That guy is so annoying his subpar analysis has become such a trope. America used to build things too. Lawyers have been part of the founding and fabric of both societies. Trying to reduce China v America to engineers vs lawyers is so reductive it's just mind blowing this keeps getting repeated.

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adamweld an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I've only listened to one interview with Dan Wang, but I understood him to be particularly talking about the politicians, not the country as a whole.

I can't speak for China, I've only visited a few times, but in the US it's true that an overwhelming number of successful politicians were previously lawyers. Which is not a good thing IMO.

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pear01 an hour ago | parent [-]

And that was true when we built things too. So what point are you making? If only FDR was an engineer then maybe we would have ramped up production and taken on the Axis across two oceans. But oops he was educated as a lawyer I guess we're doomed now. Like I just don't get it.

Sure Xi and some other senior leadership in China studied as an engineer. He also studied Marxism and lived abroad in Iowa of all places. The world is too complicated for this type of analysis, sorry. I don't even think it is remotely the right data point to focus on or compare.

Dan Wang does the same spiel on every podcast and it is always terrible and seems predicated on credulous hosts who know little about the history of either country and certainly not enough about both who just use his lame analysis to engage in this current fad of Western self-pity. Instead of reform and asking hard questions let's just throw soft balls at Dan Wang's cheap analysis that anyone with a Wikipedia level education would know is absurd so we can keep propping up the same impoverished China v America tropes.

Why don't we demand better honestly we should be ashamed that one guy can just come up with such a dubious thesis suddenly appear everywhere and no credible debate or pushback once. The only thing Dan Wang convinces me of is the poverty of the modern intellectual environment.

	▲	shimman 34 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		These people are just trying to find an alternative narrative because the vast majority of the population have been rejecting neoliberalism for a good 30 years now. So they spin up the foreign enemy is better than us, so we need to deregulate more and not hold monopolies accountable. If we broke up Google or Amazon, suddenly we're just as bad as China!

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anon7725 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> America used to build things too

Indeed. “Used to” is the key observation. In the wake of WW2, the U.S. had both dynamism and the ability and will to act collectively. This combination led to rising standards of living, the space program, Silicon Valley, the internet, etc.

The U.S. economy is still relatively dynamic, but the will to collective action has completely failed.

Europe can act collectively but lacks dynamism.

Which country, today, demonstrates both traits?

	▲	pear01 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		What point do you think you're making? That's not the question. You're just repeating the same obvious geopolitical comparison everyone regurgitates these days. The question is about whether any of that can be meaningfully attributed to some lawyer vs engineer divide. Your question doesn't answer that in the slightest and thus I have no idea why you are asking it.

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cucumber3732842 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It gets repeated because we actively incentivize repeating it.

It's a popular trope that confirms the audiences bias's and when you do that the monkey brain gets rewarded by seeing the number in the top right go up.

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wetpaws 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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