Miscellaneous News

theorlonator said:

I think the numbers for China need to be qualified. STEM PhDs making 11k USD a month versus senior software engineers making like 3-4k a month.

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It was a lot higher from companies like Alibaba and Byte Dance before the internet company crack downs. The thing is, if left on its own, software makes tons of money because the input costs are minimal (basically just cloud hosting & software engineers). It doesn’t have the material & equipment costs of manufacturing and if you get people to work from home you can even save on facility costs. On the other hand, it generates tons of money from advertisement and selling services. So you can afford high salaries.

In this respect the crack downs were necessary to get high quality graduates to focus on sectors like advanced manufacturing, but there will obviously be costs to fields like AI and service platform development because now not as many people are going into them. If the current situation holds China will likely beat the US and allies in hardware but lose in software, which is an okay trade I guess

PiSigma said:

I'm a process engineer working in O&G, and makes 150k+ a year, not including bonuses. Another cousin of mine works for Facebook as a project engineer, he got a PhD in materials, and makes 200k/y. His wife who got a master's in CS makes around 150k.

The problem is you are looking at averages, I got a ton of cousins that I actual knows how much they make.

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I'm in semiconductor equipment R&D. The average $80k-$120k USD range is roughly correct overall. Facebook has plenty of monopoly money to throw around both from investors and from occupying a monopoly position. All the money that a company like Applied Materials, Micron, Naura, YMTC, etc. makes is hard earned. There is no flood of investor money to fill the gap if sales decline and competition is surprisingly fierce for something as complex and high barrier to entry as this.

The total market size for semiconductor equipment ($100 billion) is smaller than Facebook's revenue ($116 billion).



This is why it's clown world. The entire semiconductor equipment sector's importance is probably a bit more important to the world than Facebook.

BoraTas said:

That sounds about right. Some people in tech do earn a lot but $150k is not common at all. And I don't think Silicon Valley is a good place to live.

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this is why its clown world. highly educated scientists and engineers, contributing to hard technological progress, the modern day equivalent of medieval artisans, are now making less than fresh grads working for the modern day equivalent of tax collectors and landlords.

Said fresh grads push shit like pronouns, etc. down our throats etc while fiercely protecting their corporate masters and working 5 hours a week with fucking jacuzzi pools on site while people like us are lucky to get a corporate lunch once a month.

Imagine what happens to medieval kings who richly reward the tax collectors and landlords, while paying their knights and armor smiths shit and their peasants nothing.

Maybe France should end the riots first. It is scaring off tourists from China. As for level playing field, I think China prefers Chinese tourists stay home.

It basically like the farmers and stores in a sense. You grow the cotton and they sell it for a 1000% markup as a luxury ripped jeans.

KYli said:

After sanctioning hundreds of Chinese firms and then arresting and deporting tens of thousands of Chinese citizens, Ambassador Burns now feel it is wrong for China to retaliate and reciprocate in kinds. I think Ambassador Burns should be focused on the upcoming China's full retaliation. I do think China is running out of patient and getting ready to more decoupling.

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Ambassador Burns is like that alone old man shouting at the clouds meme

The moment Xi was officially appointed to his 3rd term it was all over for the US. A clear shift has happened since Xi publicly accused the US for containing China. The West is probably trying to reverse that, "just a prank bro!", but the cat is already out of the bag now. Good luck

FairAndUnbiased said:

I'm in semiconductor equipment R&D. The average $80k-$120k USD range is roughly correct overall. Facebook has plenty of monopoly money to throw around both from investors and from occupying a monopoly position. All the money that a company like Applied Materials, Micron, Naura, YMTC, etc. makes is hard earned. There is no flood of investor money to fill the gap if sales decline and competition is surprisingly fierce for something as complex and high barrier to entry as this.

The total market size for semiconductor equipment ($100 billion) is smaller than Facebook's revenue ($116 billion).

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This is why it's clown world. The entire semiconductor equipment sector's importance is probably a bit more important to the world than Facebook.

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It's kinda like the oil industry: because of it's importance to numerous areas, anybody working in it is guaranteed to make $$. Most fields nowadays requires digital software, and FAANG companies monopolize this digital infrastructure to reach sky-high profits. If you want to make anything at scale, better call up Microsoft Azure or AWS. Of course, the FAANG workers all get a small cut for their assistance and collaboration.

And if you think FAANG workers make $$, wait till you see how much $$ people that control the financial, legal and medical infrastructure of the US make. Meanwhile, science and engineering must make do with what they have.

I wonder if FAANG working conditions would cause other scientists and engineers to demand better working conditions though. USA has a lot of money to go around and some of it should go to workers contributing to cutting-edge technology.

FairAndUnbiased said:

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Never have any illusions. The suppression goes back to the Bush administration.

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It is what President Nixon said, that he told his closest advisors that if they look at the situation in Asia, China was the one causing most, to all, of the problems for the Americans.

President Nixon was kind of popular outside of the West and America. Once he visited the Middle East, and the crowds cheered him. They threw a shoe a Dubya.

Today, China is America's biggest problem, but not in Asia anymore, lol. President Nixon was clever enough to find a way to co-exist with China, and still in mix with the Cold War against the Soviets.

Not sure what the Americans are doing today.



The relationship, the Obama and Dubya, just a long line in the post war Sino-US relations, from Dulles refusing to shake Zhou Enlai hand, to the Korean War, to the Vietnam War, the Sino-Soviet split, to Deng's reforms, to the Clinton era where China joined the WTO under US auspicious, then the meteoric rise of China since that time Deng opened up to the world, and including 1 Asian Financial Crisis in 1997-8, 1 Great Recession 2008, and one pandemic 2020, China still going strong.

China had never changed all this time, in its view of foreign relations. How the US China relations evolved was really all up to the Americans. Also, it was obvious at the time, that all the deals and agreements, between the US and China, there was an unspoken belief on both sides, who will get the better of the deal. The Americans of course was USA all the way, that China will change.

The day finally arrived, with the election of President Trump, that the US realized that China will not change, even with all that underhanded and overt attempts by the Americans to make China change, over the previous decades.

That is why I believe a war between the US and China, is possible but a long shot.

Why is the US going to fight China? To make it change?

horse said:

It is what President Nixon said, that he told his closest advisors that if they look at the situation in Asia, China was the one causing most, to all, of the problems for the Americans.

President Nixon was kind of popular outside of the West and America. Once he visited the Middle East, and the crowds cheered him. They threw a shoe a Dubya.

Today, China is America's biggest problem, but not in Asia anymore, lol. President Nixon was clever enough to find a way to co-exist with China, and still in mix with the Cold War against the Soviets.

Not sure what the Americans are doing today.



The relationship, the Obama and Dubya, just a long line in the post war Sino-US relations, from Dulles refusing to shake Zhou Enlai hand, to the Korean War, to the Vietnam War, the Sino-Soviet split, to Deng's reforms, to the Clinton era where China joined the WTO under US auspicious, then the meteoric rise of China since that time Deng opened up to the world, and including 1 Asian Financial Crisis in 1997-8, 1 Great Recession 2008, and one pandemic 2020, China still going strong.

China had never changed all this time, in its view of foreign relations. How the US China relations evolved was really all up to the Americans. Also, it was obvious at the time, that all the deals and agreements, between the US and China, there was an unspoken belief on both sides, who will get the better of the deal. The Americans of course was USA all the way, that China will change.

The day finally arrived, with the election of President Trump, that the US realized that China will not change, even with all that underhanded and overt attempts by the Americans to make China change, over the previous decades.

That is why I believe a war between the US and China, is possible but a long shot.

Why is the US going to fight China? To make it change?

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Ok this would be two parts

It's Ego, Obvious reasons like economic hegemony and racial insecurity aside there is a firm belief in the west that their ways are superior if you want material prosperity China's peaceful rise is a slap on that, Until now colonization was seen as a necessary evil just like how democracy was seen as a prerequisite for civilian prosperity and the biggest argument against other ideologies that's gone now it's not a coincidence that global south doesn't take western think tanks opinions on them that seriously anymore that monopolistic hold over the narrative is gone and once China becomes a high income country it would be really hard to justify colonization anymore as a prosperous China would be the living proof that all those atrocities were uncalled for and unnecessary which would result in the current western control over global opinions to face existential threat a void China will conveniently fill in and become the de facto culture everyone would look up to and want to assimilate a privilege Anglo-European culture enjoys today

eprash said:

Ok this would be two parts

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Yes, I agree.

However, I would like to put another spin on it. More of an old school view. Say the same, but slightly different way.

What you're talking about, is basically imperialism. Same old Western Imperialism. But a little more sophisticated nowadays.

Here, we should not have any illusions of what China doing.

In the history of imperialism, how do we defeat the imperialist? History kind of shows the big imperialist can only be defeated by an even bigger and powerful imperialist.

So here is China, going around the world, trying to open markets and make deals, all on the win-win premise, and each country should develop in its unique ways.

The Americans know China is out to get American imperialism.

So how to stop China and its win-win deals?

They cannot figure it out, and the Americans have no China strategy.