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Comment by ecshafer | Hacker News Reader

China is also giving them dump trucks full of cash though. Plus you have to content with the nationalism reason (unfortunately this has died off in America for too many). The idea of building your country is valued for most Chinese I have met. Plus China is incredibly nice to live in, especially if you have lots of money and/or connections. So you can work in China, get paid lots of money, feel like you are doing good. Or In America you can get paid lots of money, and get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model.

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China city life is amazingly convenient. Trains and subways are just such an enormous quality of life boost. Add to that the relative cleanliness of having nearly zero homelessness and you’ve got something very compelling.

I will say we are winning in accessibility. China doesn’t have much of a ramp game

All very true.

I wonder if you max out your options in China. It seems the Party is suspicious of ambition and high profile winners. I'm sure you can live comfortably, but there's a ceiling.

what is the issue with having a ceiling?

Star athletes really hate being told they can't score more than 10 goals in a season because it's unfair to the other weaker players. The players will either leave to go play somewhere else, or they become weaker players themselves.

Why would a country want to welcome a psychopath whose goal is to make lots of money and wield political power that results from the money. I'm sure they would be happier with just as psychopathic people who make a bit less money but don't have aspirations of running the country from their secret bunker.

wowsa - wasn't expecting star athletes and sports to enter this conversation... wild!

how about explaining why without giving an analogy?

And yet almost all of the most popular sports leagues in the US have a salary cap rule.

That’s not relevant to normal people. If you’re a billionaire with aspirations of power then it’s probably good there’s a ceiling. Sure beats having Elon randomly firing your public servants while high on ketamine.

I got an offer out of the blue for a consulting gig in ML, offering USD 400/hr in China. Assuming this was legit (the offeror seemed legit), it looks like China is also throwing a lot of Benjamins around...

> China is incredibly nice to live in

I'm sure it's a very nice place to live if you're content to just stay quiet in society and never put a political sign in your yard or even just talk about the wrong thing with your friend in a WeChat.

try to protest in america and see how that works out for you long-term. or say protest against genocide in gaza at an uni or generally in public…

Sigh. Let's not invent things? You can protest anything in the US just fine, with generally no consequences. Heck, our local _high_ _school_ students go out and protest everything to weasel out of classes.

Trump admin did put people in prison and then deported them, for doing nothing more than protesting.

Not as bad as China sure, but not as good as other civilized nations.

Let's just clarify that visitors don't have the same rights as citizens. Whether or not you agree with the current administration's policies hopefully we can agree that it is entirely reasonable for them to deport foreign political dissidents more or less at their discretion.

If you want to put this to the test try crossing the Canadian border and when they ask you the purpose of your visit respond that it's to attend a protest.

> Let's just clarify that visitors don't have the same rights as citizens.

Yunseo Chung was not a visitor. She came to the United States from South Korea at age 7. She was arrested last year for peacefully protesting. Charges against her were dropped but the govt. canceled her green card.

The govt. has been trying to deport her since then, but the courts keep blocking it.

https://humanrightsfirst.org/yunseo-chung-v-trump-administra...

While the legality of these actions are being debated in courts, I think most of us can agree that this is reprehensible behavior on part of the Trump admin.

I agree that particular example is reprehensible.

I never claimed to condone the actions of the current admin. The examples of people being deported for protesting that I am familiar with are student visa holders. While I don't personally support the examples that I am aware of, I also recognize that in those specific cases the executive branch appears to be within the bounds of the law. I don't even object to the executive branch having the power to cancel the visas of political dissidents in the general case, merely to how they are choosing to apply it.

It's surprising to me to learn that a green card could be revoked for protected speech. That ought to fall well outside the bounds of the law IMO. Green cards and visas are entirely different things.

>While I don't personally support the examples that I am aware of, I also recognize that in those specific cases the executive branch appears to be within the bounds of the law. I don't even object to the executive branch having the power to cancel the visas of political dissidents

It's my understanding that the 1st amendment applies to everyone, not just citizens. So if that's true (not 100% sure about that), how can political speech (protesting) be a valid reason to remove someone from the US?

Well obviously it can't be if that's true. But is it? What led you to that conclusion?

You can certainly be denied entry for entirely arbitrary reasons. Can you also (as a visa holder) be evicted without notice for same? I think that's generally a safe assumption for any country in the world but would be interested in learning about counterexamples.

But the constitution is not worded as if they don't have the same fundamental rights. Even in other countries, it is the same; this is done to prevent slavery and unjust incarcelation. So visitors have the same fundamental rights to free speech, fair trial, etc. The US has also agreed to international conventions. But the current administration seems to not care

It's definitely not as simple as you're making out. Political speech aside, visas have routinely been cancelled without forewarning for all sorts of reasons historically.

Does someone on a short term visa have the protected right to purchase firearms? Visitors aren't even permitted to get a job without the appropriate type of visa. Being allowed to work is a pretty fundamental right.

I expect there's a difference between the bill of rights and the constitution, and likely further nuance as well.

> Trump admin did put people in prison and then deported them, for doing nothing more than protesting.

Link? I’m guessing we’re going to see that this definition of “protesting” involves being aggressive and directly in the face of law enforcement officers, not merely holding a sign at a distance.

> Link? I’m guessing we’re going to see that this definition of “protesting” involves being aggressive and directly in the face of law enforcement officers, not merely holding a sign at a distance.

Please read up on this one example of a US permanent resident. And then justify the actions of the govt against Yunseo Chung.

https://humanrightsfirst.org/yunseo-chung-v-trump-administra...

this is funny if you are being sarcastic

Oh, I fully support their right to protest.

It just looks a bit ridiculous when students walk out in protest against things that are far outside the influence of their school, city, or even state.

This is an exaggeration. Nobody in China cares about what you speak with each other privately, and people talk about stupid policies all the time. The government cares about _public_ actions.

In practical terms, if you're not kind of person who would want to run for an office in the US, China is incredibly comfortable. Cities are safe, with barely any violent crime. Public drug use is nonexistent. And with the US-level AI researcher income, you'd be in the top 0.1% earners.

> nobody in China cares about what you speak with each other privately, and people talk about stupid policies all the time. The government cares about _public_ actions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252833

My comment and the linked video says otherwise. The guy was in a private group chat and said some nasty things about the police for confiscating his motorcycle. Now he's arrested and in the Tiger Chair.

How are we explaining this?

Group with 75 people. That's a crowd, doesn't matter if gated behind QR code invites. Shit talk cops and gov with the bois is fine. Shit talk / soapbox in a crowd (virtual or real) and get caught or reported = drink tea on the menu.

> never put a political sign in your yard or even just talk about the wrong thing with your friend in a WeChat.

Practically, how many care about that? Consider that in other part of the world they also cancel folks based on social media opinion...

and that Benjamin Franklin's opinion on security and freedom? Thats terminally online phenomenon only. I once tried to bring that without specifically mentioned that it came from ol Ben himself to folks IRL. Many thought it was some anarchist blabbers.

Chinese people are very racist towards non-Chinese. It might seem like a happy utopia, but if you aren't Chinese, then you may not really enjoy your time there. It may not be quite as bad as being black in rural US south, but being black (or anything non-Chinese) in China is still not going to be a good time.

Wild to call 1.42 billion people racist despite having met very few of them.

It's funny that you think you know who I've met. YOU DON'T KNOW ME.

Racism in even the worse parts of America doesn't even begin to touch the racism present in monocultural/monoracial countries.

Have you experienced racism? In Japan atleast, it was evenly applied. That company won't rent to foreigners but this one will. That company won't hire foreigners but this one will. Police will bother you if you ride a bike, but they will be polite while they waste 10 minutes of your time asking for your gaijin card for biking while foreign.

In the US people try to hide it and are far more sinister about it, since there are a lot of laws against obvious racism. The cops are also happy in the US to just kill you.

The racism in the US comes out of hate where as what I experienced abroad was more, we don't think you'll fit in and follow the rules and you have to constantly prove that you can.

I didn't spend too much time in China so maybe it is a racist hell hole.

But my experience in Japan was that white immigrants were way more inclined to make a huge deal about the lighter racism they experienced because they had never been somewhere where their skin color was a disadvantage.

"we don't think you'll fit in and follow the rules and you have to constantly prove that you can"

I speculate that if you were a permanent minority instead of a visiting inconvenience, then that 'nice' racism you describe would metastasize into the type of racism you see in the USA. It's more friction from time and exposure added on. And, you know, slavery.

This is a weird argument. Japanese racism is fine because the Japanese are polite and apply it evenly?

Despite what some on this site will argue, racism is always bad.

There's a very big difference between xenophobia and racism. Racism is much worse.

Xenophobia is as bad as racism. The fundamental difference between xenophobia and racism, it's that one is applied because of where you're from and the other your race. But you can receive the same downsides with both.

What do you mean by racist? I'm a white/hispanic American and spent 3 months in China and didn't really notice anything problematic towards me.

That's great, but it's pretty well known that racism exists in many forms in many countries. Just google "racism in china".

> Or In America you can get paid lots of money, and get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model.

Isn't it just straight-up illegal in China to refuse the government from using your model? USA isn't perfect, but at least it has active discourse.

I would imagine if it isn't illegal its a very bad idea not to. But regardless, I would bet large amounts of money that you would never get any flack for doing anything for the government. If I went on X, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok and said "Hey I am a software engineer selling awesome new technology to the government and military!" I am going to get Americans attacking me for supporting Trump / ICE / FBI whatever the current issue of the day is. If I did the same on Douyin or Weibo the response would be able making China strong, and there would be no criticism of that choice.

Sure, but the difference is that while the Chinese state is measurably awful on all sorts of human rights things within their own borders... they're not currently dropping bombs on foreign cities, starving a neighbour of critical petroleum shipments, or heavily funding an ally to slowly exterminate a population.

What point are you trying to make here? Are government abuses somehow inherently better or worse depending on where they happen?

Do you imagine an invasion of Taiwan won't involve dropping bombs?

I feel like we should be able to agree that providing authoritarian regimes with high tech tools is immoral in the general case.

My point is as a non-American I feel no allegiance to either state, and current events don't make me sympathetic to the geo-political aims of the USA. So I don't see a strong moral case for this tech being an especial purvey of either party.

If you'd asked me two years ago my answer might have been different.

And to the original point, yeah, I would feel entirely justified in the critique of engineers in providing tools to the US defense apparatus at this point.

At least the Chinese shops are giving their weights away for free, and not demanding that any government ban the rest.

Why are they giving them away for free?

Why did Meta release theirs? The better question is, why not? If you aren't at the cutting edge and don't have a moat then releasing them is pure reputational upside with zero downside.

The research costs are not free. The businesses need to recoup the cost in some way shape or form, even if in the long term. Seems expensive as an anti-moat to detrench competitors

It's a winner take almost all competition. Baring a moat, if you aren't at the cutting edge you won't be able to recoup the cost regardless. At that point you might as well release it to the public for reputation.

You might even get lucky and someone else does the same. If you manage to learn from their example you might be more competitive in a future round.

For China it's an existential threat. They cannot let US corporations have exclusive control over this. And they are unlikely to catch up. So by tossing open weights model (note: not open source) out there for the public to use, they are destroying the possibility that Dario and SamA can build a monopoly/duopoly.

I think we are now in the era of oligarchies, and oligarchies maintain power by being highwaymen and extracting tolls, in a kind of rentier capitalist structure.

By throwing LLM models out into the commons, China is disrupting the possibility of this taking hold there.

God bless 'em

> If I did the same on Douyin or Weibo the response would be able making China strong, and there would be no criticism of that choice.

Right, because in China if you were criticized for helping the government, the people who criticized you would be in for (probably life-damaging) trouble.

At least it has been decades since China Gov bombed innocent people in other countries. A peaceful and responsible government.

> A peaceful and responsible government.

People in Hong Kong died. Over 10,000 were arrested and many are still in prison. The rest are permanently disgraced in their social-credit society.

Again, USA is not perfect, but let's not dream up some fantasy about the CCP.

This "social credit" thing is dead in China.

As an American, I have no fear of calling the US President a pedo or saying Fuck the Police on my Twitter. Not the case in China. It's horrifying.

https://reclaimthenet.org/china-man-chair-interrogation-soci...

Oh, China absolutely does not tolerate _public_ dissent very much including highly visible social media posts. Everybody there knows that.

But this:

> According to the social credit system, Chinese citizens are punishable if they indulge in buying too many video games, buying too much junk food, having a friend online who has a low credit score, visiting unauthorized websites, posting “fake news” online, and more.

...is just pure bullshit. There were _ideas_ about including these kinds of stuff into the score, but they have never been implemented. At this point, the social credit score is only used to find people who dodge court decisions.

"At this point" being the key phrase.

A key phrase that can be used to speculate about whatever bs one can think of.

A low effort and bad faith rebuttal on your part.

Please ignore the gun pointed at your head / social credit score / masked goons roving about Minnesota / flock cameras / etc as it hasn't been used against you at this point.

It seems to me your argument is in bad faith because (taking the parents analysis at face value) you created a straw man "social credit score" that doesn't exist. But there ARE masked goons roving Minnesota.

I did no such thing - you are the one creating a straw man. The comment chain I responded to has several different parties making various claims about the social credit score. My comments are consistent with those I responded to.

If you wish to dispute the veracity of one or more comments in the thread, by all means do so. But please make a substantive argument and (given the nature of the topic) cite sources.

> I have no fear of calling the US President a pedo or saying Fuck the Police on my Twitter.

Does that matter? In China people don't judge the state of their civilization by how easily you can insult the police but whether you need to be afraid to meet them on the street. "I can insult my pedophile president" (who doesn't care if you do) isn't exactly a flex.

It does tell us something though that the evaluation of American life now consists of parasocial interactions with the president on social media. I'm starting to belief Bruno Maçães, ex Portuguese secretary of state, was prescient with his diagnosis that American material society has rotted to the point where life is now entirely defined by virtual interactions. That's the difference between China and the US today.

The president's a pedophile, a criminal, undeterred by democracy, economy or social disorder but you can freely yell into the void. Have you considered that in the US one can freely say all these things precisely because that's irrelevant?

> The president's a pedophile, a criminal, undeterred by democracy, economy or social disorder but you can freely yell into the void. Have you considered that in the US one can freely say all these things precisely because that's irrelevant?

Americans will vote for their Congress representatives in November. They will have a chance to decide how they want their government to be run. The US President was already shot-down once by the Supreme Court (tariffs). The system is working. Let the voters decide, and then let it work.

> They will have a chance to decide how they want their government to be run.

That depends on what's on the ballot.

> The system is working.

If it is, how did you end up here again?

> People in Hong Kong died

Do you have a legit source for this? When I search for information, I only found this case, “Luo Changqing, a 70-year-old Hong Kong cleaner, died from head injuries sustained after he was hit by a brick thrown by a Hong Kong protester during a violent confrontation between two groups in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong on 13 November 2019.”

None of the other legit sources claim the police killed any of the rioters.

Sure, sure. The CCP probably has gotten a lot better since Tienanmen Square.

What's ironic is that China is desperately trying to be that country, but the US has then in a geographic/geopolitical choke hold.

Constant military drills around Taiwan isn't peaceful or responsible.

China is bullying lots of countries in the SCS (ramming Philippine coast guard ships, building military installations in the SCS, ...). Not peaceful or responsible.

AKA defending itself against separatists and sovereignty intrusions from much less powerful aggressors with unreasonable amount of restraint. One would argue overly peaceful, and irresponsible to the point of detrimental peace disease. BTW PRC settled most border disputes in recorded history with most concessions, majority over 50%, that objectively makes PRC the most peaceful rising power in recent history. Even in SCS PRC was second last to militarize, the other disputees started land reclamations and militarization first (apart from Brunei), aka a fucked around and find out situation. Even then all PRC did was build a bigger island, instead of glassing theirs, PRC coast guard last to weaponize as well.

If China was serious about a military solution for Taiwan they would be invading right now while the US is unloading into the desert.

The US would get out of the desert and to Taiwan fast if that happened.

> building military installations in the SCS

Many countries in the SCS are doing this. In fact China was late to the game, as Vietnam did it much earlier.

Probably. There are different kinds of political power though; it seems the qwen architects are using one right now.

The real political power we have through our vote is probably smaller than the political power most of us here have from the option to quit.

> get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model

Well duh, as recently demonstrated, an US model used by the US gov will 100% end up murdering actual children sooner than later, in this case less than a calendar year in some far flung war that many Americans do not support. Alternatively PRC model used by CCP might kill in some hypothetical future but for national reunification/rejuvenation that many Chinese support. At the end of the day, researchers and population on one side sleeps more soundly.

Damn that social conscience, huh?

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