[HN Gopher] 2025 Letter
___________________________________________________________________
2025 Letter
Author : Amorymeltzer
Score : 217 points
Date : 2026-01-01 14:32 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (danwang.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (danwang.co)
| kaonwarb wrote:
| I recommend Dan's book (https://danwang.co/breakneck/) to those
| wanting to better understand China - and the United States.
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| One of the best books I read this year. I think a lot of HN
| readers will like it. A really balanced take on China that also
| digs deep into the perennial question of "why can't we build
| big infrastructure projects in the US?" that comes up here
| quite often.
| veritascap wrote:
| We used to build those infrastructure projects.
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| Well of course, and the book digs a little into the history
| as well, and what changed around the 1960s/70s. There is a
| long section on Robert Moses, for example. He draws a lot
| of parallels between modern China and the US in the 19th
| and early 20th centuries - totally different political
| systems, but similar "breakneck" ability to build.
| decimalenough wrote:
| +1, it's a great read.
|
| It also defies easy summaries, but my biggest takeaways were
| that 1) the CCP _really_ doesn 't care about the costs any of
| its policies (one-child, zero COVID, etc) impose on its
| citizenry, and 2) that the CCP is actively preparing China for
| a world where it's entirely cut off from the West, because it
| realizes that's the price to pay for invading Taiwan.
| url00 wrote:
| As often the case with Dan's letters, a well balanced take on
| many issues. I particularly appreciated the thoughts on AI and
| (what I read) the undertone of infrastructure being the real
| differentiator between the US effort and China. We'll see how it
| plays out this year. "May you live in exciting times" etc.
| pityJuke wrote:
| As someone unfamiliar with the author, I had a deep amount of
| cynicism for the length of this piece... but damn, it's good, top
| to bottom.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I agree. At first I briefly skimmed it and thought it was going
| to be a puff piece on China's AI efforts (unfair of me), but a
| couple paragraphs caught me and I read the whole thing. I'm
| glad I did.
| 152334H wrote:
| > Beijing has been preparing for Cold War without eagerness for
| waging it, while the US wants to wage a Cold War without
| preparing for it.
|
| great line
| apples_oranges wrote:
| It's not clear what the US plan even is. Move all manufacturing
| back home and compete with China ASAP?
| anon7000 wrote:
| Even if it's a goal, it's not a plan. The article talks about
| it, but Biden's push for manufacturing wasn't very
| aggressive, and Trump has basically stopped it. We've seen a
| loss in manufacturing jobs from tariffs and Trump idiotically
| deported Korean engineers working in local battery production
| plants. Simply protecting our existing companies (which are
| not very efficient, see shipbuilders) is not even close to
| enough to competing
| jaapz wrote:
| With trump at the helm, do you think there is much of a plan?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The US plan is to enrich oligarchs who are friendly with
| Trump and to enact white nationalist policies.
|
| Anything beyond that is just like a kid playing an arcade
| game without putting any quarters in.
| lawn wrote:
| Plan?
|
| They don't even have a concept of a plan.
| glitchc wrote:
| The US doesn't have a plan, it has a framework. The framework
| allows it to be nimble in a way that centralized economies
| (like China) can never match. My money's on the US out-
| competing everyone else in the long run.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I can't tell if this is sarcasm or if you are serious. The
| USA's framework is to just wish for things to happen and
| then be surprised when those things don't happen. There is
| basically no executing plan beyond grifting money to a few
| corporations because they supported the president during
| the election.
| shimman wrote:
| Seriously, and we have one of the most centrally planned
| economies in existence, it's just controlled by the
| elites rather than through democratic norms as it was
| during the new deal coalition.
| loudmax wrote:
| The "US plan," is driven by the executive office. That is to
| say, the by the US president.
|
| Insofar as there is any plan, the current officeholder's
| priorities are to project the appearance of personal power on
| television. If you're wondering what's going on
| strategically, don't go thinking that there's some grand
| plan, or even an intention to benefit the United States in
| the long term. There are some people in the cabinet who are
| thinking long term, but that's not universal, and that's not
| what they're selected for. Every action that is taken is to
| satisfy the president's narcissism and ego in the present
| moment. You have to understand the "US plan" in this light
| for anything coming out of the executive office to make
| sense.
| slfreference wrote:
| I don't care who the next hegemon will be; US or China. But
| please pray, can these people tell what their next strategy is
| for the rest of the world after the Cold War ends. Will the
| next regime advance sciences further after whichever side wins
| the Cold War? Can't that be done without the war? US has been
| hegemon since last 5 or so decades; has it worked out best even
| ONLY for the Americans if not for the rest of the world. I will
| ask a very obvious question taught as a intuition pump by
| Daniel Dennett, "Then What? Then What? Then What?". Do these
| blob forces have post-Cold War steps figured out for the best
| of humanity, if not for whole of humanity but a national
| subset.
|
| Here is a fun representation I have in my mind:
|
| Galactic Emperor
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQbm8Wk2vU
| bigyabai wrote:
| I don't know if it's _that_ hard to figure out, at least in
| the short-term. China 's #1 goal should be to keep the value
| of their currency stable and push hard on the neoliberal
| expansionist path. If the United States' financialized
| economy starts to sag, this is China's opportunity to provide
| discount stability to the nations that China needs as allies.
| DustinEchoes wrote:
| Too bad it's not true. China has wanted this for a long long
| time.
| bix6 wrote:
| Dam Wang, good read!
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Wait, how funny is this guy. That's an easy top 10 funny person
| out of nowhere in my life.
| pr337h4m wrote:
| > Which of the tech titans are funny? In public, they tend to
| speak in one of two registers. The first is the blandly corporate
| tone we've come to expect when we see them dragged before
| Congressional hearings or fireside chats. The second leans
| philosophical, as they compose their features into the sort of
| reverie appropriate for issuing apocalyptic prophecies on AI.
|
| This is just not accurate though? For example, this post from a
| tech titan might not necessarily be that funny but it's neither
| blandly corporate nor philosophical:
| https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2006548935372902751
| thundergolfer wrote:
| 1. Elon is not funny. He's deeply unfunny. 2. "Tend to" is the
| key bit you're missing. It "tends to" be true that titans speak
| in those registers, even if it is true that Elon, a titan, a
| does not.
| coderatlarge wrote:
| from the piece:
|
| " the median age of the latest Y Combinator cohort is only 24,
| down from 30 just three years ago "
|
| does yc publish stats to validate?
| et1337 wrote:
| Didn't we just have a front page article about the average
| founder age increasing well beyond 30 this year? Is it a non-
| normal distribution or what?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Lots of explanations with power here:
|
| - There's a hard edge to the distribution that isn't far from
| 24 (I'd expect relatively few sub-18-year-old YC founders,
| but more 31+-year-olds)
|
| - Older founders (with more experience, larger networks and
| less life flexibility) aren't a good fit for incubators.
| bix6 wrote:
| Tunguz shows early 40s as the median
|
| https://tomtunguz.com/founder-age-median-trend/
|
| YC trends younger given what they're looking for
| bix6 wrote:
| Quoted as 24 vs 30 in 2022 from one of the partners here:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/yc-founders-younger-under-mo...
| strange_quark wrote:
| > I believe that Silicon Valley possesses plenty of virtues. To
| start, it is the most meritocratic part of America.
|
| Oh come on, this is so untrue. Silicon Valley loves credentialism
| and networking, probably more than anywhere else. Except the
| credentials are the companies you've worked for or whether you
| know some founder or VC, instead of what school you went to or
| which degrees you have.
|
| I went to a smaller college that the big tech firms didn't really
| recruit from. I spent the first ~5 years of my career working for
| a couple smaller companies without much SV presence. Somehow I
| lucked into landing a role at a big company that almost everyone
| has definitely heard of. I didn't find my coworkers to
| necessarily be any smarter or harder working than the people I
| worked with previously. But when I decided it was time to move
| on, companies that never gave me the time of day before were
| responding to my cold applies or even reaching out to _me_ to beg
| me to interview.
|
| And don't get me started on the senior leadership and execs I've
| seen absolutely run an entire business units into the ground and
| lose millions of dollars and cost people their jobs, only to
| "part ways" with the company, then immediately turn around and
| raise millions of dollars from the same guys whose money they
| just lost.
| fastball wrote:
| Judging you based on the work you've done seems... very
| meritocratic to me?
| flumpcakes wrote:
| I think the OP was making the point that it isn't
| meritocratic, at least that is how it read to me: they
| thought people where not meaningfully different in skill
| level (the people at the exclusive company being comparable
| to everywhere else) and that where you worked was the new way
| to find the 'in' people, rather than what university you
| graduated from (saying they had job offers based purely on
| getting the job at the exclusive company).
|
| You could argue that getting a job at X or Y company by
| itself conveys some level of skill - but if we are honest,
| that is just version of saying you went to Harvard.
|
| There's lots of cliques everywhere in life, and various ways
| to show status, SV is definitely not immune to that.
| fastball wrote:
| Yes, that is what OP is saying, I'm just not very
| convinced. Primarily because his sample size is quite small
| - he says the people in his smaller, non-SV jobs were just
| as competent as those in the SV company, but that could
| mean a number of things that are not "SV isn't
| meritocratic". For example, it could just be that his
| previous colleagues were more competent than the actual
| national/global average, which seems probable.
| usui wrote:
| I guess I'll ask since you strongly disagree and ignoring the
| fact this is very reductionist: In your opinion, what is the
| most meritocratic part of America?
| fhsm wrote:
| Isn't the obvious answer that many would refute the premise
| of meaningful regional variation? In which case the claim
| isn't that somewhere else is that place but rather than all
| places are substantially equivalent on this difficult to
| measure concept (or difference is unknown).
| 152334H wrote:
| note that the first chunk of the piece spends time to analogize
| SV to the CCP, in terms of its willingness to take attacks (of
| humor).
|
| So, for your quote, a skeptical interpretation of the text may
| assert the author was merely praising SV in the same fashion
| one might appraise the party.
| ossa-ma wrote:
| The beginning perfectly embodies the culture in Silicon Valley
| and touches on a crucial part that I notice when I visit: the
| complete lack of self expression or as I would put it ZERO drip.
|
| Remove the tech, what does SF contribute to the world wrt
| culture? Especially when compared to other metropolitan cities:
| NY, London, LA, Tokyo.
| dpark wrote:
| Maybe I'm missing some nuance but are you just saying that
| folks in Silicon Valley aren't cool?
| mjmsmith wrote:
| The only problem with Silicon Valley is they just have no
| taste.
| dpark wrote:
| I think most people in general have no taste. But taste is
| also so subjective that it's hard to meaningfully discuss.
| Everyone probably thinks they have great taste.
|
| Part of the Silicon Valley ethos (and techie ethos in
| general) is the rejection of fashion. Comfort over style.
| Casual over classy.
|
| Even the "stealth wealth" thing that trended for a while
| seemed to be an expression of this. Casual wear, but really
| expensive.
| teiferer wrote:
| > One way that Silicon Valley and the Communist Party resemble
| each other is that both are serious, self-serious, and indeed,
| completely humorless.
|
| There is a commedy show literally called Silicon Valley making
| fun of what's going on in the valley and everybody I know in tech
| loves it and appreciates the humor.
| otterley wrote:
| Right, but it's written and produced in Hollywood, not in
| Silicon Valley. The Valley, so the argument goes, could not
| produce "Silicon Valley" the show. It provides the topic to be
| skewered, but it can't skewer itself.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| More accurate:
|
| There WAS a comedy called Silicon Valley that wrapped more than
| 5 years ago ABOUT the valley made in Hollywood by a guy with a
| science background who grew up in NEW MEXICO and SAN DIEGO,
| featuring ACTORs, none of them actual techies from the bay
| area.
| websiteapi wrote:
| USA is cooked sadly, that being said being Britain 2.0 ain't too
| bad. pretty much all the YC companies in the past few cohorts
| just are desperately rent seeking, sad but true - go look urself
| scubbo wrote:
| A fascinating and eye-opening read.
|
| One of my intentions for this coming year is to critically
| examine and (if appropriate) alter or dispel some preconceptions
| I have. To that end, I'm curious about this part:
|
| > You don't have to convince the elites or the populace that
| growth is good or that entrepreneurs could be celebrated.
| Meanwhile in Europe, perhaps 15 percent of the electorate
| actively believes in degrowth. I feel it's impossible to convince
| Europeans to act in their self interest.
|
| Can someone elaborate on how growth is aligned with the general
| interest? To my mind, although growth could _theoretically_ lead
| to a "lifting all boats" improvement across the board, in
| practice it inevitably leads to greater concentration of wealth
| for the elite while the populace deals with negative
| externalities like pollution, congestion, and advertizing.
| Degrowth, on the other hand, would directly reduce those
| externalities; and, if imposed via progressive taxation, would
| have further societal benefits via funded programs.
|
| I'd very much like to hear the counter-argument. It would be
| pleasant and convenient to believe that growth and industry are
| Good, Actually, so that I needn't feel guilty for contributing to
| them or for furthering my own position - but (sadly!) I can't
| just make myself believe something without justification.
| brokencode wrote:
| Wealth inevitably concentrates in the hands of the elite no
| matter the economic conditions. There are plenty of failed
| states where all the wealth ended up in the hands of warlords
| and dictators.
|
| It's something that regularly has to be dealt with in societies
| separately from the economic situation.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| Exactly _how_ should society deal with it, and exactly _when_
| should society deal with it?
| brokencode wrote:
| Opinions vary.
|
| There are those who think massive concentration of wealth
| is not a problem at all and is just a product of healthy
| capitalism. Tax is theft, and individual property rights
| are above all else.
|
| There are others who want some kind of communist
| revolution, where the entire structure of society and
| property ownership is changed. The workers should benefit
| from their work as much as the managers.
|
| Personally, I feel like there's a middle ground to hit. We
| should be able to make changes to our current system in the
| US without needing anything too radical.
|
| We have some good examples from the last century, such as
| trust busting, the New Deal, and the Great Society. These
| programs made major improvements without changing the
| country's fundamental economic system or growth trajectory.
| macintux wrote:
| > trust busting, the New Deal, and the Great Society.
|
| I don't know what sea change it would take for today's
| GOP to even tepidly support any of these.
| crubier wrote:
| > Can someone elaborate on how growth is aligned with the
| general interest?
|
| Empirically, the past 200 years have seen high growth globally,
| and human well being has improved massively as a result. Life
| expectancy has skyrocketed, infant death, hunger have gone down
| to near zero, literacy has gone up, work is much more
| comfortable, interesting and rewarding, etc. But at a more
| fundamental level, our material quality of life is that of
| literal kings. The 1st decile poorest people in the US or
| Europe have much better living conditions than a king of 500
| years ago. We are so lucky to benefit from this, yet we
| completely forgot that fact. You complain about congestion and
| advertizing, but with degrowth you would complain about hunger
| and dying from cold during winter.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| >But at a more fundamental level, our material quality of
| life is that of literal kings.
|
| This cannot be overstated. To wit, a Honda Accord (or
| equivalent mid-range car of today) is objectively superior to
| a Rolls Royce from the 90s in terms of amenities, engine
| power/efficiency, quietness, build quality, safety, etc. The
| same is true for quality-of-life improvements across a vast
| swath of consumer goods, and therefore consumer lifestyles.
|
| Without growth, it's unlikely we'd see those improvements
| manifest. Carefully consider the lifestyle of someone living
| several decades ago. Would you honestly want to live such a
| lifestyle yourself? That's where degrowth likely leads. As
| the article says, "I feel it's impossible to convince
| Europeans to act in their self interest. You can't even
| convince them to adopt air conditioning in the summer."
| allturtles wrote:
| > Carefully consider the lifestyle of someone living
| several decades ago. Would you honestly want to live such a
| lifestyle yourself?
|
| Sure, I lived it, and it was very pleasant at the time and
| in many ways better than now in retrospect. e.g. always-on
| access to infinite content engines like YouTube, TikTok, X,
| Facebook, etc. is probably a net negative, both for
| individuals and society. I wouldn't want to go back a
| century or more and give up air conditioning, dishwashers,
| washing machines, air travel, electric lights. But a few
| decades, sure, in a heartbeat.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| For all the insightful takes about everything under the Sun,
| Dan's cynicism and skewed view towards "Europe" are shown in
| this letter.
|
| It's not that all his takes are wrong, it's the exaggeration,
| the doom and gloom and a somewhat dismissal or some unsolved
| personal issues he has with "Europeans".
|
| The irony is not lost that Dan acts as smug and dismissal as he
| accuses Europeans to be.
|
| Regarding the whole "Degrowth" thing: yes Europe has those and
| they found their gold in Governmental entities and they
| entertain the rich. But.. that's exactly what happens in the US
| too and Dan as knowledge as he is should know this was mostly
| an American academia export, he just needs to talk with some
| people in the very same colleges he regularly set foot into.
|
| Also, he should take a hint when he says historically liberal
| societies have fared much better than autocratic ones even if
| those are very focused and appear to make progress very
| quickly. Having a few mega-bilionaires directing what the
| populace do or not do might not be a smart move as it sounds.
| We'll see when the AI musical chairs stops.
|
| Btw, Europe has been dead and on the brink of destruction for a
| few centuries by now. And according to experts the EU is about
| to collapse 3 or 4 times a year - minimum.
| elp62 wrote:
| In the vibrant capitalist society envisioned by Joseph
| Schumpeter, all boats are lifted because better businesses
| replace incumbents, both improving products for the larger
| society and continually redistributing wealth. In my view,
| since 2008 my country (the US) has distanced itself from this
| policy, instead focusing on protecting incumbents for fear of
| loss of employment. The unpopular policy of bailouts pursued in
| 2008-2009 and then again during the pandemic has led to a
| stagnant, top-heavy economy with most of the disadvantages of
| capitalism and less and less of the upside.
|
| I don't think degrowth is necessary to solve this problem,
| although I'm sure it has its merits. But I think growth can
| still occur without the trend toward oligarchic or feudal
| society, and in fact a society with a vibrant economy would
| have more growth than we do today.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Believing in growth just means believing that the future will
| be better than the past.
|
| And believing this, is the single thing keeping the entire
| world running.
|
| Germany is currently ruining itself because its stagnating
| economy means that it can not keep up with the rising costs for
| its pension system and has to increasingly raise more funds
| from a smaller, population which is seeing little productivity
| gains.
|
| >Degrowth, on the other hand, would directly reduce those
| externalities; and, if imposed via progressive taxation, would
| have further societal benefits via funded programs.
|
| Do you think that Germany will have social benefits _at all_ ,
| when the auto industry collapses. Where is the money coming
| from?
|
| Economic growth has enabled mass literacy. It has created
| industrial agriculture, which eliminated hunger for economic
| reasons in all countries which practice it. Degrowth means
| turning our back on the single process which caused the
| greatest increase in human quality of life.
| paulpauper wrote:
| This is such a long letter it would take me probably 3 months to
| write it. I would have to end my year by September and spend the
| rest of the year writing the letter.
| nullorempty wrote:
| >Lack of action due to the expectation of long timelines is one
| of the sins of the lawyerly society.
|
| >But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese
| problems.
|
| China has stayed on trajectory of improving life of its society
| for a long time. USA has been in decline all that time and decent
| accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended.
|
| All of China's growth comes from its internal resource. Growth in
| the USA had been driven by exploiting other countries.
|
| >I made clear in my book that I am drawn to pluralism as well as
| a broader conception of human flourishing than one that could be
| delivered by the Communist Party.
|
| Pluralism had been eradicated in the western society. I can't
| speak freely in Canada. People get cancelled or jailed for
| speaking their mind in UK. US is not too far behind in that.
|
| There is no meaningful pluralism in the West. They never make a
| long term plan they can follow for many years.
|
| China has monolithic ( more so ) society with shared culture,
| language(s) and national identity that runs deep to the gene
| level. They don't don't allow foreign influence to erode it. It's
| much easier to make progress when people share the same long term
| vision and goals.
|
| CPC is doing just fine leading the country into the future. Sure,
| it has a monopoly on power, but it also owns its mistakes and
| fixes them. Multiparty systems of the USA and the rest of the
| West are just two curtains on the stage, and when you draw the
| curtains you see the same people attending the same party.
|
| Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short
| stay in power. After all, they only have a few years before they
| get replaced, better make use of the short time you got.
|
| China IMO has a much brighter outlook for the future
| dpark wrote:
| > USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated
| after Cold War with Russia ended.
|
| Exactly when do you believe this decline started? I have some
| major concerns about the current trajectory of the USA, but it
| seems like nonsense to say that the US has been in decline
| since well before the Cold War ended.
|
| > I can't speak freely in Canada
|
| I wonder what it is that you want to say but can't.
|
| Comparing China positively against western nations and then
| griping about limits on freedom of speech in western nations
| seems suspect regardless.
|
| > Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their
| short stay in power.
|
| That's true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue
| wealth for much longer than elected officials.
| nullorempty wrote:
| > Exactly when do you believe this decline started? with
| 'perestroyka' in the USSR which predates end of the cold war
| - ever since they thought they won over communist/socialist
| ideas and accelerated with the breakup of the USSR
|
| >I wonder what it is that you want to say but can't.
|
| Nice try, this won't provoke me.
|
| >That's true. Unelected officials can stay in power and
| accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
|
| Sure, sure. The systems are setup differently but you are
| using the same logic for both coming from the assumption that
| power is used to acquire personal wealth.
|
| For some (many) power isn't about acquisition of wealth but
| about responsibility, taking care of a hard chore. It's a
| mistake to think that Xi is in power for wealth.
|
| I often draw a parallel with being a father. You have some
| power, but mostly you have responsibilities.
| dpark wrote:
| > ever since they thought they won over communist/socialist
| ideas, i.e. with the breakup of the USSR
|
| You seem to have redefined the timeframe significantly.
| Previously you indicated that the decline was happening
| even before the end of the Cold War.
|
| I don't believe that this is a true statement even since
| the fall of the USSR, though. I'd be interested in what
| data or metrics this claim of decline is based on.
|
| > Nice try, this won't provoke me.
|
| You're so unprovoked that you didn't even address the
| concern. You could have pointed at what you believed was
| problematic suppression of free speech (of which there are
| certainly some examples in western nations) without
| actually divulging your apparently controversial beliefs.
|
| Bluntly, I believe your criticism here is dishonest. Pearl
| clutching about apparent suppression of free speech in the
| west while pointing to a nation that sends ethnic Muslim
| minorities to reeducation camps as a better system is
| deeply disingenuous.
|
| > It's a mistake to think that Xi is in power for wealth.
|
| > I often draw a parallel with being a father. You have
| some power, but mostly you have responsibilities.
|
| This is a man who refused the traditional transfer of power
| within the CCP and had the Chinese constitution revised so
| that he could remain in power. This is absolutely a man who
| wants power and wealth.
|
| You're plainly biased.
| nradov wrote:
| China has very limited internal natural resources. Much of
| their growth has been enabled by massive imports of raw
| materials including soybeans, fertilizer, fossil fuels, iron
| ore, copper ore, etc. Their prosperity and even their survival
| is heavily dependent on the post-WWII global free trade system.
| Ironically, China's expansionist foreign policy is one of
| several factors now causing that system to fray. In another
| decade they might find it's not so easy to import soybeans from
| Brazil and crude oil from Saudi Arabia and ores from Australia.
|
| I share your concerns over effective loss of freedom of
| expression in western countries. In the USA at least cancel
| culture seems to be dying out and people no longer feel as
| obligated to be politically correct or self-censor. But the UK
| may be permanently lost.
| nullorempty wrote:
| They have that which matters the most - people with certain
| set of beliefs. That's the wealth of China, which they share
| generously with the West - just look at the Chinese
| developers and scientists that work in the West.
| mxschumacher wrote:
| My copy of Breakneck arrived a few days ago and I'm rushing
| through the book, hard to put down, highly recommended
| Anton_Ingachev wrote:
| Happy New year
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| > Narrowness of mind is something that makes me uneasy about the
| tech world.
|
| > The Bay Area has all sorts of autistic tendencies. Though
| Silicon Valley values the ability to move fast, the rest of
| society has paid more attention to instances in which tech wants
| to break things.
|
| > There's a general lack of cultural awareness in the Bay Area.
| It's easy to hear at these parties that a person's favorite
| nonfiction book is Seeing Like a State while their aspirationally
| favorite novel is Middlemarch.
|
| It's refreshing to read someone addressing this aspect of the
| Mecca of the tech word.
|
| For the reasons above the tech elites are the ones I trust the
| less and fear the most when they are involved in national and
| international politics. And I think the current state of the US
| is directly caused by the rise of post dot com Silicon Valley.
| dzonga wrote:
| London has the house prices of California and the income levels
| of Mississippi.
|
| the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy
| generation statistics of the UK per capita
|
| while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car
| washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc
| klysm wrote:
| Income and wealth inequality! I don't see a way out for the UK
| specproc wrote:
| We're a wholly-owned subsidiary of America Inc., Minsk to
| Washington's Moscow.
|
| The Vampire Squid has its tentacles in all our orifices, and
| we won't be free till we cut it off, or it dies of an
| obesity-related illness.
| 01284a7e wrote:
| Meh. Everywhere has foreign investment. The economic elite
| of the UK owns the US as well.
| lithocarpus wrote:
| Not disagreeing but also I wonder how it compares to
| inequality in Britain before the US was a thing.
| specproc wrote:
| The core issue is that most major businesses are
| ultimately owned directly or indirectly abroad, largely
| in America, with some tapping by London-based
| intermediaries.
|
| Supermarkets and shopping centres, national assets (e.g.,
| water) the story is the same. Then there's Amazon et al.
|
| Profit generated in this country is by and large not
| spent here, and is certainly not taxed adequately.
|
| This causes inequality by short-circuiting redistributive
| measures, either local economic multipliers or government
| spending.
|
| What gains are felt are concentrated in service sectors
| which facilitate global capital, concentrated in London.
| See OP's thoughts on legalistic societies.
|
| It compares to inequality in England before the US was a
| thing, in the same way. Small elite benefiting from
| global plunder, vast inequality internally.
|
| The British Empire didn't actually end. There was a
| hostile takeover by Washington at the end of WW2.
| nradov wrote:
| The UK is already close to the USA on obesity rates and
| catching up fast.
| turbonaut wrote:
| Median wealth per adult in the UK is 176k. In the US it is
| only 124k.
|
| Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2025
|
| Of course US does has a much higher mean wealth...
| bix6 wrote:
| House prices are out of wack anywhere desirable because the
| local income is irrelevant when non-locals are allowed to scoop
| up the local supply.
| yunnpp wrote:
| Countries like Indonesia have banned foreigners from owning
| land altogether. You can apparently still own property
| through land-lease agreements and other arrangements, but not
| the land. I think they've cracked down on illegal rentals
| too.
| shimman wrote:
| House prices are only "out of wack" in areas with poor social
| housing programs.
|
| Housing in Vienna is still affordable, only due to their very
| successful public housing programs. Public housing can be
| both beautiful and highly affordable if you want it to be,
| it's not like we don't know how to make good quality homes
| with lovely public amenities. It's mostly developers that
| want to skim on everything while selling it at the highest
| cost possible.
|
| Poor system if this is the outcome: unaffordability.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I am interested in what is working in Vienna when "housing
| problem" is what almost every city in "the West" has or
| thinks it has.
|
| To me it seems to be a combination of
|
| - wealth inequality (eg 20/30 trillion dollars was printed
| and furloughed out in Covid, which funnels its way up to
| the holders of the most assets, seeing asset price
| inflation but no attempt to tax back the money printed).
| Repeat on different scales for unfair tax systems and poor
| infrastructure and and and
|
| - urban planning (we think the ideal city is dense using
| seven storey or so apartment buildings and fairly
| aggressive anti-car (ie far less parking than seems
| possible) with better public transport and lots of
| pedestrian access. This describes almost no cities
|
| - mortgages and other pro house incentives. You want house
| price inflation for decade after decade, just allow people
| to borrow a greater ratio against their salary -- and allow
| married women into the workplace. Suddenly turning a
| mortgage limit of 2.5 x a man's salary into 5x a dual
| couples salary. People bid up prices, forcing more couples
| to have two salaries to compete. And companies don't have
| to increase salary to compensate ... people combine
| salaries and go deeper into debt. Hell if you only had one
| policy weapon, forcing 2.5 borrowing against one highest
| paid persons salary is not a bad one. You won't get re-
| elected however.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Real estate prices are out of whack everywhere. Even in
| places with no good jobs, low population density, and rapid
| depopulation, real estate prices are increasing
| exponentially. There are no market forces in play anymore.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| This is a common opinion that never actually matches the
| facts.
|
| The issue is all the things blocking supply. As long as
| supply is blocked, prices will go up, Period
| xixixao wrote:
| There are differences, but this is oversimplified, and market
| is "mostly" working. You need more money in California, for
| transportation, for health care. The standard is bigger houses
| (bigger everything) in Cali. Life might be richer, in some ways
| more pleasant, in London (it's not weather though), including
| shorter flights to many interesting places.
|
| From my experience the ratio of savings was similar, but the
| ppp of course favored US for absolute numbers.
| kubb wrote:
| Nobody will admit that the housing is overpriced, so they would
| have to be forced to do so.
|
| This is terrible for normal people, and slightly bad for the
| investors, but only a crisis or organized government action can
| reset the damage done by decades of investment in already
| existing buildings.
|
| The former is much more likely to happen.
| verbify wrote:
| I spot checked some of this and from what I can find, the
| median salary in London is about $12k more than Mississippi,
| and the median house price in London is about $100k less than
| California.
|
| Bear in mind that obviously the mean salary in London is going
| to be far higher than the median (the finance industry will
| skew it), while I'm not sure that's as extreme as Mississippi.
| Additionally median salaries reflect a lot of service jobs and
| similar labour. Dubai has a lower median wage than either
| London or Mississippi, but people don't think of it as
| economically broken.
|
| Comparing California (an extremely large state that I presume
| has cheaper housing outside major urban areas) to a city seems
| a bit of a poor comparison.
|
| I don't disagree that the UK has high energy costs.
| lukevp wrote:
| If you're trying to do a rebuttal, saying that wages are
| slightly higher than Mississippi and house prices are
| slightly lower than Cali doesn't refute anything, it just
| serves to make the example more extreme and concrete. Look at
| house prices in Mississippi in relation to their income and
| then compare the same ratio for Cali and for London.
| piker wrote:
| Also, taxes?
| kortilla wrote:
| If this was meant to be a rebuttal, it wasn't.
|
| Compare the housing costs of London to the housing costs of
| San Francisco and then swap out those Bay Area salaries with
| your "slightly above Mississippi" wages and you'll see why
| London looks so broken to people used to LA/SF/NY.
| financetechbro wrote:
| Dubai is absolutely economically broken lol. The city was
| built on cheap foreign slave labor. And the luxurious
| amenities of the city are only for the wealthy royal and
| foreigners. Their main export besides oil is the illusion of
| a thriving metropolis
| Cyph0n wrote:
| The example I like to use to demonstrate how broken labor
| vs. service costs are in the UAE is to compare the price of
| a Big Mac meal to the price of a standard manual car wash
| (closer to detailing tbh).
|
| In the UAE, a Big Mac meal costs approximately 35 AED
| ($10). On the other hand, a manual car wash - approx. 1-2
| hours of labor - can cost you around 20 AED.
|
| In other words, you could get two manual car washes for the
| price of a Big Mac.
| jemmyw wrote:
| > while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most
| car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc
|
| Er what? I moved away from the UK in 2007 but even then the
| only place I or my parents washed a car was the ubiquitous
| petrol station automated car wash.
| drcongo wrote:
| I can only think of one automated wash in my UK town, and
| well over 10 "Albanian" hand washes. Personally I go to the
| Albanians every time - they take pride in what they're doing,
| handle the vehicle with care and do a far, far better job
| than an auto wash.
| basisword wrote:
| No idea where OP is based but like most suggestions about the
| UK or London online it's bullshit. Most petrol stations have
| the same automated car washes they've always had. If you want
| your car hand washed there are lots of people doing that too,
| as there always have been. Like all places, the UK and/or
| London has plenty of issues including serious ones - but I'd
| still pick it over anywhere in the US regardless of salary
| differences.
| pron wrote:
| London doesn't have the income level of Mississippi, although
| that might be true for the UK average. I'd say that the UK may
| be "seriously broken", but not more than other post-industrial
| countries, including the US (or France, or Japan). It's just
| broken in different ways. E.g. life expectancy in the UK is
| significantly higher than in America, even though they were the
| same in the '80s. Education levels (and measures such as
| literacy profficiency and skills etc.) are also significantly
| better in the UK than in the US. Somewhat tongue in cheek,
| Americans are richer but they don't seem to be putting their
| money to good use as Brits are better educated and live longer.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Yes but London isn't in America so there's that.
|
| Have you lived in the UK at all, or at least spent considerable
| time there?
|
| I've lived in the UK and America, and America seems far more
| broken to me.
| ksec wrote:
| In the thread "Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges"
| [1], I wrote about China'a hardware capability now going far
| beyond what US can imagine. In Dan's article;
|
| >A rule of thumb is that it takes five years from an American,
| German, or Japanese automaker to dream up a new car design and
| launch that model on the roads; in China, it's closer to 18
| months.
|
| Not only is China 3 - 5 times faster in terms of product
| launches, they would have launch it with a production scale that
| is _at least double_ the output of other auto marker. If you were
| to put capacity into the equation as well, China is an order of
| magnitude faster than any competing countries, at half the cost
| if not even lower.
|
| Every single year since 2022 China has added more solar power
| capacity than the entire US solar capacity. And they are _still
| accelerating_ , with the current roadmap and trend they could
| install _double_ the entire US solar power capacity in a single
| year by 2030.
|
| CATL's Sodium Ion Battery is already in production and will be
| used by EVs and large scale energy storage by end of this year.
| The cost advantage of these new EV would mean there is partially
| zero chance EU can compete. And if EU are moaning about it now,
| they cant even imagine what is coming.
|
| Thanks to AI pushing up memory and NAND price. YMTC and CXMT now
| have enough breathing room to catch up. If they play this right,
| I wont be surprised by 2035 30 - 40% of DRAM and NAND will be
| made by the two Chinese firms. Although judging from their past
| execution record I highly doubt this will happen, but expect may
| be 10-15% maximum.
|
| Beyond tech, there are also other part of manufacturing that
| China has matched or exceeded rest of the world without being
| noticed by many. Lab Grown Diamond, Cosmetic Production,
| Agricultural Machinery, Reinforced glass etc. Their 10 years plan
| on agricultural improvement also come to fruition especially in
| terms of fruit and veg. I wont be surprised if they no long need
| US soy bean within 10 years time.
|
| All in all a lot of things in China has passed escape velocity
| and there is no turning back. China understand US better than US
| understand themselves, and US doesn't even have any idea about
| China. I think the quote from the article sums this up pretty
| well.
|
| " _Beijing has been preparing for Cold War without eagerness for
| waging it, while the US wants to wage a Cold War without
| preparing for it._ ".
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46273326
| nradov wrote:
| China doesn't particularly need US soybeans but they're going
| to have to continue importing soybeans from somewhere (like
| Brazil or Canada) indefinitely. Like any commodity, soybeans
| are (somewhat) fungible. China doesn't have the right
| combination of arable land and cheap fertilizer necessary to be
| self-sufficient in soy at an economically viable cost. Of
| course, China's population is now declining so ironically that
| could increase their food security in a few decades.
| maxglute wrote:
| Along ops reasoning, PRC will find domestic slop to feed
| pigs. There's already soybean replacement program in the
| pipelines, i.e. synthetic science + cheap power = future
| industrial substitutes. Because soybean conundrum is arable
| land (all sorts of soybean yield, lack of GMO, small plot
| farmer complexity mixed in), but pork prices fall under broad
| food (national) security so expect autarky > comparative
| advantage / cost when domestic pipeline in place. Like
| there's no reason for PRC to pay US soybean premium over
| Brazil, but they would because economic viability not as
| important.
|
| TBH Anything strategic, expect PRC to adopt energy-to-matter
| to substitutes when the teach stack is figured out. Or at
| least have as less economic backup, i.e. PRC has unlimited
| cheap fertilizer (was top fertilizer producer via coal
| gasification) just more emission heavy. They're on way to
| displace all oil imports with coal to olefin/liquidation and
| EV. HQ steel via simply hammering energy into mid ores. All
| signs point they're moving towards strategic domestic
| abundance / autarky where they can.
| riku_iki wrote:
| that's obvious that some country with 1.5B working people will
| have edge in some niches, and will demonstrate tremendous
| growth from the bottom where they were 20 years ago.
|
| But for global picture, if we are comparing Western World:
| US+Canada+EU vs China in technological domination, the picture
| is likely not super-clear and more complex analysis is
| required. Even if we consider manufacturing output, where China
| is supposedly global leader, we see it is 5.5T for Western
| world vs 4.6T for China (according to my brief google
| searching).
| ceuk wrote:
| As a Brit, I struggled to get much interesting out of this
| considering how many times he mentions "Europe" (in that
| condescendingly general way that only US folks seem to manage).
|
| He talks about "European" prospects and his trip to Denmark but
| then cites London as a representative example?
|
| This almost broke my brain it felt so incoherent.
|
| Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even part
| of the EU (which I assume is what he means by "Europe"). _Surely_
| he knows what an anomaly London is? It 's not representative of
| anything except itself.
|
| Referencing the extreme wage dispersion and severe housing
| pressure of London in a rant about Europe in general is a
| completely pointless endeavour.
|
| He did say one thing I agree with. If you like good food, rich
| culture and great surroundings, "Europe" is indeed a lovely place
| to be for the most part.
|
| Maybe I'll just keep that as my takeaway. It's too early in the
| year for doom and gloom anyway
| yunnpp wrote:
| "Africa"
| xixixao wrote:
| He's writing about China and US. Sure, you can call Europe more
| diverse, but still it makes sense to draw some generalizations,
| and I don't think he's far from the mark (having myself lived
| in EU, UK and US).
| BrokenCogs wrote:
| It's pretty clear he meant Europe as the continent, which
| London is a part of.
|
| It's very similar to "Europeans" broadly generalizing the US as
| one homogenous country, assuming everyone and everything in
| Chicago is the same as New York or Dallas.
|
| Source: me, a brit, who has lived and worked in UK and US.
| npalli wrote:
| Just like San Francisco and Dallas/Texas (from his article) are
| very different in the US, we should expect lot of differences
| in Europe (as others mentioned, he clubs UK with EU). Housing
| is a general problem for all major cities though, not sure why
| you think it is unique to London in the whole continent.
| Stockholm, Paris, Dublin, Lisbon to name a few, are pretty bad
| for housing in their own unique ways. Certainly shouldn't be
| "breaking your brain".
| verbify wrote:
| > Just like San Francisco and Dallas/Texas (from his article)
| are very different in the US, we should expect lot of
| differences in Europe
|
| Dallas and San Francisco are both English speaking cities
| with a shared recent history of being part of the same
| nation. Most cities in Europe are as close as New York and
| Mexico City - Dallas and San Francisco is probably more
| analogous to Milan and Naples (different cultures, different
| histories, but now speak the same language and are part of
| the same nation).
| kubb wrote:
| He's a Chinese guy in the US. He thinks in terms of large
| monoliths. The nuance of 40 different cultures on a small
| continent might be lost on him.
|
| That's OK.
|
| We all have some approximation of reality in our brains which
| is necessarily shaped by our life experiences.
| kankerlijer wrote:
| There is something very irritating seeing someone dismiss
| someone else on the internet using condescending therapy
| speak 'Thats Ok', nevermind the fact that calling him out as
| some ignorant Chinese guy while China has hundreds of
| cultures and languages, as if a Chinese person couldn't
| comprehend... Europe.
| kubb wrote:
| The way to respect isn't through shaming people into it.
| It's through demonstration of value, in this case
| understanding of nuance.
|
| Instead we get an application of external logic and values
| which can't be used to properly reason about the entity
| they're applied to.
|
| There's no need for frustration. We take the stoic approach
| here. It's OK. You are a product of your environment.
| Everything you've ever experienced told you this is the way
| to act.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > The nuance of 40 different cultures on a small continent
| might be lost on him.
|
| I don't know about the author in particular, but Americans
| are generally aware of the "nuanced" European history of near
| constant war between rival nations, states, factions, and
| religions.
| kubb wrote:
| I think they could do a better job communicating that, but
| I'm glad that Americans are educated and curious about
| other parts of the world.
| ViktorRay wrote:
| Your statement here is pretty ironic.
|
| China also has many different cultures, languages and so on
| for the over 1.4 billion people who live there. Why would the
| "nuance" of Europe be "lost" on a Chinese person?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| China mostly has a single national identity, and provincial
| differences are way too nuanced to be mapped in the same
| way that country differences in Europe would be. It would
| be like trying to get Americans to understand that "Henan
| man" is a meme similar to the "Florida man" meme.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even
| part of the EU (which I assume is what he means by "Europe").
|
| Nah, Americans aren't particularly interested in which
| Europeans are offended by being identified as "Europeans" this
| week. If we say "Europe" without qualification we're probably
| just talking about the continent. (And no, we don't even use
| the word "continent" as a distinction within Europe, except
| when referring to hotel breakfasts.)
|
| Americans don't really have much of a concept of what European
| identity is, and we don't really care (other than being
| grateful for a few decades of relative peace after 1,000 or so
| years of near constant war).
| ceuk wrote:
| > Americans don't really have much of a concept of what
| European identity is, and we don't really care
|
| Cool. Look, I made that comment with a lot of fondness, but
| if this is the case, maybe leave the European analysis to
| someone else..
| maxglute wrote:
| He's a Canadian in America writing about China. He writes about
| bloc strategic competition. EU+UK is treated as bloc in this
| context, individual European countries are generally irrelevant
| alone.
| siavosh wrote:
| I read the whole post. Really revealing - so much analysis but
| not a single mention of a global system that is reaching a
| singularity in wealth concentration, and maybe how that might be
| an important dimension to reflect on. Its like using so many
| words to deeply analyze the speed differentials in a car race,
| but not looking up to see that all the drivers are racing towards
| a brick wall.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| A wealth singularity is not obvious at all to me, perhaps you
| should write an essay about it.
| kalkin wrote:
| I have nonspecific positive associations with Dan Wang's name, so
| I rolled my eyes a bit but kept going when "If the Bay Area once
| had an impish side, it has gone the way of most hardware
| tinkerers and hippie communes" was followed up by "People aren't
| reminiscing over some lost golden age..."
|
| But I stopped at this:
|
| > "AI will be either the best or the worst thing ever." It's a
| Pascal's Wager
|
| That's not what Pascal's wager is! Apocalyptic religion dates
| back more than two thousand years and Blaise Pascal lived in the
| 17th century! When Rosa Luxemburg said to expect "socialism or
| barbarism", she was not doing a Pascal's Wager! Pascal's Wager
| doesn't just involve infinite stakes, but also infinitesimal
| probabilities!
|
| The phrase has become a thought-terminating cliche for the sort
| of person who wants to dismiss any claim that stakes around AI
| are very high, but has too many intellectual aspirations to just
| stop with "nothing ever happens." It's no wonder that the author
| finds it "hard to know what to make of" AI 2027 and says that
| "why they put that year in their title remains beyond me."
|
| It's one thing to notice the commonalities between some AI doom
| discourse and apocalyptic religion. It's another to make this
| into such a thoughtless reflex that you also completely muddle
| your understanding of the Christian apologetics you're
| referencing. There's a sort of determined refusal to even grasp
| the arguments that an AI doomer might make, even while writing an
| extended meditation on AI, for which I've grown increasingly
| intolerant. It's 2026. Let's advance the discourse.
| almostdeadguy wrote:
| > I believe that Silicon Valley possesses plenty of virtues. To
| start, it is the most meritocratic part of America. Tech is so
| open towards immigrants that it has driven populists into a froth
| of rage. It remains male-heavy and practices plenty of
| gatekeeping. But San Francisco better embodies an ethos of
| openness relative to the rest of the country. Industries on the
| east coast -- finance, media, universities, policy -- tend to
| more carefully weigh name and pedigree.
|
| I believe I read that 27% of the founders in the YC Spring 25
| class went to an Ivy League school and 40% previously worked at a
| magnificent 7 company. I'm not saying this is any worse than the
| east coast, but so much for name and pedigree not mattering.
|
| Northern California is what it always has been: the barrier wall
| of manifest destiny, where instead of crossing the ocean the
| pioneers and all subsequent generations stayed to incubate the
| same incentives, and have been relentlessly in pursuit of the
| next gold rush. Gold, yellow journalism, semiconductors, personal
| computing, SaaS, crypto, AI, etc. It's the sink drain attractor
| of people looking to improve their fortunes in one way or
| another, but almost always around some kind of bonanza of
| concentrated opportunity. The concept of it being "meritocratic"
| is a rephrasing of ideology that's always existed about the
| region: you too could get rich here. But I don't really see any
| difference in the networks of power that exist in SV as do the
| rest of the country.
|
| I grew up in the bay area and am far happier living outside it.
| I'm happier to be in a place where art and the humanities are
| valued instead of cast aside as immaterial or silly or a
| distraction. I'm happier to live in a place where people have
| varied interests instead of orienting their life around whatever
| the prevailing Big Thing is.
|
| > So the 20-year-olds who accompanied Mr. Musk into the
| Department of Government Efficiency did not, I would say,
| distinguish themselves with their judiciousness. The Bay Area has
| all sorts of autistic tendencies. Though Silicon Valley values
| the ability to move fast, the rest of society has paid more
| attention to instances in which tech wants to break things. It is
| not surprising that hardcore contingents on both the left and the
| right have developed hostility to most everything that emerges
| from Silicon Valley.
|
| I see some positive aspects as to more inclusive definitions of
| autism and neurodivergence, but I hate that we're at the point
| where "trying to get rich at all costs" is now perceived as
| autistic (and let's be clear: using mobile gas turbines that get
| people sick to generate power for AI is not "autistic"). Greed is
| not autistic, but of course the ideology of SV is that nobody
| actually cares about money there. Why else would they have
| apartments without furniture and piles of pizza boxes. It must be
| the autism.
|
| > While critics of AI cite the spread of slop and rising power
| bills, AI's architects are more focused on its potential to
| produce surging job losses. Anthropic chief Dario Amodei takes
| pains to point out that AI could push the unemployment rate to 20
| percent by eviscerating white-collar work. I wonder whether this
| message is helping to endear his product to the public.
|
| The animating concern of developing AI since 2015 has basically
| been "MAD" applied to the technology. The Bostrom book mentioned
| later in this article was clearly instrumental in creating this
| language to think about AI, as you can see many tech CEOs began
| getting "concerned" about AI around this time, prior to many of
| the big developments in AI like transformers. One of the seminal
| emails of OpenAI between Musk and Altman talks about starting a
| "Manhattan Project for AI". This was a useful concept to graft
| the development of these companies onto:
|
| 1. Firstly, it's a threat to investors. Get in on the ground
| floor or you will get left behind. We are building tomorrow's
| winners and losers and there are a lot of losers in the future.
|
| 2. Secondly, it leads to a natural source of government support.
| This is a national security concern. Fund this, guarantee the
| success of this, or America will lose.
|
| On both counts, this framing seems to be working pretty well.
| RagnarD wrote:
| To my surprise I found myself reading the entire rather long
| piece. His thoughts on AI, San Francisco, China, and other
| topics, are well worth the time.
| constantcrying wrote:
| As a European, the commentary felt very biting and accurate. An
| entire continent defined by being smug about not being the USA.
| Where not competing is seen as a great virtue and where
| significant parts of the electorate are actively voting against
| fixing the glaringly obvious problems.
|
| The supposed niceness of the cities also is just not true. Many
| European cities are awful places. Where, maybe with the exception
| of a few tourist areas, you will only find dirty streets, rows of
| old apartment building regularly smeared with graffiti, shops
| selling used phones and vapes and food stores competing over who
| can sell the cheapest, still edible Kebab.
| xandrius wrote:
| You haven't been much around outside of Europe then.
|
| And given what is currently coming out of the US in terms of
| worldwide cultural impact, I'm ok to be anti-whatever that is.
| performative wrote:
| he makes enough odd claims about cities and countries in the
| beginning that i can only assume aren't really meant to be taken
| seriously, so i'm at a bit of a loss for how i should be reading
| this
| maxglute wrote:
| >But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese
| problems
|
| Dan still one of the sharper PRC writers, but like all analysts
| who moves from PRC to stateside, he used to be Canadian in China
| writing about China to US, now Canadian writing in US about
| China, Dan starts peddling Murican dynamism cope, maybe something
| in the water. i.e. see his his post breakneck Chinatalk
| interview: Humorless engineering governance can't beat very funny
| Trump/US governance is... certainly a take. Maybe he should do
| his audience a favor and elucidate why boring competent engineer
| government is less dynamic/resilient than lawyers other than
| elections can pivot fast to reduce lawyers (kek) and something
| something and see see pee can't pivot fast to make productive
| innovative libtards, since seeseepee STEM can't innovate. Because
| as we know fast 4 year election cycles work better than slow 5
| year plans. CCP certain needs 50% more lawyers... to slow it
| down.
| gaaz wrote:
| 0
| AJRF wrote:
| Great read. I listened to Dan on Tyler Cowen's podcast and found
| him to be a very interesting thinker. He has the air of someone
| who is a lot more intellectually honest than a lot of our pundits
| (Tyler is pretty good though, he's not that target of this
| comment)
| OGEnthusiast wrote:
| Spot on by Dan as always, especially about the decline of Europe
| and the rise of China.
| ralph84 wrote:
| The Europe of today is the result of 400 years of brain drain. It
| would take generations to reverse the effects, if anyone even
| wanted to.
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