Comment by ecshafer
10 hours ago
China is also giving them dump trucks full of cash though. Plus you have to content with the nationalism reason (unfortunately this has died off in America for too many). The idea of building your country is valued for most Chinese I have met. Plus China is incredibly nice to live in, especially if you have lots of money and/or connections. So you can work in China, get paid lots of money, feel like you are doing good. Or In America you can get paid lots of money, and get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model.
China city life is amazingly convenient. Trains and subways are just such an enormous quality of life boost. Add to that the relative cleanliness of having nearly zero homelessness and you’ve got something very compelling.
I will say we are winning in accessibility. China doesn’t have much of a ramp game
All very true.
I wonder if you max out your options in China. It seems the Party is suspicious of ambition and high profile winners. I'm sure you can live comfortably, but there's a ceiling.
That’s not relevant to normal people. If you’re a billionaire with aspirations of power then it’s probably good there’s a ceiling. Sure beats having Elon randomly firing your public servants while high on ketamine.
what is the issue with having a ceiling?
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I got an offer out of the blue for a consulting gig in ML, offering USD 400/hr in China. Assuming this was legit (the offeror seemed legit), it looks like China is also throwing a lot of Benjamins around...
> Or In America you can get paid lots of money, and get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model.
Isn't it just straight-up illegal in China to refuse the government from using your model? USA isn't perfect, but at least it has active discourse.
At least it has been decades since China Gov bombed innocent people in other countries. A peaceful and responsible government.
> A peaceful and responsible government.
People in Hong Kong died. Over 10,000 were arrested and many are still in prison. The rest are permanently disgraced in their social-credit society.
Again, USA is not perfect, but let's not dream up some fantasy about the CCP.
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Constant military drills around Taiwan isn't peaceful or responsible.
China is bullying lots of countries in the SCS (ramming Philippine coast guard ships, building military installations in the SCS, ...). Not peaceful or responsible.
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What's ironic is that China is desperately trying to be that country, but the US has then in a geographic/geopolitical choke hold.
I would imagine if it isn't illegal its a very bad idea not to. But regardless, I would bet large amounts of money that you would never get any flack for doing anything for the government. If I went on X, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok and said "Hey I am a software engineer selling awesome new technology to the government and military!" I am going to get Americans attacking me for supporting Trump / ICE / FBI whatever the current issue of the day is. If I did the same on Douyin or Weibo the response would be able making China strong, and there would be no criticism of that choice.
Sure, but the difference is that while the Chinese state is measurably awful on all sorts of human rights things within their own borders... they're not currently dropping bombs on foreign cities, starving a neighbour of critical petroleum shipments, or heavily funding an ally to slowly exterminate a population.
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> China is incredibly nice to live in
I'm sure it's a very nice place to live if you're content to just stay quiet in society and never put a political sign in your yard or even just talk about the wrong thing with your friend in a WeChat.
This is an exaggeration. Nobody in China cares about what you speak with each other privately, and people talk about stupid policies all the time. The government cares about _public_ actions.
In practical terms, if you're not kind of person who would want to run for an office in the US, China is incredibly comfortable. Cities are safe, with barely any violent crime. Public drug use is nonexistent. And with the US-level AI researcher income, you'd be in the top 0.1% earners.
> nobody in China cares about what you speak with each other privately, and people talk about stupid policies all the time. The government cares about _public_ actions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252833
My comment and the linked video says otherwise. The guy was in a private group chat and said some nasty things about the police for confiscating his motorcycle. Now he's arrested and in the Tiger Chair.
How are we explaining this?
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try to protest in america and see how that works out for you long-term. or say protest against genocide in gaza at an uni or generally in public…
Sigh. Let's not invent things? You can protest anything in the US just fine, with generally no consequences. Heck, our local _high_ _school_ students go out and protest everything to weasel out of classes.
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Chinese people are very racist towards non-Chinese. It might seem like a happy utopia, but if you aren't Chinese, then you may not really enjoy your time there. It may not be quite as bad as being black in rural US south, but being black (or anything non-Chinese) in China is still not going to be a good time.
Racism in even the worse parts of America doesn't even begin to touch the racism present in monocultural/monoracial countries.
Have you experienced racism? In Japan atleast, it was evenly applied. That company won't rent to foreigners but this one will. That company won't hire foreigners but this one will. Police will bother you if you ride a bike, but they will be polite while they waste 10 minutes of your time asking for your gaijin card for biking while foreign.
In the US people try to hide it and are far more sinister about it, since there are a lot of laws against obvious racism. The cops are also happy in the US to just kill you.
The racism in the US comes out of hate where as what I experienced abroad was more, we don't think you'll fit in and follow the rules and you have to constantly prove that you can.
I didn't spend too much time in China so maybe it is a racist hell hole.
But my experience in Japan was that white immigrants were way more inclined to make a huge deal about the lighter racism they experienced because they had never been somewhere where their skin color was a disadvantage.
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There's a very big difference between xenophobia and racism. Racism is much worse.
What do you mean by racist? I'm a white/hispanic American and spent 3 months in China and didn't really notice anything problematic towards me.
That's great, but it's pretty well known that racism exists in many forms in many countries. Just google "racism in china".
Wild to call 1.42 billion people racist despite having met very few of them.
It's funny that you think you know who I've met. YOU DON'T KNOW ME.
> get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model
Well duh, as recently demonstrated, an US model used by the US gov will 100% end up murdering actual children sooner than later, in this case less than a calendar year in some far flung war that many Americans do not support. Alternatively PRC model used by CCP might kill in some hypothetical future but for national reunification/rejuvenation that many Chinese support. At the end of the day, researchers and population on one side sleeps more soundly.
Damn that social conscience, huh?