Comments by "Bob" (@bobs_toys) on "PolyMatter" channel.

  1.  @mmmayocide  this sounds like the silent majority bollocks I've been hearing in Hong Kong. If they believed it, they wouldn't be terrified of free speech and the ballot box.
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  2.  @sword7872  so you're in the same boat as North Korea. Congratulations. But that doesn't change any of what I've said.
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  3.  @FWAKWAKKA  1. No it isn't - latest data is in the 1.6 range (2018 is 1.69). Stability needs 2.1 Edit: probably more in China's case. Considering that gender imbalance. Interesting that births per 1k is decreasing while births per woman is (far too slowly) increasing. The highly predictable effect of all those baby girls murdered for the one child policy. 2. You're ignoring (like so many others) the 18 to 25 year delay (closer to 25 - education requirements are increasing) before a newborn begins to be a useful member of society.
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  4.  @KrazeDiamond  so we go back to congratulations on being in the same bucket as North Korea. While ignoring that the numbers of births per woman is still below replacement and births per 1k people is continuing to decline according to UN data. By about 2 percent per year, year after year.
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  5.  @sword7872  here I was, thinking about what it means to be a minority in a place. One of the things that was on my mind was however for better or worse, you're always a representative of whatever group you appear to be, so it behoves you and people like you to give the best impression of yourself you can. So with that thought in mind, thank you. Thank you for being you another example to the wider world of the kind of colossal racist douche the CCP needs to stoop to to find support. Keep up the good work🙂
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  6.  @leezhieng  And the births per year are still declining. Rapidly. That's according to the Global Times. But yay! An ineffectual change was made to a law. There's no problem now!
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  7.  @shenglongli8387  >>we got a bigger problem? at least were free from covid-19<< I sure hope you're not relying on that distinction as a long term thing. It's pretty obvious you are, though. The CCP virus is being dealt with at the moment. The PRC's collapsing, and more importantly, ageing population will go on for at least another generation. Probably more. >>not a remotely wealthy country is a lie<< It isn't. That a poor person such as yourself has a lower standard for wealth doesn't change this. The GDP per capita is a fraction of any Western country and your population is ageing rapidly. >>although certainly not as wealthy as countries like the US.<< 1/6th per capita in that case. I'm going to be super clear here: 10k per capita is poor. >>the 1 child policy was actually what saved china my guy, back then<< And now it's doomed it. Because the idiots in charge, for whatever reason, didn't ask themselves what happens if we keep this going for forty years. >>china did not have the ability to sustain a population any bigger due to the fact that -were poor -we have limited economy -we just fought a war<< Kind of seems like the CCP party's moron in charge shouldn't have encouraged the Chinese people to have lots of children. Imagine the position China would be in today if those three decades weren't wasted under an economic imbecile. As it is, China became old before it became rich. Before it became not poor. >>but now we can sustain a population bigger, so we lifted it, and it's only been 2 years but you already said it's not working<< Damn you're ignorant. Of your own country. It became a two child policy for parents who were both only children in 2009. That's 12 years ago. Then two children if only one parent was an only child in 2014. That's seven years ago. Then a general thing in 2016. That's five years ago. And in each year (with the exception of 2016) fewer children than the one before. When should this change take effect, exactly? Clock's ticking. From the Global Times: 2016 - 17.86 million 2017 - 17.23 million - Drop of 3.5% from previous year 2018 - 15.23 million - Drop of 11.6% from previous year (15% from 2016) 2019 - 14.65 million - Drop of 4.8% from the previous year (18% from 2016) "The birth rate on the Chinese mainland dropped to 10.48 per 1,000 people in 2019, the lowest in seven decades, according to the National Bureau of Statistics." >>your saying shit too quick<< So should be patient for another decade, I guess. Hopefully all of those people who are reaching retirement age will magically get an extra decade of life and good health to buy time.
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  8.  @g33zer  did you miss the last two years? In particular, the last year and a quarter? Did you say it won't affect me (and the rest of the world) with a straight face?
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  9.  @namelesswarrior4760  you can keep telling yourself that if you want. Thank you for the reminder that the trust and helping hand the West gave the PRC was an epic mistake. We should have treated the CCP like the untrustworthy barbarians they are after they murdered people in front of their seat of government for the crime of wanting a say in how their country is run. If there's anything good that came out of the last two years, it's that the developed world has learnt its lesson. The PRC might be big, but it's friendless, facing off against a world that dwarfs its population and economy. Good luck. When it all falls apart, remember that all those tens of millions dead, all the blood and effort wasted with nothing to show for it was because the CCP put itself first. And the fools such as yourself who are defending it are also those who will suffer because if it
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  10. ​ @scarface6417  >>have you been to China before<< Yes, including two years in Hong Kong during a time in which the CCP did a wonderful job of wrecking its reputation. Edit: Plus going all over China since about 2004, when I met my wife. >>you even speak Chinese<< Badly, but yes. >>Or you just setting on your asses blindly believe what you wanted to believe.<< I'm currently sitting on my ass with my eyes quite wide open to what the CCP is. >>I don't see the points off this conversation well everything you said here is still just a mere conclusion of yours .<< This is coming from the person who thinks the CCP has done nothing to turn the international community against the PRC. If you want to choose to be ignorant, that's your choice. It's nothing more or less than a symptom of the unhealthy culture the CCP has created within the PRC.
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  11.  @scarface6417  Is there some relevant point you're trying to make here? I've been hearing this generic "China is special" bollocks for the best part of two decades over a wide variety of subjects. Can you quote anything I've said that your posts about my language and how long I've lived in China (and which part) are relevant to? An explanation of why it's relevant would also be lovely. This thing where pro CCPers just inject a bunch of irrelevant stuff to distract from their inability to actually defend their position or point of view is overused and boring. If the CCP can only be "understood" by people who live within the PRC, that's its problem. (And a massive part of the reason it sucks at soft power)
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  12.  @scarface6417  nope. No relevant point. As a general thing to look forward to in the future, part of growing up involves realising you're not special.
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  13. To reduce waste. Things that are more expensive tend to be treated with more care. ... This shouldn't need to be explained...
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  14. My wife still has those emotional reactions to certain topics. It's not an accident. It's something that's been very carefully cultivated in you. As far as looking bad on the global stage goes, well..... Your hurt feelings aren't going to change that. Kind of like how my wife's hurt feelings didn't make me think that Taiwan should be ruled by the CCP. If you really don't want to look bad on the world stage, however, don't talk to a youtube creator who's presenting facts, but talk to your own government that's going out of its way to make itself look as bad as it possibly can. While you're there, also ask your govt to stop pretending that it's inherently linked to the Chinese people. My daugher doesn't deserve to be automatically tarred with the brush of those barbarians any more than you do.
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  15. We can't afford not to. We've tried this "if we wait, their government will become civilised" thing. It went badly. Sooner is better, however painful it may be.
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  16. In the West, people have problems believing just how bad things can get there. It takes a lot of exposure to truly begin to believe it.
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  17. It's most accurate to say that achieving communism is one of the things the CCP failed at.
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  18.  @georgdoert9343  it's pretty much the ultimate failure when a communist party is saved by capitalism. Makes you wonder what those tens of millions died for. What was theb point?
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  19. There's only finite resources to go around. Allocating them to, say, providing below market value water means you can't allocate them elsewhere.
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  20.  @ddjohnson9717  have you tried buying something cheap and something expensive? Do you use them in the same way?
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  21. Imagine a third of schools starting to close due to lack of demand over a five year period
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  22. They're kind of running out of time. It takes 18 to 25 years from birth to make someone useful. To date we've the ineffectual two child policy followed by a 30 percent decline in births over a mere five years, plus the three child policy which.... Probably isn't going to help.... If people don't want two children they probably don't want three.
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  23. It's a combination of these two things. The one child policy accelerated what was already happening
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  24. Plus, how many mandarin speakers do you think there are in Africa?
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  25. That's something cool I'll never be able to unsee.
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  26. It's completely unreasonable to expect that the people who were blindsided by the effects of the one child policy would let problems fester.
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  27. Most water around the world at least needs the bugs to be killed. Animals do horrible things to and in the water you drink
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  28. Until you remember that automation can be put in anywhere, that China's selling point was cheap stuff and that per capita, the country is poor. Automation needs a lot of funding and skilled workers.
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  29. Congratulations on being in the same "yay, we've survived so far" boat as North Korea.
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  30.  @崔莱  so... Less of a world power than the USSR was (no one called that an emerging one) combined with a testament to just how incompetent an economic manager the CCP is in general and Mao was in particular? Congratulations? With the PRC's massive environmental problems and plummeting (17 million births in 2016 and 11 million last year, according to the global times) how sustainable do you think this meteoric rise is?
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  31.  @崔莱  you're right. Tens of millions starving to death in history's largest man made famine is a clear indicator of competence. As for the CCP in general... When a communist party's successes are based on grudgingly allowing capitalism in (which they'd refused to for literal decades) they're a failure. All those people died for nothing.
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  32. Add onto this that there were 10 million births last year. Down from 16.5 million in 2015. There was a bump after the one child policy was relaxed, but that bump only lasted two years before disappearing completely and catastrophically. Edit: Assuming a retirement age of 70: This 10 million will start to enter the workforce (assuming no university) at the same time as about 25 million people retire.
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  33.  @Iamwolf134  >>The damage is already done, trust me on that<< Oh I do. It's why I left Hong Kong. With what's going to come as the CCP tries to hang onto power, I wanted to get as far away from the PRC as possible. >>Even though China aims to attain AI supremacy sometime soon, but with the housing crisis and the water shortages on the horizon, doubt as if it's going to amount to much.<< And those who are really good can go wherever they want. Plus, they've got a strong tendency to focus their efforts on things that will make paranoid leadership feel more secure, rather than things that are useful.
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  34.  @Iamwolf134  All these things are almost a certainty. The PRC is an enemy state with a leadership that's dramatically overplayed its hand. It isn't if this will happen, but when? Edit: For when, it increasingly looks like the answer is much sooner than we'd thought. Which is kind of what got me in Hong Kong. I expected what happened there to happen before I left, but I expected it in five years or so. Not basically as soon as I landed.
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  35. Well that's the thing. They're so incredibly blind you can show the mistakes they're making in all the detail you like, they'll keep making them. There's a fundamental inability on the part of the CCP's leadership to explain how the rest of the world thinks coupled with a complete inability to back down from almost anything. They don't even understand that native English speakers can spot someone who speaks it as a second language with ease. Personally, I think that if the CCP ever shuts down the fifty cent army, the CIA should step in and offer to fund its former employees on the condition that they do exactly what they were doing while the CCP was paying them.
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  36.  @wbwarren57  When I was in Hong Kong, the govt was so utterly inept at managing that situation that I started to wonder if the CIA was paying everyone from Carrie Lam to Xi himself. It was literally the only thing that made sense.
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  37. Tens of thousands, you say.... You should check the PRC's net migration for what a real brain drain looks like.
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  38. If I give you three candidates I've approved myself, have I given you a choice? And after they're elected, who really controls their reelection? The people, who are restricted to the least bad of my choices? Or me, the person who can decide they can't run, or who can decide the candidates they run against are so bad they're not a choice in anything more than name?
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  39. And why would people who shrugged at being able to have two children want three children?
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  40.  @ranovich6734  >>It's the CPC, first of all.<< You're free to call it that if you wish. I won't stop you. >>Second, that's fine, the productivity of China is bucking even the trend you mention<< 1. Economic growth rates have been slowing down year after year. 2. The big block of retirees is a "near future" thing. Not a thing that's quite happened yet. 3. I don't think children below the age of 7 can be expected to affect current productivity 4. The lack of children can be expected to increase productivity because people who would have otherwise been putting their focus on child rearing can instead focus on work. >>China is now the richest country on Earth<< By what metric? Per capita GDP (which shows the amount of resources available to take care of each person?) Total nominal GDP (which is the metric that's important when you rely heavily on international trade) or PPP which is really only useful for stuff for which there isn't an international market? Is this including liabilities such as, for example, a huge amount of people reaching retirement age? The economic growth the PRC has had has also in large part relied on the additional workers and resources freed up by the lack of children to care for. Now these children are being replaced by adults with a severe decline in new future workers to replace them. >>and it shows zero signs of letting up. << It's amazing what you won't see if you don't look. >>I've been hearing the same garbage takes for over 40 years now<< I highly doubt that. 10 years I could believe. For the rest of the 40 years, it was a powerhouse going through massive growth. >>The truth is China is the powerhouse of industry and production of this planet, and it has zero intention of decreasing this.<< That's nice. Unfortunately the CCP's wants don't define reality. >>By the way, even if this trend was to keep going (which you have zero long-term evidence to go off of for this assumption)<< What time period are you after? Five years is a pretty long time when you remember that the births per year were low enough to make scrapping the one child policy a priority five years ago and they've continued to plummet since. This isn't a one year blip we're talking about. This is six years of continued year-on-year population decline for something that takes about two decades to see the positive results of rectifying. (If there's a sudden massive boom in 2030 that won't be useful until 2050) It also isn't a gradual decline, it's a catastrophic decline. >>the country has 1.5 billion people.<< Do you need to have ratios explained to you? >>even in your fabricated universe where China perpetually shows decreases in net population, that still means it will essentially control world production for centuries to come.<< The problem is the ratio of workers to dependents. If people died the moment they hit retirement, there wouldn't be a problem, but they tend to live up to 20-30 years past retirement age. Those are non-producers who need to be supported (at a pretty expensive part of their lives. Medical care for an adult is more costly than medical care for an infant)
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  41.  @ranovich6734  >>You can call a horse a giraffe, it doesn't mean that the animal isn't a horse. The actual name is the "Communist Part of China" not the "Chinese Communist Party." But you're free to call it a pink elephant if you wish. << The suggestion that it's just the Chinese branch of the global (mostly failed) communist movement seems to upset you. If it's more than that, and is about helping China, you should have no problems telling me what will happen when the CCP loses power (as all governments do) >>Regardless, going off of population data of 5 years to make long term assessments of future productivity and industry for a country is more laughable than what you decide to call a country's ruling government<< Because the people who aren't being born will somehow magically start contributing in the future? Their absence won't deprive the PRC of their potential contributions for the 40-50 years they could be expected to work? When last year's 10 million newborns enter the workforce, about 20 million are going to retire. >>Especially with regards to China, a country whose central government has taken decades of planning and study to turn the country from one of the poorest to one of the richest.<< You're mistaking being better off than under Mao for actually being in a good position. >>For any person who actually studies the plans of the CPC (including their five year plans for essentially ever industry) its demonstrably easy to see that they have known about the decline in population much longer than western chauvinists have been talking about them - and they're already implementing new economic and social policies to conform to this challenge. << They'd want to hurry up. Every year lost is another 10 million + potential future workers. Anyway, can you explain how they're going to get the increase in people that will be needed before about 20 million experienced workers per year start to leave. Also: The solutions require short term pain (it's expensive to raise children) for something the current leadership won't even begin to benefit from until they're almost dead (Xi will be nearly 90 by the time last year's newborns start being useful) >>Additionally, I've heard literally since the the mid 80s that China's growth is unsustainable and they'll largely fizzle within the next decade (wrong, stupid predictions on the back of sinophobic rhetoric) I<< Kind of like Evergrande's model provided year after year of massive increase showing it to truly be a company to emulate* *As long as you ignore the last two years. Also, again, I highly doubt you've been hearing that since the mid 80's. It really wasn't much of a thing until about ten years ago. >> think what you should be 100x more concerned about is where this country (US) is headed - the prospects of productivity, wages, and inflation in this country are harrowing compared to China (but for some reason you choose to fixate on the problems of China but not your own country, which is peculiar).<< Why do you think I'm American? I'm Australian, a country which (unlike the PRC) can actually attract large quantities of immigrants. And this is a video about the PRC. It seems a pretty appropriate place to talk about the PRC. >>The fact you call per capita GDP "the amount of resources available to take care of each person" is the most laughable thing I've probably ever seen on the web. You do realize how this metric is calculated, yes? You take a nation's total GDP, and divide it by the total number of individuals within that country. It has next to no association with "resources at the disposal of a single person" << I didn't say resources 'at the disposal of' I said resources 'available to take care of' A country with a high GDP per capita (such as the USA, if you're going to insist on bringing it up) has more resources available per person than the PRC, whose resources available per person are about half what's considered a poverty level >>Lastly, China IS the richest country on the planet - by pure net worth and assets alone. Not in terms of GDP or GDP per capita - statistics which actually do not have a huge significance for the general population as people like you would deem it. GDP per capita means next to nothing for working people. << Gross. By PPP. Anyway, from this, we see further proof you really don't understand ratios. Absolute numbers aren't the important thing. The important thing is absolute numbers divided by those who need to use it. The amount of resources in a country per person has a DRAMATIC effect on people - working as well as non-working. If you have twice as many people, each person can, on average, have about half as many resources allocated to it. It's why so many hundreds of thousands of PRC citizens emigrate to the Western world each normal year (not counting the years of the CCP virus) >>An increase in this metric, as it has been happening in America for the past 40 years, has had next to significant increase in real wages for working Americans (which is why I laugh my ass off when someone brings GDP or per capita GDP into a discussion relating to the prosperity of the common people). << The amount of people trying to emigrate to the USA (and other Western countries) says otherwise. I'll trust people who vote with their feet over those who simply mouth off any time. >>The richer get richer while labor continues to supply the rich with their obscene wealth; and the GDP continuously increases (while workers continuously get a smaller share of such riches).<< 1. The PRC Gini (a measure of wealth inequality) is 0.465 The USA Gini is 0.434 And the USA has 6x the wealth per person than the PRC does. So not only is there more wealth to go round, but it's more equitably distributed than in the PRC. 2. The average (not median. Average) income in the PRC is lower than the Federal poverty line in the USA. And just to throw it in: The CCP is a party that's proud of eliminating poverty using a line (2300rmb per year)that's significantly less than the global extreme poverty line. A value that's about 6% of the USA's federal poverty line.
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  42. Nice summary.
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  43. That's more of an alternate history hub one.
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  44. The problem is who would trust them after the last two years? You can't show your true colours in the way the CCP has over the last two years, then expect the world to forget about it.
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  45.  @JWRame  >> I think it's foolish to think that going forward the people on the cutting edge of this technology are going to be from the west.<< In the West. Not from the West. There's a difference. The West is capable of attracting the best minds from around the world. The PRC isn't. >>The people who will lead the innovation will speak English, but as a second language.<< And they'll be doing it in Western countries for the reasons I listed, that you haven't addressed. >> I don't see Australian gov making the kind of investment for the Long haul that the Chinese gov is in future infrastructure from energy to health care to biotech and to education. It's a matter of scale and the tipping point will come.<< With the PRC's demographic problems, it can't afford to wait for the long haul. It needs to attract and retain the best right now. The scale of the problem is simply too massive to delay. But.... It can't. Which is why you basically had to ignore any part of my post that either implicitly or explicitly asked the question: Why would the people who can do this go to the PRC?
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  46.  @JWRame  >>they're already doing it in China. The past 30years is evident<< They're doing some in the PRC, in very specific locations. With some high profile stuff. >>The ascension in tech will surpass the west. The highest bidder will always win in capitalism.<< It will. When you consider the overall package. What do you think can afford to bid more? The country with a GDP per capita of $10k USD or the one with a GDP per capita of $60K USD? >>Even with a demographic problem the sheer scale will still leave china with a larger labor pool.<< A larger labour pool is only useful if the people with the skills it needs: A. Exist B. Haven't gone overseas in search of better money and living/working conditions. >>and I don't understand your assumption that places like Australia and the US are still attractive places to live.<< Well, here's one bit that's highly relevant to IT professionals. I don't need to use a VPN to get to Youtube. Now, that's not the entire issue, but it's a symptom of a massive issue. In general, though, I gave a good outline of the parts you don't understand the post I made earlier today. If you're really interested in understanding this, you could try reading what I wrote instead of cherry picking things you think you're capable of replying to. >>And people in the US are already working for Chinese tech companies. << And the skills they learn are in the US. And they're being paid US wages. And if they change jobs, the companies that have the easiest access to them are in the US. >>We're probably going to see that increase over time.<< And what I said will remain true. That talent will remain in the USA, the money paid for that talent will flow into the USA and the companies that have easiest access to them will be American. Plus, what happens when the USA makes it difficult for Chinese companies to operate there? That day is coming.
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  47. Kind of like how China's rage against Australia was a counterattack against Australia having the temerity to want to know how this whole virus fiasco started?
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  48. How long do you think that will last with the developed world United against the PRC?
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  49. ​ @JohnSmith-wn1ms  This is an example of that weird "If something isn't 100% done then nothing is done" mentality. It doesn't need to be 100% and immediately, it just needs to move away more and more. It's an enemy state. The current trade situation doesn't change that.
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  50. Initiating? The PRC has been doing it for decades. The South China sea are international waters that the PRC is trying to steal. Freedom of navigation exercises are not the problem here. These "separatists" are a democratic people who don't want to live under a dictatorship that's made the Nazis look like rank amateurs when it came to mass murder. They're also not exactly likely to overthrow the CCP. Just remain independent. What unforgivable crimes ..
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