China This, China That...

[JeffreyLebowski]

Well, it's going to force us to accept second best or actually get off our lazy asses and start working again. Inventing stuff and making science cool again.

I think it's a good thing. You will see some amazing things come from China a heck of a lot faster then then slow ass Americans. I think it's a good thing. We need some competition and America needs to be competitive again. Hopefully we can get are act together and still remain #1 ... We'll see!

Well I think you'd be surprised at how manuy kids now think science is cool. My younger daughter goes to the gifted school and they have a robotics class for kids in 3rd grade and up. That's nuts that 3rd graders are making robots, and not jut building them, they are actually writting the software for them. Most of the beginers stuff just kind of flops around, but one of the 6th graders last year made a robot that could navigate a maze using a webcam as it's eyes.
Basically, kids are doing stuff now that people spent a lifetime trying to accomplish just a generation ago.

 

[Modelworks]

Well I think you'd be surprised at how manuy kids now think science is cool. My younger daughter goes to the gifted school and they have a robotics class for kids in 3rd grade and up. That's nuts that 3rd graders are making robots, and not jut building them, they are actually writting the software for them. Most of the beginers stuff just kind of flops around, but one of the 6th graders last year made a robot that could navigate a maze using a webcam as it's eyes.
Basically, kids are doing stuff now that people spent a lifetime trying to accomplish just a generation ago.

There are two sides to that though. While kids are growing up more technologically aware they are not learning some of the things many people once learned. How many young people today can cook, grow a garden, repair a torn piece of clothing, have changed a tire on a car ? I know people will say they can learn this stuff later, but most will not and that I feel is a problem. Technology is great , I love it, but I worry our reliance on it to do basic things is becoming too great. They did studies in the 1980's on what would happen in a power outage, and while they concluded things would be hard it wasn't dire. The same study conducted, I think 2008, was that sheer panic would be the result with people starving and not being able to obtain resources until power was returned.

I don't like that idea when these other things are not hard to learn but are not being learned because they are assumed to be superseded by something technological that has replaced it. I recall one of the questions in the study was "What would you do if there was no food in stores ? and the reply was well I guess we could start growing things and then they were asked "Where would you get the things to grow ?", people couldn't answer because there were no stores and they had no experience with growing things so without the supplies being sold to them they had no clue what to do next. The gap of what a young adult can do with technology and without it is becoming too great.

 

[ElFenix]

We can borrow more money from China to fund your infrastructure projects using the unemployed. Or we could just make them work for their unemployment money they receive for sitting on their asses.

the problem with big projects here is that they take a ridiculously long time to happen. i read an article in the atlantic the other day about how clean coal has to happen, and that the chinese are pioneering this because they can build a power plant in under 2 years. it takes 5 times that just to get the permitting done here. the chinese have become the do'ers while we've become waiters.

 

[Modelworks]

the problem with big projects here is that they take a ridiculously long time to happen. i read an article in the atlantic the other day about how clean coal has to happen, and that the chinese are pioneering this because they can build a power plant in under 2 years. it takes 5 times that just to get the permitting done here. the chinese have become the do'ers while we've become waiters.

That is true. But China is doing what they are because they have no other choice, not because they want to. I have to say looking at history of the USA when things were absolutely needed it got done. Oak Ridge, TN is a prime example, building a town with over 75,000 people, hundreds of factories and stores, theaters, schools, hospital, in just two years in the middle of barren land proves we can do it.

We don't rush to build power plants because they feel the need isn't imminent. As soon as blackouts start or power fails then you will see plants built in record time. We have become procrastinators to the extreme.

 

[ElFenix]

That is true. But China is doing what they are because they have no other choice, not because they want to. I have to say looking at history of the USA when things were absolutely needed it got done. Oak Ridge, TN is a prime example, building a town with over 75,000 people, hundreds of factories and stores, theaters, schools, hospital, in just two years in the middle of barren land proves we can do it.

We don't rush to build power plants because they feel the need isn't imminent. As soon as blackouts start or power fails then you will see plants built in record time. We have become procrastinators to the extreme.

i didn't say there weren't good reasons for the amount of process and procedure we put in everything. but it also seems like we've got no direction.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

the problem with big projects here is that they take a ridiculously long time to happen. i read an article in the atlantic the other day about how clean coal has to happen, and that the chinese are pioneering this because they can build a power plant in under 2 years. it takes 5 times that just to get the permitting done here. the chinese have become the do'ers while we've become waiters.

Coal burning plants in the US have been shifting to cleaner processes for years and continue to do so. As for building new plants you can thank the NIMBY's & Treehuggers.

 

[piasabird]

The main thing you need to know about China is it is a growing upscale economy. This economy was made by overpolluting their own country, poisoning their water and their air, and some of their land till they can not even grow crops or eat their own fish. However, these people have more money now and now they want cars and other goods that use energy, Oil, and Gasoline. We have so much raw materials, so we now need top pay more for energy and oil because the demand is higher. So the more goods we buy from China the more China will want to use our oil and energy because we are paying them just enough for their economy to increase. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.

 

[Modelworks]

So the more goods we buy from China the more China will want to use our oil and energy because we are paying them just enough for their economy to increase. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.

Our oil ? We have to import to make up for what we need.
Anyone guess what our main resource we export is ?
Scrap and waste. That is right, old electronics, scrap metals, plastics, and other garbage we don't want to process. 3 of the top 10 items are waste
http://www.suite101.com/content/top-exported-and-imported-products-with-china-so-far-in-2010-a268259

Soybeans … US$3.3 billion, up 6.6% from 2010 (9.6% of U.S. exports to China)
Civilian aircraft including parts … $2 billion, up 14.6% (5.9%)
Electric processors … $1.8 billion, up 61.9% (5.3%)
Aluminum waste … $744.1 million, up 83.4% (2.2%)
Computer parts and accessories… $402.1 million, up 16.3% (1.2%)
Silicon … $312.2 million, up 133.4% (0.9%)
Alloy steel waste excluding stainless … $300 million, up 34.3% (0.9%)
Recovered paper waste … $262.8 million, up 23% (0.8%)
Voice, image and data machines … $204.4 million, down 4.4% (0.6%)
Programmable electronic memory circuits … $183.6 million, up 3.9% (0.5%).
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[LegendKiller]

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aa3IVQlUZMHQ&pos=1

China faces *HUGE* problems. Far larger than any other developed economy at this point.

 

[halik]

I remember when everyone kept harping about how great Japan is. Even the L.A. Times had a commercial in which they stated "At the rate they're going, in 10 years they could own the world" - or something to that effect. China will soon hit the same wall Japan did.

This.

Japanese Miracle > Asian Dragons > Celtic Tiger > Gulf Tiger > ...

 

[ericlp]

Well I think you'd be surprised at how manuy kids now think science is cool. My younger daughter goes to the gifted school and they have a robotics class for kids in 3rd grade and up. That's nuts that 3rd graders are making robots, and not jut building them, they are actually writting the software for them. Most of the beginers stuff just kind of flops around, but one of the 6th graders last year made a robot that could navigate a maze using a webcam as it's eyes.
Basically, kids are doing stuff now that people spent a lifetime trying to accomplish just a generation ago.

I'm not sure how old you are... But when I was in 5'th grade, we got some cool new apples ]['s in school. We were learning LOGO, and had a robot that actually drew on the floor called a turtle to do all the angles and geometry... It made some cool designs if you knew what you were doing and good at programing the robot.

BTW, I'm 43.

All in all that is good that kids are learning robots and stuff.... Hope the new generation will give China a run for it's money.

 

[Infohawk]

Unless a country is stuck with a backwards ideology like Islam in Pakistan or like socialism in post-war China/India, a bigger population is an asset. Even if Chinese people are 1/5 as productive as Americans, China is going to be more productive as a whole than the US. Odds are, they will be just as productive or more productive than the average American.

 

[blackangst1]

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aa3IVQlUZMHQ&pos=1

China faces *HUGE* problems. Far larger than any other developed economy at this point.

Pretty sobering article...

 

[Imdmn04]

I just don't think westernized democracy is the solution for China, especially for a huge developing country with 1.4 billion people.

You want to build a bridge? Let me check with 30million people first.
You want to build a subway system? Let check with 30,000 households that is along the stations.

You are not gonna build anything for the masses if you try to cater to everybody. Yes, people are forced out of their homes for infrastructure improvement, but that's the sacrifice you have to make.

In Westernized world, we value individuality and freedom. If you try to build anything, there will be a 10 year environmental impact study, plus residents bitching about this and that to the city council. By the time it is all said and done, you be lucky that you are still alive to use it. Developing countries just can't afford to take their sweet ass time like we do.

 

[cirrrocco]

I went to Target yesterday and , everything, even the damm clothes are now made in China, Preposterous.

The dollar store has more made in US stuff.

 

[hal2kilo]

Academia is largely the province of the left, and the left loves the authoritarian. The harsher, the better. Also, the left has dropped its support for the individual in favor of what Hillary Clinton termed the war on individuality. Chinese culture, even before communism, puts a great emphasis on the larger unit over the smaller - country over city, city over family, family over individual - and so also fits well with the American left.

Yeah, I too am extremely tired of the pro-China talk, but we must fawn before our new overlords.

Love your sig by the way, that's a great quote.

I think you hit a record for revolutions per second on a subject. Taking lessons from the Prof?

 

[StinkyPinky]

People that compare China to Japan in the 80's are clueless. There are massive differences

- China has ten times the population
- China has 30 times the land area
- China has a big amount of natural resources, Japan does not
- China is not 1st world, and has a lot more potential growth to go than Japan in the 80s did (who were first world). Japan hit a wall because they had no where else to go and a lack of resources to fuel a further boom.

China does not need (nor probably want) to get its citizens to a western standard of living. If anything, that would make them uncompetitive. Even if the average Chinese person earns a third of what the average American does, their economy will be twice the size.

And China is thousands of years old. Do you really think they care if it takes 20 years? Or 50 years? Or a century? That's nothing in the grand scheme of things.

 

[ericlp]

I went to Target yesterday and , everything, even the damm clothes are now made in China, Preposterous.

The dollar store has more made in US stuff.

damn where the hell have you been, hope you don't make your way into wallmart or macy's, sears, jc pennys, etc...etc...etc...