Miscellaneous News

chgough34 said:

The fact that areas where China dominates aren’t the norm and need to be individually spelled out ends up proving the case. Otherwise, the presumption is that U.S. firms have the largest market shares and presence in any given sector. Chinas growth is catch-up growth (hence the slowdown in recent years) and thus can be expected to be faster than the U.S. for a fairly long period of time. Just diminishing returns to capital. As for the U.S. pushing the technological frontier - pretty topical that say, the U.S. was first to market with mRNA vaccines or LLMs and Nvidia GPUs are the talk of the town or U.S. oilfield/fracking technologies causing US oil production to increase substantially or U.S. cloud service providers having a near global monopoly, among countless others.

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That is a lot of word salad based on wrong assumptions. The presumption is not US companies having the largest market shares. The US hasn't competitive in automotive (you know, a little significant industry) for 30 years. Boeing is being outcompeted by Airbus and aerospace had been the crown jewel of American technological capabilities before that. When you actually think about this, you keep reaching major examples. The said presumption just exists in your head.

China's growth isn't explainable by catch-up either. Otherwise, it wouldn't still have a productivity growth above the developing world's average. Regardless of what think tankers write, what happened in China and South Korea before that was special. Look nowhere further than China's southwestern neighbor with similar population. They exited WW2 in a much better condition yet they currently are in a far worse state. Their growth and technological capabilities are also significantly weaker than what China had when it had the said neighbor's current GDPpc.

Note: Fracking is banned or severely restricted in most of the world. It has far less future use than renewables related tech which China leads in.

plawolf said:

Sounds suspiciously like the Afghan national army phantom soldiers debacle where imaginary workers are added to the headcount while the managers pocket the salaries while a literal calculator does the work.

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Or New York City's Grand Central East Side Access, which had 200 phantom workers being paid $1000 a day. The project was delayed by 14 years and cost more than 3x as originally planned.

No one likes to acknowledge examples of project waste, fraud and abuse. A simple audit was performed 13 years ago by an accountant who reviewed a budget for train platforms being constructed under Grand Central Terminal. The accountant found that funding was provided under the project budget to pay for 900 workers, but could only find paperwork to justify 700 workers.

No one could explain what tasks the other unaccounted for 200 workers performed. These 200 potential phantom employees were being paid $1,000 per day. They were subsequently removed from the payroll. No one ever determined how long they were on the payroll or how much they were paid. There is no evidence that these lost dollars were ever recovered.

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henrik said:

"But instead of closing the technological loop with pure automation and AI, the company also had to rely on an

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, who were acting as remote cashiers."

Do they mean they have Indians in India doing the manual calculation as consumers check out at their supermarkets in the US, instead of using their AI software?

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It appears that Amazon outsourced its Just Walk Out technology to Bharat Supapowar to provide the "AI".

Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped.”

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This is the world-beating AI technology by Bharat Supapowar that powers Amazon's Just Walk Out technology:


Jai Hind!

Amazon to customer: Thank you! You have been deducted $350.00 from your last checkout. Thank you for shopping with us.
Customer: What the hell? I thought I had only bought milk and cereals!

Randomuser said:

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I mean for a country that's supposed to be hostile with China, its the second highest in ASEAN that wants to visit China. Even Singapore with literal ethnic Chinese who can speak Mandarin isn't that high.

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Could be that China is just across the border for Vietnam.

Japan is an overwhelming favourite holiday destination in ASEAN. Could be from many things like soft power, perceived positive image, more tourist friendly culture, history of Japanese FDI in SEA, etc. Could be a hold over from the era that Japan led the whole of Asia in development. I think what really worked is that Japan has excellent marketing for its tourism industry. Many holiday agencies in SEA and social media influencers love to promote Japan. Despite South Korea's rise, it never truly emerged as an alternative destination to Japan. China can offer comparable, if not even superior tourism experience as Japan, but I think its marketing can be improved.

chgough34 said:

The fact that areas where China dominates aren’t the norm and need to be individually spelled out ends up proving the case.

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Sorry, what? This is what I wrote: "China already dominates in several high tech sectors, has parity with the West in many others while it's still catching up in some." What was individually spelled out? I put the 3 situations in parallel with each other; if you somehow thought that one isn't the norm (I guess you read English to mean whatever your imagination wants it to mean), then that means that all 3 possible scenerios are not the norm LOL

chgough34 said:

Otherwise, the presumption is that U.S. firms have the largest market shares and presence in any given sector.

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In any given sector? So all I have to do is pick some and you lose? You asked for these to be individually spelled out, ok?

5G telecom
Electronic vehicles and batteries
Rare Earth processing

Who has the largest market share and presense?

chgough34 said:

Chinas growth is catch-up growth (hence the slowdown in recent years) and thus can be expected to be faster than the U.S. for a fairly long period of time.

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Well, for the past, that was more and more true. It's less and less true now, with many leading tech sectors already in China's favor, but your conclusion that China will outgrow the US for a fairly long period of time is correct. Who cares about showing work as long as you got the right answer, right? LOL

chgough34 said:

Just diminishing returns to capital.

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Oh it's very very diminished especially when the US spends more resources trying to sabotage others than actually improving itself. That's a losing battle.

chgough34 said:

As for the U.S. pushing the technological frontier - pretty topical that say, the U.S. was first to market with mRNA vaccines or LLMs and Nvidia GPUs are the talk of the town or U.S. oilfield/fracking technologies causing US oil production to increase substantially or U.S. cloud service providers having a near global monopoly, among countless others.

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So according to your "logic," the one who feels the need to "individually spell out" fields where one's own country dominates actually ends up proving that said domination is not the norm, right? Is that what you said in your first sentence?

By the way, the talk of the town ain't Nvidia; it's always China, from its direct tech breakthroughs along the path to being the first and only nation to be semiconductor/lithography independent to just political moves such as banning US parts for its own government use. China's always on everyone's mind in America while it's own technological progress is on the minds of the Chinese.


Hey look at your Commerce Secretary panicking about China's innovation, outwardly stating that the US needs to use more underhanded tricks, asking for help cus she knows the US has no chance alone. You should try to calm her nerves, assure her that China's just catching up; it can't innovate. No need for her to do or say these embarrassing things, right? LOLOL

And that was before Huawei flipped her the bird.

Rumors are that Yellen is about to be the spokesperson for the upcoming Huawei P70

White House's Sullivan, recovering from cracked rib, postpones Saudi trip​

WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters) - White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has postponed

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this week as he recovers from a cracked rib following a minor accident, the White House said on Wednesday.
Sullivan had been due to hold talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid a U.S. push for progress toward normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

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The injury "has affected his ability to travel," White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. "This was a minor accident of his own. It was not caused by anybody. It was not the result of a nefarious act."

Kirby said Sullivan looks forward to rescheduling the trip, but did not provide a date.

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No more Covid excuses, now it's cracked ribs.

The most kind-hearted Wanwanese rebel separatist be like:

DuckDuckMoose said:

What a steaming pile of bull crap! Everytime I visit DC I need to hide every nook and cranny in my car since a friend of mine had his car broken into for something simple as a bottle of water. Once I can safely walk down the street with my headphones in then I'll consider believing it.

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Just use statistics

If it wasn't for Cartel violence, these places would be as safe as well-known havens like Johannesburg

They can't stop their addiction to Chinese products

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An analysis by Forescout shows 300,000 Chinese devices in the US, up 40% compared to the previous year, despite bans.


Forescout saw an increase from 10,000 China-made devices to 20,000 in the UK over the past year. An increase of 37% was seen in Australia and an increase of 67% was observed in Singapore. A drop of 14% has been seen in Canada, and a drop of 25% was seen in Germany over the past year.