Thoughts?
Anyone here that has gone through US public schooling should not find this even the tiniest bit shocking.
Well, that, and public schools are where people get traumatized.
…Okay, that didn’t really have to do with what we’re talking about, I just felt the need to say that.
Actually one could argue that school trauma is a way to condition workers into the capitalist hellscape
Yeah, you’d probably be right.
Amazing what you can do when researchers aren’t forced to earn capitalists more money instead of doing actual research
What researchers have to do in socialism: Research
What researchers have to do in capitalism: Research, apply for third-party research grants, give presentation to company representatives why they should greenlight the research grant, do paperwork breaking down how you plan to spend the research grant, do paperwork breaking down how you actually spent the research grant, grade exercise sheets for first semesters, write a quarterly report about the results of your research, rewrite your crashed report from memory because your faculty system still uses Windows 95, contemplate suicide (briefly), publish a brief review about some bullshit because you need to meet your weekly publishing requirements, do side jobs to make rent, subcontract critical work to the company which gave you the grant and then take the blame when it doesn’t come back in time, renew your subscription to predatory proprietary scientific journals
Reminded me of this. [From one of biomedical engineering journal.]
wtf damn
The USA leads in: High-performance computing, advanced integrated circuit design and fabrication, natural language processing, quantum computing, vaccines and medical countermeasures, small satellites, and space launch systems.
China leads in: Nanoscale materials, coatings, smart materials, composite materials, metamaterials, high-spec machining processes, explosives, minerals extraction, magnets and superconductors, protective materials, continuous flow chemistry, 3D printing, radio wave and optical communications, AI algorithms, distributed ledgers, data analysis, machine and deep learning, cybersecurity, hydrogen and ammonia for power, supercapacitors, electric batteries, photovoltaics, nuclear waste recycling, directed energy, biofuels, nuclear energy, post-quantum cryptography, quantum communication, quantum sensors, synthetic biology, biological manufacturing, photonic sensors, aircraft engines, drones, autonomous systems, and robotics.
The technologies marked fat are where China already has a monopoly.
Damn. China has much more stuff involved in actual machinery than the computer obsession that the USA seems to have. Am I the only one noticing this?
Capitalism loves to get rid of workplaces which necessitate qualities that are unique to the individual performing them (creativity, vision, inherent views etc.) or confined to a very small pool from which the employer must choose (higher education and knowledge, artistic and technical talent etc.). Therefore, the work requiring such skills has to be the first to go away, and capital invests enormous amounts of resources researching how to replace all the people working in these sectors with AI and other automata. This is Marxist theory, it is capital at work reducing workers to mere replaceable labourers only in charge of pressing the right buttons.
During the first AI summer, corporations hoped to replace expensive mathematicians and engineers with automatic symbolic manipulation; during the current one, they want to get rid of painters, musicians, and authors with machine learning. Although this has killed many low-paying jobs in the past, it never fulfills the promises the bourgeoisie makes itself about it because they fail to correctly evaluate the technology without the input of people actually making it. However, it is a recurring pattern leading to a boom/bust cycle where the scientific funding invested in these areas is concerned.
Although investing in AI as well - because being better at this technology than the USA is very critical to its national security - China prefers to show off its exploits in machinery, industry, energy, and chemistry. The primary function and motivation of these technologies is to increase the national wealth, to ease everyday life and reduce the amount of anonymous toil, as well as to guarantee its food and energy security and independence.
Interesting and well-put.
Research quality? Nice.
yeah, so much for the whole China has a dramatic lead in frivolous patents and garbage research papers narrative
I am not sure if research quality takes this into account, but I gotta add that the insane degree of conflicts of interest in the US massively taints their pool of research. And in the US it takes zero effort to avoid noting conflicts of interest so even research that looks clean requires deeper digging. For example, some researchers used to get paid a ton of money by big tobacco to create studies where tobacco appears healthy. But as long as that money wasn’t super recent or explicitly for the study they don’t need to disclose it.
for sure
Haha yeah
China will win
China stay winning.
Would that be 44 out of 44 if you took out foreign researchers, a large proportion of which are also Chinese?
Damn, that’s a good point, actually.
I’d like to see the results. I understand that the Hegemon has a chokehold on the media, but I want to see the results of this “lead in research”.
True enough.
Lol report is from ASPI. Nuff said.
Man I wish I could remember that Parenti quote about how the imperialists always say two contradictory things. One second the scary commies are a threat to the entire world and could take over the US, the next they scream about how socialism can’t succeed with anything.
The quote
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
– Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds
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It calls on ‘western democracies’ to ‘catch up’ with China. Why? Just vibe. Just let the world be cool and let someone else make cool shit? It’s all good man.
If catching up meant developing their own capacities—ignoring ongoing imperialism—then I would agree. The US has lots of potential—again ignoring imperialism—and should redevelop itself ideally.
Yet, as we all know the US and the imperial core prosper not on their own innovation, but on unequal exchange and imperializing the rest of the world. When ASPI says ‘catch up’ they mean intensifying imperialism and destroying AES/anti-imperialist countries.
