by admp on 12/29/24, 7:06 PM with 154 comments
by wahisurf on 12/29/24, 7:51 PM
And dangerous, and won't last more than a few decades. Just watch some of the tofu dreg videos https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1eyUAZCb3sA
> There were very few foreigners. In Beijing I might have seen half a dozen cumulatively across entire seas of people
Most foreigners from US and Europe have left after the COVID lockdown - they've seen with their own eyes the true nature of authoritarian/dictatorship regime. Also, the closer relationship of Russia and China has many unable to stomach supporting a regime that attacks Ukraine, another democracy. The foreigners are now from Africa, Middle East, or Belt and Road countries.
> Outside of Shanghai, almost nobody spoke English.
This is why China will be irrelevant in a few decades, as it recedes into its own shell. When most export manufacturing will have moved to Southeast Asia, when domestic goods is preferred over foreign goods, when export dwindles due to sanctions and tariffs, when it gets harder to harder for average citizens to obtain passports. China will be closed off just like the 18th century, just how Xi Jing Ping wants it.
> many young people expressed feeling stressed or overwhelmed
Imagine that you just graduated, and no one is hiring in your fields. And you can only drive didi or meituan, but the pay is decreasing fast, and there are 20+ idle drivers at lunchtime every day, and you are only making $300/month. And next year, there will be another 12+ million graduates - the size of the entire population of Sweden. You are trying to look for a job in another country, but travelling outside the country is discouraged and passports are hard to get.
> The biggest surprise from talking to Chinese VCs people at AI labs was how capital constrained they felt
China’s startup scene is dead as investors pull out—’Today, we are like lepers’ https://fortune.com/2024/09/14/china-economy-startup-creatio...
by Animats on 12/29/24, 8:17 PM
Same problem the US has. Too much education for the job market. Only about half of US college graduates have jobs that actually need a college education. The last time China had this problem, Mao said "It is very necessary for the educated youth to go to the countryside and undergo re-education by poor peasants." 40 million students were rusticated.
Historically, this leads to unrest. Egypt hit this, with good education but, especially post oil boom, not many jobs that needed it.
by jackcampanella on 12/29/24, 8:05 PM
> It's a good reminder that what's lacking in life is not time. It's focus. If you're working on what matters, you can advance leaps and bounds in 8 hours. And if you're just clearing the slog, you can spend a lifetime staying in the same place.
This. Incredibly obvious yet incredibly difficult to put into practice day-to-day. Another underrated perk of traveling internationally. All of a sudden, trivial nonsense starts to reveal itself through absence, allowing you to sort accordingly - carries over when you're at your home-base as well.
by clpmsf on 12/29/24, 7:54 PM
by Leary on 12/29/24, 7:22 PM
Chinese: I'm not anti-west, just anti people who are anti-China
by nyokodo on 12/29/24, 7:53 PM
He never finishes this thought but moves on to a new topic. I want to know what he said in reply!
by sebmellen on 12/29/24, 7:16 PM
by arnvald on 12/29/24, 7:23 PM
I have never heard of Sam Harris, but are the other 3 the prominent examples of American intellectual ecosystem? I haven’t listened to them a lot, but in the couple examples of Friedman’s or Rogan’s podcast episodes I listened to, they let their guests say whatever anti-intellectual bs they wanted, without trying to correct the guests. Maybe I chose the wrong episodes?
by xg15 on 12/29/24, 8:17 PM
Without wanting to invalidate any of his points, but his use of "skyscraper" seems a bit inflationary if he includes 10 story apartment high-rises in it.
by max_ on 12/29/24, 7:37 PM
My problem with this podcast, is that the host talks too fast.
I have found this rushed "fast" talking amongst westerners, but few seem to complain about it. Any one else experience this?
by ksynwa on 12/29/24, 7:44 PM
This seems like a bit of a leap? Apart from zero covid, which I say is an exceptional scenario, I haven't heard of Chinese people socially controlled en masse into their home through use of force. The idea of military driving through the middle of city is even more ridiculous.
by talldayo on 12/29/24, 7:41 PM
I have no idea what this is supposed to elicit from me as a reader. "[A] vocal minority, similar to the wokes" ...that won the election?
It feels like you could say this for every American election year and it would sound equally as stupid. In 2012 it was the economic reformists and pro-regulation pundits, in 2016 it was virulent anti-woke crowd and staunch defenders of nationalism. So on and so forth. Were any of these really minority opinions, or was it that they were hot-topic issues at the time that divided voting citizens along party lines?
by jncfhnb on 12/29/24, 7:41 PM