Dan still one of the sharper PRC writers, but like all analysts who moves from PRC to stateside, he used to be Canadian in China writing about China to US, now Canadian writing in US about China, Dan starts peddling Murican dynamism cope, maybe something in the water. i.e. see his his post breakneck Chinatalk interview: Humorless engineering governance can't beat very funny Trump/US governance is... certainly a take. Maybe he should do his audience a favor and elucidate why boring competent engineer government is less dynamic/resilient than lawyers other than elections can pivot fast to reduce lawyers (kek) and something something and see see pee can't pivot fast to make productive innovative libtards, since seeseepee STEM can't innovate. Because as we know fast 4 year election cycles work better than slow 5 year plans. CCP certain needs 50% more lawyers... to slow it down.
I believe I read that 27% of the founders in the YC Spring 25 class went to an Ivy League school and 40% previously worked at a magnificent 7 company. I'm not saying this is any worse than the east coast, but so much for name and pedigree not mattering.
Northern California is what it always has been: the barrier wall of manifest destiny, where instead of crossing the ocean the pioneers and all subsequent generations stayed to incubate the same incentives, and have been relentlessly in pursuit of the next gold rush. Gold, yellow journalism, semiconductors, personal computing, SaaS, crypto, AI, etc. It's the sink drain attractor of people looking to improve their fortunes in one way or another, but almost always around some kind of bonanza of concentrated opportunity. The concept of it being "meritocratic" is a rephrasing of ideology that's always existed about the region: you too could get rich here. But I don't really see any difference in the networks of power that exist in SV as do the rest of the country.
I grew up in the bay area and am far happier living outside it. I'm happier to be in a place where art and the humanities are valued instead of cast aside as immaterial or silly or a distraction. I'm happier to live in a place where people have varied interests instead of orienting their life around whatever the prevailing Big Thing is.
> So the 20-year-olds who accompanied Mr. Musk into the Department of Government Efficiency did not, I would say, distinguish themselves with their judiciousness. The Bay Area has all sorts of autistic tendencies. Though Silicon Valley values the ability to move fast, the rest of society has paid more attention to instances in which tech wants to break things. It is not surprising that hardcore contingents on both the left and the right have developed hostility to most everything that emerges from Silicon Valley.
I see some positive aspects as to more inclusive definitions of autism and neurodivergence, but I hate that we're at the point where "trying to get rich at all costs" is now perceived as autistic (and let's be clear: using mobile gas turbines that get people sick to generate power for AI is not "autistic"). Greed is not autistic, but of course the ideology of SV is that nobody actually cares about money there. Why else would they have apartments without furniture and piles of pizza boxes. It must be the autism.
> While critics of AI cite the spread of slop and rising power bills, AI’s architects are more focused on its potential to produce surging job losses. Anthropic chief Dario Amodei takes pains to point out that AI could push the unemployment rate to 20 percent by eviscerating white-collar work. I wonder whether this message is helping to endear his product to the public.
The animating concern of developing AI since 2015 has basically been "MAD" applied to the technology. The Bostrom book mentioned later in this article was clearly instrumental in creating this language to think about AI, as you can see many tech CEOs began getting "concerned" about AI around this time, prior to many of the big developments in AI like transformers. One of the seminal emails of OpenAI between Musk and Altman talks about starting a "Manhattan Project for AI". This was a useful concept to graft the development of these companies onto:
1. Firstly, it's a threat to investors. Get in on the ground floor or you will get left behind. We are building tomorrow's winners and losers and there are a lot of losers in the future.
2. Secondly, it leads to a natural source of government support. This is a national security concern. Fund this, guarantee the success of this, or America will lose.
On both counts, this framing seems to be working pretty well.
There is a commedy show literally called Silicon Valley making fun of what's going on in the valley and everybody I know in tech loves it and appreciates the humor.
There WAS a comedy called Silicon Valley that wrapped more than 5 years ago ABOUT the valley made in Hollywood by a guy with a science background who grew up in NEW MEXICO and SAN DIEGO, featuring ACTORs, none of them actual techies from the bay area.
Remove the tech, what does SF contribute to the world wrt culture? Especially when compared to other metropolitan cities: NY, London, LA, Tokyo.
Part of the Silicon Valley ethos (and techie ethos in general) is the rejection of fashion. Comfort over style. Casual over classy.
Even the “stealth wealth” thing that trended for a while seemed to be an expression of this. Casual wear, but really expensive.
>But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese problems.
China has stayed on trajectory of improving life of its society for a long time. USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended.
All of China's growth comes from its internal resource. Growth in the USA had been driven by exploiting other countries.
>I made clear in my book that I am drawn to pluralism as well as a broader conception of human flourishing than one that could be delivered by the Communist Party.
Pluralism had been eradicated in the western society. I can't speak freely in Canada. People get cancelled or jailed for speaking their mind in UK. US is not too far behind in that.
There is no meaningful pluralism in the West. They never make a long term plan they can follow for many years.
China has monolithic ( more so ) society with shared culture, language(s) and national identity that runs deep to the gene level. They don't don't allow foreign influence to erode it. It's much easier to make progress when people share the same long term vision and goals.
CPC is doing just fine leading the country into the future. Sure, it has a monopoly on power, but it also owns its mistakes and fixes them. Multiparty systems of the USA and the rest of the West are just two curtains on the stage, and when you draw the curtains you see the same people attending the same party.
Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short stay in power. After all, they only have a few years before they get replaced, better make use of the short time you got.
China IMO has a much brighter outlook for the future
I share your concerns over effective loss of freedom of expression in western countries. In the USA at least cancel culture seems to be dying out and people no longer feel as obligated to be politically correct or self-censor. But the UK may be permanently lost.
Exactly when do you believe this decline started? I have some major concerns about the current trajectory of the USA, but it seems like nonsense to say that the US has been in decline since well before the Cold War ended.
> I can't speak freely in Canada
I wonder what it is that you want to say but can’t.
Comparing China positively against western nations and then griping about limits on freedom of speech in western nations seems suspect regardless.
> Elected officials aim to earn as much as they can in their short stay in power.
That’s true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
>I wonder what it is that you want to say but can’t.
Nice try, this won't provoke me.
>That’s true. Unelected officials can stay in power and accrue wealth for much longer than elected officials.
Sure, sure. The systems are setup differently but you are using the same logic for both coming from the assumption that power is used to acquire personal wealth.
For some (many) power isn't about acquisition of wealth but about responsibility, taking care of a hard chore. It's a mistake to think that Xi is in power for wealth.
I often draw a parallel with being a father. You have some power, but mostly you have responsibilities.
You seem to have redefined the timeframe significantly. Previously you indicated that the decline was happening even before the end of the Cold War.
I don’t believe that this is a true statement even since the fall of the USSR, though. I’d be interested in what data or metrics this claim of decline is based on.
> Nice try, this won't provoke me.
You’re so unprovoked that you didn’t even address the concern. You could have pointed at what you believed was problematic suppression of free speech (of which there are certainly some examples in western nations) without actually divulging your apparently controversial beliefs.
Bluntly, I believe your criticism here is dishonest. Pearl clutching about apparent suppression of free speech in the west while pointing to a nation that sends ethnic Muslim minorities to reeducation camps as a better system is deeply disingenuous.
> It's a mistake to think that Xi is in power for wealth.
> I often draw a parallel with being a father. You have some power, but mostly you have responsibilities.
This is a man who refused the traditional transfer of power within the CCP and had the Chinese constitution revised so that he could remain in power. This is absolutely a man who wants power and wealth.
You’re plainly biased.