This dismissal is quite shallow. Yes, it matters politically - but that has enormous downstream repercussions. China beating us to the Moon helps reinforce the narrative that the American century of global dominance is over, and China is the new superpower that is unseating it. The implications of that would go well beyond politics.
You don't win that fight by sending a few folks to the moon.
You win it using the playbook the CCP has been systematically and very successfully implementing for a few decades. They are very good at long-term planning. The US plans in 4-year (or 8-year) cycles, and often times reverse course completely at the end of those.
You know what else has real world economic consequences? Dead astronauts.
I'm all for reinvigorating the global economy with a resurgence in scientific investment, but it only works if we do it patiently. China understands that, the CCP is quite capable of national planning that transcends administrations. You can't force a moon landing like it's a political OKR, if you do then you better have a pretty solid Plan B considering the amount of risk it represents.
Thez certainly have some Falcon 9 clones in full scale testing - would not he surprised if they have it working in a year or two, there is just too much money on the table.
Small sample, but in New Orleans, the US isn't even capable of maintenance.
I'm a tourist at the moment and everything looks like it is falling apart. The existing roading infrastructure is crumbling (apparently there's an Instagram about the worst examples). Everywhere I've driven, the roads are worse than earthquake hit Christchurch. Yet there is so much amazing old infrastructure that reeks of massive past investment.
Commonly I see power poles listing tipsily (or even broken); cable wires loose or hanging.
One bridge over the Mississippi has rust patches everywhere and needs a paint.
Is it just New Orleans, or a more general issue across the US?
New Orleans is built on top of a fishbowl-shaped sponge, as far as its foundational land is concerned. Road repair costs reflect this, but of course the other side of the coin is the decades worth of local government corruption here that makes any major progressive infrastructure changes feel like a perpetual pipe dream. At the same time though, it's one of the most beautiful cities in the country for endless historical + cultural reasons. You could say New Orleans is a highly concentrated gumbo of both the "good" and "bad" of some uniquely American ingredients. I love it here and hate it here; I get jealous when I visit other cities, but then I greatly miss home. Weird place.
For what it's worth, it's not quite so bad everywhere. In New England infrastructure decays faster due to the weather, so most of our infrastructure is more frequently maintained or replaced. There's definitely some blighted areas, but the image of quaint New England towns with covered bridges is not a lie, and gentrification has caused local governments in our richer cities to invest more in infrastructure. This leads to a dramatic difference in appearance between e.g. New Orleans and Boston.
The way things are funded in the US is pretty crazy. New projects usually rely on federal government grants, but that money normally can't pay for maintenance. So states and cities have to pay for their own maintenance. The federal government just prints new money for these new projects.
Everything is so car oriented and spread out, that there isn't enough value to tax to pay for the maintenance on all the spread out infrastructure. So states and cities are always on the brink of default, scrambling to maintain all this stuff.
I live in New Orleans (happy to meet for a coffee!) one thing to keep in mind is that the roads cost $7 million a mile to pave because of the subsurface.
I'd love to meet for a morning or midday coffee. I've got a temp number here - which I've put in my HN profile. Personally I like coffee from Marzocco espresso machines - my local cafe here is Cherry Coffee Roasters in Gretna, but I'm happy to meet anywhere in the city with parking or within 2 hours drive of the city.
Happy to meet anyone else too.
Background: I'm a geeky type open to everybody; I don't like being judgemental. Travelling because I retired as soon as I had the minimum necessary to have a basic house plus a small retirement fund (as soon as the SaaS company I helped found could meet that goal). I picked LA to travel to because I liked the sarcasm and honesty I received here previously. To avoid disappointment: I have an awesome girlfriend so I'm not fishing for a date.
Edit: Please resend. I looked at iMessage settings and I needed to also enable my US number for iMessage. Not sure that was the problem but it seems like a reasonable guess.
Was: Didn't get any SMS or iMessage and I've got no idea why. I've double checked everything, and I just forced Amazon to send me a verification SMS which I received on that number. I admit so far I've only had heartache with iMessage screw ups. Maybe due to dual eSIM : I have my roaming NZ number for SMS "two-factor" verifications and NZ calls, and my Metro/T-Mobile for data and US calls. I am avoiding doxxing myself since HN publishing feels so permanent. How about you reply here with a time and place for Thursday or Friday? I will check in the morning. I don't know why I'm continually surprised by my modern tech roadbumps -- I see everyone else struggle (regardless of age or skill)!
Edit extra: I really don't understand why it doesn't fallback to SMS if the number isn't enabled in iMessage... I'll also do a test tomorrow noonish from a friend's US phone. I've used dual SIM before without problems, but always in countries with lots of Androids, so I didn't need iMessage setting because SMS worked (and in other countries there's often a different messaging app that everyone uses so maybe I wouldn't notice iMessage failing)
Ironically. You could be right about the 200 suppliers in China, except that Huawei in this case IS actually one of the few trustable Chinese companies.
Taiwan is not a country in China's eyes. Technically Taiwan is really not a country but works like one since 1949. If you follow Winnie the Poh closely enough, he has claimed "Taiwan problem will not be passed onto next generation". My personal estimate is that Taiwan will be taken by force within 20 years.
Do you feel it'd be an amphibious invasion would be a bit of a pyrrhic victory within 20 years? I feel like the PRC would be unpopular with the citizens of Taiwan and not look good internationally.
My impression is that the PRC was sabre-rattling to rally the public.
PRC appears to be unpopular with significant numbers of Hong Kong residents and it most definitely didn't look good internationally. That doesn't necessarily stop them from taking power.
If Taiwan is not a country but a Chinese province, why is China ashamed of it? A province famous for electronic industry and very successful against global pandemic.
Ads are somewhat like propaganda. There's no proving it will work or not in short terms, but nobody can deny that persistent propaganda has a long-term effect on the whole population. You have think about a kid/youth who listens to some propaganda for years when growing up. If say you show an ad for a new Apple product. A small part of it is to inform consumers about it, the longer larger part is to enforce the Apple brand which has been happening over many years. You can't say well it is not quite working so let's stop doing Ads.
Did you know how such a whole number of one million come to be? Apparently eight persons were asked about their heresay and then someone extend the result to the whole population of xinjiang..
I guess this kind of news paints the wrong picture, or more likely to believe in this kind of thing. The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (like an internship for students) and get _paid_ the market salary. Yes they were forced to have a job that they can potentially do (the work conditions are like other "normal" apple factory workers). If they decline, well they need to go back to the "school"..
> The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (like an internship for students) and get _paid_ the market salary. Yes they were forced to have a job that they can potentially do (the work conditions are like other "normal" apple factory workers). If they decline, well they need to go back to the "school"..
This news makes it more likely to believe in this kind of thing.
> The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (like an internship for students) and get _paid_ the market salary. Yes they were forced to have a job that they can potentially do (the work conditions are like other "normal" apple factory workers). If they decline, well they need to go back to the "school"..
Unfortunately, the free flow of uncensored news has made you aware of something I don't want you to know.
These people are no help to themselves, and do not want to do what the government tells them to do, even though it would be greatly beneficial. They are monitored, of course, as all radicals should be. The US has no right to complain. After all, they also have useless, dirty homeless people, which are pretty much the same thing.. Furthermore, these prisoners are even paid for their work! What more do they want!?
If they decline, they should be sent back to their interment camps.
Thanks, that lays the idea better than I can. But some of it was misunderstood, or perhaps I used the wrong words. Most of what you said is truthful to my original comment.
Let me share a bit more from my experience living in China for 20 years. In China, taking street people (mostly beggars or orphans who were used by gangs as pick-pockets or whatnot) into custody is systematic for as long as I can remember. (There's news that this system is to be abolished in 2021 by a new law amendment.) It's systematic as there are full-time employees who job is to do this. It is considered "help" by the general society (but there could be abuses by bad actors for sure), the system has good intentions. Because they are not criminals, it's not exactly like prison but it is true that they are taken by force to go through a "program" where they need to listen to propaganda, be educated or trained for a certain skills (mostly factory jobs such as making toys, shoes etc.) and be forced to work at a given place for a certain period. The system is not perfect, it is outright offensive to "individual freedom" (where you are "free" to be just like the US homeless drug addicts). But it is net positive for the society by sacrificing some of these people who are unwilling to go through it.
This is just a small piece of what China calls "Wei Wen" ("maintain stability"). The employees who work on those people are more akin to what is called "social workers" in US. They are institutionalized to have a budget to pay for food and training costs and the work to look out for job opportunities for these people (frankly the factory owners generally don't want to employee these people). These employees make a government salary. The factory owners get frankly sloppy workers they don't like but have to cooperate with the government. But this type of work eventually pays off to society when many of these people get out of their old life tracks by having a job and skill where they can stop being beggars or thieves.
China is a society that traditionally (from its culture and also political ideology) values "the collective value" more than the individual value. It has always been the case, which is important to understand the mindset of the government and the Chinese society in general. The "unemploytables" constitute a "problem" to society, which must be solved. This is not much different than prostitution is a "problem" for most countries. If you follow Xi Jinping's rule and his propaganda (which I doubt), his big agenda for 2020 is to "eradicate" poverty, this makes it easier to understand what is really going on in Xin Jiang. Xin Jiang happens to be a place where both poverty and radicalism are intermingled, so their approach could be different than say, Gui Zhou province (where it's mostly poverty). But this year I've read so much from CCTV (CCP's media) that they lifted people from poverty by giving them "a means of living".
