Yeah, he is intellectually and emotionally invested in it. It's also unfalsifiable. America has been running large debts forever but has only become bigger and more successful post Covid, whereas other countries have become weaker relatively speaking. I think his ego is too invested in this model of the world to let it go.

This is my personal view after reading his most recent book.

But the US has debt levels where it is basically impossible that everyone is going to get back what they put in. Somebody has been conned into making a donation without realising it. And the #1 strategy to deal with any crisis seems to be money printing. If that political culture remains ascendant then all the alternatives will have to have really screwed up. Which is sadly plausible when looking at China - but they wouldn't have to change much to start whipping the US.

I am not sure what metrics are you using to quantify success post covid for America. Trust in institutions are all time low, there is a mental health epidemic, supply chain is still a mess and America is finally giving in to the Chinese demands withdrawing (at least partially) trade tariffs and going back to largest trade deficits as well as lately caving to the Saudis. Following the debacles in Afghanistan and Ukraine war, there isn’t exactly a foreign policy strength that America is able to project.

In all measures, these aren’t exactly success but hey we are selling weapons at record pace to everyone else so that may be it.

Citation needed, not clear how America has become more successful post covid.

I discovered her channel when looking for videos on the Shanghai Clique and the infighting that goes on within the CCP.

Western Media is thin on that, they tend to portray the Chinese Government without any disfunction. Ironically, Chinese Media tends to portray United States the same way too.

https://youtube.com/c/LeisRealTalk

Polymatter is great though. At least the videos on China (like the demographics one) seem well researched and have a unique take on the subject.

It’s also why I’m suspect of everyone famous. It’s just such a warped personality that seeks and maintains a public persona. Not saying that they are evil or bad people - just that their motivations are very suspicious and you should be extremely critical of what a public person says. The vast majority of successful and wealthy people are not public figures and don’t try and parlay their opinions into personal fame.

One technique Ive found of understanding if someone is genuinely knowledgeable or faking it is to read their books or listen to long form podcasts (not just interviews). More data points create a more complete picture.

It's been amazing for his personal wealth, that much is true though

I think investors don't buy this because long term population health and state capacity are significantly more important 10, 20, 30 years down the line than short term disruptions, and that is why investors are bullish on China.

Shutting a port down for one month is bad, having a hundred million people struggle with long covid is a lot worse. The bull case is pretty simple. The country has governance that is effective enough to tackle problems that most other places have given up on, even if it isn't particularly pretty in the short run.

Shruti Mehta, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Looking at people who report they are not able to function in life, we’ve seen about 3 to 5 percent, which is still a large number.[..]My bottom line is, with a potential cost of $2.6 trillion, that’s so big that there’s nothing, no preventive action, that wouldn’t be worth doing to reduce the burden of long-Covid,” Cutler said.”

So I think one in ten being quite seriously affected is about in the right ballpark, if not too conservative.

https://observer.com/2022/05/long-covid-will-have-a-massive-...

Now that I'm in my 30s and interact with the broader world, I can't help but realize that most people I meet outside of tech are... how do I say this? Not that bright? I'm talking people who can't add small numbers or multiply, and seem to have short term goals and interests. BTW these people are in the same socioeconomic level (or better, as many of them own property here within their family) as my family when we were brand new to this country.

In Los Angeles the schools are garbage and failing for the most part, and it is pretty sad to see the result - adults who can barely make ends meet and continue the cycle. Since I'm in the tech bubble, everyone else I hang out with is quite well to do and smart, but any time I've met people outside of this bubble I feel depressed and sad.

Like I said, I grew up in the districts where most of the people were focused on providing a good education for their kids. It was in the midwest suburbs right outside of the city metro, and my peers were involved in sports and also studying. Our football/basketball team were AP/honor roll students who also played in the orchestra, and most of them went on to higher education and have really good careers. When I see their Linkedin updates, I'm always happy to have been around such people who also motivated me.

I honestly believe that China, India, and other Asian countries will dominate the next century and beyond. They're pumping out engineers (people who can think, use their brain) while Americans talk shit about themselves and want to degrade. The USA needs to stop treating children like equals/adults (they're not, their brains are still developing) and focus on making sure their kids can think their way out of a box instead of crying or needing therapy (just stop giving them iPad games since they're 2 years old to make them shut up). We need to get off this addiction to instant gratification - that leads to mental retardation because when people don't have to think of alternatives or creative ways to do things, MOST people will just be lazy. We've proven this in animals, and we see it every day with people.

I'm honestly pondering if I should raise my family in the same midwestern suburbs I grew up in because I can't see my kids succeeding here in California. The schools suck, the people are not interested in education, and tech basically carries this state in terms of brainpower.

So what? You hang out with allegedly smart people, we produce a lot of them, some even provide the world with more utility then working at a FAANG. What point are you trying to make? Are you suggesting there are no unambitious people in Asia?

We have a lot going for us too - our political system relies on institutions, not personalities. We still have the best of everything. Corruption and Nepotism is minimal - your family surname doesn't matter (you are a self-proclaimed example of this). The cream more easily rises to the top.

> I honestly believe that China, India, and other Asian countries will dominate the next century and beyond. They're pumping out engineers (people who can think, use their brain) while Americans talk shit about themselves and want to degrade.

"Pumping out" is the key phrase here.

I thought that way when I was younger, judging people by the skills I excelled at. Not only was I mistaken but the attitude was damaging to myself and others.

Unskilled and unaware is a thing: it takes wisdom, maturity and focus to learn to recognise the excess talents and abilities of others in areas that oneself is weak in. Looking at myself and understanding where I have an IQ of 60 is painful, but necessary.

Oddly enough, the more I look for talents in the people I know, the more I see the excess talents of other people: especially soft-skills and non-scholastic skills. We all have a lot to learn. The smartest people I know recognise they are dumb in significant areas of their lives. The stupid people I know can be snowflakes: often overconfident and often overvalue their profession.

But... I have been through California's most competitive schools. The ones in which everyone grubbed for grades, and therefore pursued exactly what you are romanticizing. Yeah, you get some education, but the course material mattered very little. All the serious challenges that have left an impression decades on were presented by other life events like kids who commit suicide(an occurrence that is depressingly frequent at those competitive schools). I do not think of myself as a winner, but a survivor. The moments where genuine flourishing took place are likewise things that were not really about the school system or what my parents did, but the whole confluence of factors.

California - as a society - is, in fact, facing and working through those challenges of how to make its society work without relying on exit, because exit simply means others get dumped on. Making it a place worth living in is not about working hard, or voting in the right government, but about answering all the ethical questions involved in creating that society with clarity and intellectual honesty, one day and one incident at a time. The parlor tricks necessary to earn a tech salary and then uproot oneself are simple stuff in comparison.

And Asia is not gaining in terms of competitiveness: it's gotten wealthier and older too, and it has started having the same kinds of issues, of younger Japanese going "hikkikomori" or Chinese workers "lying flat".

Japan, Korea, Taiwan: Massive financial aid from the west, favorable trade deals for being strategic allies of the west.

This isn’t to say that the people in these countries didn’t work to get where they are; they could have absolutely fucked it up. But it’s important to understand structural reasons for why some countries develop faster than the others.

Upto the late 18th century, South + East asia were absolutely the dominant economic powers of the world accounting for over 50% of the worlds GDP. Colonialism was a huge setback but both China and India (+ other South/East Asian nations like Bangladesh) are rapidly industrializing.

USA has been independent since 1776.

And notice I said "century". Were you educated in America?

No I wasn’t educated in America, not do I live there. You’re moving to personal attacks because you have nothing else.

Its not my fault your reading comprehension sucks.

For me, the contrast is most obvious when looking at Southern California vs the Bay Area. People are noticably less happy in the Bay Area. It's nothing like life among the "happy idiots" of SoCal.

Whatever you do, I hope you find satisfaction in life and teach your children to achieve the same.

What was it like ? Just genuinely curious. I am an immigrant and a parent. We live in good school district, but we're not wealthy. Just want to learn from your experience, so I could understand what my kids might/will have to go through at school.

Before they do that, they'll have to solve similar problems the US is facing right now in terms of inequality. In fact they are running into these issues even now.

However there is one major difference that India and China have to contend with which would be a big problem. And that is scale - the very thing that propels their growth will be a major obstacle. It is one thing to have inequality in a country of 300M, it is another to have to contend with 500M+ disgruntled citizens.

And sadly, looking at the state of affairs, I am not sure if the leadership of both the countries are equipped/want to deal with it.

What a complete load of horseshit.

The US is at the forefront of dealing with the realities involved with living in an information-centered society. Therapy and a broader recognition of mental health issues as being significant are incredibly useful ideas that are helping society deal with the problems that come with this new age. Raising kids as being autonomous and having identities independent of their parents is absolutely the correct way of recognizing them as people and not just parent’s little helpers or minions.

There is legitimate criticism to be made of a society addicted to social media and swimming in disinformation. But both the criticism and the remedies suggested in this comment are complete nonsense and would do little to alleviate the situation. If your solution is “sterner parenting” you are simply going to have more rebellious kids who end up doing even worse things… we have been down this path before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag...

A significant fraction of the US seems to have problem to adjust to the notion that in the next decades China will become the clear number 1 country in many fields, and the US will be to China, what Germany is to the US.(Similar on a per capita basis, about 1/4 in absolute numbers)

Wishful thinking is a terrible basis to plan.

Observe both the shape and growth trajectory of populations for America, EU, China, and other entities at: https://www.populationpyramid.net. I think a lot of countries are going to have a similar problem - it's not isolated to China. However, China's unfriendly immigration policies, combined with the very large skew in their population demographics (both age and gender) lead many to believe that there will likely be issues like the one I mentioned earlier.

Really hard to root for a country that now has a population rhomboid instead of a population pyramid. Soon to turn into an inverse pyramid aka a reverse ponzi where the old work to keep the few young alive.

The author is not a China hater - far from it. But he lays out in sobering detail the substantial demographic challenge they still face and why they may not escape what is known as at the middle income trap. If anything, I came away with the understanding that while many fear a rising China, it is a China that stumbles that can be more worrisome.

As for Rozelle, he does good work. But reality is even with deficient interior education infra, PRC is still massively overproducing talent after massive brain drain. There's record youth unemployment, again some of which is covid driven, but talent oversupply was evident pre-covid. The demographic crisis is going to be difficult to negotiate, but ultimately PRC has too manypeople, specifically undereducated older cohorts that can't be integrated into modern economy. Whatever happens PRC will be better off with 1B people than 1.4B, simply too many mouths to feed. Meanwhile there's plenty of talent to go around to build comprehensive power which more than GDP undergirds national strength. Xi/CCP's vison for "moderately prosperous society" was $10000 per capita, leadership knows PRC has too many people to reach developing country incomes. The current pipe "China dream" is $40000 per capita by 2049 (100 year anniversary) probably not realistic but still a lot of overhead to improve productivity. Likely enough to establish PRC as geopolitical superpower even with at low high income level. At end of the day, a populous country with $20000 GDP and 20 aircraft carriers is still much more powerful than a small country with $100000 GDP and none.

Source? I think big coastal cities are very advanced, but there are loads of rural villages with subsistence economies and widespread poverty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative...

Yeah, PRC income disparity is massive, 600M living on un less than 1000RMB a day. But we're talking per capita. Disparity result of Deng's entire, some get rich that resulted in two (or more) tier society, high income coastal one with a few hundred million that can compete globally, and low income interior provinces that can be arbituaged to do things other countries can't (i.e. labour intensive massive low cost infra). It's like UAE with foreign migrant labour but entirely domestic. Xi's trying to fix this with common prosperity with wealth transfers, whether that works is another question. But IMO the math is in his favor. There are so many low income people that it's not unfeasible to dramatically improve their QoL YoY with relatively little resources = party stability. Like you can double 600M on 1000rmb to 2000RMB with annual transfer of 90billion dollars (USD). PRC GDP growth last year is projected to be 900B USD. A fraction of annual growth can be titrated over years to "underclass" to maintain marginal but consistent growth that people will always feel like they're getting richer. PRC can treat common prosperity of developing provinces same way developed nations treated developing nations with aid. That's why IMO demographic problem is managable, at least in terms of stability. The wealthy coastal competitve class has so much talent to increase productivity, while the poor interior provicnes can be easily bribed. Like it's still going to be a high pressure cooker east asian life, but PRC citizen's QoL could consistent increase since base effect of productivity so low, whereas in developed western nations new generations are worse off than their parents.

For example, in semiconductors, Taiwan, with a much smaller population (and arriving late in the game) beat the US, Japan and Korea. China, with 600k STEM graduates per year, is still trying to catch up.

On covid vaccines, even Russia has their own vaccine that reach mRNA levels of protection, but China is still stuck with the Covid Zero policy.

Quantity was definitively an asset for Chinese growth based on cheap labor. That source of growth is almost running dry (to the point where they are resorting to labor camps). But at some point, quantity becomes more of a liability.

Yeah entire MIC 2025 move up value chain drama that turned into tech war with US.

TW had decades of head start over PRC serious semi efforts and TBH if it wasn't for US sanctions on Fujin Jinhu, PRC would have EUV machines 3 years ago, might be on 7nm by now, and at least Huawei pre sanctions was world class in semi design. Issue is PRC needs to pursue indigenous quality now which is burden but also opportunity. TW will rely on foreign equipment forever, even though they have monopoly on some supply chains (which PRC is replicating). Shit hits the fan, TW semi can't work without foreign tech, PRC can at least cobble together indigenous 28nm and soon 14nm.

Flip side of US PRC containment policy is seriously taking MIC 2025, i.e. PRC has gap of 300k in IC talent (need 720k according to white paper), and integrated circuit major was only upgraded to first-level discipline in 2018 due to tech war. Previously private companies happy with using western equipment but now they're pursuing entire indigenous supply chain. Something TW can't do. PRC needs to master quantity (in every sector and subsector) and quality, which is much larger task but also large growth potential. Transition is in effect, entire soft tech crack down to redirect talent into hard tech. Excess talent isn't be absorbed in many fields but semi not one of them. But really apart from semi, turbojet/aviation, very high end machinery, PRC is closing gaps everywhere. It's matter of time after finally US tensions finally kicked PRC industrial policy into right priority.

>On covid vaccines, even Russia has their own vaccine that reach mRNA levels of protection, but China is still stuck with the Covid Zero policy.

Because mRNA vaccines makes very little difference. That's just triumphant mRNA propaganda wank. Traditional vax protects marginally less well for severe cases. mRNA virtue was preventing spread, which it doesn't post delta. Reality is Chinese vax is effectively as good as mRNA after booster, but covid zero is simply much better. Extrapolate current TW covid stats after they've capitulated to live with covid to PRC population and you're looking at millions of death even with mRNA. Zero Covid is power move by PRC who has strong state capacity to maintain zero covid (so far), relying on vax is capituation for those who systemically can't. The idea that mRNA would solve PRC covid problems is naive.

>Quantity was definitively an asset for Chinese growth based on cheap labor. That source of growth is almost running dry (to the point where they are resorting to labor camps). But at some point, quantity becomes more of a liability.

PRC labour is not cheap anymore. But PRC is improving both in quality and quantity as seen in export figures and value capture. They're moving up the industrial chain in many sectors. Remember meme that PRC only got $3 per iphone 3G?, it grew to $100 by iPhone X. Meanwhile anyone in manufacturing including Chinese will tell in you labour costs in PRC is becoming uncompetitive. South East Asia is much cheaper, but PRC efficient logistics still comes out ahead.

>resorting to labor camps

Alleged labour camps are poverty alleviation efforts as part of long running rural labour transfer programs. Even "coerced" labour studies by propagandist (Zenz) report payment is substantially higher than the 600M bottom tier Han living on 1000RMB a month. Most companies don't want to hire "cheap" Uyghur workers who has no language proficiency when there are plenty of Han willing to do the job for LESS. They're pressured by central gov take in Uyghurs workers for again, poverty alleviation (and yeah some Uyghurs being pressured to join these PAID programs along with reeducation). There's really no shortage of labours for the kind of low skill work they typically get thrown into. Like even the entire XJ cotton drama over Uyghurs picking cheap cotton is incongruent with fact that most of XJ cotton is mechanized and US sanctioned John Deere from selling XJ cotton pickers because no one in XPCC wants to spend the money to pay Uyghurs to pick cotton when machines are cheaper. Sidenote: ask why US refuse to sell machines that would alleviate alleged coerced cotton labour. Almost like they want PRC to continue subsidizing these manual labour jobs to perpetuate narrative of slave Uyghurs handing picking cotton. Anyway, XJ security architecture cost TRILLIONS with massive subsidies, even CCP chattle slaved every Uyghur it wouldn't be profitable. That's why they're focusing on poverty alleviation, with spectrum of reward/pressure/coersion/ strategies to get Uyghurs to particpate in uptraining, because integrating/improving XJ workforce and participation in broader PRC economy is long term better than maintaining securitization. You don't do that with the most inefficient labour camps, you do that by showing them (even if forcefully) that making life changing amounts of money is better than being impoverished coping on religion.

No amount of incentives have managed to push fertility rate above replacement level in any country as far as I can remember.

The data from countries like India also shows that as soon as any region experiences even moderate prosperity, birth rates drop like a rock. Heck, India’s fertility rate is now below replacement level and it happened waaay ahead of schedule.

They banned for-profit tutoring to bring down the cost of raising children (but also ensure children have time to be children). These services are now offered by or in-cooperation with the state school system and no-longer teach the same subjects as are taught during normal school hours. i.e they basically converted it into educational after-school day-care that is strictly non-profit.

1 child policy was replaced by 2 child policy, then 3 and finally abolished. Ironically this was only ever applied to Han Chinese, minorities like Ughyrs have always had uncapped family sizes (another massively misunderstood fact about China but getting into it would just lead to downvote brigade by people that have never even been to China).

So yeah the plan is to reduce cost of living, drive down costs of having children in particular, allow people to have as many children as they want and soon I imagine we will see direct incentives to have children.

China won’t reverse anything and their authoritarian nature will (as always) lead to ruin.

With China, we’ve seen it go both ways: Disaster under Mao and revitalization under Deng Xiaoping. What will leadership under Xi look like? Remains to be seen.

I don't know very much about him yet, but his life seems to be a fascinating one of gently guiding a failing state (that failed on epic proportions) back into normalcy and then into rapid growth.

Take away The West's (citizens) bailing out their financial markets (circa 2007 / 08) and again authoritarian ruin doesn't look so bad.

I'm not stumping for China or authoritarianism; only pointing out that it's early days and there's more to that picture than brash big brush judgements.

I'm from the west and I've never heard a defense or Chinese perspective. I understand that a lot of media we consume in the US is biased, especially on domestic issues abroad. Can you provide a link that explains the misunderstanding?

I think a large part depends on if they are able to translate their infrastructure spending away from unprofitable or marginally profitable ventures like bridges into high-tech nuclear industry, more battery and solar tech, semi-conductors & lithography, etc.

They are certainly capable (we saw that with EVs, batteries and solar already) but proof will be in the pudding.

Shouldn't base your worldview on silly youtube videos. What are the odds that grifters peddling youtube videos are experts on china, mrbeast, ikea, india, dennis rodman, etc?

These people just make videos targeted for their group of dumb masses in order to sell ads.

Just go to their youtube page and ask yourself what are the odds that the grifters running polymatter are experts on any of the topics they pumped videos out for? The answer is none. What they do is most likely analyze what types of garbage their subs may like and create garbage for these people.

You'd think HN would be the last place anyone would take polymatters seriously. But from the comments, many actually look to youtube grifters and outright propagandists ( zeihan ) to form their opinions.

But they are also availability machines usually not backed by domain knowledge or deep research. They’re designed to grab views. Wendover productions for instance has lots of great videos about transportation (especially aviation) which are mind blowing. The creator Sam is also just a college student in his 20s with no deep domain knowledge on any of the subjects he covers — his expertise is perhaps enthusiasm, knowing how to do research into trivia type knowledge, and making great videos about it.

Most Wendover videos are good, but there are some in which he is pretty wrong.