Yeah some real main character energy from Dario as usual.
I'll never get why he thinks China would just sit there and let the US dominate them in AI when all it would take is a few of their boats blockading Taiwan to put a stop to it all.
I'll never get why he thinks China would just sit there and let the US dominate them in AI when all it would take is a few of their boats blockading Taiwan to put a stop to it all.
Ukraine and Iran, no. I'm not familiar with the others.
"We would love to use green energy, but all the batteries and solar panels come from China and China is evil, and we need all the energy we can get to run the data centres we need to spy on our citizens so they don't revolt once the environment is literally on fire, we can't feed them, provide enough energy to cool them, and refuse to build enough housing to house them."
the West could retaliate by halting shipments of photoresist and other materials to China.
meanwhile, Intel second-sources Nvidia and starts pumping out GPUs.
the economic fallout would be devastating as trade wars and export bans on both sides make Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs look like NAFTA.
US is going to find itself isolated and irrelevant. And not a moment too soon.
[0] https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/world/chinese-manager-beats... (possibly NSFW, I can't see the video in my browser but be warned)
Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan definitely benefited a lot from being bombed, occupied, and then handed over to even worse tyrants when the West got bored.
No, sorry, but "capitalism and democracy" is not the right answer everywhere, and when they're not, pushing them by force is no better than forcing communism. In general, forcing an incompatible ideology on people historically and culturally opposed to it will end in tragedy, no matter how great that ideology may be.
How are you not racist towards Arabs to think that they're not capable of liberalism? There needs to be some people at the right time and a place like al shaara seems to be doing incremental changes to reform syria.. pushing them by force is okay when they oppress their own citizens and threaten other nations with their own form of imperialism on sorrounding countries/allies.. are we supposed to fold and not help ukraine for example even though Ukrainians never got exposed to liberalism? It's to help and condition them to open to liberalism.. same is needed for iran but retard in chief can't do it properly..
There is no HN equivalent in China where users advocate that US hegemony will be better.
We are only a few decades since the "end of history" and much has changed. What do things look like beyond 2050?
Brazil is basically the world's soy farm. It's at least half a century behind the times. I still have no idea how it managed to insert itself into the BRICS economic block. The notion that it's on the same level as China, India or Russia is just comical.
To reduce a culture and country like this comes off as bigotry
In example, Brazil has the #3 airplane producer in the world
Or consider why the US is doing all it can to prevent their payment system from becoming widely used?
I was intentional about putting the perspective in the future over today as the poles of the world are evolving
This thread is more like it:
All of the small miracles you listed happened in spite of the culture, not because of it. It's also not a coincidence that both are deeply linked to the most successful brazilian enterprise: the brazilian government.
I'm trying to avoid getting too deep in these Brazil tangents so I'm gonna leave it at that. Anyone who cares enough to know what I think about the subject can just look up my comment history.
Timothy Snyder, in On Tyranny, has a chapter about staying in touch with friends from other countries, and while we are not friends, this thread is in that spirit and I have learned things from you, so thank you!
stealth colonialism
We're told a relatively benign version of our history. You kinda have to travel to the countries involved to get the real version.
GP was making a relative comparison; pointing out that both were bad in absolute terms does not negate the point. -2 is still greater than -17.
But second, Russia is not Eastern, it was more European than anything else until the Soviet Union. And Japanese Empire drew inspiration in the Western nations, even if they took it a even more horrible twist. So blaming this on "the East" is racist and reductionist.
even the AI that was trained on mostly using western data and infrastructure that chinese models distill and all..
Yes.
> Yes
Beyond parody .. as expected of Marxist thinking..
Well if we take India as an example we have the Bengal famine.
1. We would not like to get colonised. 2. But history shows that the world was a place where you conquer or be conquered. 3. Mughals first invaded and as they were falling then, Europeans occupied, which is par for the course if you view the world history at those times. 4. It would've been better if they left early but they were better than japanese imperialists and nazis who bose was cozying up to. 5. The japanese were super violent to indians. I can't imagine the nightmare scenarios if japanese enacted what they did in nanjing/Andaman/few east indian places but they were weak at that time and British + indian army repelled them which is good. 6. After colonisation, nehru, being fabian, failed to open up the economy and he sympathised with soviets/china which exacerbated many economic and military issues at the border. 7. 1991 reforms changed india for the better and it would be better even if they pivot to green energy so that they can pivot off of Russia and Ally with west which biden and dems were trying but now trump worsened the relationship.
Different to the way that French colonialism worked, though. Less direct government, more influence of existing power structures and respect for the local government.
There is definitely an argument that this is plain business investment - China has a lot of foreign currency to invest because of its trade surplus, and there isn't the opportunity within China to invest it all, so it is engaging with trade partners to invest in their economies so that they can increase future trade with China.
You can also make the argument that this is not benign and China is trying to create control over foreign governments with this investment.
I'm kinda "both can be true, but either are better than how we did it"
They'll usually refer to China in terms like the "thousand year enemy".
Get the F off our lawn and stop dumping your rubbish on it!
Go tell them, half of my country wants to CONTINUE being the USA backyard.
Big words... For a continent with zero nukes and negligible military power. That sort of delusional posturing worked wonders for Venezuela.
https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-Stat...
They’re culturally part of the sinosphere but of course constantly living in the shadow of your much, much bigger neighbour to the north does breed some ill feeling.
The USA on the other hand, well, they’re not particularly popular either for obvious reasons
Which was a dumb move because, given Chinese economic superiority, they could have just quietly negotiated 99 year military base leases and oil/gas extraction with the UN-recognized territorial owners.
Same outcome, less bad blood.
Seems a bit of an own goal to militarily force the issue and antagonize its neighbors, who it's trying to convert to its sphere of influence.
The mask (if there ever was one) slipped and they revealed a lot of information they probably should have kept hidden about their intentions for no real reason.
However they did eventually realise this, they've completely changed tack and they're having a lot more success (helped by the US adopting their own failed policy).
You're right though, I'd imagine politicians in SEA countries haven't forgotten
On the other hand, every one in Asia is wary of too much Chinese presence and influence.
To me, the PRC is at the very end of that process and I recommend anyone doubting this to go and read conversations and listen to the words of the populace that is turning increasingly nationalistic and you will hear the same old tales of revanchism and exceptionalism that we are used to hearing (during my recent visit, I watched the morning news every day for about a week and without fail a military inspection, new ship, new plane, etc. was presented each day). In addition, I think those outside of Asia are very much shielded from the early signs, but go and read about PRC influence and tensions in South Korea, Japan, RoC, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, and Tajikistan and you will see something rather different than "inward-looking". To me, here the PRC is simply testing the waters for the extent of the influence of other powers and how far it can go. Likewise, we are seeing overseas naval bases being constructed which sure is an indication for a desire to project power outwards.
I want to believe that this time it will be different. I really do. Apologists around me say "It will only be Taiwan and the South China Sea, then then it will stop." and I would love to believe them. But can anyone truly internalise the narrative that international utopia will be spearheaded by a deeply authoritarian state that controls information like no other (and gladly exports that technology), disappears its own population at will, spins an increasingly strong nationalistic narrative, etc.? No, sorry, I think the "inward-looking" narrative is simply a convenient way for us to close our eyes and find comfort in ignorance, rather than in facts.
The way I look at it, until Deng the PRC's economic policies and internal instability kept it from growing at the pace of many of its neighbours. Then we had an era of intense growth (which is still to some degree ongoing). However, as a reaction to this era Xi and others needed a narrative to counter the increased corruption and a new unifying myth to replace the cult of growth as the economy would stagnate at some point and could then call into question the authority of CCP to rule. Their choice of nationalism is what scares me and I know PRC citizens (even CCP members) that share this perspective and would rather have seen the Shanghai clique to have remained. It is possible that in this alternative reality we would still end up with "Imperialism with Chinese characteristics" ("中国特色帝国主义"?), but I chose to believe that at the very least the chances of this would have been smaller.
Rather, I think we should look hard into ourselves and what is good and bad about the current world order. For example, the people of the RoC have the right to determine which direction they want to go. Regardless of the chauvinistic rhetoric coming out of Beijing. We should all stand up for this, because it is a universal right that we want everyone to enjoy. Similarly, we should push against the Eleven-dash line and support the 2013 ruling. The list goes on and I am sure these issues can be resolved without an outright war if we are careful, yet firm, in our beliefs and also diplomatically preemptive and thoughtful.
Being concerned about PRC imperialism should not be mistaken for the position that their people should "know their place" and be suppressed back to the stone age. They have the right to enjoy the fruits of their labour and pursue happiness, just like everyone else. We simply must be there to remind them (just like we must remind ourselves) that the course of humanity is a collective project if we are to stay clear of the darker sides of our nature as we venture together into the future.
The Chinese claims on the South Pacific Islands seem really similar to me.
Taiwan seems like a wholy different matter. It was united with China for hundreds of years until the Japanese colonialists took over. It united again with China after WWII but split up after a few years because of the Chinese civil war (notice it was an internal war). I think it's just fair that China wants to re-unite with Taiwan, though I definitely don't support a military takeover. Hopefully a solution similar to what was done in Hong Kong can be found. The Tibet region had a similar history and it's definitely unfortunate that China had to use military force to bring it under its own control (arguably completely unnecessarily - China would be just as strong today without it), but it's kind of understandable in the context of the time (China was trying to recover from centuries of being preyed on by other nations).
I am saying this because I can't agree that China is acting imperialistic - it's basically claiming sovereignty over its own historical lands - which were taken away from them by force by foreign colonial powers. But I admit that, if you go back far enough, nearly all land was once taken over by aggressors - the USA being just a more recent example of that.
Anyway, thanks for not being an absolutist and trying to understand the "other" side (I must acknowledge I have no relation to China whatsoever, in fact I am from South America and live in Europe).
Citizens of Hong Kong lost their right to free speech and their ability to select their own leaders. If you publicly criticize Xi Jinping in Hong Kong you will go to jail. If you advocate democratic rights in Hong Kong you will go to jail.
China's claims on Taiwan are ethno-nationalist. Ethno-nationalism should be rejected in all forms because it is a rejection of fundamental human rights. Taiwan deserves the world's support because it is functioning democracy. That makes all the difference.
About Taiwan. I find the claim that since an absolute monarchy controlled the island 150 years ago, that then a government which was the result of two (is my count correct?) revolutions overthrowing that monarchy and then another government, a government which failed to conquer the land by military means by 1950, and now after people have lived independently for over 75 years (over 25 of which as a democracy) that said government has any right to dictate how said people should live to be simply absurd. If the people of the RoC wants to join with the PRC, that is for them to decide through their own decision processes. Historical claims like this may make sense for unpopulated tracts of land, but here we are talking about the rights to self-determination of more than twenty million people of which the vast majority were born well after 1950. This would set a terrible precedence and, frankly, it feels akin to how emperors and kings of old asserted their "rights" and not how we move towards a more just world.
Also, Hong Kong? If anything, Hong Kong shows that the PRC is a poor custodian for a pluralistic country with multiple parallel systems. I once thought it reasonable for Hong Kong to be "returned" after the historical travesty that were the Opium Wars, but I have heard enough first-hand accounts of the suffering and tragedy that unfolded over the last ten years to reconsider whether I prioritise history over the people that are alive here and now. It was not that Mao and Xi "unfortunately had to use force" against Tibet and Hong Kong. These were calculated choices on their part and history shall judge them the same way we judge any other oppressor for their moral failures.
China quickly retaliated last time by stopping shipments of rare earths and magnets. The West has no answer for this, really up the river without a paddle for such critical supply chain elements.
Which is to say, given internal subsidies, the US could eventually produce some on its own.
Unless I misunderstood the situation.
1. China controls ~90% today
2. The US will find it difficult to build out because of how dirty and environmentally damaging mining and processing are.
I did see some research last week about a better way to process rare earths, but it is still research and will need to be industrialized.
Regardless, it will take many years (decade+?) to become self sufficient and China is already willing to and increasingly restricting them
Lots of them can be made in the west or west friendly countries, but that takes time, money, infrastructure and good execution. Yes, identical to what is covered in China's belt and road initiatives. See the gap now?
The scary part very few are talking about is that every compute device is Turing complete. So everything from the phone in your pocket to a DGX Spark is a threat to national security now since, technically, every device can run any model (how well is not a question of concern when you start to argue hardware should be gated just the same as Dario likes to gate models). I mean, along these lines of thinking Linux should not be available to the masses! What if someone runs some code that's not approved by the benevolent dictator for life, Dario? People will say: that can't happen, but the reality is it already is. If everyone has reasonable access to compute to run models that are mostly capable comparative to burning Anthropic tokens, why wouldn't they? It's risk reduction and price protection. Yet we can't buy those systems because of future production already being purchased by these organizations.
But back to the models themselves... We played this game with Metasploit back in the day: many who had no clue claimed exploit tools should be regulated and only available for use by those blessed, illegal elsewhere (I believe the closest this got was the Wassenaar delegation in the US, but only through collateral inclusion of "cyber weapons "). Except in that timeframe the authors of these tools weren't advocating for protection. Today the world is fine, systems improved because of security FOSS tooling. The same thing will happen with LLMs. Unless, that is, Dario gets his way. I'm not a fan of Altman but I think he's standing back watching this play out knowing what Dario is doing: either he succeeds and OAI benefits or Dario ends up the Chicken Little of AI and Anthropic fails to launch (their IPO).
The reality is Dario is only doing this because this is a real risk to his business. China's constraints in building competitively have given them an advantage: they are doing more with less. And if you think that their distilling from US models was in any way anti-competitive or illegal, then I guess maybe "deal with it", much akin to Anthropic, Google and OAI's response around taking the (copyright) content in the first place with no repercussions.
People who don't work in the AI bubble don't care at all about any of these people. They could all be gone overnight and the world would continue to innovate, probably in a much more productive manner, without them.
Exactly. The cries in favor of distillation regulation from the US AI companies ring hollow and fearful.
OpenAI and Anthropic didn't realize that distillation was going to be so (a) effective and (b) un-technically-stoppable at scale.
Now they're seeing their IPOs at risk and clutching at governmental straws.
Dario's argument is transparently working backwards from {protect Anthropic's economic model} <- {need government regulation} <- {justify government regulation via AI fears} <- {we love open models, but so sorry they can't pass regulation}.
If the rise of the web in the 90s taught us anything, it should have been that companies that take economic reality as it exists thrive, while those that predicate their value on regulation fail.
If distillation at scale works and is technically feasible? That's reality. Deal with it.