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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   32647 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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According to simulations, US is almost always losing the war anyway because it has no good missile defense, not enough interceptors and all local bases are in range of Chinese missiles.

I expect by 2030 that the US stockpile of hypersonics will compare or exceed China's and the calculus will change considerably. The US machine moves more slowly but once it gains momentum it tends to get there.

Hypersonics are asymmetric. A hundred hypersonics flying toward CSG-7 have much more significant implications than a hundred flying to some missile battery in Shandong.

The US machine moves more slowly but once it gains momentum it tends to get there.

It was not the case back in the glory days of WW2. Today, it took Americans 15 years to solve oxygen issues in an oxygen generator for pilots.

The only possible case of this happening is if both are true a) US develops AI, and it's not a matter of compute but some special sauce (it has a proverbial moat). b) US manages to get around all the legal issues in expanding industry - endless wrangling over backyards, enviromental issues

If a) is not true, China will boost their manufacturing likewise. If b) is not true, US won't be able to expand its own manufacturing.

Also, unless AI at the level of hypersonic aviation researcher become available, China will have an edge population wise. Chinese aren't as imaginative but are less easily distracted - way more engineers. Furthermore, rivalry will drive out Chinese ethnic workers out of the US, quite likely.

It's other way around, every Chinese engineer with a 120 IQ is aiming to live comfortably in California rather than raise their kids in a totalitarian dystopia.

If anything, it further underlines how essential it is that we return California to a state of at least half-decent quarter-decent government. Last week's moderate sweep in SF gives me a sliver of hope.

Chinese engineers and scientists elect to live in the USA because you can make crazy amounts of money here. Style of government is rarely part of the decision function.

I know a lot of Chinese engineers and none of them are against the government, even though plenty have specific complaints here and there. Only one has taken up a hobby, hunting, that would be unavailable to him if he moved back.

Culturally they go along to get along but still most of their entertainment, food, and holidays are Chinese.

Used to be the case. Very much used to be the case. Not the case anymore. Lot of science talent has gone to China. Lot of white scientists have gone to China, where there's no DEI, and ideology in science is restricted to having students take a few hours monthly. They have no problem with insane school policies, homeless junkie schizos etc. China is cleaning up the air. Closing down old power plants, building up wind & solar in inner Mongolia, building new coal power plants with an eye to be converted to modular nuclear. They're currently in lead in nuclear reactor tech - having learned everything the West forgot, building up old & new types, more than the rest of the world combined. Cost of living is a lot lower in China, and wages are getting better.

Assuming you're american, China is extremely cheap, the RMB undervalued by 50%. You can go see for yourself. If you've got foreign SIM card, your internet isn't even gated behind the great firewall. With machine translation, you wouldn't even really be lost. Don't think they install shit on your phone unless you enter from one of the 'stans where they have an insurgent problem.

You could just go take a look. Or look around for someone who works there.

Guy here has a number of episodes interviewing whites who work or worked in China. https://www.manifold1.com/episodes

I've been more than a dozen times. Beneath the glossy exterior there's a society where everyone's fate is at the hands of a midwit apparatchik.

Moreover, the fate of your kids is dismal.

where everyone's fate is at the hands of a midwit apparatchik.

... who do you think caused European energy policy ?

Midwit unaccountable apparatchiks ruining entire continents is SOP. Germany's disastrous energy policy started when the fucking Greens got two secretaries or undersecretaries to the ministry of economy, iirc, cca 2000.

Try to show me Energiewende, based on wishful thinking, was sound policy. It wasn't. It was pie in the sky, cost must falls, we'll make it nonsense, that led to what everyone predicted. Sky high energy prices, burning more coal, spending megabucks on keeping standby plants running so you don't have brownouts.

Yet that doomed an entire continent. No one was ever asked.

I ask you again who in the US wanted infinity migration and 7% of population of Haiti moved in?

At least the CCP has somewhat sound priorities: having power and getting rich. Not turning China into Brazil with worse weather.

Oh, I totally agree on midwit policy makers.

I do think there is a funny kind of duality here -- in the west some moron can wreck your country but at least you can't personally be thrown in a dungeon for making fun of a politician on social media.

Unless you're in Britain.

It's other way around, every Chinese engineer with a 120 IQ is aiming to live comfortably in California rather than raise their kids in a totalitarian dystopia.

This doesn't seem to track to me. Aren't a lot more Chinese students electing to go back to China rather than stay in the U.S. these days?

From my experience, many Chinese people really enjoy Chinese culture and want to live there over the US even though US wages are much better. Maybe 20 years ago things were different, but China is a lot nicer place to live in now.

Another thing to consider is that a single Chinese-born man living in the US has bleak dating prospects.

Sure, the supply of Chinese students graduating exceeds demand. But there are a couple million around LA man.

Plus, they can make beautiful wasian babies.

We can't even produce enough shells for ukraine. It's explosive in a metal container, how hard could it be? And on the other end of the scale we can't produce enough ships, and also some of the ones we do produce are garbage, and we don't have enough sailors to properly man said ships. I don't see much reason to be more optimistic about the shiny new thing.

It could be worse. Here's what things are like in the Indian Navy.

But yeah, the idea that the US is capable of outproducing China is comical.

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