[Abyss]

It's hard to ignore the source of the 'cheaper, faster' background to this. Sure, US techbros are losing their minds and the stock market is giving them a deserved slap, but otoh it's China. A country that can take over its pretend private corporations any time it likes, funnel bazillions of money and resources into them and leave it all off the books, and who would cheerfully do this one week after trumpler announces a massive investment in his buddies' AI efforts, just to mess with the US.

Does it do what they say it does? Looks like. Was it as cheap and fast as they claim? I have doubts.

[Tiste Simeon]

 Abyss, on 28 January 2025 - 02:54 PM, said:

... and who would cheerfully do this one week after trumpler announces a massive investment in his buddies' AI efforts, just to mess with the US.

I mean, respect to them for that! Do it again!

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 28 January 2025 - 02:54 PM, said:

It's hard to ignore the source of the 'cheaper, faster' background to this. Sure, US techbros are losing their minds and the stock market is giving them a deserved slap, but otoh it's China. A country that can take over its pretend private corporations any time it likes, funnel bazillions of money and resources into them and leave it all off the books, and who would cheerfully do this one week after trumpler announces a massive investment in his buddies' AI efforts, just to mess with the US.

Does it do what they say it does? Looks like. Was it as cheap and fast as they claim? I have doubts.

Again, I feel like we all spend so much time debating over whether these things are happening as they are said to happen, or in some other way that the Chinese govt are keeping tamped down is "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" level busywork that accomplishes not much.


The facts are that China is ahead of the G7 on multiple fronts, be it EV's at reasonable prices, or clean energy (which again, the independent bodies that report this aren't falling for Chinese propaganda), or their cities are next level in a lot of cases not just for tourism, but for public infrastructure and transit as well. I know people find the facial recognition/thumbprint monetary system scary, but it's a minor step away from using your phone (which you facial recognition into anyways) or tapping a card...remove the fact that the Chinese govt is a communist one, and you're left with a country who are at least trying to step forward within the confines of that structure. We also hear that "Chinese things are poorly made and cut corners"...this is a long-term grift on the American people by its own leaders and corporatists...the reason why the Chinese products that are in the states and elsewhere that are poorly made (Think Dollar store stuff) is because that's the level of quality that American companies are willing to buy because that's what Americans can afford and still be profitable. There's tonnes of Chinese products that are well made, and last a long ass time...but Americans can't afford them, and American corporations who import shit don't bother with it because they can't make a profit, so you get the cheap shit instead.

I mean let's not pretend the reason that Chinese EV's aren't allowed to be sold in America and Canada isn't because they would DESTROY the high profit levels that companies like Tesla, and others who make EV's here, so those companies lobby the govt HARD to disallow them and for no other reason. Same with Huawei phones, and any other decently made Chinese product (And if you think it's just becuase of the CCP, think again, in January Biden just blocked the sale of a US steel company to Nippon in Japan citing "security concerns"...it's not remotely security concerns...it's the fucking lobbyists in American corporations). Meanwhile, Chinese EV's are not only largely affordable, but are well made and becoming more and more ubiquitous every year over there. And along those lines, our lack of EV infrastructure which is CRAWLING along in both the US and Canada does so at that sluggish pace due to govt red tape, NIMBYs, and other shit that just allows stuff to take such long time. And it has to be complete enough by 2035...ten years....in ten years we need enough infrastructure to make EV's be the dominant vehicles on the roads...Ten years is a MASSIVELY short timeframe for Canada to pull that off...These things just get built in China. Is that due to the CCP's dominance over those industries? Maybe. But I'm not going to argue results which are clear. Meanwhile in Canada it's been what like 14 years since the start of the Eglinton Crosstown (a 19km, 25-stop mostly above ground) transit project and it's still not done and open? Since 2010 in China they have built 1000km of train rail lines, 5000km of Urban Rail lines, and 3800km of subway lines. The difference is staggering.

I guess my point is that it doesn't remotely matter how these things occurred (aside from the lack of bureaucracy and red tape), or if we believe the Chinese govt on how they occurred and how much they cost...the thing that stands is they did this. It exists. They are the newest global leader on those fronts. The fact that the govt is communist is besides the point really when it comes to their progress.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 28 January 2025 - 04:10 PM

[Abyss]

All fair points. It's just that there is grounds for doubt much of what they display as shiny and glorious is nearly as shiny as they say it is. You're right about the consumer products, but every one of their EVs could cost two teslas, create more waste than four rangerovers, and use the labour of an entire family paid near nothing for the work, and we wouldn't know. We would never know. This is a country that decided it was acceptable to half-ass baby food production safety for years til the story leaked, then blamed it on one guy who died mysteriously, and buried the story. This is the country that buried the covid epidemic in early days. That continuously demands other countries do more for the environment but demand exceptions for themselves. That despite having no land connection, routinely insist they are entitled to a share of the arctic because they have such a big chunk of the worldwide population. My suspension of disbelief is suspended when it comes to china because they weaponize fiction and they're a global leader in that field too.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 28 January 2025 - 04:24 PM, said:

All fair points. It's just that there is grounds for doubt much of what they display as shiny and glorious is nearly as shiny as they say it is. You're right about the consumer products, but every one of their EVs could cost two teslas, create more waste than four rangerovers, and use the labour of an entire family paid near nothing for the work, and we wouldn't know. We would never know. This is a country that decided it was acceptable to half-ass baby food production safety for years til the story leaked, then blamed it on one guy who died mysteriously, and buried the story. This is the country that buried the covid epidemic in early days. That continuously demands other countries do more for the environment but demand exceptions for themselves. That despite having no land connection, routinely insist they are entitled to a share of the arctic because they have such a big chunk of the worldwide population. My suspension of disbelief is suspended when it comes to china because they weaponize fiction and they're a global leader in that field too.

I take your point, but all those accusations could be laid at the US and Canada's feet if we dug far enough...I think that's what I'm coming to realize as I age, that we act like we are so much better than places like China, but we aren't and on so many fronts we either fail or match them for shittiness...we just exist in our own media orbit that avoids speaking on it, you know?

You know what? I'm interested to find the matches, so I'll lay them out.


Baby Food China: The occurrence you're talking about happened in 2008 and it wasn't the govt, it was a dairy company would valued extra profit....they were caught, the govt put 21 of them on trial, drove them into bankruptcy, and sold off their assets. A total of 21 Sanlu officials were put on trial. They were charged with endangering public safety and selling toxic foods.
And those charged weren't just low-ranking employees. The government didn't merely nominate several scapegoats. They pursued those directly responsible. Four top executives of the company were charged. Among them was Sanlu Group's chairwoman and general manager, Tian Wenhua. Wenhua became one of the highest ranking business executives to be prosecuted in China. Many viewed her as chiefly to blame for what happened.It also wasn't "for years" it sounds like it was only that year. So I don't think we can call that "This is a country"....you could say "a shitty corporation did shitty things to increase profit and got caught"...but that's not the same thing. And since then China has become the world leader in baby food production.

Quote

then blamed it on one guy who died mysteriously, and buried the story.

This did not happen. I'm not even sure where you got it to be honest, but there's a lot of misinformation out there.


Baby Food America: In 2022 Abbott was investigated as babies began to get ill, whole plants were shut down and people who knew about it silenced...and in 2024 there was found heavy metals and lead in baby food in much higher amounts than the FDA supposedly allows...so A. not 2008 but 2022 to present, and B. things have only gotten worse since the initial issue. This has still not been resolved in 2025.


China Covid Pandemic: Yeah, for sure they sat on it for days, but let's be real the thing was already out amongst the world probably a week before even China knew they had an outbreak due to the two week gestation period of the virus...so I'm not sure how much help the extra days would have wrought. It was getting out no matter what. YMMV though. China's death count was just over 5k, likely due to the lockdown they enforced being enforced hardcore to tamp down the spread. YMMV on what you think of that too.

America Covid Pandemic: 1,219,487 people died from it in the states, due to mismanagement of Trump, the throwing out of the emergency setlist Obama laid out, and due to MASSIVE misinformation campaign, grifters, people not wanting their personal freedoms impinged, ect. You get the point. America comes off the worst in the COVID Pandy by a very long stretch.


China Environment: "That continuously demands other countries do more for the environment but demand exceptions for themselves" Again, according to the two independent global bodies that report on the the climate and clean energy China has reduced it's emissions more than most countries on the planet in the last decade, and clean energy has been one of their biggest achievements. And we believe those two independent bodies because their tests cannot be faked. It's not like they go and ask what China has done and just get a report from the CCP. They conduct the testing themselves. You can actually read most of it, but it's a lot of in the weeds insider baseball stuff related to climate...but it's valid.

Canada Environment: Our most recent PM backtracked on a bunch of clean energy promises from his 2015 campaign, and we are still one of the global leaders in fracking and carbon heavy footprints...it got so bad that we had to dip out of the Tokyo Accord asks of us because we were not doing near enough to stop our emissions or even slow them...Alberta is just allowed to do what it likes and no one has the political will to stop them...and one of our only things that MIGHT over time have mitigated our emissions was the carbon tax....which was initially on the corporations with Cap & Trade having to handle their emissions and pay above that cap...which due to Conservative premiers coming to power and not waning to ding their corporate buddies (who lobbied them) all turfed so the tax was on the consumers, and then the Federal cons started harping on it as a campaign slogan against the Liberals, even though it was their previous Con govt that put it into place...so even the bare minimum we could do, we bloody well struggle to do. We could also stop shipping all our E-waste to China and other countries to deal with while lying that we are recycling it (see: "The Shopping Conspiracy" on Netflix) to pretend we're doing more than we are. So frankly, in that light, China has a right to demand more of us...we SUCK at clean energy and climate action in Canada and don't get me started on the States. We talk a good game, but we do almost nothing.

Quote

My suspension of disbelief is suspended when it comes to china because they weaponize fiction and they're a global leader in that field too.

Oh I think that's the USA though man. Which is Currently being run by a deliberate and avowed fascist, voted into office by more than Half the voters in that country, a man who made lying a national pastime and made fictional shit be his bread and butter to sell to his plebs, and put a whole slew of oligarchs in charge of things.


I get it though, we are wading through YEARS and years of propaganda that is rooted in our consumerist, capitalist and consumption culture about China. I just feel like the view we have of them is not what we think it is. Do they do bad shit? For sure. But we act like the US and Canadian systems are so above it all and it's simply not the case.

Hell the "social credit system" is one of the most prevalent things you hear in Canada about China doing...and it's utter and complete bullshit and Chinese people will actually look back at you and point at "Credit Scores" preventing you from getting a house or a loan and be like "Dawg, I think that was protection on the part of your govt, cause we don't have social credit, but you certinalty do"

[Mezla PigDog]

Someone in my team had to visit one of our clients in China last month. It's a city on the South coast that was a fishing village in 1980 and is now a technology hub of 100 million people. The clients workforce working week is 6 days, 9am to 9pm. My colleague said he came home thinking the west is absolutely screwed.

[Macros]

Also, if we're talking baby food have a look into what Nestlé used to do in Africa.

[Macros]

But hard on the heels of that, China also has massively cheap labour, forced labour camps and I have personally watched the black van full up and drag a man screaming from his house in Beijing, it is an oppressive regime that does what it wants to get results. 9 to 9 6 days a week is not living

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 29 January 2025 - 05:44 AM, said:

Also, if we're talking baby food have a look into what Nestlé used to do in Africa.

Nestle is one of (if not THE) most evil corporations on the planet.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 28 January 2025 - 05:18 PM, said:

Abyss, on 28 January 2025 - 04:24 PM, said:

All fair points. It's just that there is grounds for doubt much of what they display as shiny and glorious is nearly as shiny as they say it is... My suspension of disbelief is suspended when it comes to china because they weaponize fiction and they're a global leader in that field too.

I take your point, but all those accusations could be laid at the US and Canada's feet if we dug far enough.....I get it though, we are wading through YEARS and years of propaganda that is rooted in our consumerist, capitalist and consumption culture about China. I just feel like the view we have of them is not what we think it is. Do they do bad shit? For sure. But we act like the US and Canadian systems are so above it all and it's simply not the case....

QuickTidal, on 29 January 2025 - 11:28 AM, said:

Macros, on 29 January 2025 - 05:44 AM, said:

Also, if we're talking baby food have a look into what Nestlé used to do in Africa.

Nestle is one of (if not THE) most evil corporations on the planet.

Everything you both say it true (and QT, tnx for the time you spent on that) or at least true enough, and i by no means excuse Canada, the US, or any other 'Western' country from their own distinct shitlists...

BUT....

Mezla PigDog, on 28 January 2025 - 08:46 PM, said:

Someone in my team had to visit one of our clients in China last month. It's a city on the South coast that was a fishing village in 1980 and is now a technology hub of 100 million people. The clients workforce working week is 6 days, 9am to 9pm. My colleague said he came home thinking the west is absolutely screwed.

Macros, on 29 January 2025 - 08:16 AM, said:

But hard on the heels of that, China also has massively cheap labour, forced labour camps and I have personally watched the black van full up and drag a man screaming from his house in Beijing, it is an oppressive regime that does what it wants to get results. 9 to 9 6 days a week is not living

China does whatever it wants to its people to an extent no 'western nation' can touch, and declares it right and proper and willing. China has more people living in medieval conditions than the entire population of Canada while ghost cities sit empty doing nothing in particular. China has none of the checks and balances and elections and media to counter any of it even to whatever extent anyone might argue we do, and knows very well how to manipulate those systems against us. Are we also evil, sure, are we perfect, gods no, but i'll take our way over their way any day, and I don't accept that their way is more likely to save the planet sooner than anything we have going because i don't believe that they care beyond doing whatever helps make the minority of people in charge there richer and other countries look bad.

[QuickTidal]

Created a new thread elsewhere so as not to clog up the Happy thread for reply.