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China is 100 years ahead of the West

B

B Cool

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Political Leaning
Communist
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This Youtube guy you linked sounds like what they call a "wumao."

To your point, the Egyptians also did amazing architectural things for their time (to the point some now believe it was really aliens!) by enslaving millions of people and breaking them in the construction work. Does that mean they also had an enviable system?
 
The main reason is because they don't have progressivism in China. In many blue states in the US, you can't build a garden shed on your own property if that shed violates the property rights of frogs and mosquitos. That is not hyperbole. If your property has "wetlands", then you're not building anything on. It's literally illegal even to add fill.
 
^One note horn player plays his one note.
 

My wife is from Sichuan,

Our differences of opinion on "Freedom" are about as far apart as our differences in what constitutes "Too much Spice".

We went to downtown Chicago, and frankly, she was horrified by the number of homeless people and panhandlers we encountered.

I think the video has it right. What Americans consider to be freedom, a Chinese would consider chaos.
 

Go try to build something in Chicago and then tell me how freedom causes homelessness.
 
Democracy is messy but at least you're able to speak your piece on a public forum. Try that in Beijing
 
aociswundumho said:
Go try to build something in Chicago and then tell me how freedom causes homelessness.
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Um, Chicago is still building stuff. Not sure what you are on about.

Of course, no one is interested in building affordable housing because there's no money to be made in that.

Now, because I criticize both sides equally, this is where I'm going to rip on liberals a bit. We used to have public housing high-rises in this city. Almost all of them were eventually torn down because they were dangerous places to live. Instead, they had the brilliant idea to just give everyone a voucher.

At the last condo association I lived in, I saw how well that worked out. Because this association didn't have an "owner occupancy" rule, like anyone sensible would have, by 2020, 54% of the units were rentals, and about 10% of them were Section 8 Housing. None of these people had jobs, they frequently left garbage on their porches and outside their apartments.

Thankfully, an investment company finally bought us all out and now it's all overpriced Section 8 housing over there.
 
Logophile said:
Democracy is messy but at least you're able to speak your piece on a public forum. Try that in Beijing
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Mrs. B131 shows me a lot of videos from China, looks like most of those people are speaking their minds.
 
JoeB131 said:
Mrs. B131 shows me a lot of videos from China, looks like most of those people are speaking their minds.
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If you both think it's so superior and "freedom embracing," why aren't you both there??
 
JoeB131 said:
Of course, no one is interested in building affordable housing because there's no money to be made in that.
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Wrong.

There's money to be made at the low end of every market. Watches, phones, clothing, tools, artwork, carpet, lawnmowers, and on and on and on. Walmart built one of the largest business empires in the world selling low quality, but affordable goods. However in highly regulated markets, low quality is outlawed. That's why in America, you can't by a cheap new car, or a cheap new home, or get cheap healthcare. Legions of moron progressives believe that if you outlaw hamburger then everyone can magically afford steak.
 

My first car was a Chevy Chevette, the kind of "Affordable" car that Detroit thought it could make a quick buck on.

I couldn't take it over 70 MPH without the engine freezing up.
 
JoeB131 said:
Never said it was.

I'm just saying it's not the dystopia you think it is.
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"Never said it was." but it's no panacea either, and certainly not a bastion of freedom
 

My ex's parents (in-laws) lived through the Cultural Revolution. They probably have a different perspective on freedom than most Chinese today, but I would agree that America's freedom is extreme. It's even extreme and contorted by the standards of other Western nations.
 
Logophile said:
Democracy is messy but at least you're able to speak your piece on a public forum. Try that in Beijing
Click to expand...

People in China speak their minds freely - all the time. They even criticize the government there, usually more so the local government than the entire political framework. What China will not tolerate is 'troublemaking', mass protest. That shit will get shut right down, and fast.
 
My only comment, and it's tangential, is that my wife's endocrinologist was happy to tell us that the luckiest thing in the world is being born the second son.
 
Have you been there?? Do you think you could use the same kind of rhetoric you use about Trump against Xi Jinping??
 
Logophile said:
Have you been there??
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Yes.

Logophile said:
Do you think you could use the same kind of rhetoric you use about Trump against Xi Jinping??
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No, but Chinese people don't necessarily feel deprived for not having that kind of freedom. They are generally free, within parameters, to express dissatisfaction about specific things or situations they're unhappy with, and they do. There's an implicit social contract: Chinese people accept authoritarianism as long as their bottom lines are being met. When they're not, leaders are going to hear about it. And if things don't change, there's going to be a revolution. This has been China since the dawn of its history.

The reason the Tiananmen massacre happened is because student protestors wanted to upend the entire order and took to the streets to start a political revolution. This is what Beijing feared was going to happen if they didn't crack down in Hong Kong. Moreover, they likely feared that such protests would spread to the mainland just over an hour away by car. There was no effing way they were going to allow that to happen. The tradeoff is that most Chinese are generally satisfied with the state of things. An economic collapse could change all that, and Beijing knows it.
 
This video shows some amazing architecture, and is worth watching.

However, the title is rather misleading. The U.S. has seen small trial projects of 3D printing in construction. Nothing close to this that I'd heard of, but it's less than a 20-year difference. That is, IF the U.S. moves forward at all during that 20 years!

The kinetic building is interesting, but ultimately an excess of art. We don't want things like this except as curiosities. A country four times larger than ours is going to build more curiosities - that's not a matter of time but of mass.

By far the most interesting bit was the description of the "neural network of smart cables" of the Huajiang Canyon Bridge, which monitors the position of the bridge in real time.

I think that provided that the smart cable system really works without a catastrophe, this represents the gateway to a vast new wave of construction - not at the highest bridges of the world, but on the seas. If AI can reliably control the network of cables, then I believe that means a community built on the ocean can use them to absorb and collect the energy of the waves, dampening the power of even a hurricane at its periphery, maintaining tranquil calm (with lots of electrical power) internally. Over time, with advanced harvesting of phosphorus (even on the Moon) it is possible to build vast regions of new biomass on formerly desert ocean, solving the climate crisis while providing desperately needed living space for all the poor and contemned peoples of the earth.
 
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