Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's Leaked Stanford Talk(github.com)
github.com
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's Leaked Stanford Talk
https://github.com/ociubotaru/transcripts/blob/main/Stanford_ECON295%E2%A7%B8CS323_I_2024_I_The_Age_of_AI%2C_Eric_Schmidt.txt
502 comments
Considering that in Meta I heard (from friends) it is/was easier to work remotely and even easier to get into (they are less leetcode oriented) I would expect the problem with Google loosing is somewhere else. Google was loosing on many fronts for a while:
- dart lost to typescript on web
- angular lost to react
- tensorflow looks like currently loosing to pytorch - seems like google got bored and more development is for JAX, Keras wrapper [0]
- IMHO flutter will loose with react-native or kotlin compose multiplatform - compare github insights for details
Meta on the other hand kickstarted open source Llama community. In this situation it's hard to bet on Gemmini or Gemma as 3rd party developer considering google projects kill records. The only project they were really to bet on and invest for the long run without getting tired early on was Chrome and Android.
[0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...
- dart lost to typescript on web
- angular lost to react
- tensorflow looks like currently loosing to pytorch - seems like google got bored and more development is for JAX, Keras wrapper [0]
- IMHO flutter will loose with react-native or kotlin compose multiplatform - compare github insights for details
Meta on the other hand kickstarted open source Llama community. In this situation it's hard to bet on Gemmini or Gemma as 3rd party developer considering google projects kill records. The only project they were really to bet on and invest for the long run without getting tired early on was Chrome and Android.
[0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...
> Google was loosing on many fronts
i believe this trend is a result of management culture and performance metrics that attempt to measure "impact", and correlate pay and promotions along those measures.
It's the same reason why google products die when they don't reach mega-success (thus products getting killed off in spades recently).
Nobody wants to be doing maintenance on projects started by somebody else - so as soon as the lead visionary leaves for better pastures, that project gets languished, and whoever takes over it cannot use it to generate promotion worthy impact.
i believe this trend is a result of management culture and performance metrics that attempt to measure "impact", and correlate pay and promotions along those measures.
It's the same reason why google products die when they don't reach mega-success (thus products getting killed off in spades recently).
Nobody wants to be doing maintenance on projects started by somebody else - so as soon as the lead visionary leaves for better pastures, that project gets languished, and whoever takes over it cannot use it to generate promotion worthy impact.
I'd go further and bet that those "impact" metrics likely came from a spreadsheet pusher like Schmidt.
Schmidt still takes the gold medal in my estimate for destroying a company he ran by not understanding how the business actually works (as CEO of Novell he decided to screw their channel partners not understanding that the channel relationships were the company's entire moat against Microsoft).
Schmidt still takes the gold medal in my estimate for destroying a company he ran by not understanding how the business actually works (as CEO of Novell he decided to screw their channel partners not understanding that the channel relationships were the company's entire moat against Microsoft).
Channel relationships were a boat anchor around Novell's neck. The channel helped Novell grow rapidly in the early days then building a file server and installing an office network took some real technical skill. But then Microsoft released Windows NT and a new generation of hardware came out which allowed any idiot to set up a LAN. Microsoft beat Novell in part by distributing their server software more widely instead of forcing customers to go through channel partners. Of course, it also didn't help that Novell failed to innovate on their products and tried to coast on past success.
Network installers are still used to this day on big network buildouts, simply because office IT departments aren't staffed for that kind of work regardless of how easy the software is.
But it's not like Schmidt had any strategy to bypass the network installers. He just decided to screw them hard so he could make a quarter look good, which lead inevitably to them deciding not to be Novell's low-paid salesforce anymore, which lead rapidly to the vastly premature collapse of the business.
But it's not like Schmidt had any strategy to bypass the network installers. He just decided to screw them hard so he could make a quarter look good, which lead inevitably to them deciding not to be Novell's low-paid salesforce anymore, which lead rapidly to the vastly premature collapse of the business.
Microsoft stood-up a channel in order to compete with Novell.
Initially, at least, Microsoft was much a preferable OEM. Better docs (MSDN), better tech support, more profitable, etc.
(Microsoft also made embraced application servers. Spearheading switch from workgroup to client/server. But that's another chapter.)
Initially, at least, Microsoft was much a preferable OEM. Better docs (MSDN), better tech support, more profitable, etc.
(Microsoft also made embraced application servers. Spearheading switch from workgroup to client/server. But that's another chapter.)
I felt like I could rationalize a lot of Google decisions to kill products, such as Inbox or Reader, but retiring Google Domains really shook my confidence in GCP.
Absolutely staggering. Google Domains complemented GCP perfectly and would make thanks to Cloud DNS a stellar seamless end-to-end integration. I'm in disbelief as to why they removed this crucial feature while at the same time going full in with GCP.
I could understand deprecating Google Domains for B2C, but for B2B?! What went through their heads?
I could understand deprecating Google Domains for B2C, but for B2B?! What went through their heads?
It is actually insane that they did this. I literally stopped recommending people use GCP over this - you can't get started easily because you have to use another platform for the domain. Why even use GCP at all?
It was also incredibly sticky with GSuite. Setting up security and everything was a breeze -- DMARC email records, SMTP, etc all magic -- I truly couldn't believe when this was announced. It was incredibly sad and I still feel upset about it a year later.
Porkbun is my go to registrar now. And I switched my email to Migadu.
Porkbun is my go to registrar now. And I switched my email to Migadu.
also at porkbun for dns, big fan.
saying this as someone who used to work for enom, if that matters.
saying this as someone who used to work for enom, if that matters.
Google Cloud Domains is still a thing, and you can purchase domains from the console still. The registrar changed to square space, but it didn't really impact Google Cloud's usage.
Even a worse decision then because they're still supporting UI around it.
Did it really come down to some PM not wanting to do registrar paperwork?
Did it really come down to some PM not wanting to do registrar paperwork?
Agreed, such a critical piece of infrastructure, the mind boggles. I'll have to see what I can pry out of our Google account team about it.
Even though I was a Google fanboy, this was a nail in the head. Had a .dev domain which expired and squarespace asked like 6 times more to let me buy it back. Waited till the grace period was over and bought it back for the original price from NameCheap.
> I believe this trend is a result of management culture and performance metrics that attempt to measure "impact", and correlate pay and promotions along those measures.
Meta's performance reviews are also heavily weighted for measurable impact.
I think that the reason why it's beating Alphabet in so many fronts is team culture. Most new product teams are small and have a reasonably flat hierarchy. It's easy to make impact that's both effective and measurable, and the amount of engineering time working in "useless work" is minimised.
Meta's performance reviews are also heavily weighted for measurable impact.
I think that the reason why it's beating Alphabet in so many fronts is team culture. Most new product teams are small and have a reasonably flat hierarchy. It's easy to make impact that's both effective and measurable, and the amount of engineering time working in "useless work" is minimised.
Yup, Google MBA'd itself into the ground.
Yeah, i don't want to invest in anything google, i'm scared it will be uselss in 6mo.
That's a big problem, a "support guarantee" could really help things.
Google is now a AD platform with a search engine to sell stuff.
I hoped a little bit in Fuchsia, it was the last one for me.
That's a big problem, a "support guarantee" could really help things.
Google is now a AD platform with a search engine to sell stuff.
I hoped a little bit in Fuchsia, it was the last one for me.
>Google is now a AD platform with a search engine to sell stuff.
NOW?! They were that for the past 20 years mate.
NOW?! They were that for the past 20 years mate.
Their search isn't even so great any more. They tend to forcefully switch the user input to some generic terms. More than often duckduckgo produces better results for me. I started feeling comfortable using duckduckgo instead of google.
I’m not sure you understand how ingrained and far reaching Google ad manager is.
Their search could die and they’d still be the biggest advertising player on the internet by leaps and bounds.
Their search could die and they’d still be the biggest advertising player on the internet by leaps and bounds.
Facebook would be bigger.
Not. Even. Close.
You are just ignorant, Google search is 57% of their total revenue, remaining advertisement is just 19%, people really overestimate how much Google ad network is worth when its just 9.2% of their revenue and YouTube is just 10%. In fact if you remove search Google makes more money from selling subscriptions and services than they do from ads, so they would no longer be an ad company!
https://www.voronoiapp.com/business/Breaking-down-Googles-Q1...
Facebook makes much more money than 19% of Google.
Edit: And I wonder why I got downvoted for being right, many here just blindly believe that Google gets their money from ads on third party sites when most of it comes from search.
But I guess your second post is right, it isn't close, Facebook would be much bigger.
https://www.voronoiapp.com/business/Breaking-down-Googles-Q1...
Facebook makes much more money than 19% of Google.
Edit: And I wonder why I got downvoted for being right, many here just blindly believe that Google gets their money from ads on third party sites when most of it comes from search.
But I guess your second post is right, it isn't close, Facebook would be much bigger.
Yeah but the search engine provided a service good enough that you could overlook that
I noticed today that they get rid of filters in the "products/shopping" tab
FFS
I noticed today that they get rid of filters in the "products/shopping" tab
FFS
Fuchsia is part of the problem not the solution. It was the retirement home to keep a bunch of smart people busy who didn't have any rush to ship anything real for as long as possible. Architecture astronaut porn to the max.
On the other hand there's zero desire at Google to try and build the best phone. They have conceded that to Apple a long time ago.
No desire to be number one in Cloud. They are fighting for number 3 spot.
They are the Xerox of AI with a full stack solution. If they had the drive they would be HYPING THE SHIT out of TPU and making it the best solution to run all the real workloads people have.
Guess what. On average a Googler even still today with low bar to entry is probably 10 IQ points higher than average Amazon or Microsoft or Apple. But no; no drive.
On the other hand there's zero desire at Google to try and build the best phone. They have conceded that to Apple a long time ago.
No desire to be number one in Cloud. They are fighting for number 3 spot.
They are the Xerox of AI with a full stack solution. If they had the drive they would be HYPING THE SHIT out of TPU and making it the best solution to run all the real workloads people have.
Guess what. On average a Googler even still today with low bar to entry is probably 10 IQ points higher than average Amazon or Microsoft or Apple. But no; no drive.
I hadn't heard the term "architecture astronaut porn" before. Seems highly accurate in this context and wondered if you could point me to other resources on this term?
"Architecture Astronaut" is an old term IIRC coined by Joel Spolsky
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...
porn is added by yours truly.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...
porn is added by yours truly.
Fuchsia isn't dead. Yet.
Fuchsia is a talent retention project. Basically daycare for kernel engineers, to prevent them from leaving Google.
But what do Google shareholders get out of this?
They get to keep those engineers out of the hands of competitors.
It is dead
Meta is also heavily involved in “impact” metrics
I know nothing about what makes an industry succeed or fail, and also nothing about web tech, but working in the field I can comment on:
> tensorflow looks like currently loosing to pytorch - seems like google got bored and more development is for JAX, Keras wrapper
Well, TensorFlow doesn't "look like currently losing", it has already lost since a long time. I haven't seen a decent paper release code in TensorFlow in years, and all the references I see to TF online are job posts from "older" companies (to the point that, if you are looking for a job in data science, seeing TF mentioned in the job post is kind of a red flag of a place you don't want to be).
That said, I am quite certain that this has only a small impact on why Google is losing terrain, and even on why it is behind in AI (which is also debatable: narrative aside, Gemini is not that much lacking behind competitors). Certainly if TensorFlow + TPUs turned out to be better than PyTorch + GPUs they would have had a lead to start from, but if that was so important, Meta or NVIDIA would have created the first LLM, not OpenAI.
Simply, sometimes stuff happens, you can't predict it all.
> tensorflow looks like currently loosing to pytorch - seems like google got bored and more development is for JAX, Keras wrapper
Well, TensorFlow doesn't "look like currently losing", it has already lost since a long time. I haven't seen a decent paper release code in TensorFlow in years, and all the references I see to TF online are job posts from "older" companies (to the point that, if you are looking for a job in data science, seeing TF mentioned in the job post is kind of a red flag of a place you don't want to be).
That said, I am quite certain that this has only a small impact on why Google is losing terrain, and even on why it is behind in AI (which is also debatable: narrative aside, Gemini is not that much lacking behind competitors). Certainly if TensorFlow + TPUs turned out to be better than PyTorch + GPUs they would have had a lead to start from, but if that was so important, Meta or NVIDIA would have created the first LLM, not OpenAI.
Simply, sometimes stuff happens, you can't predict it all.
> Considering that in Meta I heard (from friends) it is/was easier to work remotely and even easier to get into (they are less leetcode oriented)
This is a weird take. It might pertain to 2020 during Covid when Meta encouraged remote working, but it's not like that anymore. Interviews were always leetcode focused so nothing changed there.
Meta is an interesting comparison because the performance culture has historically been way tougher than Google (sans Covid years). It's quite a shock for a lot of Xooglers who join. One Xoogler at Meta who told me they only used to work 4-6 hours a day at Google. That is basically impossible in Meta - you have to constantly prove your value and the perf bar is high.
I think Google is changing now though and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them adopt Meta/Amazon style perf cultures in the future.
Source: I work at Meta, and have close friends at Google.
This is a weird take. It might pertain to 2020 during Covid when Meta encouraged remote working, but it's not like that anymore. Interviews were always leetcode focused so nothing changed there.
Meta is an interesting comparison because the performance culture has historically been way tougher than Google (sans Covid years). It's quite a shock for a lot of Xooglers who join. One Xoogler at Meta who told me they only used to work 4-6 hours a day at Google. That is basically impossible in Meta - you have to constantly prove your value and the perf bar is high.
I think Google is changing now though and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them adopt Meta/Amazon style perf cultures in the future.
Source: I work at Meta, and have close friends at Google.
The grind catches up to you. Your body keeps the score, don't let them fool you.
All these asshole managers like Schmidt.
All these asshole managers like Schmidt.
I agree it takes a toll - but you get well compensated for it.
Not really in the grand scheme of things.
Compared to at least as bad, or even worse ‘toll’, for dramatically less pay in literally every other industry and 95% of every other companies in this one? Bwaha.
Have you ever worked in another industry? Retail? Healthcare? Trades? Public safety?
Tech is a walk in the park, relatively speaking.
Have you ever worked in another industry? Retail? Healthcare? Trades? Public safety?
Tech is a walk in the park, relatively speaking.
The tech job never ends.. the others have defined limits and are shift work.
Healthcare? Public safety? Most construction work?
All of them have the same thing going on. Hell, healthcare has even formalized it in some cases into 24+ hr shifts for residents.
In all these industries, there are areas where it isn’t a thing, and areas where it is absolutely a thing. But they do (often) get paid overtime. Not residents though.
All of them have the same thing going on. Hell, healthcare has even formalized it in some cases into 24+ hr shifts for residents.
In all these industries, there are areas where it isn’t a thing, and areas where it is absolutely a thing. But they do (often) get paid overtime. Not residents though.
Meta is less leetcode oriented? I'm shocked to read this. Meta is the poster child for leetcode style interviews. Meta requires you to solve 2 leetcode style questions in 35 mins (out of 45 mins - first 5 mins for initial pleasantries, last 5 mins for asking questions). For each question, you're required to (based on the signals they look for) ask clarifying questions, present a solution to the interviewer, get buy-in, code, verify with test cases - all this in 17.5 mins/question. Go figure! :-)
Tensorflow losing has nothing to do with Google getting bored -- it's vice versa.
Tensorflow is a symbolic framework, which is less intuitive to work with for most people than the Pytorch. Not to mention the errors Tensorflow generates are more annoying to debug (again more an issue with the fact that it's symbolic than any lack of effort on part of Google)
Google tried to fix it by introducing an eager mode in Tensorflow but by then it was too late.
Tensorflow is a symbolic framework, which is less intuitive to work with for most people than the Pytorch. Not to mention the errors Tensorflow generates are more annoying to debug (again more an issue with the fact that it's symbolic than any lack of effort on part of Google)
Google tried to fix it by introducing an eager mode in Tensorflow but by then it was too late.
> Google tried to fix it by introducing an eager mode in Tensorflow but by then it was too late.
And the fix was "new major version with a fundamentally different programming paradigm"
But it turns out when your users are irritated with your product, and you tell them to change to a fundamentally different programming paradigm, the new programming paradigm they change to might not be yours.
And the fix was "new major version with a fundamentally different programming paradigm"
But it turns out when your users are irritated with your product, and you tell them to change to a fundamentally different programming paradigm, the new programming paradigm they change to might not be yours.
Intuitive has nothing to do with it. Developers will tend to prefer things that make their lives easier. Debuggability is a huge part of that. Tf 1.0 having a static execution graph was a major pain. No wonder people switched to PyTorch and didn’t look back.
All of those examples (except maybe tensorflow, I don't know enough to say for sure) are interesting because they highlight a more "googly" approach to the problems.
Typescript is a superset of javascript, Dart isn't (though it transpiles). Flutter implements its own widgets, react native controls native widgets.
Typescript is a superset of javascript, Dart isn't (though it transpiles). Flutter implements its own widgets, react native controls native widgets.
Dart, angular don't matter in business. They are just "passionate" projects. Google's culture of having multiple teams trying to build and scrape and never commit to a product is a big problem. They aren't slow to adopt to trends but they always seem to "overthink" about products. So when they lose the edge they close the door on the product. In the case of Google Meet, Good Lord, they renamed at least six times before they finally settled.
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the tensorflow and jax thing is 100% over, everyone uses pytorch both in academia and the industry, at least in the western world
I recently did interviews with Meta, Google, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia... Meta leetcoded the ** out of me. They were insisting on 3 days in office. Definitely the hardest interviews out of the bunch. Never got around to answering Netflix recruiter to get the tradition "N" in FAANG out of the way, I took the first offer I got, I was so tired of interviewing.
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>dart lost to typescript on web
>angular lost to react
>tensorflow looks like currently loosing to pytorch - seems like google got bored and more development is for JAX, Keras wrapper
Google seems to have a deep-seated distrust for programming language theory, as well as a deep-seated distrust for its users. This combination produces awkward software and APIs that ignore modern PLT and take a "Google knows best" approach.
Google seems to have a deep-seated distrust for programming language theory, as well as a deep-seated distrust for its users. This combination produces awkward software and APIs that ignore modern PLT and take a "Google knows best" approach.
As someone who's been working with them a lot at the moment I'm going to say that the problems that google has are not anything to do with tensorflow or programming language theory and everything to do with the fact that the place is absolutely jam-packed with MBAs and other ex-McKinsey-type professional meeting attendees. This is really apparent if you are reasonably senior in an enterprise and deal with google as a vendor.
Every meeting I attend with them has one or two engineers[1] struggling to breathe because there are at least 6 or 7 sales people, relationship managers or other non-doing non-technical middle-management spreadsheet jockeys stealing all the oxygen in the room.[2]
I can only imagine how terrible it is to work there given that these folks have all the power internally. I've genuinely never dealt with an organization that seems this bad.
[1] who are usually pretty good.
[2] It's an internal joke at my enterprise how every meeting another new person from google shows up introduces themselves as head of some other microscopic facet of the corporate relationship.
Every meeting I attend with them has one or two engineers[1] struggling to breathe because there are at least 6 or 7 sales people, relationship managers or other non-doing non-technical middle-management spreadsheet jockeys stealing all the oxygen in the room.[2]
I can only imagine how terrible it is to work there given that these folks have all the power internally. I've genuinely never dealt with an organization that seems this bad.
[1] who are usually pretty good.
[2] It's an internal joke at my enterprise how every meeting another new person from google shows up introduces themselves as head of some other microscopic facet of the corporate relationship.
As someone two years into working at Google this resonates hard and has absolutely been my experience as an engineer there too. It's certainly not the culture I was expecting for sure.
Longer-time Googler here. We went blindingly fast from "A few engineers decide to use the most powerful computing cluster in the world to make a meme generator because it would be a cool project" to "Let's have a sync meeting with 15 people, including five managers, to discuss buying a $20,000 test instrument, which will need to be approved by four directors, three of whom are OOO for the next two months."
Something changed recently though because yes there are those MBA types but the engineer in the room used to be not a sales type person. Now (earlier this year, just before IO), even the engineers are becoming more like salespeople in my experience. My guess is there is pressure for everyone to make more money somehow?
this is the end result of all publicly traded companies. eventually you'll hit Sears-level of selling where the CEO just straight up puts departments in conflict with each other until the whole thing just falls apart.
If I had to guess you're probably an Enterprise customer of Google cloud? I'm not sure that's a representative take.. of course there's going to be a lot of sales and relationship manager types because you're a customer of their Enterprise offering.. internally Google's completely different
I think the reporting of his quote overemphasizes on "work from home" piece of his sentence as that fits right into a continuous obsession/bike sheds.
Whether "work from home" is the cause or not, I think he is absolutely right on the latter part of his sentence, that contrary to startups, almost no individual at Google has the fire or drive in them to play to win. If you are young and you go work at Google, they will beat that fire out of you very quickly. "Work" from home is just one way that nobody-cares attitude is manifesting itself. [BTW, that attitude is by no means exclusive to ICs; definitely leadership has it as well, perhaps more so.]
Whether "work from home" is the cause or not, I think he is absolutely right on the latter part of his sentence, that contrary to startups, almost no individual at Google has the fire or drive in them to play to win. If you are young and you go work at Google, they will beat that fire out of you very quickly. "Work" from home is just one way that nobody-cares attitude is manifesting itself. [BTW, that attitude is by no means exclusive to ICs; definitely leadership has it as well, perhaps more so.]
> almost no individual at Google has the fire or drive in them to play to win
Yes, that's why you go to large megacorps. I wouldn't go to Oracle, IBM, Google, Facebook, MS, etc. etc. if I had a "huge fire or a drive to win". Honestly, I go there because I wanna work 5 hours a day (less if possible) and have a stable career.
If I want to work 9-12h a day, give me an upside. None of these huge megacorps will reward that.
If I'm the lead of a Goog project that becomes a hit, do I get $10M bonus? Of course not. I get a pat on the back and something to put in my packet for the next promotion interview.
So you're absolutely right, but the problem is not in people. It's in the way the system's designed.
Yes, that's why you go to large megacorps. I wouldn't go to Oracle, IBM, Google, Facebook, MS, etc. etc. if I had a "huge fire or a drive to win". Honestly, I go there because I wanna work 5 hours a day (less if possible) and have a stable career.
If I want to work 9-12h a day, give me an upside. None of these huge megacorps will reward that.
If I'm the lead of a Goog project that becomes a hit, do I get $10M bonus? Of course not. I get a pat on the back and something to put in my packet for the next promotion interview.
So you're absolutely right, but the problem is not in people. It's in the way the system's designed.
> do I get $10M bonus?
Seems like you might want to consider the finance industry.
If you make something important 5% faster, you bet you are getting a few years worth of salary as bonus.
Seems like you might want to consider the finance industry.
If you make something important 5% faster, you bet you are getting a few years worth of salary as bonus.
I think you would have to target the scope even smalller to particular areas of finance probably quant or trading within a hedge fund. The majority of jobs at a large bank are mostly fixed salary with limited bonus. There are many jobs that are essential but don't capture a percentage of the value they generate. For example processing transactions is essential for a bank but typically doesn't pay large bonuses in that area.
Large banks can pay very well for the right software role, but there's so much more nepotism than big tech that it's pretty much impossible to land these unless you have a godfather in the industry AND you are a recognized prodigy.
>There are many jobs that are essential but don't capture a percentage of the value they generate.
Isn't that strange?
Isn't that strange?
Unfortunately not. Nurses, doctors, bin men, car mechanics, plumbers can all be essential at times but rarely pay large bonuses.
It's the scale.
One important blue collar worker can help a limited number of people at a time, usually one.
One line of code can affect what billions of people are doing.
One important blue collar worker can help a limited number of people at a time, usually one.
One line of code can affect what billions of people are doing.
The incentives in finance are remarkably well-tuned to rewarding employee effort. Make the company 300k? You get 30k. Make the company 300 million? You get 30 million.
That seems so easy to game. Do some small change that brings short term gain, bag the profit and let the rebound be the failure of another team.
Doesn't that pretty much describe the 2007-2008 financial crisis?
And every such crisis before it, and the next one too.
The crisis was 07/08, but the buildup was almost a decade in the making, does that count as short term?
the law in the UK is that material risk takers bonus pay over a certain amount (couple of hundred thousand) is deferred over 3-5 years and can be clawed back
If you think it's easy to game 30M in short term revenue, please try to do that in a large firm.
The risk/compliance teams would be interested in your strategy.
The risk/compliance teams would be interested in your strategy.
I'm a socialist/anarchist, they would never give me that opportunity :)
You could try this overall strategy in the stock market and see how it works out ;)
Maybe the profit share is earned out over time? Otherwise I would agree with you..
how do swe get into finance?
I see quite a few SWE jobs here in Singapore in finance, mostly realtime C++ order management. If the advertised salaries are real, they're very well-paid (300-700k USD, plus bonus).
The path of least resistance is to become a well known C++ or systems guru.
This can be done by contributing substantially to the language standard, a compiler, etc etc.
Or you could learn COBOL!
This can be done by contributing substantially to the language standard, a compiler, etc etc.
Or you could learn COBOL!
First step, understand what Finance means in the scope of technology work.
i dont have a clue
This is oversimplifying too much IMO. Obviously the potential reward working at startups is much higher than megacorps, and you can very safely say that people working at startups have a higher risk appetite. However, plenty of people work 9h-12h a day (say, at Meta) in wish to get promoted at rocket-speed and play to "win" the higher TC at megacorps, and it happens often enough that very-driven people do join megacorps.
A lot of people at a megacorp play to win, they've just realized that the company's value is so much higher than the value they could add to it, that for them, winning means capturing part of the company's value for themselves. In a sense the company becomes the market and their friends become the company.
>>but the problem is not in people. It's in the way the system's designed.
System was designed by the people, more specifically people with ability to make decisions a.k.a management
There might not have been one person making all the wrong decisions. But more like lots of small wrong decisions, but it doesn't reduce the fact that it is management that is always responsible for the state of affairs.
System was designed by the people, more specifically people with ability to make decisions a.k.a management
There might not have been one person making all the wrong decisions. But more like lots of small wrong decisions, but it doesn't reduce the fact that it is management that is always responsible for the state of affairs.
> Yes, that's why you go to large megacorps. I wouldn't go to Oracle, IBM, Google, Facebook, MS, etc. etc. if I had a "huge fire or a drive to win". Honestly, I go there because I wanna work 5 hours a day (less if possible) and have a stable career.
I agree that many want the stable and low hours career but how many people at these big companies are getting that? I mostly see it as a FOB farm and trying to overwork the overwhelming majority of workers at these companies. For all the stories of people working five hours a day and making $400k/yr - I hear many more working 60 hour weeks.
> If I want to work 9-12h a day, give me an upside. None of these huge megacorps will reward that.
I don’t really see startups rewarding that much either. Maybe it’s more rewarding if you’re a founder. I’m speaking as someone who has been an early engineer at startups and gone public with them. I still don’t see them as that rewarding unless you’re a founder.
Also, incentives aren’t the same. You might make a great thing but unless you’re near the top - you’re probably not going to get properly rewarded regardless of how good your ideas and whatnot are. People at the top will steal credit because that’s what they do. (“Look at how good I am at hiring/managing/inspiring/etc.”)
I agree that many want the stable and low hours career but how many people at these big companies are getting that? I mostly see it as a FOB farm and trying to overwork the overwhelming majority of workers at these companies. For all the stories of people working five hours a day and making $400k/yr - I hear many more working 60 hour weeks.
> If I want to work 9-12h a day, give me an upside. None of these huge megacorps will reward that.
I don’t really see startups rewarding that much either. Maybe it’s more rewarding if you’re a founder. I’m speaking as someone who has been an early engineer at startups and gone public with them. I still don’t see them as that rewarding unless you’re a founder.
Also, incentives aren’t the same. You might make a great thing but unless you’re near the top - you’re probably not going to get properly rewarded regardless of how good your ideas and whatnot are. People at the top will steal credit because that’s what they do. (“Look at how good I am at hiring/managing/inspiring/etc.”)
> For all the stories of people working five hours a day and making $400k/yr - I hear many more working 60 hour weeks.
This is absolutely right. For every senior person in a glamorous role at a FAANG making $400k/yr, there are probably five less senior, less glamorous people making $150k/yr, grinding away trying to justify a promotion to the next level. The people posting to HN that their brother's girlfriend's nephew's roommate makes $400k think that's every FAANG developer.
This is absolutely right. For every senior person in a glamorous role at a FAANG making $400k/yr, there are probably five less senior, less glamorous people making $150k/yr, grinding away trying to justify a promotion to the next level. The people posting to HN that their brother's girlfriend's nephew's roommate makes $400k think that's every FAANG developer.
To be more balanced on this, I don't think that many are making <=$150k/yr if they're in NYC/Seattle/SF and are in engineering. I think many are making $300-400k/yr but have a high workload.
Levels gives a clear direction that if you work at big tech as an engineer, you'll usually make decent to good income. Whether it's worth the WLB/PIPing/misery is what you have to figure out.
There's a reason a ton of the people at FAANG are all on H1B. It's not a lack of domestic talent - it's a lack of Americans willing to be worked that hard and go through insane hoops to get said jobs. (justifiably so btw) I think a large reason why most of the crowd at FAANG is way more autistic than average is because autists can put up with such insane working conditions/hoops. Either cause they enjoy it or because they just have something about them that allows them to ignore it. I'm not even going to get in on how so many people in SV are also on various stimulants.
Levels gives a clear direction that if you work at big tech as an engineer, you'll usually make decent to good income. Whether it's worth the WLB/PIPing/misery is what you have to figure out.
There's a reason a ton of the people at FAANG are all on H1B. It's not a lack of domestic talent - it's a lack of Americans willing to be worked that hard and go through insane hoops to get said jobs. (justifiably so btw) I think a large reason why most of the crowd at FAANG is way more autistic than average is because autists can put up with such insane working conditions/hoops. Either cause they enjoy it or because they just have something about them that allows them to ignore it. I'm not even going to get in on how so many people in SV are also on various stimulants.
Insane working conditions? At least at Google I'd say you have better working conditions than the sales staff at Anthropologie. They are not mining coal over there. Laptop class is indeed spoiled.
My hard-charging peers are coming out of the FAANG world with hypertension and/or type II diabetes.
So is the rest of America. Any evidence the rate is higher? Free soda and food may contribute I give you that.
They are two sides of the same coin, aka culture.
System incentives,management,and staff hiring all form a feedback loop which sets culture and performance.
System incentives,management,and staff hiring all form a feedback loop which sets culture and performance.
If you're lumping together all the big corporations you're missing my point. Sure size is a parameter but not precisely what I meant to communicate, which is more true about Google than Tesla for example.
It's ludicrous to lay this at the feet of individual employees and assert that they're all just lazy with no drive etc.
Google has severe cultural problems and the responsibility for that should be assumed by the leadership.
Google has severe cultural problems and the responsibility for that should be assumed by the leadership.
I did not.
That said, it is up to the individual to work at Google or not, so it's not like they are a self-selecting population of maximally driven people. At least not the recently-joined folks.
By and large, Google is branded as the company people choose to go and coast maximally recently.
That said, it is up to the individual to work at Google or not, so it's not like they are a self-selecting population of maximally driven people. At least not the recently-joined folks.
By and large, Google is branded as the company people choose to go and coast maximally recently.
>If you are young and you go work at Google, they will beat that fire out of you very quickly.
I don't agree, but there are challenges at Google that don't exist in other large companies.
Google's monorepo along with the 'bottom up' driven culture means that to enact any non trivial change, you need many sign-offs, which means an iron clad design doc, and either you have to be brave enough to make huge disparate changes across other teams codebasse, OR to wait multiple quarters to have respective teams execute.
Sometimes this is awesome, and it means you can do really complex things over the course of a year.
Often, it just means experimenting with non trivial changes takes 3x longer than it would at say Amazon or more silo'd companies.
I don't agree, but there are challenges at Google that don't exist in other large companies.
Google's monorepo along with the 'bottom up' driven culture means that to enact any non trivial change, you need many sign-offs, which means an iron clad design doc, and either you have to be brave enough to make huge disparate changes across other teams codebasse, OR to wait multiple quarters to have respective teams execute.
Sometimes this is awesome, and it means you can do really complex things over the course of a year.
Often, it just means experimenting with non trivial changes takes 3x longer than it would at say Amazon or more silo'd companies.
> almost no individual at Google has the fire or drive in them to play to win
No one with such a drive would stay in, or even go to Google, neither any GAFAM-like corp. Those have been the establishment for 10+ years now.
A large corporation cannot seriously pretend to encourage their employees to "play to win" when it is structuring itself against that precisely.
The bigger the corp, the slower, duller and more rigid it becomes _unless_ someone at the CxO level actively fights against it in a opinionated manner (which still doesn't often register well with boards and major shareholders).
It may be sad, it's quasi a law of physics for corporations. If you have that kind of fire in you, go first hunt into to the woods, don't go to the factories.
No one with such a drive would stay in, or even go to Google, neither any GAFAM-like corp. Those have been the establishment for 10+ years now.
A large corporation cannot seriously pretend to encourage their employees to "play to win" when it is structuring itself against that precisely.
The bigger the corp, the slower, duller and more rigid it becomes _unless_ someone at the CxO level actively fights against it in a opinionated manner (which still doesn't often register well with boards and major shareholders).
It may be sad, it's quasi a law of physics for corporations. If you have that kind of fire in you, go first hunt into to the woods, don't go to the factories.
> A large corporation cannot seriously pretend to encourage their employees to "play to win" when it is structuring itself against that precisely.
I am not so sure it's that cut and dry. Even among the FANG, the desire to play to win is vastly different. I'd say Apple still has that mojo. Facebook also more than Google although that ship went south post-2018, I'd say.
Tesla comparatively underpaid and overworked people but I think they play to win.
SpaceX even more so. Folks who work hard there are excited to do so because they feel their work matters.
There are non-monetary structural features of large corporations that make them different on that metric. I think the desire at the top to want to win in the first place is critical, plus the autonomy at the lower level to ship cool ideas without much roadblock or dilution of contribution among way too many people.
I am not so sure it's that cut and dry. Even among the FANG, the desire to play to win is vastly different. I'd say Apple still has that mojo. Facebook also more than Google although that ship went south post-2018, I'd say.
Tesla comparatively underpaid and overworked people but I think they play to win.
SpaceX even more so. Folks who work hard there are excited to do so because they feel their work matters.
There are non-monetary structural features of large corporations that make them different on that metric. I think the desire at the top to want to win in the first place is critical, plus the autonomy at the lower level to ship cool ideas without much roadblock or dilution of contribution among way too many people.
I think what's hilarious to observe is the transition from "the dream nerd company" to yet another tech hedge fund.
How can you have "drive to win" if you are just an employee of a company, and have no stake in it?
People love to talk about how capitalism (or free market) solves the tragedy of the commons, but it actually doesn't. The only way to solve it is to make people care about commons by giving them a say in managing it, i.e. socialism.
People love to talk about how capitalism (or free market) solves the tragedy of the commons, but it actually doesn't. The only way to solve it is to make people care about commons by giving them a say in managing it, i.e. socialism.
Indeed, if I actually felt like the work I was doing was directly benefiting my coworkers and community members I would be really excited about it! Hard to get motivated when all your work goes to making sure your manager gets a kitchen remodel and a third house.
hear hear
You can't influence the course of the company (hence the 'beating drive out of you' comment I made). I am not root-causing the issue and putting the blame on leaf-level folks, just describing it. Quite the contrary.
I was riding a gBike (single-speed for those who aren't familiar with one) ~10 years ago with my friend and I told him this bike is a perfect representative of Google's culture. No matter how hard you pedal it goes the same speed.
You can't influence the course of the company (hence the 'beating drive out of you' comment I made). I am not root-causing the issue and putting the blame on leaf-level folks, just describing it. Quite the contrary.
I was riding a gBike (single-speed for those who aren't familiar with one) ~10 years ago with my friend and I told him this bike is a perfect representative of Google's culture. No matter how hard you pedal it goes the same speed.
> People love to talk about how capitalism (or free market) solves the tragedy of the commons, but it actually doesn't. The only way to solve it is to make people care about commons by giving them a say in managing it, i.e. socialism.
There do exist worker-managed companies under capitalism, they consistently underperform. There also exist (and have existed) worker-managed companies under various forms of socialism, those were an utter disaster (for the workers themselves, for the environment, for business productivity, for overall societal welfare, for human dignity, the list goes on).
> How can you have "drive to win" if you are just an employee of a company, and have no stake in it?
Bonuses, raises, equity.
There do exist worker-managed companies under capitalism, they consistently underperform. There also exist (and have existed) worker-managed companies under various forms of socialism, those were an utter disaster (for the workers themselves, for the environment, for business productivity, for overall societal welfare, for human dignity, the list goes on).
> How can you have "drive to win" if you are just an employee of a company, and have no stake in it?
Bonuses, raises, equity.
They do not consistently underperform. Just go to wikipedia:
> According to Virginie Pérotin's research which looked at two decades worth of international data, worker cooperatives are more productive than conventional businesses. Another 1987 study of worker cooperatives in Italy, the UK, and France found "positive" relationships with productivity. It also found that worker cooperatives do not become less productive as they get larger. A 1995 study of worker cooperatives in the timber industry in Washington, USA found that "co-ops are more efficient than the principal conventional firms by between 6 and 14 percent".
> According to Virginie Pérotin's research which looked at two decades worth of international data, worker cooperatives are more productive than conventional businesses. Another 1987 study of worker cooperatives in Italy, the UK, and France found "positive" relationships with productivity. It also found that worker cooperatives do not become less productive as they get larger. A 1995 study of worker cooperatives in the timber industry in Washington, USA found that "co-ops are more efficient than the principal conventional firms by between 6 and 14 percent".
I wonder why there aren’t more worker co-ops then. Maybe they’re more productive per worker but struggle to grow big enough? Or maybe they’re less likely to survive a downturn because layoffs are harder?
Because it takes capital to start a business. People with capital like to retain control over their capital, so they don’t start cooperatives.
Coops don’t have the same incentive structure as external-investor-beholden corporations, so they don’t pursue “growth at all costs”, but rather survival at all costs (job preservation), and then growth where appropriate (pie expansion).
It’s kind of like the trade off between authoritarian regimes and democratic regimes. One is fast but flimsy, the other is slow but robust.
Coops don’t have the same incentive structure as external-investor-beholden corporations, so they don’t pursue “growth at all costs”, but rather survival at all costs (job preservation), and then growth where appropriate (pie expansion).
It’s kind of like the trade off between authoritarian regimes and democratic regimes. One is fast but flimsy, the other is slow but robust.
Banks dont want to lend money to them as often/much/favorably, coops usually don’t want investment.
To start a business you need capital, if you have enough on your own, you do not need a coop, much more difficult to convince a group of people to risk together unless they’ve all had previous experience with one another.
To start a business you need capital, if you have enough on your own, you do not need a coop, much more difficult to convince a group of people to risk together unless they’ve all had previous experience with one another.
Why would Banks shy away if they are more productive and have better margins?
Banks calculate risk by looking at data, and there is far less of it for coops. And they are often irrational actors.
Don’t discount that they’re also seen as a threat to the status quo
They aren't a threat , which force is stopping coops from starting exactly?
No they are not, there are so few co-ops that nobody cares about them. No politician campaigns promising to destroy co-ops, not even Trump, because there is no reason to.
I doubt the demographics of coop participation are even partisan. Urban organic food coops probably skew left, but all those rural infrastructure coops, fuel/etc service for farmers, probably skew right. Attacking coops wouldn't win you votes with many people on either side.
> There do exist worker-managed companies under capitalism, they consistently underperform.
Of course, according to a metric, how much money I can make out of an investment, without having to do any work, they underperform!
> There also exist (and have existed) worker-managed companies under various forms of socialism, those were an utter disaster
This is simply not true. Where it was a disaster, it was for the similar reason, workers didn't have the stake in the company.
> Bonuses, raises, equity.
Possibly but you have no say how these things get distributed, and they still are only a small portion of what the investors get.
Of course, according to a metric, how much money I can make out of an investment, without having to do any work, they underperform!
> There also exist (and have existed) worker-managed companies under various forms of socialism, those were an utter disaster
This is simply not true. Where it was a disaster, it was for the similar reason, workers didn't have the stake in the company.
> Bonuses, raises, equity.
Possibly but you have no say how these things get distributed, and they still are only a small portion of what the investors get.
Perhaps you could name some worker-managed companies under socialism that did well - for example, East German companies that subsequently managed to compete against their West German peers. I can think of one - Zeiss Jena - though I don't know how truly worker-managed it was. (For some reason, the East Germans were very expert at manufacturing lenses ...)
> > How can you have "drive to win" if you are just an employee of a company, and have no stake in it?
> Bonuses, raises, equity.
And significant ones, too. None of this "Hey, you saved the company $1M, here's a $500 bonus!" bullshit.
I once had a founder privately lament to me the this employees don't play to win, and don't "treat the company as if they owned it," and it took all my willpower not to fire back with: "Dude, you're the sole shareholder with 100% of the equity, what do you expect?"
> Bonuses, raises, equity.
And significant ones, too. None of this "Hey, you saved the company $1M, here's a $500 bonus!" bullshit.
I once had a founder privately lament to me the this employees don't play to win, and don't "treat the company as if they owned it," and it took all my willpower not to fire back with: "Dude, you're the sole shareholder with 100% of the equity, what do you expect?"
Most employees have hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars of stake in the company they work for. Are you completely unfamiliar with how the tech industry actually works?
Capitalism (or rather 'free' in the technical sense markets) solve a coordination problem. They don't solve the tragedy of the commons (unless you start paying people not to polute the commons, but that is very perverse).
They are by far our best bet at solving large coordination problems through price signals. Even though they are far from perfect. I do believe that free markets require capitalism (i.e. profits go to the owner of the capital rather than those who do the labour). But nothing there is against strong regulation, collective bargaining, and anti-trust. Nor is there anything about companies being soley beholden to their shareholders.
Also, 'free' markets can only exist with a whole bunch of regulation, and even then some markets (e.g. emergency care) can never be free.
They are by far our best bet at solving large coordination problems through price signals. Even though they are far from perfect. I do believe that free markets require capitalism (i.e. profits go to the owner of the capital rather than those who do the labour). But nothing there is against strong regulation, collective bargaining, and anti-trust. Nor is there anything about companies being soley beholden to their shareholders.
Also, 'free' markets can only exist with a whole bunch of regulation, and even then some markets (e.g. emergency care) can never be free.
Socialism, or anarchy. I watched an old Charlie Rose episode with David Graeber. Charlie asked him to define anarchy. It was then that I realized I was a born anarchist. From day one I have validated, questioned, and ignored any authority I could. When people refer to me as their employee, I wretch with disgust. It's really tough to function in our society surrounded by all these sycophants and boot lickers worshiping hierarchy.
See problem, fix problem. Don't bring it to management. They are just going to tell you to fix it and then take the credit. Protesters confuse me, they are appealing to the cause of the problem for help and redress.
It blows me away how people bathe themselves in hierarchy. Its almost like oxygen to them. Of course, many anarchists become authority figures because of their raw affinity for getting shit done without asking for permission to think.
See problem, fix problem. Don't bring it to management. They are just going to tell you to fix it and then take the credit. Protesters confuse me, they are appealing to the cause of the problem for help and redress.
It blows me away how people bathe themselves in hierarchy. Its almost like oxygen to them. Of course, many anarchists become authority figures because of their raw affinity for getting shit done without asking for permission to think.
> See problem, fix problem
Great theory when it's just a little quip. Not so great when it comes time to put into practice.
I have a problem, one of my coworkers is being lazy, he isn't cleaning up after himself and his mess is becoming a general hazard (slipping, fire.) I try to tell him to fix it but he's not concerned about the risks and tells me to fuck off. I can clean the mess myself, sometimes, but I have my own work to get done and he can create new mess a lot faster than I can clean it. I could try to organize other workers into a lynch mob.. err... I mean struggle session- wait no... I mean "intervention", but this asshole isn't responsive to social pressure and the people I work with don't have the stomach for violence...
You know what solves this neatly? Going to management. And if that fails, going to government regulators.
Great theory when it's just a little quip. Not so great when it comes time to put into practice.
I have a problem, one of my coworkers is being lazy, he isn't cleaning up after himself and his mess is becoming a general hazard (slipping, fire.) I try to tell him to fix it but he's not concerned about the risks and tells me to fuck off. I can clean the mess myself, sometimes, but I have my own work to get done and he can create new mess a lot faster than I can clean it. I could try to organize other workers into a lynch mob.. err... I mean struggle session- wait no... I mean "intervention", but this asshole isn't responsive to social pressure and the people I work with don't have the stomach for violence...
You know what solves this neatly? Going to management. And if that fails, going to government regulators.
The problem exists because of the hierarchy.
Sometimes these CEOs and "leaders" make mask-off comments and it just demonstrates the gulf between how they and normal people think. It can be quite frightening sometimes to imagine that these kinds of people are the people who wield power in our world, these people who share such little in common with you
Eric Schmidt is scary, Julian Assange spoke of him :' in June 2011 when Assange was living under house arrest at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, Schmidt and "an entourage of US State Department alumni including a top former adviser to Hillary Clinton" visited for several hours and "locked horns" with the Wikileaks founder.
For Schmidt, emancipation is at one with US foreign policy objectives and is driven by connecting non-western countries to American companies and markets'.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/03/julian-assange...
Was he the one who’s having an affair with his business partner or something? And with a bunch of legal troubles.
Not just one I guess?
https://qz.com/work/1326942/sergey-brin-started-google-with-...
https://qz.com/work/1326942/sergey-brin-started-google-with-...
> While Mr. Schmidt was chief executive of Google, he had an extramarital relationship with Marcy Simon, a public relations executive. A decade after they split, things are still messy. John Carreyrou sifted through hundreds of pages of court filings for this article [1].
Yep, he is a great leader! :) /s
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/technology/eric-schmidt-a...
Yep, he is a great leader! :) /s
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/technology/eric-schmidt-a...
he spent so much time at work they became family!
Bill Burr summarizes the whole situation with successful men. Someone should write a manual for men on how to handle success. [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUrMSK8XWFc
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUrMSK8XWFc
what a shallow ad-hominem. during his tenure he was extremely well liked and growth was booming. why would his spousal relationships make him a bad leader? do you look to your managers for moral leadership?
> extremely well liked
By who? By what metric? That is a much shallower claim.
I would wager the guy blaming their middling AI development on "work life balance" was not well liked.
By who? By what metric? That is a much shallower claim.
I would wager the guy blaming their middling AI development on "work life balance" was not well liked.
Even if that’s true, it misses the entire point of the parent comment. His marital issues, infidelity, that one time he made out under a bridge when he was 14… none of it matters to this discussion as anything other than tabloid-fodder.
Behaving like a sexual predator at work while complaining that workers don't wanna be in the office. Maybe just maybe things could be related?
Dating a coworker does not necessarily imply you are “behaving like a sexual predator.” Many people met their partners at work; some even worked for them. Sometimes you meet people in places, and sometimes that place is work. That doesn’t mean you’re walking around hitting on everything that moves.
Yes, he was married. Yes, maybe a serial cheater. Or an awful marriage. Or a great one. I have no idea. But I don’t care?
Yes, he was married. Yes, maybe a serial cheater. Or an awful marriage. Or a great one. I have no idea. But I don’t care?
> Dating a coworker does not necessarily imply you are “behaving like a sexual predator.”
Dating a coworker (or many) when you are the boss and married is exactly what a sexual predator do. Being a predator doesn't mean he "predate" on every walking thing.
Dating a coworker (or many) when you are the boss and married is exactly what a sexual predator do. Being a predator doesn't mean he "predate" on every walking thing.
Dating a coworker is a thing a lot of people do. Sometimes it is done by sexual predators who are preying on others. That is also true outside work.
Dating someone at work doesn’t automatically make you a sexual predator. That’s an absurd statement. Plenty of relationships start that way, and sometimes one of them is a boss, and companies have processes for these situations because they happen and the majority of situations are not due to predation.
Dating someone at work doesn’t automatically make you a sexual predator. That’s an absurd statement. Plenty of relationships start that way, and sometimes one of them is a boss, and companies have processes for these situations because they happen and the majority of situations are not due to predation.
> Dating someone at work doesn’t automatically make you a sexual predator.
Are you going to pretend we are not talking about the CEO here? CEOs dating subordinates at work are sexual predators, yes.
Are you going to pretend we are not talking about the CEO here? CEOs dating subordinates at work are sexual predators, yes.
Imbalanced power dynamics are bad if they are abused, and they are easy to abuse.
However, not every CEO that dates a subordinate is a sexual predator. Again, that is an absurd statement; life is never that black and white. Sometimes, people meet and fall in love regardless of their lot in life. Stating that anytime that happens and one person happens to be a CEO instantly makes that person a sexual predator is not based in any kind of reality.
A CEO that abuses their power or engages in any kind of non-consensual relationship is a different story.
I agree it’s generally a bad idea, because of perception, favoritism, the power imbalance, and a dozen other reasons. But it being a bad idea doesn’t necessarily imply that the CEO is a sexual predator, either.
Sometimes even people in power care about consent.
And sometimes people in power are predators. That happens too. Maybe even more often; I don’t have stats.
I’m not defending Schmidt. I have no idea about him or his sexual proclivities, nor do I know the details about any of his personal relationships. Neither do you. He may be a monster! But dating someone at work isn’t the thing that makes him one.
However, not every CEO that dates a subordinate is a sexual predator. Again, that is an absurd statement; life is never that black and white. Sometimes, people meet and fall in love regardless of their lot in life. Stating that anytime that happens and one person happens to be a CEO instantly makes that person a sexual predator is not based in any kind of reality.
A CEO that abuses their power or engages in any kind of non-consensual relationship is a different story.
I agree it’s generally a bad idea, because of perception, favoritism, the power imbalance, and a dozen other reasons. But it being a bad idea doesn’t necessarily imply that the CEO is a sexual predator, either.
Sometimes even people in power care about consent.
And sometimes people in power are predators. That happens too. Maybe even more often; I don’t have stats.
I’m not defending Schmidt. I have no idea about him or his sexual proclivities, nor do I know the details about any of his personal relationships. Neither do you. He may be a monster! But dating someone at work isn’t the thing that makes him one.
> Even if that’s true
If it's true? It's a quote from the talk itself.
> it misses the entire point of the parent comment
Not really. I would say cheating on your wife with your PR executive is extremely bad for morale and an all around leadership failing. Just because sex is involved doesn't make it tabloid fodder. I can't just punch a coworker and call it "my personal life."
More importantly, you're ignoring the part of the comment that said he was extremely well liked, which was the baseless claim I responded to. You can say that's not the point of the comment, but that's just because acknowledging it weakens the argument.
If it's true? It's a quote from the talk itself.
> it misses the entire point of the parent comment
Not really. I would say cheating on your wife with your PR executive is extremely bad for morale and an all around leadership failing. Just because sex is involved doesn't make it tabloid fodder. I can't just punch a coworker and call it "my personal life."
More importantly, you're ignoring the part of the comment that said he was extremely well liked, which was the baseless claim I responded to. You can say that's not the point of the comment, but that's just because acknowledging it weakens the argument.
> If it's true? It's a quote from the talk itself.
Sorry, didn't mean to be unclear - my "even if that's true" was referring to the assertion that Schmidt wasn't well-liked, not your quote.
Sorry, didn't mean to be unclear - my "even if that's true" was referring to the assertion that Schmidt wasn't well-liked, not your quote.
How's it shallow? He cheated on the mother of his kids. Not complaining about him stealing a candy bar here.
> why would his spousal relationships make him a bad leader?
How can you trust someone that can't even keep their vows to their wife?
> why would his spousal relationships make him a bad leader?
How can you trust someone that can't even keep their vows to their wife?
Unless he is schizophrenic, its still the same mind that keeps continuously lying to most important persons in his life and keeps pretending nothing is happening. This sort of hard character flaw/weakness never goes alone, there are more if you care/can take a deeper look.
If you are OK with serious liars as leaders, thats fine for you I guess. Definitely not OK for me. Albeit for purely work performance, most of us can turn off our moral radar temporarily, mortgages ain't gonna pay for themselves with just good honest heart. But that's not a definition of leader, quite far away from that actually.
If you are OK with serious liars as leaders, thats fine for you I guess. Definitely not OK for me. Albeit for purely work performance, most of us can turn off our moral radar temporarily, mortgages ain't gonna pay for themselves with just good honest heart. But that's not a definition of leader, quite far away from that actually.
Better said than my own comment!
You don’t know anything about his relationships. You’re making assumptions to create a caricature of sin.
I would not be so eager to cast the first stone.
I would not be so eager to cast the first stone.
[deleted]
Pretty sure when Google was leading the industry (more than a decade ago now?), people was attributing the success to exactly the same thing - good work environment, work life balance, etc.
My recollection of the vibe at the time was, “Google does everything it can to maximize the amount of effective employee time dedicated to Google.”
He's trying to walk back on this claim:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/eric-schmidt-walks...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/eric-schmidt-walks...
What's even funnier is that I've heard from someone working at OpenAI is that (at least in their office) they are hybrid, working from the office 3 days a week.
From talking to people who've worked/work at Google it sounds like a lot of the issues stem from too few employees dogfooding their products (especially hardware), and huge inertia to get anything off the ground/make large changes.
Add to that the lack of cohesive product direction (constantly deprecating and replacing messaging products as the main example) and you get Google.
From talking to people who've worked/work at Google it sounds like a lot of the issues stem from too few employees dogfooding their products (especially hardware), and huge inertia to get anything off the ground/make large changes.
Add to that the lack of cohesive product direction (constantly deprecating and replacing messaging products as the main example) and you get Google.
Isn't the parsimonious explanation just that Google knows GenAI puts a ton of ad revenue at risk and therefore didn't want it to get commercialized?
> going home early and working from home was more important than winning
Well... count me in !
Well... count me in !
Yeah, that sounds like winning ...lol
If there are still people cruising after all these layoffs in the last 2 years, it’s again a leadership issue.
Absolutely true. The layoffs appear to have been 100% random. Lots of loafers and do-nothing types on my friend's team who did not get laid off, but other people who consistently do great work did get laid off.
There's no incentive to excel. Either you'll get laid off anyway or someone else will take credit for your work.
Might as well just coast. The severance is quite good, so there's not even much motivation to quit, better to wait to be laid off.
There's no incentive to excel. Either you'll get laid off anyway or someone else will take credit for your work.
Might as well just coast. The severance is quite good, so there's not even much motivation to quit, better to wait to be laid off.
Not really. When I lived and worked in Silicon Valley in the early 2010s, we used to joke that Yahoo! is where you go to retire.
I think Google is starting to become that. It's just the nature of older very large corporations, I suppose. There are places to hide in these companies for non-productive workers.
I think Google is starting to become that. It's just the nature of older very large corporations, I suppose. There are places to hide in these companies for non-productive workers.
> Not really.
What is not really about piyuv’s comment?
> There are places to hide in these companies for non-productive workers.
And that is where the leadership issue lies. Either because they can’t identify them, or can’t motivate them, or can’t fire them. Who is responsible for doing that? I don’t think it is the janitors. It is the leadership, very much.
What is not really about piyuv’s comment?
> There are places to hide in these companies for non-productive workers.
And that is where the leadership issue lies. Either because they can’t identify them, or can’t motivate them, or can’t fire them. Who is responsible for doing that? I don’t think it is the janitors. It is the leadership, very much.
> all the politics, all the complacency, all the bureaucracy, and blame people for working from home.
IMO this came first and is a driver for people stepping back and defending their boundaries with Google. Most of the eng I know just cared about their work (some driven by the ladder, for sure). Google made it difficult and put a bad taste in people's mouths about "work[ing] like hell". Meanwhile, on the startup side that I've seen, people work a lot but in much more harmonious way.
IMO this came first and is a driver for people stepping back and defending their boundaries with Google. Most of the eng I know just cared about their work (some driven by the ladder, for sure). Google made it difficult and put a bad taste in people's mouths about "work[ing] like hell". Meanwhile, on the startup side that I've seen, people work a lot but in much more harmonious way.
> Google losing to OpenAI on GenAI
I don't know why we keep thinking about "GenAI" as a product. It's an enabling technology that may (or may not) be appropriate for building actual products.
We should be asking "Is our company winning in Search, or in Shopping, or in Chat, or in Developer Tools?" Not "Is our company winning in GenAI?" This is like saying "Is our company winning in Python use?" It makes no sense.
I don't know why we keep thinking about "GenAI" as a product. It's an enabling technology that may (or may not) be appropriate for building actual products.
We should be asking "Is our company winning in Search, or in Shopping, or in Chat, or in Developer Tools?" Not "Is our company winning in GenAI?" This is like saying "Is our company winning in Python use?" It makes no sense.
>Google losing to OpenAI on GenAI
My take is more Google having like a 80-90% share in search and browsers and email and phone os and online advertising probably wasn't too worried about dominating everything and perhaps a little worried about being criticized as a monopoly. Hence them open sourcing the transformers model and instead working on protein folding and the like.
Now they have competition in GenAI they can take it seriously without looking like monopolists there.
My take is more Google having like a 80-90% share in search and browsers and email and phone os and online advertising probably wasn't too worried about dominating everything and perhaps a little worried about being criticized as a monopoly. Hence them open sourcing the transformers model and instead working on protein folding and the like.
Now they have competition in GenAI they can take it seriously without looking like monopolists there.
I mean it might be causing some of Googles problems but the AI stuff is very obviously because their teams are academia-brained as in they have the mind virus that the work is making papers and getting citations not shipping products into the real world and making money.
Google had a decade headstart on several AI unicorns tech and did nothing but write a paper and say "No you can't see the code, no you can't use the model, oh maybe here's a video of it working or at best a Google Labs project that shows a small fraction of its potential in a gimmicky way only available in the US and that stops working after a few months".
Google will forever be playing catchup from now, where they had such a massive headstart.
Google had a decade headstart on several AI unicorns tech and did nothing but write a paper and say "No you can't see the code, no you can't use the model, oh maybe here's a video of it working or at best a Google Labs project that shows a small fraction of its potential in a gimmicky way only available in the US and that stops working after a few months".
Google will forever be playing catchup from now, where they had such a massive headstart.
It's not lack of self-awareness. It's the opposite. It's a lack of awareness of the environment beyond himself-- a failure to appraise organizations on salient features.
What about all the resources spent on building and razing messaging apps?
Eric kind of dated himself with that one. That is old-school thinking that resonates with CEOs because they too are struggling to keep up with the times, but is completely tone-deaf as far as keeping engineers happy and productive is concerned.
[deleted]
I would have thought all the internal political activism would be a factor as well.
Real explanation: Google turned into a company of activists who spend 50% of their time with politics. Additionally, part of the company are second class citizens (exercise for the reader).
OpenAI had many Europeans like Sutskever who presumably were still allowed to focus on work.
OpenAI had many Europeans like Sutskever who presumably were still allowed to focus on work.
I know many people at Google, none of whom I would call an “activist”. They all describe Google as overly bureaucratic. They just happen to be sitting on a money printer internet monopoly.
poor nvidia. Their wfh policy for lots of positions is certainly dumping their stocks to the ground... oh wait...
aurareturn(8)
I read up to where he started taking questions (less than half the transcript or so?) and these were the interesting quotes that stood out to me:
So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want and you don't have to pay all that money to and there's infinite supply of these programs. That's all within the next year or two.
…
Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.
…
But certainly in your lifetimes, the battle between the US and China for knowledge supremacy is going to be the big fight.
…
And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems. And so you're better off as a strategy of national defense to have a very strong offense that you can use if you need to.
And the systems that I and others are building will do that. Because of the way the system works, I am now a licensed arms dealer, a computer scientist, businessman, and an arms dealer. Is that a progression? I don't know. I do not recommend this in your group.
…
And if anyone knows Marjorie Taylor Greene, I would encourage you to delete her from your contact list because she's the one, a single individual is blocking the provision of some number of billions of dollars to save an important democracy.
So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want and you don't have to pay all that money to and there's infinite supply of these programs. That's all within the next year or two.
…
Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.
…
But certainly in your lifetimes, the battle between the US and China for knowledge supremacy is going to be the big fight.
…
And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems. And so you're better off as a strategy of national defense to have a very strong offense that you can use if you need to.
And the systems that I and others are building will do that. Because of the way the system works, I am now a licensed arms dealer, a computer scientist, businessman, and an arms dealer. Is that a progression? I don't know. I do not recommend this in your group.
…
And if anyone knows Marjorie Taylor Greene, I would encourage you to delete her from your contact list because she's the one, a single individual is blocking the provision of some number of billions of dollars to save an important democracy.
Half of these are comic book villain levels of evil they're so brazen. This person shouldn't be trusted to be in charge of a corner deli.
Even modern cartoon villains are better people than that. Sure, they want to take over the world, but they do so overtly (and wouldn’t try to suppress an interview where they said so) and have a modicum of concern for their own family and underlings.
Kissinger's buddy Schmidt is in the military AI drone business and drooling over massive cold and/or hot war with China. Not a good sign for the future of humanity.
if there was going to be a gold rush, the surefire way to make money is to sell shovels.
I don't think calling him "Kissinger's buddy" works as a smear since Kissinger was very friendly with China.
I'm not trying to defend Schmidt, but you're naive if you think the US shouldn't develop AI weapons.
How would the world look like now if the US took the high road and refused to develop nuclear weapons and instead let Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia develop them instead?
I'm not trying to defend Schmidt, but you're naive if you think the US shouldn't develop AI weapons.
How would the world look like now if the US took the high road and refused to develop nuclear weapons and instead let Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia develop them instead?
The military had AI deployed on the battle field long before the masses awoke to it via chatGPT. The controversy over using remote weapons and AI was kicked off back in the Obama administration. Before the debate has any time to congeal someone is going to deploy autonomous weapons. Iran may already be doing it.
> imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want
I don't think this is going to be reality anytime soon. In order for the LLM or agent to do what you want, you'd need to be able to precisely specify what you want and that's a hard problem all on it's own. And if you were able to do that precise specification you would be the programmer.
Not say the software developer paradigm won't change but it seems very unlikely to become "make me a better google ads system" anytime soon. I could see getting to something were you are given a result by an agent and then can iterate on it, towards some solution.
I don't think this is going to be reality anytime soon. In order for the LLM or agent to do what you want, you'd need to be able to precisely specify what you want and that's a hard problem all on it's own. And if you were able to do that precise specification you would be the programmer.
Not say the software developer paradigm won't change but it seems very unlikely to become "make me a better google ads system" anytime soon. I could see getting to something were you are given a result by an agent and then can iterate on it, towards some solution.
> In order for the LLM or agent to do what you want, you'd need to be able to precisely specify what you want
no, you just need to vaguely know what you want, and get the LLM to produce something that you then examine, and crawl towards the end goal.
LLM's could potentially allow fast iteration from a laymen's description of what they want.
no, you just need to vaguely know what you want, and get the LLM to produce something that you then examine, and crawl towards the end goal.
LLM's could potentially allow fast iteration from a laymen's description of what they want.
Sometimes when writing 'fiddly' code, I'll have a bug.
But I can't find the bug. I get the wrong answers but can't trace it through the logic.
Maybe it's a dumb thing like a missing index increment? Or a missing assignment and I just can't see it.
Maybe it's easier to just tear down the mess and write it again.
This is how I feel whenever I deal with AI generated code.
But I can't find the bug. I get the wrong answers but can't trace it through the logic.
Maybe it's a dumb thing like a missing index increment? Or a missing assignment and I just can't see it.
Maybe it's easier to just tear down the mess and write it again.
This is how I feel whenever I deal with AI generated code.
Exactly this - show me something and I can tell the AI what I don't like or what it is missing.
Equally, you can ask the GenAI to keep asking you questions to broaden its knowledge of the problem you are solving, and also ask it to research the issues customers are having with a current solution.
Some engineers seem to imagine any non coder using AI will behave very simply 'make me a new search engine' . Lots of very clever people (who just don't know how to or want to learn to code) will be picking up the skills to use AI as it gets better and better.
I can see AI being used to write far better requirements and produce amazing prototypes - but if you work at a megacorp, chances are (for now) they will want that code rewritten by a 'human' developer.
Equally, you can ask the GenAI to keep asking you questions to broaden its knowledge of the problem you are solving, and also ask it to research the issues customers are having with a current solution.
Some engineers seem to imagine any non coder using AI will behave very simply 'make me a new search engine' . Lots of very clever people (who just don't know how to or want to learn to code) will be picking up the skills to use AI as it gets better and better.
I can see AI being used to write far better requirements and produce amazing prototypes - but if you work at a megacorp, chances are (for now) they will want that code rewritten by a 'human' developer.
Today, millions of lines of chatGPT generated code will be committed in large organizations.
True, I'm no doubt being too cautious - where I work it is mainly used for unit testing and prototyping - as I understand it we are using it with developers, but always with a human review - we never have a product owner making code with a AI tool and deploying to live. Yet.
Oh dear God, if you think product owners are going to be committing code you must be missing something. The AI is to help devs work easier, not replace them. We are nowhere near that. Too much involved.
In what languages can chatGPT write anything remotely sane and deployable?
I have had it build out entire API in node Express. Shit needed help for sure. The point of AI is to have it so low value work like scaffolding and boilerplate. The AI goes off the rails a lot. You have to have the skills to recognize when it is and somehow change course.
it doesn't matter, it's still likely true. many programmers use it, many of those generated lines will in fact become part of commits. (maybe not millions, but ... it depends on the definition of large orgs.)
The problem with this plan is reading code is the hardest part of coding. Especially code you haven't written.
The issue with LLM driven development is that it’s often as hard to verify the outputs of the model as it would’ve been to write it myself. It’s basically the programming equivalent of a Gish gallop.
You could also do the same thing with a high-level language. Your LLM is nothing more than an interactive optimizer.
but now you got to go learn that high level language, rather than use natural language you already know.
But now you need to learn how the LLM understands your natural language words, which is very context dependent and will change in the next LLM update. I don't think that takes less time, at least if you are going to write something non-trivial.
Thats still gonna be a big change shift if such companies could axe every 2nd or 3rd developer in their teams. In that situation you might be competing with your colleague not to loose job or have to be "non-arogant" (/s) to ask for pay rise.
Another way to look at it is everyone's productivity will be expected to increase to match the productivity increases by the competition who are also using AI.
If you don't skill up on how to effectively use AI, then we'll find someone else who has.
This is the lump of labour fallacy. There's always more work to be done.
Even if you formally specify what you want on a high level and the LLM implements it on a low level, yes, you can call yourself the programmer and the LLM would be a compiler but it would still be amazingly useful
There's definitely room to build specification builder agents, that have access to documentation and previous specifications.
The other day I was looking into adding Trusted Types in the Content-Security-Policy header, which was something new to me. In my chat with Claude I asked:
"Lets brainstorm 10 a list of ideas closely related to this so we can think of anything we might be missing on the topic to consider."
And that provided a good list of items to review to consider and expand out the sphere of thinking for the LLM.
It is an infuriatingly hard problem to have the LLM produce excellent results every single time, and have it just do everything and want it to read our mind and all the knowledge and context of a task. I think we'll make some good progress over the next few years as agentic workflows are built out to mimic out thought processes, and the cost/capability of the LLMs keeps improving.
The other day I was looking into adding Trusted Types in the Content-Security-Policy header, which was something new to me. In my chat with Claude I asked:
"Lets brainstorm 10 a list of ideas closely related to this so we can think of anything we might be missing on the topic to consider."
And that provided a good list of items to review to consider and expand out the sphere of thinking for the LLM.
It is an infuriatingly hard problem to have the LLM produce excellent results every single time, and have it just do everything and want it to read our mind and all the knowledge and context of a task. I think we'll make some good progress over the next few years as agentic workflows are built out to mimic out thought processes, and the cost/capability of the LLMs keeps improving.
> And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems.
This is not actually one of the things to know about war. It's about as far from the truth as you can get.
This is not actually one of the things to know about war. It's about as far from the truth as you can get.
It's funny how this guy, as most rich business types, thinks he actually knows everything, and he's an expert in all domains. What the hell does he know about war? He's not a general or admiral or something. Of course he imagines being CEO of a large company is the same thing, but it's really not.
Something to keep in mind when reading his other pronouncements.
Something to keep in mind when reading his other pronouncements.
Even successful businessmen don't even know that much about building and running a business as so few of them are able to replicate a prior success and end up pursuing a career of "passive investors".
I hate the term "serial entrepreneur". You don't call someone who makes one breakfast "chef", and if they make several breakfasts "serial chef". If you are qualified for something, you can do it any number of times.
Betrays the reality of them being "serial lottery winners".
Betrays the reality of them being "serial lottery winners".
Palmer Luckey got quite successful with Anduril even though he wasn't that much a business man in the past, but was successful as engineer [0]
I think war in ukraine shows that hord of very cheap sea drones can even thread a fleet of warships.
[0] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-08-09/weapons-st...
I think war in ukraine shows that hord of very cheap sea drones can even thread a fleet of warships.
[0] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-08-09/weapons-st...
saturation attacks are mostly cheap and effective. see ddos vs intricate hacking
Indeed: how to avoid needless conflicts is the key. Having a strong offensive is temporary, and potentially difficult to maintain in the long run.
The use of AI/robots in war is probably not a good way to ingrain into people how to avoid conflicts either: as sad as it sound, let them get a taste of it first hand, and that'll probably calm things down more efficiently: not for a few hours/days, but decades.
The use of AI/robots in war is probably not a good way to ingrain into people how to avoid conflicts either: as sad as it sound, let them get a taste of it first hand, and that'll probably calm things down more efficiently: not for a few hours/days, but decades.
>> And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems.
> This is not actually one of the things to know about war. It's about as far from the truth as you can get.
... Unless you are writing the rules of war:
"Secretary of Defense Ash Carter appointed Schmidt as chairman of the DoD Innovation Advisory Board announced March 2, 2016. It will be modeled like the Defense Business Board and will facilitate the Pentagon at becoming more innovative and adaptive.
In August 2020, Schmidt launched the podcast Reimagine with Eric Schmidt.[71][72] In December 2021, Schmidt joined Chainlink Labs as a strategic advisor.[73] In October 2022, he co-authored a piece titled "America Could Lose the Tech Contest With China" for Foreign Affairs with Ylli Bajraktari, former executive director of the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.[74] In March 2023, Schmidt testified at a U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing regarding AI.
In 2022, Schmidt was appointed to the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, a legislative commission charged with making policy recommendations to Congress and the Executive Branch.[1]"
"Since 2023, Schmidt has been involved in building White Stork, a startup developing suicide attack drones.[2]"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-sc...
> This is not actually one of the things to know about war. It's about as far from the truth as you can get.
... Unless you are writing the rules of war:
"Secretary of Defense Ash Carter appointed Schmidt as chairman of the DoD Innovation Advisory Board announced March 2, 2016. It will be modeled like the Defense Business Board and will facilitate the Pentagon at becoming more innovative and adaptive.
In August 2020, Schmidt launched the podcast Reimagine with Eric Schmidt.[71][72] In December 2021, Schmidt joined Chainlink Labs as a strategic advisor.[73] In October 2022, he co-authored a piece titled "America Could Lose the Tech Contest With China" for Foreign Affairs with Ylli Bajraktari, former executive director of the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.[74] In March 2023, Schmidt testified at a U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing regarding AI.
In 2022, Schmidt was appointed to the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, a legislative commission charged with making policy recommendations to Congress and the Executive Branch.[1]"
"Since 2023, Schmidt has been involved in building White Stork, a startup developing suicide attack drones.[2]"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-sc...
Your response doesn't actually appear to be related to my comment. Does some part of your comment, or one of your links, support the idea that the attacker in a war always has an advantage over the defender?
Remember when Georgia invaded Russia?
Remember when Georgia invaded Russia?
Remember when Georgia invaded Russia?
We don't actually. Care to elaborate?
We don't actually. Care to elaborate?
[deleted]
If only there was some kind of ongoing event that demonstrated exactly this…
Or, you know, a whole world war that definitively proved the capability of dug-in defenders to hold ground.
I think the second world war showed how big the attacker advantage is.
Germany got's industrial base absolutely shattered while the non-defending US was able to use its industrial base to supply arms for 4 fronts (vs Germany, in Africa, for Russia, vs Japan).
Germany got's industrial base absolutely shattered while the non-defending US was able to use its industrial base to supply arms for 4 fronts (vs Germany, in Africa, for Russia, vs Japan).
BodyCulture(1)
> And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage
I'm no military expert, but wasn't it exactly the opposite?
The attacking army needs to be bigger than the defending army and will suffer way more casualties,even if they are successful.
I'm no military expert, but wasn't it exactly the opposite?
The attacking army needs to be bigger than the defending army and will suffer way more casualties,even if they are successful.
The premise is that the offense knows the battle plan beforehand and the defense doesn't I believe, one of those "be aggressive" executive metaphors I think he internalized but not the reality of ground warfare, since probably the US Civil War when trench warfare took over at the latest.
Not necessarily. The Trojan Horse wasn’t so disastrous because it was filled with way more soldiers. It was because they had penetrated all of the defenses and had the element of surprise.
Iran just sent I-don’t-know-how-many drones and missiles at Israel like a few months ago. A few of them landed, but most were caught and intercepted in the air. Here’s the thing: if even one of them had hit, say, the center of Tel Aviv, or the old city in Jerusalem, it would have been a massively successful attack, even if none of the other ones had done any damage. The size of zero armies was measured in that exchange.
Iran just sent I-don’t-know-how-many drones and missiles at Israel like a few months ago. A few of them landed, but most were caught and intercepted in the air. Here’s the thing: if even one of them had hit, say, the center of Tel Aviv, or the old city in Jerusalem, it would have been a massively successful attack, even if none of the other ones had done any damage. The size of zero armies was measured in that exchange.
The Trojan Horse is a myth. It’s as meaningful an example of military strategy as Gundam robots.
But even if those were real they would still not support Schmidt’s point that “offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems”. The Trojan Horse didn’t overwhelm defenses, it penetrated them and destroyed the enemy from inside.
But even if those were real they would still not support Schmidt’s point that “offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems”. The Trojan Horse didn’t overwhelm defenses, it penetrated them and destroyed the enemy from inside.
Sure, that's fair - I don't mean to imply that it is always true, and 'overwhelm the defensive systems' isn't the language I'd use. All I mean is that specifically targeted strikes, at the right targets, at the right time, can sometimes be far more important than who has the bigger army. Sometimes if you cut off the head, the rest of the snake really does kind of just die.
I guess the meaning is that defending already starts losing. It is much better to be in the offensive, it takes your enemy much more effort to go from defense to offense
Deep strategic thinker and tactical expert[1] that I am, I agree: As the old maxim goes, "the best defense is a good offense".
[1]: Having watched the evolution of a football team's tactics from 5-v-5 (2 min, age 6-7) to 11-v-11 (2*45 min, age 18-19). A regular Strategos, me.
[1]: Having watched the evolution of a football team's tactics from 5-v-5 (2 min, age 6-7) to 11-v-11 (2*45 min, age 18-19). A regular Strategos, me.
but you are missing context here. His point was that once cheap $500 drones can be produced at an industrial scale, in a highly automated fashion you can completely overwhelm any defensive measure that could be put in place.
Normal warefare is based on "Manpower" and you reference "Army". He further goes on to explain that artilery, tanks and any kind of "land army" is completely obsolete.
Normal warefare is based on "Manpower" and you reference "Army". He further goes on to explain that artilery, tanks and any kind of "land army" is completely obsolete.
The word "explain" works a bit like "know" (and perhaps "teach", I think). No, you don't "know" that the Earth is flat; you just mistakenly think so. (And no, you don't "teach" kids that the Earth is flat; you just mislead them.)
To say that Schmidt "explained" that artillery, tanks and armies are obsolete implies that that is true, which... At the very least, remains to be seen. The correct term would be something like "He further goes on to bloviate about how artillery, tanks and..."
To say that Schmidt "explained" that artillery, tanks and armies are obsolete implies that that is true, which... At the very least, remains to be seen. The correct term would be something like "He further goes on to bloviate about how artillery, tanks and..."
But when those “casualties” are drones perhaps it turns out to be true?
It might be a reference to the blue-team red-team asymmetry, and how in cybersecurity the attacker has an advantage. The attacker there only needs one success and can rapidly try different avenues, while the blue team just needs to miss patching one system and that's it. And while patching may be technically simple, the organizational efforts around it are sometimes... eh.
In war, defenders can entrench more and more and a lot of work and planning is put into hitting either before the defenses are up, or not at all.
In war, defenders can entrench more and more and a lot of work and planning is put into hitting either before the defenses are up, or not at all.
> So imagine a non-arrogant programmer
Imagine a non-arrogant CEO
Imagine a non-arrogant CEO
[deleted]
"democracy"
Damn, the Marjorie Taylor Greene comment sounds like “this person is bad because she isn’t interested in the US getting involved in more foreign wars”.
That’s actually an endorsement .
That’s actually an endorsement .
There's nothing wrong with getting involved in foreign wars, if that means supporting a nation that has been attacked by its neighbor in gross violation of international law.
I don't agree with US involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places, but Ukraine is a obviously totally different from those. Marjorie Taylor Greene may not give a damn as she lives thousands of kilometers from Russia (or maybe she's just been bought by Russian money), but morally she's wrong. When it comes to Russian imperialism, the only right thing to do is help its victims fight back.
I don't agree with US involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places, but Ukraine is a obviously totally different from those. Marjorie Taylor Greene may not give a damn as she lives thousands of kilometers from Russia (or maybe she's just been bought by Russian money), but morally she's wrong. When it comes to Russian imperialism, the only right thing to do is help its victims fight back.
there is everything wrong with getting involved in foreign wars. maybe you should join the military and participate in a war before thinking they are so great.
i've never agreed with MTG before and i think she's a terrible person but i applaud her stance in this case.
i've never agreed with MTG before and i think she's a terrible person but i applaud her stance in this case.
Well, try living in a country that shares over a thousand kilometers of border with Russia, and which has been invaded many times by them during past 300 years, resulting in massacres of civilian population. Then you might see things differently.
Without US playing world police my home would probably have been bombed by now... Or maybe Hitler would have won and destroyed Russia, who knows. In any case, I much prefer living in an independent country protected by NATO, over being a member of an enslaved ethnic minority inside Russia, in which case I would have probably been sent to the front lines in Ukraine already.
A flawed world police is better than no world police at all.
Without US playing world police my home would probably have been bombed by now... Or maybe Hitler would have won and destroyed Russia, who knows. In any case, I much prefer living in an independent country protected by NATO, over being a member of an enslaved ethnic minority inside Russia, in which case I would have probably been sent to the front lines in Ukraine already.
A flawed world police is better than no world police at all.
I would love to understand where the war-like anti-Chinese sentiment is coming from in US elite circles.
I get that china is a direct economic threat. That’s obvious.
I also get that china is a philosophical threat on a level different to the Soviet Union (that was freedom produces more wealth than totalitarianism - which the US won.).
The problem with China is that the argument is much harder to win - china is doing well economically (kinda) - and has not given up its totalitarian control. Their argument was the Soviet Union tried central command economics whereas we are something something power of markets and chinese culture.
What gets me is that this is not something to win on the battlefield - this is something where we (being liberal democracies) need to double down on liberal democracy- both the production of wealth and the use of that wealth to raise the living standards of all its citizens - in other words if we think freedom is better we make it so fucking obvious we live in utopia it’s painful.
Yea that’s wealth taxes, yes it’s more spending on infrastructure and education and sharing the wealth, and teaching ourselves to aspire to better.
Not (just) having bigger guns.
I get that china is a direct economic threat. That’s obvious.
I also get that china is a philosophical threat on a level different to the Soviet Union (that was freedom produces more wealth than totalitarianism - which the US won.).
The problem with China is that the argument is much harder to win - china is doing well economically (kinda) - and has not given up its totalitarian control. Their argument was the Soviet Union tried central command economics whereas we are something something power of markets and chinese culture.
What gets me is that this is not something to win on the battlefield - this is something where we (being liberal democracies) need to double down on liberal democracy- both the production of wealth and the use of that wealth to raise the living standards of all its citizens - in other words if we think freedom is better we make it so fucking obvious we live in utopia it’s painful.
Yea that’s wealth taxes, yes it’s more spending on infrastructure and education and sharing the wealth, and teaching ourselves to aspire to better.
Not (just) having bigger guns.
As someone who spent 5 years in China pre-pandemic, China is a threat to many nations due to their growth. The Chinese govt. is specifically targeting key markets (EVs, solar, battery tech, steel, semiconductors) and China makes much more of those items that can be used internally in China. So China ends up driving any non-Chinese battery or solar panel manufacturer out of business.
If Chinese EVs were to be sold widely in the US, they would be less than half the cost of any Western-made EV and would take over the EV market. A future where Chinese companies own the EV market in the US with all of the American user data going back to servers in China- that's just not a future the US govt. wants- no govt. (outside of China's own) should want that.
Then there's the whole Fentanyl epidemic in the US and elsewhere. That is largely due to Chinese chemical manufacturers who are selling the chemicals to Mexico and then those drugs are smuggled into the US. There are many to blame here but the US has been pushing China to ban the sale of these chemicals outside of China for a long time without agreement. China realizes this is important to the US and it's being used as a key trade issue.
"doubling down on liberal democracy" got us to where we are now wrt China. China doesn't respond to liberal democracy. They only respond to force or trade embargos, or tariffs. That's what was learned as Xi decided to become dictator for life.
If Chinese EVs were to be sold widely in the US, they would be less than half the cost of any Western-made EV and would take over the EV market. A future where Chinese companies own the EV market in the US with all of the American user data going back to servers in China- that's just not a future the US govt. wants- no govt. (outside of China's own) should want that.
Then there's the whole Fentanyl epidemic in the US and elsewhere. That is largely due to Chinese chemical manufacturers who are selling the chemicals to Mexico and then those drugs are smuggled into the US. There are many to blame here but the US has been pushing China to ban the sale of these chemicals outside of China for a long time without agreement. China realizes this is important to the US and it's being used as a key trade issue.
"doubling down on liberal democracy" got us to where we are now wrt China. China doesn't respond to liberal democracy. They only respond to force or trade embargos, or tariffs. That's what was learned as Xi decided to become dictator for life.
To nitpick a single point:
> A future where Chinese companies own the EV market in the US with all of the American user data going back to servers in China- that's just not a future the US govt. wants
I agree, but why do cars need to send data to servers again? I don't grok why Tesla does it and I don't grok why BYD does it either. What's wrong with the alternative where we allow real competition that benefits everyone, and then ban any features (eg sending data to servers) that the government gets nervous about? I don't see how this is any different from the myriad of other requirements on cars (eg mandated safety belts etc etc etc).
I recognize that state-subsidised competition still isn't fair, so I support import tariffs that match those subsidies, but any further and you're just hurting competition and the consumer, right?
Thing is, super cheap EVs and solar panels is exactly what we should want. There's a climate crisis going on and these things are a big part of the solution. With climate goggles on, to put import tariffs on the tech that's gonna save the world sound batshit insane. We should want those tariffs to be as low as possible.
> A future where Chinese companies own the EV market in the US with all of the American user data going back to servers in China- that's just not a future the US govt. wants
I agree, but why do cars need to send data to servers again? I don't grok why Tesla does it and I don't grok why BYD does it either. What's wrong with the alternative where we allow real competition that benefits everyone, and then ban any features (eg sending data to servers) that the government gets nervous about? I don't see how this is any different from the myriad of other requirements on cars (eg mandated safety belts etc etc etc).
I recognize that state-subsidised competition still isn't fair, so I support import tariffs that match those subsidies, but any further and you're just hurting competition and the consumer, right?
Thing is, super cheap EVs and solar panels is exactly what we should want. There's a climate crisis going on and these things are a big part of the solution. With climate goggles on, to put import tariffs on the tech that's gonna save the world sound batshit insane. We should want those tariffs to be as low as possible.
You're right that this isn't about data collection/privacy, though it would be a bit scary to have our nation's cars remotely shut off at the whims of a foreign government.
Instead, we want/need to be protectionist of our manufacturing industries so that if we were to go to war, we keep our ability to make more missiles, planes, tanks, etc.
Instead, we want/need to be protectionist of our manufacturing industries so that if we were to go to war, we keep our ability to make more missiles, planes, tanks, etc.
I think going to war might be one of those things where if you plan for it, you substantially increase the chance that you'll do it.
> I don't grok why Tesla does it and I don't grok why BYD does it either.
User data is valuable[1], and storage is now so cheap, for a modest sum, one can keep data forever without deleting[2], so keeping car telemetry/videos has virtually no downsides.
1. For self-driving training, or selling to market researchers, or intelligence services. I'm not claiming this is what's being currently being done with the data, but how "value" can be extracted from it
2. Shout out to r/DataHoarder
User data is valuable[1], and storage is now so cheap, for a modest sum, one can keep data forever without deleting[2], so keeping car telemetry/videos has virtually no downsides.
1. For self-driving training, or selling to market researchers, or intelligence services. I'm not claiming this is what's being currently being done with the data, but how "value" can be extracted from it
2. Shout out to r/DataHoarder
> I don't grok why Tesla does it and I don't grok why BYD does it either.
> Thing is, super cheap EVs and solar panels is exactly what we should want.
It's plain to me how this can come into conflict with National Interest - no country wants cheap solar and EV at the cost of its own manufacturers going bankrupt (and losing the jobs that go with them going down the supply chain).
User data is valuable[1], storage is cheap, so keeping it has no downsides.
1. For self-driving training, or selling to market researchers, or intelligence services. I'm not claiming this is what's being currently being done with the data, but how "value" can be extracted from it
> Thing is, super cheap EVs and solar panels is exactly what we should want.
It's plain to me how this can come into conflict with National Interest - no country wants cheap solar and EV at the cost of its own manufacturers going bankrupt (and losing the jobs that go with them going down the supply chain).
User data is valuable[1], storage is cheap, so keeping it has no downsides.
1. For self-driving training, or selling to market researchers, or intelligence services. I'm not claiming this is what's being currently being done with the data, but how "value" can be extracted from it
I want cheap solar and EV even if it means domestic manufacturers that can’t compete go out of business.
I understand that. Your national government (or politicians) will likely disagree.
I dont see how that is true at all. The textile industry has completely left the western world and no one is complaining(other than the luddites I guess). Solar manufacturing isnt very different from textiles. Protectionism just leads to expensive goods, 95% of people gain under free trade.
So what's your mental model for the protectionism by the US against Chinese EVs and batteries despite the push for renewables by the same administration?
> The textile industry has completely left the western world and no one is complaining(other than the luddites I guess).
This was a very gradual process (over centuries), and they weren't really happy about it either. It wasn't just the Luddites who were upset when Samuel Slater (a.k.a. "Slater the traitor") left England and helped set up a competing textile industry in North America.
For self-preservation purposes, no politician will willingly sacrifice jobs at existing regional or national champions[1], regardless of how noble the goal is: politicians get voted out of office for far less. The best we can hope for, is a slow steady decline of harmful industries (see coal).
1. The US will treat Boeing with kid gloves rather than gift the market to Airbus, even though Boeing has a terrible safety culture and not exactly competing on merit. The same goes for VW in Germany, Arianespace in France, Samsung in Korea, Huawei in China, etc.
> The textile industry has completely left the western world and no one is complaining(other than the luddites I guess).
This was a very gradual process (over centuries), and they weren't really happy about it either. It wasn't just the Luddites who were upset when Samuel Slater (a.k.a. "Slater the traitor") left England and helped set up a competing textile industry in North America.
For self-preservation purposes, no politician will willingly sacrifice jobs at existing regional or national champions[1], regardless of how noble the goal is: politicians get voted out of office for far less. The best we can hope for, is a slow steady decline of harmful industries (see coal).
1. The US will treat Boeing with kid gloves rather than gift the market to Airbus, even though Boeing has a terrible safety culture and not exactly competing on merit. The same goes for VW in Germany, Arianespace in France, Samsung in Korea, Huawei in China, etc.
If the government just gave away money, and paid your salary, your employees salary, your rent, your purchase costs on manufacturing equipment costs, I'd find it hard to compete with you too, given than I'm not a billionaire and would need to raise capital from investors.
Grok IS why Tesla does it.
The narrative of 'data-privacy' being a threat is IMO a whole lot of simplist bait. The real thing at stake here is the vehicle manufacturing jobs that are being threatened, and the whole chain of high value jobs that come with it. People who lose their jobs lose faith in their governments. And countries losing a high value chain of goods/services isn't going to do well psychologically for them.
This [video](https://youtu.be/BQ23sgi_mgw?si=3HOm3WeWKO7VJMzr) called <Is China’s High-Tech ‘Overproduction’ Killing Jobs In The West?> from Channel NewsAsia covers it. Highly recommend you westerners to watch it; there's some really heavy handed defense/reasoning from the chinese side.
This [video](https://youtu.be/BQ23sgi_mgw?si=3HOm3WeWKO7VJMzr) called <Is China’s High-Tech ‘Overproduction’ Killing Jobs In The West?> from Channel NewsAsia covers it. Highly recommend you westerners to watch it; there's some really heavy handed defense/reasoning from the chinese side.
What if we lived in a world where Chinese are allowed to sell their cheap EVs but the government was actually on the side of the common man instead of corporate elites, and actually scrutinized anti-consumer totalitarian data collection, because its wrong, and anti-humanity on principle, and not because it's not controlled by them.
> That is largely due to Chinese chemical manufacturers who are selling the chemicals to Mexico and then those drugs are smuggled into the US.
i say china is not at all responsible for the drug, except as a contract manufacturer. If china doesn't do it, somebody else would've. China just does it cheaply.
The drug problems come from the cartels, and from the fact that US's war on drugs makes drugs expensive, and thus profitable. There's no possibility of humans relinquishing drug use - think about the prohibition and the problems that it caused.
I say, just allow drugs to be manufactured, and sold (under license and regulation) in the US. It's gonna be like alcohol. This will take away the profits from the cartels, and they will stop buying from china. It will increase tax revenue, as drug consumption can be taxed (like tobacco today is).
It will also remove the stigma, and reduce drug enforcement costs in police. The only thing society has to give up is the moral high horse of drug use.
i say china is not at all responsible for the drug, except as a contract manufacturer. If china doesn't do it, somebody else would've. China just does it cheaply.
The drug problems come from the cartels, and from the fact that US's war on drugs makes drugs expensive, and thus profitable. There's no possibility of humans relinquishing drug use - think about the prohibition and the problems that it caused.
I say, just allow drugs to be manufactured, and sold (under license and regulation) in the US. It's gonna be like alcohol. This will take away the profits from the cartels, and they will stop buying from china. It will increase tax revenue, as drug consumption can be taxed (like tobacco today is).
It will also remove the stigma, and reduce drug enforcement costs in police. The only thing society has to give up is the moral high horse of drug use.
Are you sure drugs can be regulated the way alcohol can? They are both more addictive and behavior changing than alcohol. I don't have a solution as I also dislike the current "war" on drugs. But I suspect regulating safe fentanyl use will be way, way harder than regulating safe scotch use.
> safe fentanyl use
it doesn't have to be safe, just legal. If people choose it, and fuck themselves up, they're free to do so. They're doing it today already, but with the added benefit of being illegal and force resources into a drug war against the cartels.
it doesn't have to be safe, just legal. If people choose it, and fuck themselves up, they're free to do so. They're doing it today already, but with the added benefit of being illegal and force resources into a drug war against the cartels.
When I was living in the USA I felt this way, but after moving to Japan, a country that is very strict on drugs and has eliminated it from the public consciousness, I feel my opinions changing. I trust myself to be able to use/not use drugs responsibly but given how irresponsible most people are, it’s undeniable the positive effects on society of NOT letting people totally destroy their brains and lives, and it is utterly daunting to think of what it would take to get the USA back on its feet re drugs.
We need the EV and solar transition to happen, and if the Chinese government wants to subsidize that we should let them.
> all of the American user data going back to servers in China
There's a long running argument with the EU over all EU user's data going back to the US where there are no privacy laws or protection against surveillance (US constitution only protects US nationals!), so the US government would have more credibility on this if it recognized that.
> all of the American user data going back to servers in China
There's a long running argument with the EU over all EU user's data going back to the US where there are no privacy laws or protection against surveillance (US constitution only protects US nationals!), so the US government would have more credibility on this if it recognized that.
>with all of the American user data going back to servers in China
How about a future where user data goes to no servers of no country at all? Am I asking too much?
How about a future where user data goes to no servers of no country at all? Am I asking too much?
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I can’t help but think this IP theft scare, while completely real, has a version in the Western US-led economics called ”big business” or ”VC money” or ”platform control”.
How many independent innovations get snatched (sherlocked?) by big business taking the idea and making their own version, when they see a small player that found a customer segment a large company never bothered investigating?
When large sums of money is what’s needed to execute any novel idea to full completion before your competitors can, that money becomes just a version of ”IP theft” or unfair competition. I think what they are getting is a taste of their own medicine.
EVs were a mature idea a decade+ ago, but big money oil companies hamstrung it and big money ICE manufacturers argued it was not worth their time or effort. The Chinese market and leaders knew the fundamentals were valid and cornered the entire manufacturing market before it could be cornered by western companies.
How many independent innovations get snatched (sherlocked?) by big business taking the idea and making their own version, when they see a small player that found a customer segment a large company never bothered investigating?
When large sums of money is what’s needed to execute any novel idea to full completion before your competitors can, that money becomes just a version of ”IP theft” or unfair competition. I think what they are getting is a taste of their own medicine.
EVs were a mature idea a decade+ ago, but big money oil companies hamstrung it and big money ICE manufacturers argued it was not worth their time or effort. The Chinese market and leaders knew the fundamentals were valid and cornered the entire manufacturing market before it could be cornered by western companies.
Honestly, it's wild that the US hasn't invested heavily into green energy for the past couple of decades. They could've been in an extremely strong position of selling the tech which all countries need to transition their energy sectors. But instead they've ... fought it? And let China and other countries outside of their hegemony eat their lunch? Why?
The Resource Curse. (Fracking.)
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The oil industry (eg. Koch) has spent a fortune in lobbying and their ideological allies that want to maintain the status quo have spent enormous amounts of money and effort in spreading FUD around shifting away from an oil based economy.
I really think it’s much less insidious than you are making it out to be. Fracking means America has access to cheap natural gas so no one has worried about energy security in the last two decades so few are pushing for green energy subsidies. This is just politicians doing what their constituents want. China on the other hand has extremely limited oil so green tech has been a top national security priority.
It is the money and lobbying that results in the imbalance in information and an imbalance in what "the constituents want."
Absolutely constituents want jobs and cheap energy. I bet they also don't want the wild salmon they eat to go extinct too. On balance they're hearing about the former and not the latter.
Absolutely constituents want jobs and cheap energy. I bet they also don't want the wild salmon they eat to go extinct too. On balance they're hearing about the former and not the latter.
> "doubling down on liberal democracy" got us to where we are now wrt China.
Banning all the paths to growth got the US to where it is now. Everything China did to out-compete the US was illegal in the US - the working conditions wouldn't have passed muster, the environmental damage wouldn't have been acceptable, the investment in cheap energy was off the agenda and the focus on heavy industry was broadly against the policy position which focused on financialisation and growing service industries.
We can argue until the cows come home which policies were the important ones (it is clear that some of what China does is counterproductive) but a key factor was legislative restrictions in the West. That is the opposite of the liberal part of liberal democracy. A key part of liberalism is giving people freedom to better their own lives.
Banning all the paths to growth got the US to where it is now. Everything China did to out-compete the US was illegal in the US - the working conditions wouldn't have passed muster, the environmental damage wouldn't have been acceptable, the investment in cheap energy was off the agenda and the focus on heavy industry was broadly against the policy position which focused on financialisation and growing service industries.
We can argue until the cows come home which policies were the important ones (it is clear that some of what China does is counterproductive) but a key factor was legislative restrictions in the West. That is the opposite of the liberal part of liberal democracy. A key part of liberalism is giving people freedom to better their own lives.
Still it is up to western companies to prove that they aren’t inferior to Chinese ones. Tariffs and trade barriers will buy time but if western companies physically cannot approach the scale or cost effectiveness of Chinese industry then there are serious structural problems in our liberal system.
That's just implicitly admitting defeat. We can't compete so will make it about guns.
I mean I'm Chinese, and the number of Americans with rose tinted glasses on China because "america bad" is insane. The real thing China does far better than the US, is having an understanding of how the US works and how to target Americans and American corporations with the right incentives. Americans on average almost know nothing about what the real China is like, and have a general disinterest in other countries and global affairs, and overlook the much suffering and abuse there is on a societal scale. I don't disagree with OP that the US needs to double down on improving social standards as a whole, but policymakers need to think hard about potential abuse from the Chinese side, especially when the economy is just a wheel driven by the political cart. The incentives don't align that neatly in the US, and coordination is hard.
>They only respond to force
In the wise words of Chairman Mao:
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
In the wise words of Chairman Mao:
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
At least he practiced what he preached there, but in democracies the pen controls the sword, not the other way around.
>but in democracies the pen controls the sword
Pens are fairly sharp
Pens are fairly sharp
There's a pent-up frustration about the imbalance... US businesses are not allowed to do business in China; meanwhile Chinese businesses run freely in the united states.. until that imbalance is fixed business executives are going to use any tool in their toolbox to raise the heat about china. This is the simple truth of the matter right now
Before this there was an explosion in anti-European sentiment as well.
Lots of American newspaper articles disparaging European engineering and scientific work, disparaging European work culture, etc. Even now, if somebody here comes up with something they will be referred to as 'scientists' while others in the US will be referred to by name and university; and this stuff is on Wikipedia too. People like Håkan Lans, who in reality is a Polhem prize and Thulin medal winner, are presented as if though they were patent trolls.
This became less prominent-- it's still going on, but still slightly less prominent, so maybe the US is capable of calming itself down.
Lots of American newspaper articles disparaging European engineering and scientific work, disparaging European work culture, etc. Even now, if somebody here comes up with something they will be referred to as 'scientists' while others in the US will be referred to by name and university; and this stuff is on Wikipedia too. People like Håkan Lans, who in reality is a Polhem prize and Thulin medal winner, are presented as if though they were patent trolls.
This became less prominent-- it's still going on, but still slightly less prominent, so maybe the US is capable of calming itself down.
Well it's primarily driven by what's going on in China, not what's going on the US.
The prior three decades were driven by the line of thought that a prosperous economy tends towards democracy and that prosperity prevents war.
Allied to this, the expectation was that this would be mutually beneficial with both parties pursuing it in good faith.
Since then, it's become clear it's not the case. China have found the loopholes, their lack of IP (intellectual property rights) enforcement and government corporate espionage have shown the relationship is asymmetric and to the detriment of the US.
Xi has also strengthened his hold on power dramatically, breaking with his predecessors gradual loosening of control. This leads to more risk of irrational ideological driven decisions such as war, maintaining prosperity is no longer necessarily the main driving factor.
Intelligence around Chinese military build up around Taiwan are concerning evidence of this. The Chinese economy's rapid growth is also slowing.
Since then, it's become clear it's not the case. China have found the loopholes, their lack of IP (intellectual property rights) enforcement and government corporate espionage have shown the relationship is asymmetric and to the detriment of the US.
Xi has also strengthened his hold on power dramatically, breaking with his predecessors gradual loosening of control. This leads to more risk of irrational ideological driven decisions such as war, maintaining prosperity is no longer necessarily the main driving factor.
Intelligence around Chinese military build up around Taiwan are concerning evidence of this. The Chinese economy's rapid growth is also slowing.
there was no loophole. the problem was that the USA did not enforce the reciprocity principles of WTO with regards to China. (mostly because business was booming. so short-term thinking got us here.)
> in other words if we think freedom is better we make it so fucking obvious we live in utopia it’s painful
That's not what these people care about. Someone like Schmidt or Musk would be perfectly happy in a CCP-like regime, as long as they can be at the top.
They were fine investing money in China when they thought the country was going to be a complete free market they could rule. That's also why they hate the EU so much, because sometimes the EU is bothering their corps a bit.
That's not what these people care about. Someone like Schmidt or Musk would be perfectly happy in a CCP-like regime, as long as they can be at the top.
They were fine investing money in China when they thought the country was going to be a complete free market they could rule. That's also why they hate the EU so much, because sometimes the EU is bothering their corps a bit.
>The problem with China is that the argument is much harder to win - china is doing well economically (kinda) - and has not given up its totalitarian control.
China's GDP _per capita_ is still 4-8x lower than the US depending on how you measure it. Its overall GDP is just very big because its population is very big. Given the recent slowdown in the Chinese economy, it's looking like it'll take a very long time for per capita GDP (the living standards of Chinese people) to catch up to the US.
China's GDP _per capita_ is still 4-8x lower than the US depending on how you measure it. Its overall GDP is just very big because its population is very big. Given the recent slowdown in the Chinese economy, it's looking like it'll take a very long time for per capita GDP (the living standards of Chinese people) to catch up to the US.
> per capita GDP (the living standards of Chinese people)
note that the parenthetical isn't entirely true. it's a very mathematical measure of living standards, and sure, one number is much bigger than the other, which does mean something, but how happy are you really doomscrolling various feeds about how the world is doomed? The wrong person's gonna get elected, you just know it. How happy can you really be knowing that to be the future? Or, hey, know anybody who's died from fentanyl recently?
There's a lot GDP doesn't capture. Hell, in terms of buying more things and driving the economy, you could look at it and say divorce is good for GDP since everybody is now buying twice as much stuff, not to mention all the lawyers bills. Not sure I'd argue that it's great for living standards though. so yes, let's compare GDP for what it measures, money number divided by people number, and see that our number is bigger, yay. But simplifying that to living standards is lazy shortcut thinking. If a FAANG engineer makes $400k/yr, but minimum wage is $15/hr or $30,000, their average pay is $215k, which sounds pretty great! The living standards for two someones making $215k are much nicer than for the one person making $30k.
How much do you trust your neighbors? How about those city/rural/suburb folk, especially the ones the extremists on the opposite side of the political spectrum? That contribute to a good living standard?
GDP isn't a good measure of living standards, it's a neat number to compare, and means something, but it doesn't define living standards.
note that the parenthetical isn't entirely true. it's a very mathematical measure of living standards, and sure, one number is much bigger than the other, which does mean something, but how happy are you really doomscrolling various feeds about how the world is doomed? The wrong person's gonna get elected, you just know it. How happy can you really be knowing that to be the future? Or, hey, know anybody who's died from fentanyl recently?
There's a lot GDP doesn't capture. Hell, in terms of buying more things and driving the economy, you could look at it and say divorce is good for GDP since everybody is now buying twice as much stuff, not to mention all the lawyers bills. Not sure I'd argue that it's great for living standards though. so yes, let's compare GDP for what it measures, money number divided by people number, and see that our number is bigger, yay. But simplifying that to living standards is lazy shortcut thinking. If a FAANG engineer makes $400k/yr, but minimum wage is $15/hr or $30,000, their average pay is $215k, which sounds pretty great! The living standards for two someones making $215k are much nicer than for the one person making $30k.
How much do you trust your neighbors? How about those city/rural/suburb folk, especially the ones the extremists on the opposite side of the political spectrum? That contribute to a good living standard?
GDP isn't a good measure of living standards, it's a neat number to compare, and means something, but it doesn't define living standards.
Honestly, I'm less and less inclined to believe in these numbers.
If your average Chinese person lives in a comfortable, well-built apartment that costs 1/4th of what it would cost in the US, drives a car that's similarly built but cost $10k instead of $40k, and eats food thats the quarter of the price, could you convincingly state that he has the quarter of the actual wealth, even though the numbers would indicate that.
If your average Chinese person lives in a comfortable, well-built apartment that costs 1/4th of what it would cost in the US, drives a car that's similarly built but cost $10k instead of $40k, and eats food thats the quarter of the price, could you convincingly state that he has the quarter of the actual wealth, even though the numbers would indicate that.
That’s what GDP PPP per capital measures. China ranks better in PPP than just straight GDP.
Honestly PPP is one of those measures that has remained a mystery to me all my life, and I suspect has more to do with the fanciful imaginations of economists rather than reality itself.
I live in a smallish east EU country whose PPP is supposedly double that of nominal GDP, yet whenever the prices I'm expected to pay for a Corolla, my shopping in Lidl or a Macbook are largely the same as what I would pay in Germany (as is expected from a customs union).
Even restaurant prices don't match the differences.
I live in a smallish east EU country whose PPP is supposedly double that of nominal GDP, yet whenever the prices I'm expected to pay for a Corolla, my shopping in Lidl or a Macbook are largely the same as what I would pay in Germany (as is expected from a customs union).
Even restaurant prices don't match the differences.
> my shopping in Lidl or a Macbook are largely the same as what I would pay in Germany
The difference probably the Germans don't go buy at cheap stores like lidl. The easy way to do PPP is to go by how much people pay and not how cheap you can get something for, which gets you a much less accurate picture of how much it actually costs to live there.
The difference probably the Germans don't go buy at cheap stores like lidl. The easy way to do PPP is to go by how much people pay and not how cheap you can get something for, which gets you a much less accurate picture of how much it actually costs to live there.
Haha, Germans not being cheap :)
That being aside, I mentioned Lidl cause they sell pretty much the same stuff in both countries. As for PPP, it's supposed to be based on a basket of goods, which is supposed to be as similar between two countries as possible.
Comparing lower quality products in country A to better ones in country B would tell you nothing.
That being aside, I mentioned Lidl cause they sell pretty much the same stuff in both countries. As for PPP, it's supposed to be based on a basket of goods, which is supposed to be as similar between two countries as possible.
Comparing lower quality products in country A to better ones in country B would tell you nothing.
Freedom is better because it removes hurdles to more rapid evolutions of efficiency, which leads to better utilization of energy, bringing better material life for every human.
Other than that, I'm genuinely curious about the origin of the "inevitable war that we have to win for humanity" sentiment. Where does this judgment come from? It's perplexing to hear such a deterministic and high-stakes view being expressed in elite circles. I wonder what specific factors or events have led to this conclusion, and whether it's based on concrete evidence or if it's more of a narrative that has gained traction. It would be interesting to understand the reasoning behind this perspective, especially given the complex and multifaceted nature of US-China relations. Are there particular think tanks, policy papers, or influential figures promoting this idea? I'd be very interested in tracing the development and spread of this sentiment, as it seems to have significant implications for international relations and policy-making.
Other than that, I'm genuinely curious about the origin of the "inevitable war that we have to win for humanity" sentiment. Where does this judgment come from? It's perplexing to hear such a deterministic and high-stakes view being expressed in elite circles. I wonder what specific factors or events have led to this conclusion, and whether it's based on concrete evidence or if it's more of a narrative that has gained traction. It would be interesting to understand the reasoning behind this perspective, especially given the complex and multifaceted nature of US-China relations. Are there particular think tanks, policy papers, or influential figures promoting this idea? I'd be very interested in tracing the development and spread of this sentiment, as it seems to have significant implications for international relations and policy-making.
> Other than that, I'm genuinely curious about the origin of the "inevitable war that we have to win for humanity" sentiment.
There is a line of evidence/thinking that says relations between democracies are a lot more stable. So if you make everyone a democracy there would be no wars and a lot more peace. And peace is what humanity (or each individual) aspires to be.
Unfortunately this may result in some degree of intervention or politicking that others may not like. Intervention, specifically, is forcing judgement onto others.
Regarding these elites, you could say it's a calling from whatever Christian god that tells them to spread whatever good they deem it to be. But it may just as well be hubris, or human nature - a superiority complex that comes from being at the top of the chain of 'merit' and status. Anyway, it's happened before. Even in the colonial times there were British who thought colonizing India was a 100% good thing for humanity.
> Freedom is better because it removes hurdles to more rapid evolutions of efficiency, which leads to better utilization of energy, bringing better material life for every human.
Anything taken to extremes is bad. The chinese that studied in America and decided to go back made such a decision when they saw things like school shootings and riots.
There is a line of evidence/thinking that says relations between democracies are a lot more stable. So if you make everyone a democracy there would be no wars and a lot more peace. And peace is what humanity (or each individual) aspires to be.
Unfortunately this may result in some degree of intervention or politicking that others may not like. Intervention, specifically, is forcing judgement onto others.
Regarding these elites, you could say it's a calling from whatever Christian god that tells them to spread whatever good they deem it to be. But it may just as well be hubris, or human nature - a superiority complex that comes from being at the top of the chain of 'merit' and status. Anyway, it's happened before. Even in the colonial times there were British who thought colonizing India was a 100% good thing for humanity.
> Freedom is better because it removes hurdles to more rapid evolutions of efficiency, which leads to better utilization of energy, bringing better material life for every human.
Anything taken to extremes is bad. The chinese that studied in America and decided to go back made such a decision when they saw things like school shootings and riots.
Without an enemy (or two) the entire post-1945 identity construct of the USA (and its allies) does not have a purpose. It’s pretty plain and simple.
There's some truth in that, but it's a much more apt description of post-Soviet Russia. They celebrate their WW2 win like a bona fide religious event every year.
You completely do not mention, that China is MILITARY THREAT.
1. China takes Taiwan
2. China dominates all chip manufacturing
3. China dominates the AI industry
4. China overthrows the US tech industry supremacy by dominating global markets
5. US economy collapses (It is not exaggerating to say the tech industry is the lifeblood of US economic growth, just look at the stock market)
The philosophical argument is actually irrelevant, since China isn't trying to export its ideology that much beyond some alliances of convenience. China never tried to win that argument either, it just blocked off the internet with its firewall, and focused on building its economy.
China is first and foremost a military threat, then an economic threat. Hence why winning AI is so pivotal (AI drones will dominate battlefields and jobs).
1. China takes Taiwan
2. China dominates all chip manufacturing
3. China dominates the AI industry
4. China overthrows the US tech industry supremacy by dominating global markets
5. US economy collapses (It is not exaggerating to say the tech industry is the lifeblood of US economic growth, just look at the stock market)
The philosophical argument is actually irrelevant, since China isn't trying to export its ideology that much beyond some alliances of convenience. China never tried to win that argument either, it just blocked off the internet with its firewall, and focused on building its economy.
China is first and foremost a military threat, then an economic threat. Hence why winning AI is so pivotal (AI drones will dominate battlefields and jobs).
China has no reason to take over Taiwan militarily. They already have like 60% of trade with it, and that share is only going to grow in the future, simply because they are so close. It's the US who is worried to be cut off Taiwan.
Anyway, China dominating chip and AI will likely happen soon. They don't really need Taiwan for that.
Anyway, China dominating chip and AI will likely happen soon. They don't really need Taiwan for that.
> China has no reason to take over Taiwan militarily.
That's your opinion, not theirs. The CCP has staked its legitimacy on their ability to "unify China" (take Taiwan by force) and they've been spending a great deal of money to develop the necessary military capability. This is true whether or not you think their desire seems rational.
And by the way, it's not about computer chips. It never was. The computer chips thing is techy tunnel vision, tech people see the tech thing as the important thing, but China has wanted to take over Taiwan for far longer than Taiwanese chips have been at all relevant. It's not about chips; it's about national pride, prestige, and face.
That's your opinion, not theirs. The CCP has staked its legitimacy on their ability to "unify China" (take Taiwan by force) and they've been spending a great deal of money to develop the necessary military capability. This is true whether or not you think their desire seems rational.
And by the way, it's not about computer chips. It never was. The computer chips thing is techy tunnel vision, tech people see the tech thing as the important thing, but China has wanted to take over Taiwan for far longer than Taiwanese chips have been at all relevant. It's not about chips; it's about national pride, prestige, and face.
What I am saying is China will effectively take over Taiwan's economy first (by being a good trading partner), and that's pretty much all they need to do. It's easier than invasion, of course we don't know the future, maybe China will do something irrational but why assume that? What would be foolish for Taiwanese to try to block China out economically at the behest of US. (That might actually trigger a military invasion from China, it's actually what Ukraine did before the Russian invasion in 2014.)
In response to anonylizard: "TSMC is banned from exporting high-end chips to China."
It's amusing that it's US, defender of trade freedom, who gives orders to Taiwan, with who to trade?
"The Taiwanese want to be an US ally, and not end up destroyed like Hong-Kong, hence they'll comply with US sanctions."
Why would they want that, if they have 60% or more of their trade with China, share culture, and are closer to them? I think it's also a misconception that Hong-Kong got destroyed, but I am not sure. Obviously it has not the same economic weight in the West as it used to, but that is true for all former colonies.
Look, I agree that it would be better if China was a liberal democracy (although I also believe that liberal democracy has only limited effect on limiting imperialism, as is obvious from the British and US example). But if the Taiwanese people will be forced to choose between economic depression (due to some more sanctions on trade with China) or losing democracy, I sure hope, for the sake of their future, they will choose the latter. And I am worried US will force them to make this decision, exactly for the reason of "national pride, prestige, and face".
In response to anonylizard: "TSMC is banned from exporting high-end chips to China."
It's amusing that it's US, defender of trade freedom, who gives orders to Taiwan, with who to trade?
"The Taiwanese want to be an US ally, and not end up destroyed like Hong-Kong, hence they'll comply with US sanctions."
Why would they want that, if they have 60% or more of their trade with China, share culture, and are closer to them? I think it's also a misconception that Hong-Kong got destroyed, but I am not sure. Obviously it has not the same economic weight in the West as it used to, but that is true for all former colonies.
Look, I agree that it would be better if China was a liberal democracy (although I also believe that liberal democracy has only limited effect on limiting imperialism, as is obvious from the British and US example). But if the Taiwanese people will be forced to choose between economic depression (due to some more sanctions on trade with China) or losing democracy, I sure hope, for the sake of their future, they will choose the latter. And I am worried US will force them to make this decision, exactly for the reason of "national pride, prestige, and face".
> maybe China will do something irrational but why assume that
1. Because they say they will.
2. Their military spending backs up what they're saying. It's not just hot air from politicians, they really are committed to building the ability to take Taiwan by force.
1. Because they say they will.
2. Their military spending backs up what they're saying. It's not just hot air from politicians, they really are committed to building the ability to take Taiwan by force.
> I think it's also a misconception that Hong-Kong got destroyed, but I am not sure.
It depends on who you ask.
Foreign entities who used to operate politically in Hong Kong got obliterated due to the national security law. (Yes, it used to be "legal" for foreign entities to do funny things with the intention of subverting Chinese interests in PRC soil. Imagine that!)
Hong-Kongers who refused to believe the PRC (and CCP) were ultimately in power after 1997 had their dreams and illusions "destroyed". Many migrated elsewhere.
(And then there's aftershocks due to COVID policies having to align with mainland China's, and financial/property markets being tied to China which is currently kind of struggling, but the causation with post-2019 politics is not very clear.)
Personally, I think the doomer narrative w.r.t. Hong Kong is overblown, unless you fall into the two categories above.
It depends on who you ask.
Foreign entities who used to operate politically in Hong Kong got obliterated due to the national security law. (Yes, it used to be "legal" for foreign entities to do funny things with the intention of subverting Chinese interests in PRC soil. Imagine that!)
Hong-Kongers who refused to believe the PRC (and CCP) were ultimately in power after 1997 had their dreams and illusions "destroyed". Many migrated elsewhere.
(And then there's aftershocks due to COVID policies having to align with mainland China's, and financial/property markets being tied to China which is currently kind of struggling, but the causation with post-2019 politics is not very clear.)
Personally, I think the doomer narrative w.r.t. Hong Kong is overblown, unless you fall into the two categories above.
So you're saying that "China will effectively take over Taiwan's economy", but it "would be foolish for Taiwanese to try to block China out economically".
If you're using the economy as a weapon it makes complete sense for Taiwan to block those ties.
If you're using the economy as a weapon it makes complete sense for Taiwan to block those ties.
I think the CCPs legitimacy has much more to do with ensuring the continuous growth of living standards and wealth of the Chinese people.
Your opinion, not theirs. The CCP has repeatedly promised to "reunify" China. If they can't do that, then they fail the bar they've set for themselves. And they wouldn't be making, and repeatedly reiterating, this promise if it wasn't taken seriously by the Chinese people.
Xi's personal leadership lies on a promise of taking Taiwan in the forseeable future as part of the "restoration" of Chinese power. Anyone who disagrees honestly has no idea about Chinese political circles.
TSMC is banned from exporting high-end chips to China. The Taiwanese want to be an US ally, and not end up destroyed like Hong-Kong, hence they'll comply with US sanctions.
China is still far behind the US in high-end chips. Sure they are catching up. But China is on borrowed time due to population collapse. China will run out of young engineers far more quickly than the US will.
The first mover can have overwhelming advantages. If the US gets to AI first, dominates the global AI market, China facing demographic collapse, economic decline, will lose the ability to compete for supremacy
China is still far behind the US in high-end chips. Sure they are catching up. But China is on borrowed time due to population collapse. China will run out of young engineers far more quickly than the US will.
The first mover can have overwhelming advantages. If the US gets to AI first, dominates the global AI market, China facing demographic collapse, economic decline, will lose the ability to compete for supremacy
> But China is on borrowed time due to population collapse. China will run out of young engineers far more quickly than the US will.
And the US can attract foreign engineers far better than China ever will. For many, many reasons, whether it is the language (English is far more common as a second language than Chinese, even though Chinese is among the top spoken as a first. And Chinese is ridiculously hard to learn, it's not just the writing system, the spoken language being a tonal language is not helpful either.), the capital - US corporations pay better, the higher quality of life/work environment etc.
This is what happens when people foreign to Chinese corporate culture have to deal with it (the first link is about Taiwan but they're not too dissimilar when it comes down to this):
https://restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-arizona-expansion/
> Chang, speaking last year about Taiwan’s competitiveness compared to the U.S., said that “if [a machine] breaks down at one in the morning, in the U.S. it will be fixed in the next morning. But in Taiwan, it will be fixed at 2 a.m.” And, he added, the wife of a Taiwanese engineer would “go back to sleep without saying another word.”
No, I don't want to work for this kind of asshole.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/quit-facebook-tiktok-biggest-diff...
> Although US and Singapore teams aren't expected to do 996 — I work normal US working hours — the reality is that US employees still often attend late night meetings to collaborate with teams in Asia.
> The lack of process, mentorship, standardized performance review, and internal documentation means that it's harder to learn best practices and mature in your profession.
Oof.
The US can afford a population decline more than many other nations of the earth, and it is continously draining brain power from the rest of the world. Many of the more talented programmers I've known as a French living in France moved to the US for greener pasture. Americans should not have too many worries about the future: if it ever gets bad for them, it means the rest of the world will suffer even harder.
And the US can attract foreign engineers far better than China ever will. For many, many reasons, whether it is the language (English is far more common as a second language than Chinese, even though Chinese is among the top spoken as a first. And Chinese is ridiculously hard to learn, it's not just the writing system, the spoken language being a tonal language is not helpful either.), the capital - US corporations pay better, the higher quality of life/work environment etc.
This is what happens when people foreign to Chinese corporate culture have to deal with it (the first link is about Taiwan but they're not too dissimilar when it comes down to this):
https://restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-arizona-expansion/
> Chang, speaking last year about Taiwan’s competitiveness compared to the U.S., said that “if [a machine] breaks down at one in the morning, in the U.S. it will be fixed in the next morning. But in Taiwan, it will be fixed at 2 a.m.” And, he added, the wife of a Taiwanese engineer would “go back to sleep without saying another word.”
No, I don't want to work for this kind of asshole.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/quit-facebook-tiktok-biggest-diff...
> Although US and Singapore teams aren't expected to do 996 — I work normal US working hours — the reality is that US employees still often attend late night meetings to collaborate with teams in Asia.
> The lack of process, mentorship, standardized performance review, and internal documentation means that it's harder to learn best practices and mature in your profession.
Oof.
The US can afford a population decline more than many other nations of the earth, and it is continously draining brain power from the rest of the world. Many of the more talented programmers I've known as a French living in France moved to the US for greener pasture. Americans should not have too many worries about the future: if it ever gets bad for them, it means the rest of the world will suffer even harder.
Sometimes leaders can still make not rational actions. Putin still didn't need to invade Ukraine. I think the same can happen with Taiwan. For me I also believe "they don't really need Taiwan" but I think a lot of Chinese people think about it not in economical reason but national/historical and military reason - many of them say that china is really afraid if US will start putting their own military bases in Taiwan so they supposed to don't care much about Taiwan as more wanna control the land.
Don't really want to defend Putin, but consider that Russia would at the very least lose the naval base in Crimea, if the Ukraine entered NATO. Also, in 2013, the EU put an ultimatum to Ukraine to choose between the free trade with EU or free trade with Russia.
Perhaps Putin's action isn't as irrational as it seems?
Perhaps Putin's action isn't as irrational as it seems?
> Russia would at the very least lose the naval base in Crimea, if the Ukraine entered NATO
How so? Russia already controlled the whole of Crimea since 2014. Ukraine joining NATO would certainly NOT have changed the status of Crimea.
How so? Russia already controlled the whole of Crimea since 2014. Ukraine joining NATO would certainly NOT have changed the status of Crimea.
Russia losing free trade with Ukraine is pretty much nothing compared to the economic damage caused by the sanctions, and loss in gas sales to the EU.
Putin's action would have been rational if he had captured Kyiv in a couple of days or weeks, and managed to install a puppet government. IMO the whole thing was based on bad intel, lies, corruption and yes-men who told their superiors what they want to hear, rather than what was the truth about Ukraine's defense capabilities. After that Putin couldn't back off without losing his face, and obviously loss of human lives and economic damage mean nothing compared to that to him.
Putin's action would have been rational if he had captured Kyiv in a couple of days or weeks, and managed to install a puppet government. IMO the whole thing was based on bad intel, lies, corruption and yes-men who told their superiors what they want to hear, rather than what was the truth about Ukraine's defense capabilities. After that Putin couldn't back off without losing his face, and obviously loss of human lives and economic damage mean nothing compared to that to him.
China will probably catch up in chip manufacturing and microchip design even without invading Taiwan though.
There's just too many of them, and there'll always be diminishing returns, so at some point what they do will be alright even if it is slightly behind.
There's just too many of them, and there'll always be diminishing returns, so at some point what they do will be alright even if it is slightly behind.
If China takes over Taiwan they gain nothing technology wise. All the manufacturing would be destroyed and many engineers would flee or get killed.
You missed the most important items...
1. The U.S. fails to protect Taiwan. 2. All allies lose confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and they create their own nuke programs. 3. Japan and S. Korea produce nukes nearly overnight. Lots of other countries follow. We now have a much worse nuclear arms race.
China needs only one reason to make the argument for taking control of Taiwan. That's national security. Taiwan is extremely important as a strategic island for defense of the mainland. For example, go look at a map of Taiwan airspace vs Chinese airspace. Honestly, I find it almost ridiculous that such a great power is boxed in so much by a tiny neighbor.
Personally, I think Taiwan needs to take one for the team and commit to reunification with China. That would cool things down significantly. Maybe the Chinese could even throw in some deals on borders to give the Philippines and other neighbors a break.
1. The U.S. fails to protect Taiwan. 2. All allies lose confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and they create their own nuke programs. 3. Japan and S. Korea produce nukes nearly overnight. Lots of other countries follow. We now have a much worse nuclear arms race.
China needs only one reason to make the argument for taking control of Taiwan. That's national security. Taiwan is extremely important as a strategic island for defense of the mainland. For example, go look at a map of Taiwan airspace vs Chinese airspace. Honestly, I find it almost ridiculous that such a great power is boxed in so much by a tiny neighbor.
Personally, I think Taiwan needs to take one for the team and commit to reunification with China. That would cool things down significantly. Maybe the Chinese could even throw in some deals on borders to give the Philippines and other neighbors a break.
Chinese merchant ships freely navigate the ocean. China is only "boxed in" by Taiwan in the event of a war, not during peace time, and the most likely cause for such a war is China trying to invade their neighbors, particularly Taiwan. If they don't do that, they have nothing to worry about. Nobody is going to come invade China, they're armed with enough nukes to ruin the planet and have a massive military, they have nothing to fear from external threats.
An independent Taiwan is a threat to their plans for military conquest, nothing more.
An independent Taiwan is a threat to their plans for military conquest, nothing more.
>2. All allies lose confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and they create their own nuke programs. 3. Japan and S. Korea produce nukes nearly overnight. Lots of other countries follow. We now have a much worse nuclear arms race.
This is a much better solution, not worse, because empirically the only thing that stops countries being invaded is having nukes, so the more countries with nukes, the fewer invasions there'll be.
This is a much better solution, not worse, because empirically the only thing that stops countries being invaded is having nukes, so the more countries with nukes, the fewer invasions there'll be.
Another way to cool things down is to make taking Taiwan infeasible.
For example, if Taiwan built nuclear weapons, then the whole invasion idea is cooked and won't ever be worth it and you can't say 'Oh, America is over there' because it's all Taiwan and then nobody needs to care about this anymore.
For example, if Taiwan built nuclear weapons, then the whole invasion idea is cooked and won't ever be worth it and you can't say 'Oh, America is over there' because it's all Taiwan and then nobody needs to care about this anymore.
“ I think Taiwan needs to take one for the team and commit to reunification with China”
That approach was already tried against Hitler, allowing Germany to reunify with Austria (Austrians were even willing), and then taking Sudetenland.
If you reward aggression, you will only get more aggression.
That approach was already tried against Hitler, allowing Germany to reunify with Austria (Austrians were even willing), and then taking Sudetenland.
If you reward aggression, you will only get more aggression.
> If you reward aggression, you will only get more aggression.
That is not true, punishing aggression creates more criminals, fixing their problems creates less criminals, there is plenty of evidence of this. USA rewarded Germanys aggression with the Marshal plan, rewarding aggression is great!
Another example, Norway didn't want to be a part of Sweden any longer, Sweden rewarded this "aggression" by giving Norway independence. Everyone lived happily ever after, the end.
Happy endings are possible.
If you say that isn't "aggression", that is what people say about other separatist movements, separatists are always labeled aggressive and combative, somehow people always argue that separatists are never happy and always wants more, but evidence suggests that letting them separate actually can work and make both sides happy. So I am pretty sure that sometimes when two countries wants to unify you should let them, meaning "rewarding aggression" is sometimes the right play.
For example, if England instead of waging a war against Irish separatists let them separate I think both would be happier, but instead of doing like Sweden they punished the aggression and just caused misery for everyone.
Now about China you are possibly right, I just think you can't say that you shouldn't reward aggression in general, because often that is exactly what you should do.
That is not true, punishing aggression creates more criminals, fixing their problems creates less criminals, there is plenty of evidence of this. USA rewarded Germanys aggression with the Marshal plan, rewarding aggression is great!
Another example, Norway didn't want to be a part of Sweden any longer, Sweden rewarded this "aggression" by giving Norway independence. Everyone lived happily ever after, the end.
Happy endings are possible.
If you say that isn't "aggression", that is what people say about other separatist movements, separatists are always labeled aggressive and combative, somehow people always argue that separatists are never happy and always wants more, but evidence suggests that letting them separate actually can work and make both sides happy. So I am pretty sure that sometimes when two countries wants to unify you should let them, meaning "rewarding aggression" is sometimes the right play.
For example, if England instead of waging a war against Irish separatists let them separate I think both would be happier, but instead of doing like Sweden they punished the aggression and just caused misery for everyone.
Now about China you are possibly right, I just think you can't say that you shouldn't reward aggression in general, because often that is exactly what you should do.
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Likewise with Crimea and Russia. Letting Russia take Crimea without any real repercussions only emboldened them to try and take the rest of Ukraine.
Sorry but that take is insane. Don't you think that people in China just want to live just like people in the US? China dominating the Tech industry vs the US makes no difference to a majority of the people in the world.
The US no longer being able to print money (without massive inflation) out of thin air would force it to be more fiscally responsible like many other countries have to be.
The US no longer being able to print money (without massive inflation) out of thin air would force it to be more fiscally responsible like many other countries have to be.
> Don't you think that people in China just want to live just like people in the US?
Honestly, I don't think so. And even if they did, they can't do anything about it. Complaining will only give them a bad social score which will make their lives difficult. I think this is geopolitically irrelevant.
> China dominating the Tech industry vs the US makes no difference to a majority of the people in the world.
Economy, technology, industrial capacity and military power absolutely go hand in hand.
If you can't get chips because the production is controlled by China. You can't build missiles, fighter jets, drones or really anything. Not even modern helmets.
If China gets Taiwan, the US are geopolitically toast. That's why the US will not tolerate it and will even go to war if necessary.
Honestly, I don't think so. And even if they did, they can't do anything about it. Complaining will only give them a bad social score which will make their lives difficult. I think this is geopolitically irrelevant.
> China dominating the Tech industry vs the US makes no difference to a majority of the people in the world.
Economy, technology, industrial capacity and military power absolutely go hand in hand.
If you can't get chips because the production is controlled by China. You can't build missiles, fighter jets, drones or really anything. Not even modern helmets.
If China gets Taiwan, the US are geopolitically toast. That's why the US will not tolerate it and will even go to war if necessary.
It doesn't work like that. Over 90% of the machines that Taiwan needs for chip making are made in Europe. If anyone has a hold on chip making it's ASML.
I wish you were right about this.
But then again, why does the US risk going to war with China over Taiwan?
You think it's because democracy, liberty and or human rights?
It is very obviously strong geopolitical interest.
But then again, why does the US risk going to war with China over Taiwan?
You think it's because democracy, liberty and or human rights?
It is very obviously strong geopolitical interest.
Oh no, what a blatant hypocrisy.
The West wants liberty and democracy to prevail in the world and doesn't want to lose them, thus they care of their geopolitical interests. Who would have thought!
The West wants liberty and democracy to prevail in the world and doesn't want to lose them, thus they care of their geopolitical interests. Who would have thought!
Are you insane? China can only achieve that by forcibly conquering Taiwan, with minimum hundreds of thousands of casualties.
China can't win a peaceful competition against the US in the long run, because China is undergoing total demographic collapse (Marriage/birth rates declining 10% yoy every year).
China's plan is to sprint for the last stretch, while its population can still work.
As for the US, it is really held together by the massive wealth from its tech and financial dominance. Given the enormous social fractures today (please don't forget that Trump was nearly assassinated 1 month ago), an structural economic collapse will mean civil war.
China can't win a peaceful competition against the US in the long run, because China is undergoing total demographic collapse (Marriage/birth rates declining 10% yoy every year).
China's plan is to sprint for the last stretch, while its population can still work.
As for the US, it is really held together by the massive wealth from its tech and financial dominance. Given the enormous social fractures today (please don't forget that Trump was nearly assassinated 1 month ago), an structural economic collapse will mean civil war.
Are you really claiming that there aren't as smart Chinese engineers as in the US? China is very capable of innovating on its own just like Europe and the US. There are even many Chinese that go to US universities and leave after graduation back to China.
No such claim appears in his post. Stop trolling.
Maybe the fact that China is threatening Taiwan, our ally, with war on a nearly daily basis?
in other words if we think freedom is better we make it so fucking obvious we live in utopia it’s painful.
China isn’t going to roll over because life is better in the US.
In the end it will come down to power and the ability to project it. You can do that a lot of different ways - politically, economically or militarily, but in the end whether life is better in the US won’t really matter.
China isn’t going to roll over because life is better in the US.
In the end it will come down to power and the ability to project it. You can do that a lot of different ways - politically, economically or militarily, but in the end whether life is better in the US won’t really matter.
The Chinese state won't, but if freedom is really so much better, the people will find ways to escape non-freedom - just like they already do from every country that's obviously worse than the USA and the USA seems powerless to stop - and the Chinese state will have no choice except to become free or suffer brain drain and collapse.
FYI, china has gotten much better at brainwashing over the past 10 years with the new age propaganda machine and increased censorship. Don't act like all this information is public.
>I would love to understand where the war-like anti-Chinese sentiment is coming from in US elite circles.
In my opinion, it's not about communist vs democracy, IP theft, ideology, Taiwan, etc. Elites hardly care. These are just the topics used by the government to get common people riled up.
The sentiment comes from increasing competition from China in the upper value chain where these elites get their wealth from. These elites want China to manufacture phones for them. They don't want China to design phones and sell it to consumers directly.
The same sentiment was found when Japan looked like it was going to take over the world economically.
It's a lot easier for the government to get its citizens to become anti-China if they use anti-communist, IP theft, human rights, etc. propaganda. Commoners resonate with these much easier. It's not going to work as well if the government tells you to hate China because they're increasingly more competitive at high value things such as design and services.
In my opinion, it's not about communist vs democracy, IP theft, ideology, Taiwan, etc. Elites hardly care. These are just the topics used by the government to get common people riled up.
The sentiment comes from increasing competition from China in the upper value chain where these elites get their wealth from. These elites want China to manufacture phones for them. They don't want China to design phones and sell it to consumers directly.
The same sentiment was found when Japan looked like it was going to take over the world economically.
It's a lot easier for the government to get its citizens to become anti-China if they use anti-communist, IP theft, human rights, etc. propaganda. Commoners resonate with these much easier. It's not going to work as well if the government tells you to hate China because they're increasingly more competitive at high value things such as design and services.
It’s easy to see why as well.
Take Zuckerberg for example. He went in front of congress and spouted as much anti-china rhetoric as he can. He obviously does not want competition from Chinese social media companies such as TikTok. He wants TikTok banned. Meta even admitted that it hired a PR agency to try to connect TikTok to CCP.
Take Elon for example. He definitely wants Trump in office because he knows if Chinese EVs ever make it to American shores, Tesla would have fierce competition. Trump wanting massive tariffs on Chinese goods matters little to Elon. Elon doesn’t care if he has to pay $5 for a Chinese good at Walmart instead of $2.50. Only commoners will suffer. But as long as Elon gets extremely high tariffs on Chinese EVs, he’ll be happy.
For Schmidt, it’s clear that he has big ownership stakes in American tech companies. Chinese tech companies are a real threat to them in competition.
Take Zuckerberg for example. He went in front of congress and spouted as much anti-china rhetoric as he can. He obviously does not want competition from Chinese social media companies such as TikTok. He wants TikTok banned. Meta even admitted that it hired a PR agency to try to connect TikTok to CCP.
Take Elon for example. He definitely wants Trump in office because he knows if Chinese EVs ever make it to American shores, Tesla would have fierce competition. Trump wanting massive tariffs on Chinese goods matters little to Elon. Elon doesn’t care if he has to pay $5 for a Chinese good at Walmart instead of $2.50. Only commoners will suffer. But as long as Elon gets extremely high tariffs on Chinese EVs, he’ll be happy.
For Schmidt, it’s clear that he has big ownership stakes in American tech companies. Chinese tech companies are a real threat to them in competition.
For what it's worth, we in the UK have pretty good labour laws and welfare systems, minimum standards, environmental protections etc. All of this has evolved over time as a way to ensure no race to the bottom happens and most people can lead a decent life.
Now, some people may disagree with this on a philosophical level (libertarians for example), but it is what it is.
If you now just mass import anything and everything from a country with much lower "standards" (I use the term to encompass all of the above and whatever else), then it means your own working population get cheaper stuff, but suffer from the loss of jobs. Not only that, but it creeps into everything. Where once you were high value design, even that starts leaking out of society into a country willing to undercut you on "standards".
This is all very well known, so I don't really think it is much of a surprise that there is a push back. I'm just surprised that it hasn't happened more and sooner.
Now, some people may disagree with this on a philosophical level (libertarians for example), but it is what it is.
If you now just mass import anything and everything from a country with much lower "standards" (I use the term to encompass all of the above and whatever else), then it means your own working population get cheaper stuff, but suffer from the loss of jobs. Not only that, but it creeps into everything. Where once you were high value design, even that starts leaking out of society into a country willing to undercut you on "standards".
This is all very well known, so I don't really think it is much of a surprise that there is a push back. I'm just surprised that it hasn't happened more and sooner.
The People's Republic of China is a revisionist aspiring superpower in east Asia, one of the three great industrialized areas on Earth, structured as a Han Chinese ethno-nationalist state. To make matters worse it aims to seize hegemony over east Asia and to dominate the Western Pacific. This directly implicates the United States as currently most of the non-PRC states in that region are either treaty allies of the USA (Japan, Australia, South Korea) or significant economic powers that provide many crucially important goods to the US (Taiwan, Vietnam).
Furthermore, the PRC is embarking on a naval expansion only rivaled in history by the buildup of the German High Seas Fleet in the 1900s. This combines both a grand strategic objective (regional hegemony) with large-scale active efforts to acquire the tools to achieve that objective.
Finally, the last piece of the puzzle; The US and other western powers have not faced any major war since 1945 because of atomic weaponry. However, the atomic posture and grand strategic situation between the USA and the PRC is far different from that along the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Both the US and China have nukes yes, but both only have strategic weapons, and those would likely only be used in a situation where the existence of the state was under threat. A war for dominance of the western pacific and east asian hegemony would not be an existential war for either power. This paradoxically makes a hot war far more likely than it was in West Germany, where tactical nuclear weapons were written into the battle plans from Day 1. Combine that with a Chinese state facing a "Now or Never" moment to attempt to achieve their grand strategic objectives as their demographic crisis approaches and the US rearms after 25 years of the unipolar moment, and the late 2020s and early 2030s are looking extremely dangerous. American elites are not stupid and understand this full well and this is why, in the past decade, anti-PRC sentiment has become universal across party lines.
Ideology plays a relatively small role in this (beyond of course the fact that the PRC ideology has made them a revisionist power).
Furthermore, the PRC is embarking on a naval expansion only rivaled in history by the buildup of the German High Seas Fleet in the 1900s. This combines both a grand strategic objective (regional hegemony) with large-scale active efforts to acquire the tools to achieve that objective.
Finally, the last piece of the puzzle; The US and other western powers have not faced any major war since 1945 because of atomic weaponry. However, the atomic posture and grand strategic situation between the USA and the PRC is far different from that along the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Both the US and China have nukes yes, but both only have strategic weapons, and those would likely only be used in a situation where the existence of the state was under threat. A war for dominance of the western pacific and east asian hegemony would not be an existential war for either power. This paradoxically makes a hot war far more likely than it was in West Germany, where tactical nuclear weapons were written into the battle plans from Day 1. Combine that with a Chinese state facing a "Now or Never" moment to attempt to achieve their grand strategic objectives as their demographic crisis approaches and the US rearms after 25 years of the unipolar moment, and the late 2020s and early 2030s are looking extremely dangerous. American elites are not stupid and understand this full well and this is why, in the past decade, anti-PRC sentiment has become universal across party lines.
Ideology plays a relatively small role in this (beyond of course the fact that the PRC ideology has made them a revisionist power).
Maybe it's an occurrence of Thucydides trap: the reigning power is afraid to lose its crown, and as a result becomes more and more aggressive towards the growing power.
It seems to me that many Americans are personally sensitive about these issues of power. It's also the case with Russia : I agree that Russia is doing terrible things, but people tend to see the Russian enemy everywhere. Cf the arson on train lines in France at the beginning of the Olympics: even here where people are normally rational, every single comment was focusing on Russia and ignoring other possibilities. But actually it was done by French far-left activists.
It seems to me that many Americans are personally sensitive about these issues of power. It's also the case with Russia : I agree that Russia is doing terrible things, but people tend to see the Russian enemy everywhere. Cf the arson on train lines in France at the beginning of the Olympics: even here where people are normally rational, every single comment was focusing on Russia and ignoring other possibilities. But actually it was done by French far-left activists.
The thucydides trap is just some bs invented by US foreign policy circles about how war is inevitable. It's not.
> What gets me is that this is not something to win on the battlefield - this is something where we (being liberal democracies) need to double down on liberal democracy- both the production of wealth and the use of that wealth to raise the living standards of all its citizens - in other words if we think freedom is better we make it so fucking obvious we live in utopia it’s painful.
I could definitely get behind this. Sadly it doesn’t seem to be what people want, at least not here in Sweden. The dominant branch of political thought is more like something something power of government and Swedish culture.
I could definitely get behind this. Sadly it doesn’t seem to be what people want, at least not here in Sweden. The dominant branch of political thought is more like something something power of government and Swedish culture.
Just watched a documentary of drone warfare in the Ukraine war. Many of the drones presented, that have been developed in the fires of war to meet evolving threats have no equivalents in the West, or their equivalents are orders of magnitude more expensive, and cannot be manufactured en masse.
Most of these drones on both sides, are either lightly modified Chinese designs, or have a very large percentage of Chinese-made components.
China has already managed to dominate a new mode of warfare and make a huge profit from it while supplying both sides of the deadliest modern war in Europe.
Most of these drones on both sides, are either lightly modified Chinese designs, or have a very large percentage of Chinese-made components.
China has already managed to dominate a new mode of warfare and make a huge profit from it while supplying both sides of the deadliest modern war in Europe.
A major item is the prevention of the proliferation of nukes.
The U.S. has security agreements (or assumptions) with allies. If the U.S. appears weak, then allies freak out and nuke up. China and Taiwan are nearly at war. If the U.S. doesn't come through for Taiwan, then everyone gets nervous. Japan and S. Korea likely get nukes the fastest, since they are tech powerhouses. Then European countries may follow suit. Then, each enemy of every new entry to the nuke club also feels pressure to get nukes. Next, everyone gets in a race to build more nukes.
Additionally, you get the same issue as with Russia. If a big power takes a smaller power, then where do they stop? What is to stop them from taking everything. And this is already happening. China has been in low level clashes with the Philippines to take forcefully reshape borders. If they do this to Taiwan and the Philippines, then they likely will do this to every country in a border dispute with China. And Taiwan is strategically important. Japan faces a greater threat from a China controlled Taiwan. That's why China wants Taiwan. The island is important to China's national security.
In this world, you have a nightmare situation of more fingers on more triggers. More MAD targets for everyone. A greater possibility that someone actually pulls a trigger. And the thing is, China doesn't care about this. If every country on the planet being nuked up was the price to pay for domination, then so be it.
The U.S. has security agreements (or assumptions) with allies. If the U.S. appears weak, then allies freak out and nuke up. China and Taiwan are nearly at war. If the U.S. doesn't come through for Taiwan, then everyone gets nervous. Japan and S. Korea likely get nukes the fastest, since they are tech powerhouses. Then European countries may follow suit. Then, each enemy of every new entry to the nuke club also feels pressure to get nukes. Next, everyone gets in a race to build more nukes.
Additionally, you get the same issue as with Russia. If a big power takes a smaller power, then where do they stop? What is to stop them from taking everything. And this is already happening. China has been in low level clashes with the Philippines to take forcefully reshape borders. If they do this to Taiwan and the Philippines, then they likely will do this to every country in a border dispute with China. And Taiwan is strategically important. Japan faces a greater threat from a China controlled Taiwan. That's why China wants Taiwan. The island is important to China's national security.
In this world, you have a nightmare situation of more fingers on more triggers. More MAD targets for everyone. A greater possibility that someone actually pulls a trigger. And the thing is, China doesn't care about this. If every country on the planet being nuked up was the price to pay for domination, then so be it.
> And the thing is, China doesn't care about this. If every country on the planet being nuked up was the price to pay for domination, then so be it.
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
You don't need a citation. You can see from their actions. And China isn't going to come out and say this anyway. But the leaders of the country know what the results would be, and still they continue with an aggressive posture vs Taiwan and the U.S.
yup, their actions of not being involved into every single war going on right in the world.Very scary
It's actually about one major thing. Will China invade Taiwan, a country and 20 million people that have lived free of the Communist Party for 70 years, and if so, what does that mean for the US and allies to do something about it or let it happen?
If the US tries to prevent it, that's a package of huge "war-like anti-Chinese (government) sentiment" ramifications that should've been grappled with a decade ago.
If the US doesn't prevent it, Pax Americana is officially over, and the world will know what the collapse of World Order really looks like and what that means for the diminishing prosperity that first worlders are accustomed to.
If the US tries to prevent it, that's a package of huge "war-like anti-Chinese (government) sentiment" ramifications that should've been grappled with a decade ago.
If the US doesn't prevent it, Pax Americana is officially over, and the world will know what the collapse of World Order really looks like and what that means for the diminishing prosperity that first worlders are accustomed to.
Pax Americana is a farce. There was always war going on and America was always involved, and for their own imperial interests.
This narrative that the US are the good guys and they are the police of the world is the propaganda of the empire. It's coolaid.
I don't think the Chinese or whatever other empire comes will be better.
But this Pax Americana is just lies. Go tell Vietnam, Chile, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on about it.
This narrative that the US are the good guys and they are the police of the world is the propaganda of the empire. It's coolaid.
I don't think the Chinese or whatever other empire comes will be better.
But this Pax Americana is just lies. Go tell Vietnam, Chile, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on about it.
US sure do seem like the good guys, if you happen to live next to even worse guys, such as Russia. The US might want your natural resources, but that's less bad than Russia's desire to annex your entire nation and genocide its population.
Well, I don't know. If we look at the body counts, I think being in the receiving end of getting democratized by the USA is actually worse.
But this is "whataboutism" and not addressing the point of my comment.
The actual point of my comment is: the narratives of good guys / bad guys are silly propaganda.
Geopolitics were never about morals, unluckily for us.
Edit: for the record, by no means I like the Russian regime "better" than the west. Yes, Putin bad.
But this is "whataboutism" and not addressing the point of my comment.
The actual point of my comment is: the narratives of good guys / bad guys are silly propaganda.
Geopolitics were never about morals, unluckily for us.
Edit: for the record, by no means I like the Russian regime "better" than the west. Yes, Putin bad.
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> I would love to understand where the war-like anti-Chinese sentiment is coming from in US elite circles.
I think they're predicting large military spending and are seeking the power, influence, and money that can come from being an early leader.
I think they're predicting large military spending and are seeking the power, influence, and money that can come from being an early leader.
If I wake up to find that I’m going to die from ww3 over some nonsense involving Taiwan, I’ll make sure to die happy, knowing that the fifty cent army will be dying right around the same time that I do.
>I would love to understand where the war-like anti-Chinese sentiment is coming
Maybe from China's war like anti the rest of the world actions?
Maybe from China's war like anti the rest of the world actions?
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We'll settle for having more guns per capita
The US cannot exist without enemies.
USA has always been anti China because we perceive them as opposed to our (American) way of life. Whether it exists in reality or not, we view them as a communist dictatorship with no freedom and poor quality of life whereas we're the capitalist land of freedom. So China exists and grows by opposing American ideals and this scares Americans.
the root of all authority is violence
america wants to maintain the authority to dictate who gets what and for how much and to make sure they get first dibs on everything
america wants to maintain the authority to dictate who gets what and for how much and to make sure they get first dibs on everything
We didn't win the ideological battle against communism through liberal democratic means. That's a common misconception. The war against communism was fought and won with violence. Sometimes this violence was meted out directly by the US (in the case of Vietnam (about 0.5 million civilian casualties), North Korea (1 million), Cambodia (150k)), and in a lot of cases by local militias armed and trained by the US (Indonesia 0.5M dead, the Chile coup leading to Pinochet being in power). The forceful intervention of the US in foreign countries whenever they tried to be even slightly leftist is well documented. Heck, we even armed and trained Bin Laden in the fight against communism!
Maybe within the US itself it was fought with liberal democratic means (although, McCarthyism is a thing), most of the world by population had to be convinced violently.
That isn't to say that all communists were all nice and peaceful like the ones in Chile and Indonesia; Pol Pot and Stalin need no introduction. But to say we won the war with words and ideas dismisses the suffering and pain of millions as non-existent. And no matter where you stand on the debate, that's a bit disrespectful.
Maybe within the US itself it was fought with liberal democratic means (although, McCarthyism is a thing), most of the world by population had to be convinced violently.
That isn't to say that all communists were all nice and peaceful like the ones in Chile and Indonesia; Pol Pot and Stalin need no introduction. But to say we won the war with words and ideas dismisses the suffering and pain of millions as non-existent. And no matter where you stand on the debate, that's a bit disrespectful.
It is not clear that the wars you cited, especially Vietnam, were necessary to fight and defeat communism, anymore than the Iraq was needed to reduce WMDs. This might be the reason for the wars given by the government, even a sincerely held position, but that is not to say that it is correct. Having a better economic system relative to communism, diplomacy with China to part ways from USSR - these seem more important.
That great violence unleashed in various wars wasn't actually necessary for realizing the goals of the countries involved is a very important history lesson which can prevent future violence.
(Similarly, one of the motivations for World Wars - who gets control of the colonies, seems futile in hindsight as the system of colonies was anyway dismantled.)
That great violence unleashed in various wars wasn't actually necessary for realizing the goals of the countries involved is a very important history lesson which can prevent future violence.
(Similarly, one of the motivations for World Wars - who gets control of the colonies, seems futile in hindsight as the system of colonies was anyway dismantled.)
> It is not clear that the wars you cited, especially Vietnam, were necessary to fight and defeat communism
But that's not what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that they were a big part of America's toolkit in the cold war. To say that we won the battle through liberal democratic means is absolutely false. We toppled democratically elected left leaning governments time and again. Democracy was neither our means nor our end.
But that's not what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that they were a big part of America's toolkit in the cold war. To say that we won the battle through liberal democratic means is absolutely false. We toppled democratically elected left leaning governments time and again. Democracy was neither our means nor our end.
US did X is different from saying US defeated communism by doing X. I am not disputing the former and indeed there were terrible actions including bombing of civilians, and the removal of elected governments.
But that is not to say that X was the cause of victory. For too many cases, it actually lead to a backlash with regimes which were not friendly to US interests coming to power(Iran, Vietnam,..). Also, the USSR did similar acts (Hungary, Afghanistan) but could not win.
That the US prevailed owes a lot to its economic dynamism relative to USSR. (As an aside, US had a high tax regime and state-funded research during much of the Cold War, so the victory doesn't necessarily validate a lot of the libertarian rhetoric.)
But that is not to say that X was the cause of victory. For too many cases, it actually lead to a backlash with regimes which were not friendly to US interests coming to power(Iran, Vietnam,..). Also, the USSR did similar acts (Hungary, Afghanistan) but could not win.
That the US prevailed owes a lot to its economic dynamism relative to USSR. (As an aside, US had a high tax regime and state-funded research during much of the Cold War, so the victory doesn't necessarily validate a lot of the libertarian rhetoric.)
> As an aside, US had a high tax regime and state-funded research during much of the Cold War, so the victory doesn't necessarily validate a lot of the libertarian rhetoric
That isn't true, taxes has remained constant since ww2. The tax distribution might have changed, but the total amount collected hasn't changed much. Can see the curve looks about the same as always. The marginal tax rate barely matters for total taxes collected since there are so few rich people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law
That isn't true, taxes has remained constant since ww2. The tax distribution might have changed, but the total amount collected hasn't changed much. Can see the curve looks about the same as always. The marginal tax rate barely matters for total taxes collected since there are so few rich people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law
This is an interesting point. But the spikes in revenue when tax policy changes indicates sensitivity. Further, that there are other countries with wildly different tax revenues as of GDP implies that there is lot of scope for change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_ta...
But in the US itself, if it is true that high tax regimes(for both income and corporate tax) did not prevent dynamism in the economy (because of what Hauser observed or otherwise), that would be an interesting to note. One analysis I read, in Jacobin - a pro-socialist magazine, was that the critical difference was that in the US, companies were allowed to fail, whereas in the USSR failures continued due to political reasons and absorbed a lot of resources.
But in the US itself, if it is true that high tax regimes(for both income and corporate tax) did not prevent dynamism in the economy (because of what Hauser observed or otherwise), that would be an interesting to note. One analysis I read, in Jacobin - a pro-socialist magazine, was that the critical difference was that in the US, companies were allowed to fail, whereas in the USSR failures continued due to political reasons and absorbed a lot of resources.
Lol no, the US won the battle by not collapsing in on itself. The Soviet model was on its own timer from the start.
China has a decent amount of structural issues, the US just has to hold on until they explode without exploding itself.
China has a decent amount of structural issues, the US just has to hold on until they explode without exploding itself.
You realize communism exists outside the Soviet union right? Closing your ears and eyes and loudly going "lalalala" doesn't make the violence and death the US inflicted on most of the third world (yes, 3rd, i.e., not the Soviet union) go away. Millions dead, and you're making light of it. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Manufacturing Consent defines anti-communism as the US's national religion and a pillar of political power...
It is kind of funny how delusional western people are on these subjects. This is similar to reading books on economic success by western people, they go through 50 hoops to explain why africa is doing bad but don’t mention the slaughter, exploitation etc. Those countries suffered and how it made first world countries even richer. It just seems like the stronger crush the weak and write the history always, the most obvious and undeniable example is israel situation
> they go through 50 hoops to explain why africa is doing bad
Africa were doing bad before white people intervened, answering why isn't trivial at all. They did trade over Sahara, technological advancement and knowledge was there but Africa didn't manage to take advantage of it unlike the Arabs, Asians and Europeans.
Africa were doing bad before white people intervened, answering why isn't trivial at all. They did trade over Sahara, technological advancement and knowledge was there but Africa didn't manage to take advantage of it unlike the Arabs, Asians and Europeans.
Almost all of the American military actions you mentioned were in response to Soviet or communist actions. In no way were they just the American government being violent for the sake of it.
Maybe you think that America and allies should have just stepped aside and let communist armies capture the various states, but geopolitics in real life is a little more complex than that.
Maybe you think that America and allies should have just stepped aside and let communist armies capture the various states, but geopolitics in real life is a little more complex than that.
Indonesia's communist party was a social democrat one. They never armed themselves.
Allende was democratically elected, no armed struggle from his end.
I'm not claiming that what America did was right or wrong. Sometimes violence is the right answer, maybe here too. But to pretend that we won the ideological battle through conversation and ideas is just factually false.
Allende was democratically elected, no armed struggle from his end.
I'm not claiming that what America did was right or wrong. Sometimes violence is the right answer, maybe here too. But to pretend that we won the ideological battle through conversation and ideas is just factually false.
if you look up Indonesia and Allende on wikipedia, it doesn't say "the US did this", and given wikipedia's politics, it would if they could make a case for it.
I didn’t claim that the West won through conversation and ideas, I pretty much said the opposite.
Ah sorry, I always make the assumption I'm talking to parent comments.
Parent comment is claiming the cold war was won through liberal democratic means. I claim that the tools employed by the US were violent incursions. I'm not claiming the US was violent for violence's sake. They were calculated actions with the intent of smothering any left leaning movement in the third world. Specifically the Indonesian case is egregious because their communist party was about as left wing as Bernie Sanders, and still a US-backed genocide was carried out against (suspected) leftists in Indonesia. Similar with the case in Chile. This was a democratically elected center left president, and the US-backed coup installed a violent dictatorship for the next 15 years.
Parent comment is claiming the cold war was won through liberal democratic means. I claim that the tools employed by the US were violent incursions. I'm not claiming the US was violent for violence's sake. They were calculated actions with the intent of smothering any left leaning movement in the third world. Specifically the Indonesian case is egregious because their communist party was about as left wing as Bernie Sanders, and still a US-backed genocide was carried out against (suspected) leftists in Indonesia. Similar with the case in Chile. This was a democratically elected center left president, and the US-backed coup installed a violent dictatorship for the next 15 years.
No problem; and yes I think the best way to look at the Cold War is via the game theory approach of two powers battling each other. Each of them had ideologies that were integral to their actions, but not exclusively so, and they acted in ways contrary to those ideologies if it was deemed necessary in a realpolitik sense - which usually meant because the country in question was going to be influenced by the other player.
> The forceful intervention of the US in foreign countries whenever they tried to be even slightly leftist is well documented.
This is nonsense, there are plenty of very leftist countries that USA didn't attack, so that provably wasn't the reason.
Communism is first and foremost anti democratic and authoritarian in these countries, that is the main issue. If you take Sweden that was very close to going towards worker owned economy in the 80's USA didn't do anything to them, same with rest of Europe. Sweden since then became much more right wing and moved away from those ideas, but at the time it looked very likely.
This is nonsense, there are plenty of very leftist countries that USA didn't attack, so that provably wasn't the reason.
Communism is first and foremost anti democratic and authoritarian in these countries, that is the main issue. If you take Sweden that was very close to going towards worker owned economy in the 80's USA didn't do anything to them, same with rest of Europe. Sweden since then became much more right wing and moved away from those ideas, but at the time it looked very likely.
The point the parent comment made still stands, why did the US fund so many coups/regime changes up until the modern day? Your answer as to why seems to be “communism is antidemocratic and authoritarian”.
If that’s the case, why were so many Western backed regimes also antidemocratic and authoritarian?
If that’s the case, why were so many Western backed regimes also antidemocratic and authoritarian?
American interventionism in the Cold War largely got started under Eisenhower. His administration’s policy could be best described as a reaction against Soviet moves (or perceived Soviet moves) in the countries affected. And so by engaging in regime change, the rationale was that this prevented that state from aligning with the Soviets. This seems to have worked in many cases but not in others, but I won’t get into the historical details here.
The point is that lot of people seem to forget that the USSR wasn’t sitting at home, either, and was deliberately funding political actions around the world as a part of the Cold War. Whether that “justifies” US interventionism is a different question, but people seem to talk about it as if the US was acting in a vacuum.
The point is that lot of people seem to forget that the USSR wasn’t sitting at home, either, and was deliberately funding political actions around the world as a part of the Cold War. Whether that “justifies” US interventionism is a different question, but people seem to talk about it as if the US was acting in a vacuum.
> people seem to talk about it as if the US was acting in a vacuum
The Cold War ended more than 30 years ago, yet the same “interventionism” continues? This is isn’t ancient history, we fought two whole imperial wars since the with the same exact thought process without the USSR even existing anymore.
I don’t deny that there was some kind of context to American imperialism and I have no interest in whitewashing what the Soviets were doing. But to say that these “interventions” were a purely defensive/reactionary measure against communism is silly, the US has a vested interest in protecting its hegemony control. It’s that simple.
The Cold War ended more than 30 years ago, yet the same “interventionism” continues? This is isn’t ancient history, we fought two whole imperial wars since the with the same exact thought process without the USSR even existing anymore.
I don’t deny that there was some kind of context to American imperialism and I have no interest in whitewashing what the Soviets were doing. But to say that these “interventions” were a purely defensive/reactionary measure against communism is silly, the US has a vested interest in protecting its hegemony control. It’s that simple.
I don’t think I’d categorize Iraq and Afghanistan as “imperial wars” and as remotely similar things as the regime change operations during the Cold War. Very different context and reasoning.
But sure, powerful states want to protect their hegemony. Part of that includes not letting your allies turn into hostile enemy states. I’m not sure what else you’re suggesting such a power do? Let the oppositional force just take everything?
The opinion you’ve expressed here is just the typical cynical approach that seems to lack any understanding of real world politics, or the basic fact that people in the Western “free” world might actually have a legitimate interest in promoting freedom and defending their values.
I recommend reading biographies of presidents during that era, especially Eisenhower. You’ll learn about the difficult (and often wrong) choices those in power had to make. To treat their actions as simply some kind of imperial bloodlust is not even remotely historically accurate.
Again, I am in no way arguing that these various interventions were “good” or “justified” or what have you, just that the framing of them as purely militaristic imperial conquests is flat out wrong and uninformed.
But sure, powerful states want to protect their hegemony. Part of that includes not letting your allies turn into hostile enemy states. I’m not sure what else you’re suggesting such a power do? Let the oppositional force just take everything?
The opinion you’ve expressed here is just the typical cynical approach that seems to lack any understanding of real world politics, or the basic fact that people in the Western “free” world might actually have a legitimate interest in promoting freedom and defending their values.
I recommend reading biographies of presidents during that era, especially Eisenhower. You’ll learn about the difficult (and often wrong) choices those in power had to make. To treat their actions as simply some kind of imperial bloodlust is not even remotely historically accurate.
Again, I am in no way arguing that these various interventions were “good” or “justified” or what have you, just that the framing of them as purely militaristic imperial conquests is flat out wrong and uninformed.
I’m firm on my claim that they were imperial wars, but we can lay that to the side.
> I’m not sure what else you’re suggesting such a power do? Let the oppositional force just take everything?
This is precisely my problem. If the US/West wants to maintain a moral high ground by claiming that their “freedom” and values are simply the best and everyone needs them, then why is there an incessant need to subjugate? There is no moral high ground with continuously destabilizing countries and making half the world’s life a living hell.
I’m happy to talk about the actual realities of geopolitics. Of course the US wants to maintain control, but that desire is a not a “moral” one.
> I’m not sure what else you’re suggesting such a power do? Let the oppositional force just take everything?
This is precisely my problem. If the US/West wants to maintain a moral high ground by claiming that their “freedom” and values are simply the best and everyone needs them, then why is there an incessant need to subjugate? There is no moral high ground with continuously destabilizing countries and making half the world’s life a living hell.
I’m happy to talk about the actual realities of geopolitics. Of course the US wants to maintain control, but that desire is a not a “moral” one.
Saying that the US has put “half of the world’s life a living hell” is really hyperbolic and not at all conducive to a real discussion, because again, that’s not how history actually happened.
To give you an example: the Korean War officially started when communist-backed North Korea invaded the Western-backed South. Had the South not been backed by the US, they would have lost - and indeed almost did lose.
Are you therefore suggesting that if the entire Korean Peninsula were under the control of the North today, they’d be better off? Because the reality is that South Korea today is more free and economically successful because the US intervened there.
Or what about Germany? If the US let the Soviets take the entire country, do you think Germany today would be the economic leader of Europe?
Of course, there are situations in which that defense turned out in the opposite way - Vietnam for example.
As to your last comment, again, this is just the typical cynical line that assumes everyone in the government is an evil imperialist that only pretends to care about their values.
You are ignoring the very basic fact that many of these interventions were done in order to prevent the very anti-free USSR from defeating the West. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that communism would be defeated, or atomic war avoided. And so the people in power in the West needed to make very difficult decisions about navigating this game theory situation.
To give you an example: the Korean War officially started when communist-backed North Korea invaded the Western-backed South. Had the South not been backed by the US, they would have lost - and indeed almost did lose.
Are you therefore suggesting that if the entire Korean Peninsula were under the control of the North today, they’d be better off? Because the reality is that South Korea today is more free and economically successful because the US intervened there.
Or what about Germany? If the US let the Soviets take the entire country, do you think Germany today would be the economic leader of Europe?
Of course, there are situations in which that defense turned out in the opposite way - Vietnam for example.
As to your last comment, again, this is just the typical cynical line that assumes everyone in the government is an evil imperialist that only pretends to care about their values.
You are ignoring the very basic fact that many of these interventions were done in order to prevent the very anti-free USSR from defeating the West. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that communism would be defeated, or atomic war avoided. And so the people in power in the West needed to make very difficult decisions about navigating this game theory situation.
I don't know, I am not an expert, but I can say for sure it wasn't just "they did something left wing".
My main point the attacks happened for some other reason, it could be more noble but could also be more ulterior like economic control etc. They aren't a raging lunatic that attacks anyone who tries to do left wing things, at worst they are a cold calculating evil villain that manipulates the world to their own benefit.
My main point the attacks happened for some other reason, it could be more noble but could also be more ulterior like economic control etc. They aren't a raging lunatic that attacks anyone who tries to do left wing things, at worst they are a cold calculating evil villain that manipulates the world to their own benefit.
Name one.
I did.
Edit: Sweden started transitioning towards worker based ownership in the 80's, that is extremely leftist. Why did USA do nothing to stop them? Didn't even sanction them.
> Wage Earner funds,[1] is a socialist version of sovereign wealth funds whereby the Swedish government taxed a proportion of company profits and put into special funds charged to buy shares in listed Swedish companies, with the goal of gradually transferring ownership in medium to large companies from private to collective employee ownership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds
So there, clear proof USA didn't mindlessly commit hostilities against any country doing anything leftist. So you were just wrong here.
Edit: Sweden started transitioning towards worker based ownership in the 80's, that is extremely leftist. Why did USA do nothing to stop them? Didn't even sanction them.
> Wage Earner funds,[1] is a socialist version of sovereign wealth funds whereby the Swedish government taxed a proportion of company profits and put into special funds charged to buy shares in listed Swedish companies, with the goal of gradually transferring ownership in medium to large companies from private to collective employee ownership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds
So there, clear proof USA didn't mindlessly commit hostilities against any country doing anything leftist. So you were just wrong here.
> I would love to understand where the war-like anti-Chinese sentiment is coming from in US elite circles.
About half of America's political elites owe fealty to Trump - so a tough, America First, anti-foreigner, every-other-nation-is-a-rival stance is currently in fashion.
About half of America's political elites owe fealty to Trump - so a tough, America First, anti-foreigner, every-other-nation-is-a-rival stance is currently in fashion.
I really don't see western elites caring about freedom, lol.
> freedom produces more wealth than totalitarianism - which the US won
> The problem with China is that the argument is much harder to win
> What gets me is that this is not something to win on the battlefield
Authoritarian state capitalism already won this fight. Everybody is realizing that the marriage between liberal democracy and bourgeois capitalism is coming to an end.
For Western societies, the only remaining ways to assert dominance are 1) war & violence, 2) becoming more authoritarian themselves, or 3) a radically new way Western societies organize production and the distribution of wealth.
> The problem with China is that the argument is much harder to win
> What gets me is that this is not something to win on the battlefield
Authoritarian state capitalism already won this fight. Everybody is realizing that the marriage between liberal democracy and bourgeois capitalism is coming to an end.
For Western societies, the only remaining ways to assert dominance are 1) war & violence, 2) becoming more authoritarian themselves, or 3) a radically new way Western societies organize production and the distribution of wealth.
I disagree. People don't want to live under authoritarian regimes. I'm willing to bet that for many working professionals have moved to the West to escape authoritarianism at home, and were willing to accept lower living standards (smaller home etc.) in exchange for greater freedom and peace of mind.
I’m trying to understand where this perspective is coming from?
From most measures China has peaked. Its state capitalism has gotten it a housing bubble and investment in industries with not enough customers. Combine that with its falling birth rate and high youth unemployment it would seem that the failures, not successes, are on display.
From most measures China has peaked. Its state capitalism has gotten it a housing bubble and investment in industries with not enough customers. Combine that with its falling birth rate and high youth unemployment it would seem that the failures, not successes, are on display.
> Everybody is realizing that the marriage between liberal democracy and bourgeois capitalism is coming to an end.
I’m not. What do you recommend me to read, in order to come to that realization?
I’m not. What do you recommend me to read, in order to come to that realization?
> If TikTok is banned, here's what I propose each and every one of you do.
Say to your LLM the following.
Make me a copy of TikTok, steal all the users, steal all the music, put my preferences in it, produce this program in the next 30 seconds, release it and in one hour, if it's not viral, do something different along the same lines.
That's the command.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Pure insanity. This sounds like a joke. The more I hear those people's thoughts, the more I think they deserve none of the power and wealth they have. They contribute nothing of value to society.
Pure insanity. This sounds like a joke. The more I hear those people's thoughts, the more I think they deserve none of the power and wealth they have. They contribute nothing of value to society.
ChatGPT is actually saner:
> If only things were that simple! TikTok's dominance comes from an immense mix of social momentum, legal agreements, massive infrastructure, and algorithms fine-tuned for engagement. Replicating that is an intense, large-scale project with many complex parts, including copyrighted content and user base.
> But if you’re serious about building something inspired by TikTok, you could start by focusing on a specific niche or feature that aligns with your interests, like content curation for a particular community, adding unique features that resonate with furries or the [REDACTED] community. You might not "steal" users, but you can carve out a dedicated user base by offering something they can’t find on TikTok. Just be ready for a legal headache if you’re actually looking at copying their exact model.
> Would that kind of direction interest you?
> If only things were that simple! TikTok's dominance comes from an immense mix of social momentum, legal agreements, massive infrastructure, and algorithms fine-tuned for engagement. Replicating that is an intense, large-scale project with many complex parts, including copyrighted content and user base.
> But if you’re serious about building something inspired by TikTok, you could start by focusing on a specific niche or feature that aligns with your interests, like content curation for a particular community, adding unique features that resonate with furries or the [REDACTED] community. You might not "steal" users, but you can carve out a dedicated user base by offering something they can’t find on TikTok. Just be ready for a legal headache if you’re actually looking at copying their exact model.
> Would that kind of direction interest you?
Did Eric Schmidt go nuts with age, or was he always this insane?
Throughout the whole talk he's using an alternatively flippant/hyperbolic speaking style that probably has been effective for him in the past when addressing high-level non-technical policymakers. He speaks to their policy/strategic insecurities about technological change and conveys a sense of inflated urgency.
It probably wasn't the right tone for this audience though. But it's a style of rhetoric that's probably intentional.
It probably wasn't the right tone for this audience though. But it's a style of rhetoric that's probably intentional.
Yet this guy is drafting AI legislation and selling arms (presumably to ukraine). That doesn't mean his public speaking must be true however; he may be exagerrating things (because i doubt he doesn't know)
he clearly has no idea of what he is saying or has total idea and purposedly lying to his own benefit (my take)
I think Eric started drinking Kool-Aid....he maybe has a point but the way he expresses his thoughts is a little bit disturbing.
I don't understand what he's saying. Is he saying that if Tik Tok is banned, everyone can just build a Tik Tok competitor with LLMs?
But Tik Tok functionality is not the impetus for its banning. The issue is that it's controlled by a foreign adversary. (In fact, there is no pending ban, it's a forced sale to a non-adversary.)
But Tik Tok functionality is not the impetus for its banning. The issue is that it's controlled by a foreign adversary. (In fact, there is no pending ban, it's a forced sale to a non-adversary.)
If you have the source code for TikTok this can be done. GenAI is a nice cover for theft.
What’s problematic is all the Economists students who will believe this nonsense.
What an incredible mask-off moment. The war mongering coming from this man is insane, I still don’t get why these people even bother to say they “care about democracy” when it’s clearly a lie.
He says China is “lost” or whatever, simply because the West has been unable to control the country in the same way they have done with Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc.
I hate these people that justify barbarism and imperialism as a means to a “greater good.” It has “white man’s burden” written all over it.
He says China is “lost” or whatever, simply because the West has been unable to control the country in the same way they have done with Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc.
I hate these people that justify barbarism and imperialism as a means to a “greater good.” It has “white man’s burden” written all over it.
Western democracy is treated like a religion these days. You either adopt it or die. Seeing people claiming China should be destroyed because it's a totalitarian country is amusing to me, it reminds me of the christian crusades. In reality, most Chinese don't give a crap about democracy as long as economy is flourishing.
That's a moral argument. In the west we believe liberal values are the best , and we want them around the world. As such, authoritarianism is a priori an enemy
So destabilizing and destroying a country for the sake of establishing liberal values is a morally righteous decision?
There's exactly one country (Japan) where establishing a liberal democracy at gunpoint worked out. The US then tried to do the same in like a quarter of the world and kept failing. At some point some people up there ought to get the message right? I don't know how else to do it but war simply isn't it.
You can download the video right now with this command:
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?tab=readme-ov-file#installa...
> According to webarchive, original video was posted on Aug 13 and the talk took place on April 9, 2024.
yt-dlp https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?tab=readme-ov-file#installa...
> According to webarchive, original video was posted on Aug 13 and the talk took place on April 9, 2024.
If you just want to download in your phone use the seal app from F-droid which is a yt-dlp wrapper.
[1] https://f-droid.org/packages/com.junkfood.seal/
[1] https://f-droid.org/packages/com.junkfood.seal/
Thanks for this guidance. In times like these, I find sunlight is always the best disinfectant.
The yt-dlp application functions better alongside ffmpeg, so I recommend installing that too. If on Linux, whatever is available via one's package manager /should/ do the trick.
Note, the project does make mention there are issues [1] with "standard ffmpeg", and is therefore minting custom builds [2][3] of ffmpeg, with additional patches applied.
[1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#dependencies
[2] https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-b...
[3] https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied
The yt-dlp application functions better alongside ffmpeg, so I recommend installing that too. If on Linux, whatever is available via one's package manager /should/ do the trick.
Note, the project does make mention there are issues [1] with "standard ffmpeg", and is therefore minting custom builds [2][3] of ffmpeg, with additional patches applied.
[1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#dependencies
[2] https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-b...
[3] https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied
I am surprised at how out of touch Schmidt is that he said all these things about WFH, AI and other topics so plainly and thought he wouldn't get massive blowback. I think he ruined his reputation with many people with this, and his reputation was very decent. He realized this of course, and that's why he's trying to remove the talk from YouTube, apologized officially, etc.
Obviously this is how he thinks, it was transparent and no amount of apologizing can fix that, but usually people like him are extremely good at concealing what they think. He seems to have believed that his position was not controversial, which smells of too much time in board rooms and country clubs.
Obviously this is how he thinks, it was transparent and no amount of apologizing can fix that, but usually people like him are extremely good at concealing what they think. He seems to have believed that his position was not controversial, which smells of too much time in board rooms and country clubs.
As a worker from home guy (I am fully remote), I feel offended by this over-simplifying statement:
I'm one of the top contributor in the company I work for (it was officially acknowledged).
Also, as a solo parent, work life balance is uppermost important to me.
What he miss out is that by restricting the bucket of employees/human you consider, you get ride of top talents that aren't to your norms.
Also, as a solo parent, work life balance is uppermost important to me.
What he miss out is that by restricting the bucket of employees/human you consider, you get ride of top talents that aren't to your norms.
He apparently has taken back his comments there in the meantime; at least partially:
> A Schmidt spokesperson wrote in an email to Business Insider: "Eric misspoke about Google and their work hours and regrets his error."
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-crit...
> A Schmidt spokesperson wrote in an email to Business Insider: "Eric misspoke about Google and their work hours and regrets his error."
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-crit...
Sounds more like: "Sorry it became public"
I am similar, having built and run many high-performance, remote-friendly teams, several of which have built hundreds of millions+ in value, maybe a few billion because it continues to compound over time.
Schmidt is entitled to his opinion, though it's been a long time since he's been personally involved in personally getting things done. He's also been hanging out with his friend Elon and absorbing that narrative into his brain.
Also, it's difficult to comment what WFH looks like "on average". In my career I've learned the brutal reality of what "average" really means and looks like. Spoiler alert: Average human behavior is often surprisingly lr even shockingly lower than I anticipated.
Yet, Google, and the Bay Area and other tech hubs are full of at least slightly to moderately above average people, due to the natural competition to even survive and be successful in these areas.
TL;DR: Don't take it personally, there are exceptions to every rule.
Cheers and keep doing your thing.
Schmidt is entitled to his opinion, though it's been a long time since he's been personally involved in personally getting things done. He's also been hanging out with his friend Elon and absorbing that narrative into his brain.
Also, it's difficult to comment what WFH looks like "on average". In my career I've learned the brutal reality of what "average" really means and looks like. Spoiler alert: Average human behavior is often surprisingly lr even shockingly lower than I anticipated.
Yet, Google, and the Bay Area and other tech hubs are full of at least slightly to moderately above average people, due to the natural competition to even survive and be successful in these areas.
TL;DR: Don't take it personally, there are exceptions to every rule.
Cheers and keep doing your thing.
[deleted]
I didn't read the mention of work from home as all that important of an example in making his point, and ironically I interpreted it in an entirely neutral light.
He could have instead said that Google decided it was more important to let people have lives outside of work instead of winning, and I'd interpret it the same way, because only an idiot sacrifices too much for their employer. He's not saying it's a bad thing in general, he's saying that if the company's goal is to win, it needs to crack the whip on people who are highly intelligent, but too stupid, too arrogant, and have no other concept of life outside their screens and bank accounts that they'll do literally whatever is demanded of them.
You should be proud to be able to raise a kid _at_all_, but even prouder of the fact that you're only willing to give your company marginally more than you need to in order to make it work. If you needed to work harder I'm sure you would, but you shouldn't be volunteering to do double extra overtime so sociopaths from the valley can flex on other sociopaths from South Africa.
I don't have friends who do this for their companies because those hypothetical people traded friends and sanity for promised clout and stock options. Who fucking cares it's just tech shit.
He could have instead said that Google decided it was more important to let people have lives outside of work instead of winning, and I'd interpret it the same way, because only an idiot sacrifices too much for their employer. He's not saying it's a bad thing in general, he's saying that if the company's goal is to win, it needs to crack the whip on people who are highly intelligent, but too stupid, too arrogant, and have no other concept of life outside their screens and bank accounts that they'll do literally whatever is demanded of them.
You should be proud to be able to raise a kid _at_all_, but even prouder of the fact that you're only willing to give your company marginally more than you need to in order to make it work. If you needed to work harder I'm sure you would, but you shouldn't be volunteering to do double extra overtime so sociopaths from the valley can flex on other sociopaths from South Africa.
I don't have friends who do this for their companies because those hypothetical people traded friends and sanity for promised clout and stock options. Who fucking cares it's just tech shit.
In the talk, Eric suggests that very soon you could use AI to automatically generate TikTok clones and publish them repeatedly to the App Store until one of them takes off.
Even if we assume this is possible soon, is there any way that this doesn’t result in the App Store immediately devolving in to auto generated slop and all users leaving the platform or just ignoring it. In what scenario does an app that was generated automatically in seconds result in you becoming the next mega tech company raking in huge profits.
Even if we assume this is possible soon, is there any way that this doesn’t result in the App Store immediately devolving in to auto generated slop and all users leaving the platform or just ignoring it. In what scenario does an app that was generated automatically in seconds result in you becoming the next mega tech company raking in huge profits.
Anything dependent on "user generated content" has a capture factor.
It doesn't matter if all the apps are slop, people will follow established creators, and new creators will follow an established audience.
I suspect the clones of something existing have no real chance of success without some sort of external marketing hook; better revenue sharing or similar. The rest will be ignored like every other current low effort app.
I suspect the clones of something existing have no real chance of success without some sort of external marketing hook; better revenue sharing or similar. The rest will be ignored like every other current low effort app.
> is there any way that this doesn’t result in the App Store immediately devolving in to auto generated slop and all users leaving the platform or just ignoring it.
I'd argue it's already devolved into human generated slop which provides no functionality without taking on a $10+ month subscription and people already are ignoring it.
Try it yourself, think of something a small app would be good for that task and try to find an app that you're satisfied with and is worth the money it's asking you to use it. You wont be able to.
I'd argue it's already devolved into human generated slop which provides no functionality without taking on a $10+ month subscription and people already are ignoring it.
Try it yourself, think of something a small app would be good for that task and try to find an app that you're satisfied with and is worth the money it's asking you to use it. You wont be able to.
The world of AI cloud orchestration etc running behind the "siri, make me a tiktok" is going to be hilarious. A beautiful new dawn for black hats.
It's not leaked. It was posted publicly to YouTube, which is where I watched it. It was the first or second video in my recommended feed. I even left a comment, "Thank you, Stanford, for uploading this talk for us." which Stanford put a heart on, pinning it to the top of the YouTube comments: https://i.imgur.com/LSi6mqN.png
It was a good talk on a technical level. My guess is he ran into trouble when he briefly criticized modern Google's corporate culture when it comes to work-from-home?
It was a good talk on a technical level. My guess is he ran into trouble when he briefly criticized modern Google's corporate culture when it comes to work-from-home?
The video is currently private: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA
Thank you, doomlaser, for uploading this screenshot for us.
[deleted]
Short: How he got into the Arms trade (https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1823920847910002913?t=Ol1EfTJ3...)
Full interview: https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883?t=Y6SiFSxf8z...
Full interview: https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883?t=Y6SiFSxf8z...
>So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want
Human programmers try really hard to give you what you actually need, and not what you want. Most problems are posed to programmers in such a way that they would result in totally unacceptable results if delivered to those specifications. Think any story involving a Genie and 3 wishes.
It's amazing to me that someone who employed so many programmers just doesn't get it.
To quote the philosopher Jägger:
Human programmers try really hard to give you what you actually need, and not what you want. Most problems are posed to programmers in such a way that they would result in totally unacceptable results if delivered to those specifications. Think any story involving a Genie and 3 wishes.
It's amazing to me that someone who employed so many programmers just doesn't get it.
To quote the philosopher Jägger:
You can't always get what you want
But, if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need.Why did he think it was okay to say this to Stanford people, but then decided nobody else should hear it?
Because he's fundraising for his attack drone military startup[1] called White Stork?
[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-sc...
[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-sc...
Why did he not understand that everything that is recorded will leak anyway?
Or he did understand that things get much more attention if they are supposed to be secret and then leaked.
Or he did understand that things get much more attention if they are supposed to be secret and then leaked.
It was stanford; not him. Tbf i ve heard him say audacious things since he left google
[deleted]
The original video has been reuploaded here: https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883. Watch and download it while you can.
Stanford is actively trying to take down copies (see example takedown here: https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY)
Stanford is actively trying to take down copies (see example takedown here: https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY)
Reminds me of this tweet [0]:
[0] https://x.com/Google/status/1790430189916225799
If 1 million tokens is a lot, how about 2 million?
Today we’re expanding the context window for Gemini 1.5 Pro to 2 million tokens and making it available for developers in private preview. It’s the next step towards the ultimate goal of infinite context. #GoogleIO
[0] https://x.com/Google/status/1790430189916225799
A replica of what? Of your words? Your thoughts? How would it access those thoughts? What about your feelings? What about the things that actually go on in your physical body outside the brain?
Encoding the human experience will probably get much better over time. They're already experimenting with audio and video interfaces. I saw some other products that combine fitbit like sensors with an LLM.
I don't know what the results of combining all that data with an LLM will look like, but I think recording our experience to be used by an AI will only get better.
I don't know what the results of combining all that data with an LLM will look like, but I think recording our experience to be used by an AI will only get better.
If it hears what you hear, hears what you say, reads what you write, sees what you see, notes what you do, it will end up knowing more about you than you yourself. The way you can interact with it will be the same way others can interact with it.
Also, sensors like HRMs or activity monitors could give it insights into your emotional state.
It could replicate your reactions.
Also, sensors like HRMs or activity monitors could give it insights into your emotional state.
It could replicate your reactions.
It's not leaked because the video was on the official Stanford's YouTube channel for like one and a half day. I was surprised he was so aggressive towards Google, taking in consideration he was long time CEO there and he earned billions from Google. My opinion is that he is a smart business manager but he knows very little of the actual software development judging from his bizarre comments on Google's AI.
I think a core problem with executives talking about success (or lack thereof) is that they tend to attribute their success purely to their skills or something they did, whereas in reality there is usually a good amount of luck and just "being at the right place at the right time".
Which is also why these people often cannot replicate their previous successes.
Which is also why these people often cannot replicate their previous successes.
I think taking down the video has led to more interest in it than if it just stayed up.
Streisand Effect
Why do we need this when the video is available?
Correction: was available (saw this a few days ago, what happened?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41245150)
Edit 2: ah, see elsewhere in here notes about video being removed etc
Correction: was available (saw this a few days ago, what happened?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41245150)
Edit 2: ah, see elsewhere in here notes about video being removed etc
Alphabet losses (not just in ML) are due to the switch from a tech-oriented to a financial oriented enterprise, for a certain, not long, amount of time, the switch makes money, than the fall.
We do not live on finance, we live on Earth, we can play others and for a bit it will work, but it can't work in the long term. Google success was technical, lost them there is little interest left.
We do not live on finance, we live on Earth, we can play others and for a bit it will work, but it can't work in the long term. Google success was technical, lost them there is little interest left.
This is not "leaked", this is on official stanford youtube channel.
It's sort of leaked? It was on the official youtube channel but got pulled a few hours after some backlash.
"Video of Schmidt’s talk was posted on YouTube this week by Stanford Online, a division of the university that offers online courses. The video, which had more than 40,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon, has since been set to private.
Schmidt said he asked for the video to be taken down. He declined to comment further. Stanford didn’t respond to a request for comment about the video."
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-eric-schmidt-ai-remote-wo...
"Video of Schmidt’s talk was posted on YouTube this week by Stanford Online, a division of the university that offers online courses. The video, which had more than 40,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon, has since been set to private.
Schmidt said he asked for the video to be taken down. He declined to comment further. Stanford didn’t respond to a request for comment about the video."
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-eric-schmidt-ai-remote-wo...
They have deleted it.
It is available here - https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883
One can use yt-dlp to download the video.
Not sure what's going on here, but as usual I'd recommend using a VPN.
It is available here - https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883
One can use yt-dlp to download the video.
Not sure what's going on here, but as usual I'd recommend using a VPN.
Anyone have the video? I'd rather watch.
after reading that speech I'm convinced that Google could have picked a random guy off the street in 2001 would have had equal if not better success than it had with Schmidt
right place, right time
right place, right time
Larry bought Android without telling Eric even though Eric was the CEO of Google at the time. He is a bean counter and the only form of accountability he knows is billable hours.
Schmidt is definitely not a bean counter. Under him working at Google was actually enjoyable. Sundar, on the other hand…
False. Eric Schmidt is one of the sharper operators in tech and his effect can be seen when Google started declining after 2011 when he stepped down.
Eric Schmidt killed what Google could become by making it the monster it is today.
Essentially, he made it into Microsoft when it was on a trajectory to become a glorious Sun.
...but Sun went bankrupt and was acquired by Oracle. Not the best comparison.
Everything dies.
For decades, SUN Microsystems was a great place to work. From SUN came some amazing technology that still lives on(ZFS anyone?).
I prefer organisations like that over organisations that’s only purpose seems to be to extract wealth from the economy, to line the pockets of the few well connected.
For decades, SUN Microsystems was a great place to work. From SUN came some amazing technology that still lives on(ZFS anyone?).
I prefer organisations like that over organisations that’s only purpose seems to be to extract wealth from the economy, to line the pockets of the few well connected.
> From SUN came some amazing technology that still lives on
Indeed, including code still in modern Linux distros.
Indeed, including code still in modern Linux distros.
That's better than what Google became
I too want Google to go bankrupt and be acquired by Oracle.
Wrong. Eric Schmidt might be more of a suit than Larry, but calling him a bean counter is a stretch. He is a Computer Scientist. He has written Lex[1] ffs.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software)
P.S. re the Android story, which seems obviously exaggerated, gotta take into account that Eric has a strong incentive to deliberately distance himself from the story given his role on Apple Board of Directors at the time.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software)
P.S. re the Android story, which seems obviously exaggerated, gotta take into account that Eric has a strong incentive to deliberately distance himself from the story given his role on Apple Board of Directors at the time.
Very interesting, I didn't know anything more than he was more of a suit. Good to be aware he has technical pedigree.
He had a class at Stanford a few years back where you can see some of his insightfulness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns
His technical prowess was peeking its head a few times during this interview. The fact is, he is still very much a business, man.
A transcript can be found here: https://github.com/ociubotaru/transcripts/blob/main/Stanford...
For those interested in the full video and not just the transcript, you can find it on X at the link below.
https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883
Maybe if the people running these companies didn't seem to hate their own employees so much they'd get more out of them.
Schmidt is the same one who was campaigning for more tech visas as layoffs were cranking up in 2022 because he thought the Democrats would lost the Senate in midterms (they didn't). Another example of employees watching their bosses treat them like dirt: firing them while actively trying to drive their wages down with cheaper talent.
Schmidt is the same one who was campaigning for more tech visas as layoffs were cranking up in 2022 because he thought the Democrats would lost the Senate in midterms (they didn't). Another example of employees watching their bosses treat them like dirt: firing them while actively trying to drive their wages down with cheaper talent.
Are there additional videos of guest lecturers available for that Stanford course? I was unable to find any.
Here is a gist with a mobile-friendly copy of the transcript:
https://gist.github.com/sleaze/bf74291b4072abadb0b4109da3da2...
https://gist.github.com/sleaze/bf74291b4072abadb0b4109da3da2...
Fighting WFH is old. It's a change like any other and a lot of companies have adapted already. The only problem I see with it is that it was not proposed and promoted by Harvard Business Review and therefore all old guys moan about it.
You can watch it on twitter here https://twitter.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883
My issue here is not so much with his brazen designs for world, rather it is the people sitting that actually clap, cheer, and laugh.
Related:
Former Google CEO blames remote work for company's struggles
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241682
Former Google CEO blames remote work for company's struggles
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241682
[deleted](1)
>So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want
I was perturbed by the way some google programmers behaved during and after I had an issue, and so feel confident saying that yes, they are probably mostly arrogant as hell in google. However, Im annoyed at this statement. Not all programmers are, you just mostly hired arrogant ones.
>does what you want.
Again, if you can't convey the specs correctly - that is also a you issue.
I don't know guys, this sentence from the transcript just didn't sit well with me. If I heard someone say this I would immediately think, this guy surrounded himself with terrible people willingly.
I was perturbed by the way some google programmers behaved during and after I had an issue, and so feel confident saying that yes, they are probably mostly arrogant as hell in google. However, Im annoyed at this statement. Not all programmers are, you just mostly hired arrogant ones.
>does what you want.
Again, if you can't convey the specs correctly - that is also a you issue.
I don't know guys, this sentence from the transcript just didn't sit well with me. If I heard someone say this I would immediately think, this guy surrounded himself with terrible people willingly.
interesting to read the reactions here regarding wfh even though it was less than a minute of the whole conversation. all i would say about that is this: it appears that we haven't found a way that has made "better" working conditions (and remote work) bring out the best results at a macro scale. there is an element of truth to what he said and as companies grow very big, they will always face stuff like this. in tech, anyways, we want to have the cake and eat it too.
now that i have lost 95% of the ones who bothered reading this, i would take bigger offense to his perspective on the ai space. he appears to have drunk the koolaid as well and it is very interesting to see that a lot of future use cases are still around llm and not other equally-impactful works. especially when he mentioned using AI in defense applications.
having a good offensive system as a way to defend oneself seems like the same dangerous slippery slope that brought the atomic bomb. while not giving specific examples, he used the tech used in current war in east europe as a point to support this. an actual example used there are drones that self-identify and explode targets from the defender's side (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875446). no matter what you feel about either parties, this is just a few steps away from a black mirror episode. plus the major military powers want to advance on this before the others and this arms race is what worries me more than "muh productivity". the fact that most of the discourse, whether in the lecture hall or in the comments here, seems to not bat an eye around this subject makes me anxious about the public attitude towards this.
now that i have lost 95% of the ones who bothered reading this, i would take bigger offense to his perspective on the ai space. he appears to have drunk the koolaid as well and it is very interesting to see that a lot of future use cases are still around llm and not other equally-impactful works. especially when he mentioned using AI in defense applications.
having a good offensive system as a way to defend oneself seems like the same dangerous slippery slope that brought the atomic bomb. while not giving specific examples, he used the tech used in current war in east europe as a point to support this. an actual example used there are drones that self-identify and explode targets from the defender's side (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875446). no matter what you feel about either parties, this is just a few steps away from a black mirror episode. plus the major military powers want to advance on this before the others and this arms race is what worries me more than "muh productivity". the fact that most of the discourse, whether in the lecture hall or in the comments here, seems to not bat an eye around this subject makes me anxious about the public attitude towards this.
are there any archives of the video?
bux93(1)
[deleted]
I'll categorize this as 'Unverified'
What a tremendous lack of self-awareness. Let's put aside all the leadership issues, all the politics, all the complacency, all the bureaucracy, and blame people for working from home.
(Not saying there aren't folks at Google who are just cruising, etc... but that's a fraction of the problem compared to the leadership issues)