupt our relationships with our allies, and also because other countries have developed Democracies that function way better than ours. So please know that at least some of us are listening.
Term and/or age maximums might also help.
Well, if you ask my other wishes, once Europe has gotten its act straight and decides to tax/tariff/regulate/whatever (american) big tech to hell and back, I kind of would expect that any decent person on that side of the pond would just humbly nod their head and note that, yes, we/they deserved it.
We also need some kind of antitrust enforcement against the forced bundling of products from the distinct categories of hardware devices, network services, and client software.
Those should leave us with a similar environment to the EU. Beyond that, sure tax away, whatever. If we've done our job right domestically, these services should be a lot easier to value in terms of subscription fees rather than nebulous values siphoned away from surveillance subjects.
The problems with the USA political system are: electoral college, senate being 2 votes per state, and the supreme court being 7 people for life. But nothing can be done about the last two now. Especially now that the Supreme Court made a decision limiting how amendments can be ratified.
The American two-party system gave massive power to a tiny fraction of the population, which the large Republican party then retconned into most of their members as their party platform. Now they're a large fraction of the population. I'd choose the approach where the small faction remains its own small faction, even if they occasionally get to pull the levers of power.
Is it? Many western countries are having more or less prominent populist right wing movements, and the two countries I can think of where that movement has gotten its hand in power on really significant issues during the last decade or so are UK and US. Both strongly two party systems at the time of the "interesting" developments. And I do not think a two party system is typical, I am sure there are some countries happily trodding along with their two political parties, but they are not the rule.
without quebec and the bloc, i think canadian politics would similarly devolve into brokenness
Every branch of the federal government has experienced a decline in democratic accountability.
The House is so gerrymandered that only 10% of seats are remotely competitive each year, and it hasn't kept up with population growth.
The Senate is permanently gerrymandered, with state population differences that are far more disproportionate than what was originally designed for and intended when the Constitution was written.
This combined with hyper-partisanship prevents the US from accepting new states like Washington DC (population 700,000+) and Puerto Rico (population 3.2 million), depriving millions of US citizens from Congressional representation (no, non-voting representatives don't count).
The Supreme Court has become hyperpartisan, and appointments are a high stake circus that rely on arbitrary retirements and deaths. They need to be elected at this point to preserve democratic legitimacy.
As for the Presidency... the Electoral College has resulted in the election of the loser of a popular vote twice in 25 years.
I don't know how reform will happen, or if we'll ever see it in my lifetime but we desperately need it. The US government needs to be accountable to the people again.
Democracy is precious, and it's so tragic to see how much it's declined.
States with a total of 270 electoral votes agree to award their electors to the winner of the national popular vote. The effort appears to be stalled, but there are 209 votes from states who've already passed the law (which is in effect only once 270+ electoral votes are reached).
The Supreme Court's composition can be changed with a law, and the most popular option appears to be 18 year terms, staggered so that there are two appointments for each presidential term. The court can also be expanded, and should be to 13 (one for each circuit).
Gerrymandering is a serious problem, and would properly be solved by coming up with some algorithmic way of drawing districts. But for practical purposes this unlikely to ever happen. But I'm hopeful because of the effort of Democratic states to recognize the gerrymandering and turning it into a standoff of sorts. To date, there's been no reason not to gerrymander if you can do it, and Republicans have seriously overreached.
No, its not, as anyone who has paid even a slight amount of attention to the study of comparative government among modern nominal representative democracies would recognize.
> We have to be honest about the fact that parliamentary systems can give massive power to a tiny fraction of the population when that small party becomes the deciding vote.
Parliamentary systems can be two-party and multiparty systems do not need to parliamentary, so you are starting with a false dichotomy. And the problem you describe is less often a problem with multiparty systems (parliamentary or otherwise) than two-party systems, because the reliance on ad hoc coalitions means that there is much more likely to be the option of replacing a faction that is leveraging its marginal role in creating a majority to wag a coalition that is a small part of, whereas a small faction within a major party in a two party system that is crucial to maintaining a partisan majority cannot practically be defied without the rest of the party surrendering its majority, giving it much more power than a minor coalition partner in a multiparty system.
(Parliamentary or semi-presidential systems are also generally better than presidential systems, but that's a whole different issue from the multiparty vs. two-party issue.)
> The problems with the USA political system are: electoral college, senate being 2 votes per state, and the supreme court being 7 people for life.
The first two of those are also problems (though actually being a Presidential system is a bigger problem, and a problem without which the electoral college would be moot.) The third is simply inaccurate.
> But nothing can be done about the last two now. Especially now that the Supreme Court made a decision limiting how amendments can be ratified.
The Supreme Court decision on how amendments can be ratified (basically, however Congress decides) does not substantially limit what amendments can be passed. And it is the first two are set in the Constitution, the third (even using the correct current number of 9) is not, and can be changed (that the Supreme Court exists and that federal judges have lifetime tenure as federal judges are set in the Constitution, the number of seats on the Supreme Court, whether that number is fixed or floating over time, and the tenure of judges on the Supreme Court separate from their tenure as federal juddges is not; all of those can be changed by statute. If Congress wanted to make Supreme Court justices appointed for a fixed term of years from among the set of lifetime federal judges, that would be possible. If Congress kept lifetime tenure for justices, decided to have one appointed every 2 years regardless of the current size of the court, and have the Chief Justice appointed for 4 year terms from among the sitting justices, that would work too.)
If they are successful in destroying democracy, I will reevaluate my view. We don't know what's going to happen in the midterms or 2028.
But again, and I say that as a European, we don't really care: what we see is the position of the US no matter if it is coming from your congress, president, secretary or whatever.
- Trump voters 2024: 75m
- US population 2024: 340m
- US population >18 2024: 265m
- % pop Trump voters: 22%
- % pop >18 Trump voters: 28%
No, the US, through its government (which is not just the executive branch) as chosen (in theory, via election) and, in practice, tolerated by its population at large.
It's not just Trump. If the US decided not to follow him he would have no power.
The lesson is finally sinking in, in ways that it did not during the first Trump term. People wanted to believe that is was a one-off. During the first Trump term the argument could be made that it wasn't, but it was debatable. But during the second Trump term it's simply an observable fact that it's not a one-off.
Economic decoupling is a rational response.
Being "right wing populist" won't change that response. The caveat is that populists are not very rational.