This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Sure, the US does do this but not quite at the scale and commitment China's working at. How much money has the US promised on the CHIPS act? Tens of billions. Is the US willing to build nuclear plants? Not really. Other considerations come before aggressive implementation of technology. Musk has to file his environmental impact statements before launching his rockets.
China is spending in the hundreds of billions on chips. They're building the most nuclear plants in the world. They've got a huge industrial policy machine, they really put in effort when it comes to technology. When it comes to high-speed rail, they don't just talk about it, they build it. They don't care about environmental impact in China like they do in the US. Technology comes second only to communist party control.
The US still spends more on research but they're not exactly growing their research spending like China is:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?locations=US-CN
So long as the US economy has as much or more real growth than China- and there many reasons to believe it is- that is precisely what your own link indicates is happening.
Just at an initial look, both China and the US have been increasing their % of GDP to science at about the same rate for the last decade, with the US staying between .7 and 1% of GDP ahead of PRC. Not only would the US be spending nearly an entire % of GDP more, and not only would the GDP have grown faster, but the overall economy remains much larger, meaning the same % growth actually entails larger numbers of $ being spent.
Now, you could try to change the terms by arguing effective spending should be considered in PPP terms, and the general pro-China economic framing at the moment is to make PPP rather than nominal measures, but not only would you have to significantly re-do your money argument and support the implicit claim that science-per-PPP is a consistent metric worth using, you'd have to factor in the US's extended scientific partnerships with other countries, and how their money should be factored in.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link