It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development.
A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now. The amount of tech and the level of integration are unbelievable. In comparasion, the streets of SF, one of the crown jewels of the US technosphere, are just so "normal" I find it hard to believe.
It is the same feeling I had decades ago walking into a then-modern metropolis in the US for the first time. All the cool tech, the convenience, the upscale atmosphere, the extravagance of it all were striking. I have not felt that again for a while and I just think it can't happen again with what I am already used to now. Incredible that China managed to evoke that sense of awe in me again.
Can you tell me more? I visited Shenzhen few months ago and wasn't that astonished. Pretty normal city. Well, I was surprised about few things, like overall lack of traffic jams in the 17-million city, roads seems to be well planned, but I could just be lucky. And that's me coming from Kazakhstan, which is not exactly first-world country. Life seems kind of the same, taxi apps, map with reviews, delivery guys, etc.
Actually I'd argue that Chinese IT is slightly behind Kazakhstan, because their localization is so bad. Baidu maps does not provide English translation at all, and that seems the only proper maps for China. Most WeChat apps I tried also were Chinese-only. I'm pretty sure that every major website and application is well translated to English in my country, Chinese people seems to care very little about English, which makes it particularly hard for international visitors. I literally had to screenshot some app over and over, pasting it to Google Translate to be able to register in the some metro app, so I could actually buy tickets with app and not cash.
Also motorcycle people were absolutely crazy about road rules, like they don't care at all about anything. Auto road, pedestrian road, red light, opposite direction, anything works for them. I was seriously concerned about someone hitting me, which didn't happen, but few times it was close. Car people, on the opposite, were pretty disciplined. May be cameras don't work for motorcycles?
For me, I guess it was the experience with the public transport, the cleanliness of the city, the way everything was built to interact with your phone seamlessly and automatically once you have the local apps(at the cost of privacy, I am fully aware), and the dazzling look of it all. Everything is new and shiny and feel safe. And not just the sterile kind of clean, but one that has a vibrant life under it.
Yes, the english localization is trash. But I mean, I am in China, I am happy enough they even have some english available. I speak some other Asian languages and not sure if it was obvious, but the US also have trash translation to those languages here too.
Maybe that was the biggest difference. I can read a bit of chinese so my experience was more "the way it was meant to be" I guess? I assume it can disappoint if you expect just an upscaled Western experience there. China is big enough they don't need to cater to rich foreigners. I knew the feeling well enough when I first came to the US so I am not surprised. But maybe it is a novel experience to Westerners.
The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world, so many people who don't have that global perspective come to China and think "it's so futuristic" or so, when in reality it's something that has been achieved elsewhere decades ago and China is just one in the line of a common trend. Even when others in this thread say cities like Singapore or Hong Kong are "futuristic", Singapore has been like that since the late 90s, that's not futuristic, it's rather the norm since the 2000s. Certainly those from Asia, even Southeast Asia aren't finding those cities paticularly revolutionary, if not a bit shinier.
Some Chinese Cities may try to "integrate" tech more like in Shenzhen with drone delivery, flying taxis here, or qr-code scanning or whatnot, but that's just more of gimmicks for a select few rather than fundamental lifestyle changes. Far as I would say, Tokyo is still likely the most "developed" of cities in terms of quality of life.
Do you mean North America? Because cities in Europe and Oceania are wildly different from the cities in North America and definitely not 'objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world' (which includes cities in Africa, which honestly aren't amazing).
Tokyo feels more retro futuristic than modern futuristic. Aside from the Shinkansen, a lot of the tech and software you interact with there feels antiquated and even borderline terrible. Meanwhile in SF there are self driving cars everywhere, tech company billboards everywhere, apps with great UX, etc.
I have not been to either for 20+ years, but Singapore or Hong Kong did not feel futuristic to me. Singapore is certainly efficiently run and clean, but at the time I definitely would have preferred living in London (or multiple smaller British cities), or Paris, or Sydney (culturally, if not geographically, western)
Singapore will always be Disneyland with the Death Penalty (early 90s) in my book. But seriously, china built outs its cities much later than the west, and they have a cyberpunk feel. But it feels like a lot of gimmicks, even Japan feels like that (they build things like Tokyo's Skytree, but it isn't very practical, and they just repeat this all over the country). If you live in a city, the basics matter, like...nice public transit, which china has built out very nicely in the last two decades.
Believe me or not, I've read plenty of info in the Internet and I don't think I've found this app. Weird! Thanks for information, it looks like a missing piece. Hopefully my future trips will be more fun. I've used Google Maps and Apple Maps, but both were bad.
How are they ahead in this regard? Tech is one thing, but social credit scores and the level of censorship seem regressive rather than progressive to me.
> Tech is one thing, but social credit scores and the level of censorship seem regressive rather than progressive to me.
I can't stress enough how you need to do your own research on this stuff. American propaganda has depicted China as a ruthless peasant state for decades, and it's only in recent years that news like this has opened peoples' eyes to the fact that that all was a cover for the fact that they've passed us in recent decades.
tl;dr: The "social credit score" is mostly myth. From the article:
>By 2019, China’s central authorities were stating explicitly that they were not happy with the idea. They issued formal clarifications that scores could not be used to penalize citizens and that only formal legal documents could serve as grounds for penalties.
Compare this to the US, in which things like DUIs on your background can be used to deny you Constitutional rights. There's no nothing exceptional about how they're doing things over there when it comes to this.
There are many reports of international students having their statuses, i.e. permission to stay in the US, revoked for being involved in legal matters. The wording of the revocation is vague so nothing is certain but these students reported they have never done any crime except DUIs/DWIs/traffic incidents.
The status revocations are sudden and opaque. The students do not have an opportunity to appeal nor explain. They immediately become illegals once the decision is made and thus become subjects to detainment without due process. In practice they must immediately make arrangements to leave the US or they will risk future visa bans as them being in the country without status can also be considered violating immigration laws.
So, hypothetically, someone who came to the US for a bachelor and decided to go for a PhD, spending about 10 years here, can be forced to abandon everything in matters of days. A tricky situation, yet completely overshadowed by the tariff news and ignored by the masses.
Thanks, I hadn't heard about DUIs being used as a justification for revoking status.
(I'm all for treating DUIs seriously, but using a one time offense as justification for such serious consequences seems over the top to me; obviously the lack of transparency and due process make the whole thing much more troubling as well.)
I've not heard about DUIs being used to revoke visas, but I've definitely heard about criminal records making it hard to get visas. And that's not just in the US.
Given that permanent residents in the U.S. seem to have lost all of their free speech rights, and citizens aren’t far behind, I think we can call that precise issue a truce for now. Definitely other human rights/freedoms we still have over them at the moment.
As much as that might be true to some degree, I doubt most people are comparing China's best to their grandparent's collapsed barnhouse in the boonies. The best I've seen (NYC is the best I'll publicly mention, but also a few other east coast cities) basically look like Ravenholm compared to the photos/videos of what's coming out of China.
> It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development.
To be fair, it's usually easier to build state of the art, when you start from scratch. Western countries have a big legacy they build decades ago, which has to be used and maintained for decades to justify the investment.
And as a visitor, it's also more likely to only see the fancy parts, and not be confronted with the dark parts, especially when you have a strong leader who's dedicated goal is to sell a positive view of the country.
This seems to be a matter of preference. I feel awe when I visit charming old European cities with great walkability. "Modern" is great for aeroplanes but overrated for cities.
It is also amazing and sad to see positive comments on such technological developments in China where similar developments in e.g. the USA would be lambasted on this very same site: Flying taxi drones? They'll fall out of the sky on the heads of the elderly and Musk should stay away from this. Tech and integration? Big brother getting even bigger and no I don't want Musk to be part of this. Is it just that the neighbour's grass is always greener or is there some deeper reason for the oikophobia that has become so popular, especially in 'progressive' circles?
I also notice you're mentioning SF without mentioning that this city - like so many others - has been driven into the ground by decades of mismanagement by so-called "democrats". California is on a road to nowhere while building high-speed trains to nowhere, the streets in SF only get cleaned up when the leader of the Chinese Communist party comes to visit, the place is a dump and people are leaving it in droves. It wasn't when I was there for the first time in 1979 - people on roller skates, some left-over hippies, disco really made it - but the last time I visited - 2003, for the IETF conference - the signs were already clearly visible and I was warned that the hostel I stayed in in the Tenderloin district was 'not in a safe area' and that I should not walk around the city (which I did anyway, I'm stubborn).
California should kick the "democrats" to the curb for a while, try to repair the damage they did to the place and its reputation and maybe, just maybe the "Golden State" can once again become the place of dreams it once used to be. This is not so much an endorsement of Republicans but simply a statement of fact, a single-party system nearly always leads to decline. To slightly paraphrase MC5: Kick Out The Dems! [1]
When I made that comparison, I did not mean to bring politics into the conversation, but I assume it is a natural direction people can take it too.
I will just say this: the issues with the US are beyond *partisan* politics. In my opinion, it is a social problem much deeper than what is shown on TVs and discussed in election campaigns. Changing the party in power will not change the situation. Until the US acknowledged these matters, it will continue on the same path it has been.
Read those threads again, I am not petitioning for 'forbidding politics' but for applying the same rules to all discussions related to politics - no more 'rules for thee but not for (D)'. It has become impossible to keep politics out of the discourse since everything has been made political.
> The US cities with top highest violent crime rates are more likely to be in red states
Red states with blue cities, an important distinction. I looked it up - https://ballotpedia.org is a good place to start - and would be interested to see this disproven.
In what way is my view of the parties out of date?
Actually I would enjoy a low tech, less integrated and connected experience.
I like interacting with nature, people more than swiping in an app.
I like old tramways in Lisbon more than flying taxis. I like small Greek buildings and even baroque and neoclassical architecture more than glass and metal buildings and skyscrapers.
In the future in a good way or a bad way? I haven't seen or heard of any tech being used only in China that i would actually want in my city. These "air taxis" for example are way too loud
Chinese cities like Shanghai have been world class for a long time. The last time I was there, I had a dinner with a client on the outskirts of Shanghai. I took multiple subways to reach there and found that neighborhood quite ordinary and starkly different from Shanghai itself. Of course this is also an anecdote but gives you a different perspective. I also know a few people who visit China often and they tell me the cities are definitely futuristic.
Personally I think Singapore is the most futuristic city-state in the world.
Strange comment, there’s plenty of videos of both locations on YouTube to make the comparison and I think it’s quite apt. Chinese (and other SEA) major cities definitely feel much more modern than most American cities these days. Most American metropolitan areas are quite bland/bleak outside the “beautified” green areas.
> A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now
Sorry, I should have been more clear, this is what I was referencing. I have been to SF recently and would agree it's not hard to make a lot of cities look better in comparison.
Have you been to SF? It’s like a zombie movie with shocking public transport. There are many nicer cities which seem futuristic compared to SF. I’ve not been to a Chinese metropolis but if you just look at some photos it wouldn’t be hard to imagine somewhere like Shenzhen being much further ahead.
It's a cop out in my opinion, it will never scale or be as useful , reliable or enjoyable to use as a well designed, operated subway. Besides Tokyo, Shenzhen, Beijing etc, will have both, subways and driverless, flying taxis, drone delivery and still be ahead of most major US cities in terms of transport options.
You have to visit a top tier East Asian city to understand just how good they have these things running, safe, clean, reliable, always on time. Like, it's amazing. Uncomprable to anything I've experienced in any major US city.
I think if a New Yorker went to Tokyo they'd be amazed how far ahead they're public transport is.
There are also health benefits to using public transport which I think we will see play out with self-driving, people will just become slobs when a car comes to their door, picks them up and drops them at the next door. Using a subway is actually a bit of healthy exercise.
Wait until they declare nonresidents are not entitled to properties in the US and seize all bank accounts and 401k, USSR style.
The scariest thing, and most absurd to me, is that even though I made that joke just 1 minute ago, now that I think about it, it is not completely impossible in this current political climate...
I dread to think about what the US will be 10 years from now. Trump is not the problem. He is a solution, or claimed to be, to the ailments that plague the US. The people here want change, they know something is rotten but they don't even know what is the problem with so many lies and misdirection and days to days burdens they have to bear. So Trump become their cry for help. It is just sad and tragic. Truly something for the history book, if we ever get there.
I don’t think your hypothetical is crazy at all. I learned this weekend that much of my close family, who were pretty normal conservatives just a couple of years ago, now believe that all legal and illegal immigrants have been let into the country by jws to eliminate the white race. And that’s not an exaggeration at all. Like I’m mincing words to make them look less bad.
My family is not the down and out, they never supported these things because they have financial stressors. If anything the economy of the last 20 years has been too good to them. They are relatively wealthy and have stable lives and good jobs. They listen to too many alt right podcasts and are too deep down the Facebook hole.
Two weeks ago I was relatively optimistic. Now I’m really scared, how do you cope with loved one’s who believe these things? We’re off to a really dark place.
Yeah it does change thing things whether your rhetoric involves "eliminating white race" fear and threat of Jewish.
Person you responded to found out his relatives are full on nazi. That is what it means. And that means violence, intentional cruelty and loss of freedom for those around.
I see the reasoning. But assuming that the cultural threat is real for them, how would you state this problem without being a nazi? Is this possible in your "set of axioms"?
"Cultural threat" is not correct descriptor of "elimination of white race". They were talking about race war, you are trying to find words that make it non fascist. So, you will need to be precise about what your euphemism of "real cultural threat" means. If it means that they perceive Jews as the reason for "elimination of white race" as they said, then it is just being Nazi with all the logical consequences.
Some people are Nazi and that is that. The eternal wish to reframe far right nazi as something else and non-threatening regardless of what these people do, say or push for amounts to lying to oneself.
>If the goal is not to eliminate the white race (which some left figures actually promoted as I see it from the outside, so why you even wonder?) then what does that change? Unnatural/unassimilated immigrantion is a real concern for those who value their cultural climate. What's wrong with having these concerns or values?
About 5 or 6 months ago, here on HN, there was a headline from a major/reputable news source that said the Canadian government wanted a population of 100 million (when they currently have 30ish million, and fertility rates that will see their population shrink instead of grow). Whether there are any racist designs on the white race or not, it's clear that governments consider all of us completely substitutable/expendable, and they will replace us (almost certainly regardless of our skin color, come to that). No one's trying to hide this, it isn't a secret. Very few are so dumb as to not realize that something's up. So whenever anyone tries to debunk the various conspiracy theories about X replacement it can only sound like lies.
Comments or opinions like yours are the reasons why I think my hypothetical scenario is possible.
It is too easy to view everything as "nothing new, already done in some way" and ignore the slow boil, especially when they are not directly affected or ideologically opposed to it. That is how we get people clamoring for the government to post pictures of chained people marched into extrajudicial prisons without due process.
All I can say is that while some people will be insulated from the consequences, if the situation keeps escalating, do not bet on you being one of those privileged few.
Citizens aren't far off. I give it until election season.
JD Vance wrote a cover blurb for a book arguing to the MAGA base that all the milquetoast liberals they know are actually "secret communist revolutionaries" who must be "crushed" by any means necessary.
Sound scary but when looking at the facts, it is probably reasonable.
Both the university, the court, and the lawyer seem to not raising any fuss yet, signaling that whatever this is, it likely all legal and severe enough to warrant absolute silence.
The employer was likely contacted far in advance for detail not available to the public, and very likely they complied and realized there are serious issues that can tarnish the university's reputation, so they erased his name from their payroll. This indicated court order and sufficient evidences for multiple parties to be concerned.
So... best guess? National security matter. Like it or not, espionage is a thing and under this administration, all foreigner, naturalized or not, are under extra scrutiny. And the US is not above applying stereotypes.
"Naivete", now, as opposed to trusting government agencies any other time in recent history?
I swear, people are acting like CIA black sites and NSA backdoors just started existing after years of apathy just because orange man got back into power and let the guy who made a crappy truck cut government jobs.
Can't wait for political winds to change in the next election and watch as all the ones crying about "government overreach" and "it's only natural all other countries should cut ties with us" to switch their tune once 'their guy' is in office, but all other branches of the machine operating just as before.
Truly no more a propagandized people; "Hackers" shilling for large unchecked governments, who'd-a-thought.
Nobody wants to hear it, but I don't think it's right to call it naivete. The source article says that local media were able to reach a lawyer representing the family, who did say they're not sure what the investigation is about but didn't say anything like "my clients are missing and I don't know where they've been taken". If the FBI hasn't filed formal charges yet, and the targets of the investigation aren't interested in talking to the public or the media, the only options are to wait for more information or engage in wild speculation.
The art of manipulating the public through social media is a very developed field by now. It is made even easier through the abuse of "volunteer moderators" on social media.
A bit of push here and there, some sowing of ideas, suppression of "disruptive" opinions, promotion i.e. normalization of fringe characters, add in a dash of specific attacks based on the target's internet history, and a small group of folk, with the assistance of technology, can effectively steer public opinion.
It is not easy to defend against this, especially to a populace who consider themselves living in a land "free of propaganda".
It is ironic, that a country who prides itself on its exceptionality, fall into a crisis because it is, in fact, unexceptional.
To those flagging all these articles because of "not relevant" or "repetitive", please consider how these are affecting thousands or ten of thousands of real humans in the US, most of them are in tech. They are absolutely relevant to many people. Maybe you believe these actions are far removed from you and thus irrelevant, but have some empathy to those affected and don't try to close your eyes at least?
Also, these are as "repetitive" as OAI releasing GPT x.x. Escalation of the same event, but everytime there is something new and worthy of discussion being pushed.
So if you don't like these news, ignore them. But don't use "HN rules" as the excuse.
Long, thin strands of polymer are the backbone of life, which is one of the most, if not the most, complex forms of matter the universe has ever created.
Spaghetti is the same type of polymer so a pretty good abstraction.
The fact that it was officially invoked at all is already a point of discussion. This is an act that can suspend the constitution as the executive branch see fit. Nobody has ever tried to use it since WW2, and even then it was a controversial act.
It has only been 2 months. How much further can it go in one year? In 4 years? At what point would there be real consequences? I think these questions are important enough to warrant some serious discussion.
This already feels like a reddit discussion. You made points all outlined in the article I linked.
I'm not qualified to speak to hypotheticals and likely neither is anyone else here. However, the only consequences are either Congress removing him, the cabinet removing him via Article 25, an armed uprising, or potentially a Big Mac.
Until any of those happen, there are no consequences for the duration.
> This already feels like a reddit discussion. You made points all outlined in the article I linked.
You seemed to say (implicitly) that this isn't too dire because the judiciary stopped it. They in response made the point that even if this isn't effective now, the rapid escalation of the use executive power is a big deal that points to further escalation that might not be stopped.
Yes, they mentioned facts that appear in the article to support the point but nowhere this point is made, or furthermore, it doesn't even matter if it was. Expressing a similar opinion like one in an article quote makes his reply superfluous?
Saying "reddit" and "nobody is qualified to speak hypotheticals" seems more like you don't wish to engage with his point. The act that's been used to put innocent people in to concentration camps was invoked, more discussion should exist beyond dryly mentioning the mechanisms for ousting the US president.
I'm not assuming your opinions on the matter, the refusal to approach the question just seemed weird to me, so I wanted to note it.
What's the point of approaching questions like this in a forum? Your effort is better spent on the phone with your Congress Critter or on the street protesting. Keyboard warror'ing is a waste of your time.
> You seemed to say (implicitly) that this isn't too dire because the judiciary stopped it.
Do not /ass/ume what other's mean, and don't put words in my mouth.
The existence of content doesn't mean you need to engage with it. If these types of questions or discussion are superfluous in your mind you can always choose to ignore them instead of jumping in. Conversations and questions about the article and its impact seems on-topic in this context, joining the discussion simply to chastise people for participating in the discourse does not feel on-topic to me.
I personally think there is value in discussion around first-in-my-lifetime events like this.
Before flagging, please consider how this act has not been invoked since WW2. Therefore it is a novel and worthy of discussion, regardless of how "not technology related" it is.
I mean, it trivially fits a number of them but a really big one is 'repetition'. Various political and other not-entirely-HN-on-topic stories end up on the front page and have threads but these are exceptions for particularly unusual or big ones. An administration that engages in daily shitposting-through-executive-order gets a couple of these for novelty but the novelty has long worn off - you'd have to fill HN with them if they all counted as exceptional.
Of course, if you think this one deserves special treatment, the thing to do is email hn@ycombinator.com and ask for flags to be taken off. I think in this case it's a little uphill (as another toplevel comment points out - the news has already overtaken this thing) and you'd probably need to find some sort of third party reporting rather than the government press release.
When the legal system is setup to rely so heavily on money that even the government can't go against it, you know shit is bad, yo.
Also, say what you will, but the US situation right now, this matter included, is definitely "novel and thought provoking" so if this thread is flagged, I am not convinced the people flagging it are doing it just because of HN rules.
But this problem, that money determines effective outcome of legal proceedings is a global problem. And for the same reason as here: governments not protecting people because they refuse to spend the money (and, really, it's not so much about money, it's about effort).
Read about child protection in court, "pre-trial" incarceration in New York (which I guess is in the US, yes), what happened to lawyers in the Netherlands, what's happening to social service court claims in France (ie. the government, who are defendants here, just walked out of the courtroom ... and the judge refuses to convict them), ... there's an endless list here.
A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now. The amount of tech and the level of integration are unbelievable. In comparasion, the streets of SF, one of the crown jewels of the US technosphere, are just so "normal" I find it hard to believe.
It is the same feeling I had decades ago walking into a then-modern metropolis in the US for the first time. All the cool tech, the convenience, the upscale atmosphere, the extravagance of it all were striking. I have not felt that again for a while and I just think it can't happen again with what I am already used to now. Incredible that China managed to evoke that sense of awe in me again.