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> Lots of people use 哥, 弟弟, 妹妹, 姐姐 (literally older brother, younger brother, younger sister, older sister) to mean their friendship group, although this is probably a result of the impact of the one child policy.

Use of kinship terms to describe non-kin is clearly not related to the one-child policy given that it’s a language feature of Chinese that occurs across multiple political lines. It also appears in other languages, such as Korean.

Chinese also differentiates kin vs non-kin address. 哥哥 is typically used to describe a blood relation. 哥 and 哥哥 have very different connotations if used to refer to a non-relative.

Considering the article doesn’t link to the post in question, or even show a screenshot, I hardly find this to be a compelling anecdote.

This portion of the article loses even more credibility since the author clearly doesn’t understand the Chinese social media landscape, nor what “Mao’s Little Red Book” is actually called in Chinese.

The only thing that Temu subsidizes is shipping, the pricing itself is normal. Temu is essentially a window for US consumers to see what the average Chinese consumer is used to. You can directly compare products and prices between Taobao and Temu; the pricing is similar, with Temu typically being a bit more expensive even with discounts.

Even with shipping, it’s unclear exactly how much Temu would actually be losing per order depending on how efficient their distribution network is.

The arrest of the Michaels may or may not have been justified, but they were hardly average Canadian tourists. To put this into context:

Michael Kovrig is a former diplomat who at the time of his arrest worked for International Crisis Group, an NGO which is directly funded by a number of government organizations.

Michael Spavor was deeply and highly visibly involved in North Korean international affairs, and reportedly met Kim Jong-Un himself.

Most people will never come close to the government relationships and risk profiles these two had.

For fans of action films, I recommend this series on YouTube called “Stuntmen React” where they bring on stunt professionals to react to and break down famous action scenes. It’s an entertaining watch, and I enjoy hearing the industry perspective.

Here’s the episode on the Lee vs Norris fight scene from The Way of the Dragon: https://youtu.be/GxnWH7zNZpY?t=267.

Assuming you’re using “overpopulation” to refer to California’s housing shortage, this is not a “too many people” issue or a “not enough land issue”, but rather a “land isn’t being used efficiently” issue. Efficiently housing and moving large numbers of people is by and large a solved problem, with plenty of examples to learn from (see: any megacity in Asia).

California hasn’t solved the issue because some percentage of residents or other interest groups don’t want to solve the issue and have had the political means to block attempts at resolution.

Admissions data at UC Berkeley shows that nonresident students have historically been ~35% of admits, with 2022 at 28%. UCLA historically has had ~40% nonresident admits, with 2022 at 34%[0]. UCLA’s freshman profile shows that GPA and SAT/ACT scores (from when they were still required) are higher for nonresidents as well[1]. It’s reasonable to argue that resident admit percentage should be higher, but the idea that nonresidents are preferred isn’t supposed by admissions data.

As for the nonresident tuition issue, it seems like a matter of having the state make up the difference between resident and nonresident tuition so that the university receives the same fee regardless of residency status.

[0] https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-...

[1] https://admission.ucla.edu/apply/freshman/freshman-profile/2...

Kudos to the K&P writers for choosing such a representative dish then, it adds another level to the sketch that I’ll wager the average American audience member missed. To me, the two recipes the cafe owner describes sound exactly the same (the male diner even says as much), which I suppose is the point.

This would be more interesting for discussion if the comment described an actual threat scenario instead of a vague hypothetical. Even in the hypothetical, there’s no actual described consequence, only that China gains some undefined level of soft power which means nothing on its own.

Some ideas:

- How are these LLMs being used? Who is the end user and what are they using the application for?

- If a state-level threat actor wanted to compromise an LLM, how would they do it? What would their goals be? How would they then use the attack vector to accomplish their goals?

- What benefit would the actor get from doing so? What are the costs? What are the consequences if they fail or are discovered?

- How would a target detect if they’ve been compromised? How easily could they recover?

This is nitpicking, but part of what makes the Key & Peele sketch funny is that the two recipes the cafe owner describes appear to be the exact same. I read it as poking fun at extreme nationalism creating artificial differences when there really are none.

That being said, it is a comedy sketch, so ultimately it’s up to interpretation.

This would be a valid point if it wasn’t for the fact that you can go to China and ride on a high speed train to see for yourself. Failing that, you can watch one of the many vlogs in which people take HSR to get around the country, or just talk to anyone who’s been to China in the past decade.

Chinese HSR does its own marketing. The material benefit to people around the country, particularly in rural areas, cannot be overstated.

“Indian food” itself is a major generalization given its variety of regional cuisines. You can say the same thing about Italian food.

In this case, people’s preconceptions are typically just ill-informed.

Chinese regulation around generative AI isn’t yet formalized, including provisions for censorship. The Cyberspace Administration of China published a set of draft measures[0] for public comment, but it doesn’t seem like a revised version has been released.

The draft indicates that there will be some level of censorship, but it’s unclear what the scope will be. This analysis[1] suggests that generative AI for research purposes could be exempted (section 1). The same analysis points out that there are other government bodies at play that are more focused on advancing AI as an industry within China.

It does seem likely that there will be some kind of censorship carve-out for AI research, whereas companies offering generative AI products to the public will need to self-censor to avoid fines and/or prosecution.

[0] https://digichina.stanford.edu/work/translation-measures-for...

[1] https://fpf.org/blog/unveiling-chinas-generative-ai-regulati...