I’m not really sure what critical areas China needs to catch up in at this point. The chips they produce are already good enough for any practical applications. It’s also worth keeping in mind that improving software is much easier than hardware. Western software stacks are incredibly bloated. For example, Huawei starting fresh with their HarmonyOS can make a much leander stack by cutting all the cruft and backwards compatibility out.

I also don’t see China being decades behind in chips. They can already make 7nm, they’re prototyping EUV machines, it’s not going to be long at this point. On top of that, China is investing into research of alternative substrates like graphene, spintronics, etc. Any one of these could make silicon look like vacuum tubes overnight if they can scale them up to mass production. There’s no new fundamental physics that need to be discovered here, we know these these things work in a lab. It’s just a matter of scaling up production. And that’s precisely where state driven development comes in.

Can you explain what this tide of reversal you’re talking about with BRI? Last I looked, the investment is record high https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3340442/china-signs-record-us213-billion-new-belt-and-road-deals-2025-report

The Epstein files are the biggest scandal the western system has faced to date in my opinion. This is bigger than stuff like Watergate because it spans multiple administrations in the US, as well as other western regimes. It’s a total indictment of the idea that there’s any sort of a democracy in the west. It’s now plain for everyone to see that the west is ruled by diabolical monsters who are accountable to no one. And this comes at a time of a rapid decline in the living standards which makes people angry and politically engaged. Things that might’ve been ignored before cannot be ignored any longer.

Finally, it seems to me that the west is headed for a massive financial crash. While people keep playing games with the numbers, it’s pretty clear that all the tangible metrics like job numbers and cost of living are doing very poorly. The only question in my mind is what the catalyst will be. It could be the coming war with Iran which might drive oil prices through the roof.

There might actually be a direct relationship there as well. Taiwan being the chokepoint for western chip production puts them in a perfect position to insert backdoors into all western tech. There’s a reason the US was freaking out over Huawei tech spreading in the west. The problem with it isn’t that there’s some Chinese malware in it, but rather that western agencies can’t use it for spying.

I guess they failed the qualification round of outrunning the TCC. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-military-recruitment.html

Zulip pretty easy to self host. I ran a server for a group of friends a little while back, and it worked great. The UI takes a bit of getting used to, but it is great once you do because everything is a thread by default. And that makes it really easy to catch up on things.

I mean it’s all a matter of jurisdiction. Open source platforms like Stoat can be run outside the reach of western regimes.

Not that I’ve seen.

not much, just slightly different UX

I honestly kinda prefer older civ games because they were simpler and more focused. For me, Civ3 might really be the peak of the series.

I’ve seen a few similar projects before, but can’t recall what they were off top of my head.

indeed

it looks nearly identical to a cube I had at one of my jobs as well, I think even the phone is the same

It’s the openly becoming part, before there was an attempt to pretend the US was some sort of a democracy. Now, the mask is completely off.

basically yeah, at least if it’s in a group, I always try to see how far I can push people left when just chatting one on one

What’s already been released shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that all western elites are guilty of horrific crimes, and nobody will be held accountable. You can’t pretend that we live in a democracy when the rule of law does not apply to the elites.

The funniest thing for me is that humans end up doing the exact same thing. This is why it’s so notoriously difficult to create organizational policies that actually produce desired results. What happens in practice is that people find ways to comply with the letter of the policy that require the least energy expenditure on their part.

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you are literally sniffing so much glue that your mind exists on another plane of existence

I would argue that it is in fact bad because it’s a threat to national security and sovereignty. The Europeans are now finding out that they’re unable to produce things domestically that their people need, and have become entirely reliant on US energy exports and military protection.

China isn’t forcing anybody to buy their goods at gunpoint last I checked. The fact that western markets are unable to produce comparable goods at the same prices is entirely the problem with the way western economies are structured. The whole premise for loosely regulated markets was that they were supposed to be more efficient than state planning, turns out that was a big fat lie. So now the dumb fucks in the west are crying that their failed economic model can’t compete with China. Tough!