pragmomm

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A Chinese poster complaining about US going against Cuba, when China is Cuba's second largest trading partner and an important ally, what a surprise.

China's Xi vows to support Cuba in defending its national sovereignty https://www.reuters.com/world/chinas-xi-vows-support-cuba-de...

I think it's great that the Chinese government, known for welding people inside their house, forcing citizens to continue paying into unfinished apartment building, taking passports away from teachers, transferring organs from young bodies into CCP leaders, amongst other things, have a massive tool to brainwash Americans.

Former TikTok exec: Chinese Communist Party had “God mode” entry to US data https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/06/former-tiktok...

Two academic studies argue that TikTok favors Chinese government views, and a new analysis says TikTok's parent firm is entangled with government propaganda organs. https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/tiktok-says-not-sprea...

So where's the outrage from American parents and public that China owned and controlled TikTok is exposing underage kids to pedophiles? Why is support of TikTok ban declining? https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/support-f...

I think most people do have a good idea that it's not a good time to go to China for tourism or FDI, which is why:

Investment into China by foreign businesses slumped to a 30-year low in 2023 https://qz.com/china-foreign-investment-30-year-low-18512681...

Number of foreign visitors to China in 2023 down more than 60% from pre-pandemic levels https://www.cnn.com/travel/china-foreign-visitor-number-2023...

Remember that as the Chinese economy worsens, the average citizens are going to convert their anger into violence against foreigners.

Canvas is closer to Cursor (https://www.cursor.com) than Claude.

I wonder how Paul Graham thinks of Sam Altman basically copying Cursor and potentially every upstream AI company out of YC, maybe as soon as they launch on demo day.

Is it a retribution arc?

There was no penalty/death sentence for the recent public incident of the oil tank truck that was found transporting both toxic industrial oil and cooking oil, without cleaning in between. Which apparently was a wide-spread practice, as confirmed by netizens. Instead the officials just hand waved and said it's an isolated incident, and they're looking into it. And no news of it since.

Obviously there are way more occurrences than this video. Also, the lady in the video acted like nothing was wrong and admitted no shame, which means there is a culture/common practice of using gutter oil.

still happening in China in 2024

Foreigner caught a Chinese couple scooping up gutter oil https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1eo2wmy/...

I think you're making the wrong distinction here, it's not about whether the result came from a known or unknown paper mill in that country. It's about whether there is a culture of fraud and fakeness that permeates that country and that scientific community. And there is certainly a culture of fraud and fakeness in China, from tofu dreg buildings, to fake food and gutter oil, to drugged olympic athletes, to fudged economic numbers.

Let me give just one example of how prevalent the culture of fakeness has pervaded through China. Nowadays, because the economic decline, people are eating out less, and restaurants are getting less and less traffic. Therefore, they needed to cut costs. So some restaurants started using pre-packaged food, and just heat those up in the microwave and serve them up as cooked dishes. Because other restaurants couldn't survive without doing the same cost-cutting behavior, they've all started doing the same things. Thus, most restaurants in China are now serving pre-packaged food. And there's a backlash from consumers, so now even less people eat out. And then restaurants started using expired pre-packaged food. Oh, and because expired pre-packaged food has a tendency to cause diarrhea, some restaurants in China have started adding Loperamide into the dishes to prevent diarrhea.

Fake it until you make it out of China mentality.

You should also understand that there are external forces here, like state sponsorships that monetarily rewards for scientists to simply file enough research findings.

The startling rise in the publication of sham science papers has its roots in China, where young doctors and scientists seeking promotion were required to have published scientific papers. Shadow organisations – known as “paper mills” – began to supply fabricated work for publication in journals there. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/03/the-situatio...

The number of retractions issued for research articles in 2023 has passed 10,000 — smashing annual records — as publishers struggle to clean up a slew of sham papers and peer-review fraud. Among large research-producing nations, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Russia and China have the highest retraction rates over the past two decades, a Nature analysis has found. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8

That's why a recent article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41607430, where the measurement of China leads world in 57 of 64 critical technologies was based on number of journal citations, was laughable.

Just people who can't seem to understand that the world isn't black or white, but shades of gray.

I'm pretty sure we let Russia develop after their collapse in 1990, right up until they invaded Ukraine again in 2022. And we let China develop after they liberalized in 1979, right up until they turned dictatorship in 2017, snuffed out Hong Kong in 2019, and became close war ally with Russia in 2023. Those are pretty long time I would say.

I would encourage you, if you claimed so in this thread that you are a US and UK citizen, to quickly move out of US and renounce your US citizenship. So the torture and rage that you're displaying here and the paradox of your identity doesn't drive you insane. Also you should renounce your UK citizenship, as UK and US are very close allies. Maybe try moving to Russia? I heard they're having another military mobilization, and is paying pretty well.

US's security umbrella covers more than 5% of the global population. Even those countries that try to play many sides, such as India.

Interesting hypothesis; I would encourage you to test your hypothesis by moving to Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea, and help those countries to grow its might equal to US. And also see how hard your life becomes

https://www.cnbctv18.com/economy/china-has-over-600-million-...

the updated 2023 estimate is in mandarin

viable alternative for maybe 20 million upper class people in China. 800 million others are making less than $100/month.

China also has 800 million people making less than $100/month. where do you think the millionaires and billionaires in China skimmed their wealth from?

Europe's past foreign policy, which relied on Russia and China, is what got them into trouble now. They should be more aligned with US, which they finally realized.

NATO chief urges China to stop supporting Russia's war in Ukraine https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-chief-urges-china-...

How China helps keep Russia's economy afloat https://www.dw.com/en/how-china-is-helping-keep-the-russian-...

Keeping America close, Russia down, and China far away: How Europeans navigate a competitive world https://ecfr.eu/publication/keeping-america-close-russia-dow...

average man is actually very pro-China

survey would say otherwise: For the fifth year in a row, about eight-in-ten Americans report an unfavorable view of China https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/01/americans-rema...

In the 18 high-income countries we polled, views of China are, on balance, negative. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/07/09/views-of-china...

I don't think US needs to spend that amount of money, I think China is doing enough stupid things to spur anti-China sentiments overseas. Also, they could just remind people that China released COVID which killed millions and cost countries billions.

for example: US, EU raise alarm over China’s ‘very substantial’ support for Russia in Ukraine war. Beijing’s ‘significant’ exports said to be used on battlefield and given in exchange for Kremlin’s sensitive military technologies https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3278160/us...

or: Chinese coast guard ships fired water cannons and blocked and rammed a Philippine fisheries vessel https://apnews.com/article/china-philippines-disputes-spratl...

or: Japan claims Chinese military plane violated its territorial airspace for the first time https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/27/asia/japan-china-military-pla...

based on the lack of big policy move from Chinese government this year, many thinks China has now run out of powder.

It just takes time. China took a while to get to the efficient process as well. So will Vietnam, and India, and Philippines.

China has been printing money since 2009. thus the 11 trillion off the book debts for local governments.

Every (sane) company now has a China+1 strategy, mainly manufacturing for Chinese audience in China, and elsewhere for other audiences. It's easier to decouple from China now, much easier than 3 years ago.

Not enough, especially with the increasing trade sanctions and tariffs coming from every other country against China. There's a reason why there are Chinese state employees not having been paid for 8 months, or Chinese citizens unable to withdraw a few hundred dollars from state banks.

There was some talk of Shanghai proposing a new rejuvenation tax for residential buildings this summer. The backlash was so great, that the government quietly backtracked.

China's debt is mostly internal, not external. It doesn't need a war to restructure debt. However, it does need to pay out an increasing amount of social pensions to its aging population, maintain its increasingly expensive and decreasingly utilized rail infrastructure, fund its growing state enterprises, and maintain its increasing military endeavors, etc. In other words, China's debt is owed to the citizens, but it now lacks the ability to pay them due to collapsing revenue from real estate.

It could try to print massively, but then its cash will be toilet paper, and for a country that mainly imports its resources, that would be devastating. So right now it's just printing quietly and in small doses.

War would make yuan worthless overnight.

China is really really broke, from central government, to local government, to enterprise, to individuals. from 11 trillion off the book debts for local governments, to record number of Chinese blacklisted for debt defaults. from 7 trillion lost in stock market value in 3 years, to close to 20 trillion wealth wiped out in real estate.