this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
369 points (94.0% liked)
Greentext
5794 readers
1342 users here now
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They started out like China, making cheaper copies of Western tech. Then they started to innovate.
China is now on exactly the same path, and it's well into the phase where they are innovating, but most people still refuse to acknowledge that.
Western tech had a massive head start.
When a country's tech manufacturing is being developed it's going to start by making what already exists because.. it has to start somewhere.
It didn't take long for Japanese cars to supersede American cars. China is now doing the same to both American and Japanese cars. Nissan nearly went out of business and is still in trouble. Tesla's situation isn't helped by how dislikable its founder is so its value is plumetting.
Most countries don't know how to deal with the advent Chinese EVs so they're just slapping massive tariffs on them and hoping they figure something out in the meantime.
It isn't just going to stop at Japan and China though. Japan was subsidized by the US post WW2 and China built its manufacturing from the ground up. There are many other countries on that path which will lead to significant global competition. The West is going to have to keep its head up if it wants to remain competitive by the end of the century.
The leading Western nation responding to increased global competition with reactionary protectionism is a bad start. It's squandering all of the soft power the US has cultivated post WW2 leaving a power vacuum for China and other influential nations on the ascension to capitalize on.
It's also worth noting that, economically, it's not surprising that the country with the most people would have the largest economy.
There's nothing fundamentally different between the people of the US and China beyond the conditions they're born in. Insofar as innovation is a product of economics, educational investment, opportunity for innovation and a random chance it happens, and economic strength is a product of innovation and raw work output, it follows that more people leads to more work output, and eventually to a larger, more innovative economy.
A disorganized China and some key innovation breakthroughs by the west last century gave a significant headstart, and some of Maos more unwise choices slowed their catch-up, but it's not surprising that an organized country with five times the US population would surpass us in economics and innovation, to say nothing of being competitive.
Really? Isn't it pretty obvious, I mean they make electric cars now.
Yeah but a lot of people still don't realize that they make better electric cars now.