China 2.0

Seat 1A on the plane, with lay flat seating for comfy wumfy sleeping from Hong Kong to Los Angeles.

Well that was China 2.0. For this trip I spent weeks and months intensely studying China. I read an entire book about its history, its origins, its many imperial dynasties, and the communist revolution that formed the modern People's Republic of China. China has the longest continuous civilization in the world, over 5000 years. China has been a unified country for 2200 years. I studied its climates and geography, from the high mountains of the Himalayas and Tibet, to the deserts and grasslands of the northwest & Mongolia, to the vast temperate forests of bamboo and trees that cover most of China, and the subtropical south and southeast. I studied it's 56 ethnic groups, their regional variations, their religions, philosophies & ideologies, their art, their architecture, their languages and writing. I read some famous Chinese literature. I even learned to speak some Mandarin, which is far more than any average traveler would do. I tried its many regional foods, as much as I could stomach. I walked 5 to 8 miles every day for weeks across many of its landscapes, my joints are sore. I read an entire book that compares China to the USA.

China isn't perfect. Like any country, China has its own unique set of problems.

We may look different, but China and the Western world are more similar than we are different. We need to become more like China, and China needs to become more like us. There is a place, and a way of thinking, somewhere, where we should meet in the middle, and be good friends

China and USA together, for the future, the greatest alliance of the 21st century...

While on our Alaska trip I finished the book Breckneck by Dan Wang. Dan has spent half his life living in the USA and half in China. 

The book echoes and solidifies the same sentiments that I've made about China based on my one visit there earlier this year, versus my 23 years in the USA, 2 years in Switzerland, and 30 years in Australia.

China is a country of engineers, with mind-blowing infrastructure and civil engineering projects:  towering bridges, the largest high speed rail network in the world built in only 17 years, massive electricity production, clean electric cars and scooters everywhere on the roads, gleaming megacities, and 40% of the world's manufacturing capacity.

Meanwhile the USA has stagnated. The USA has become a country run by lawyers who obstruct everything, good or bad, and profit from unsolvable problems. The USA's lawyerly society began in the 1960s when unscrupulous corporate interests were disregarding public interests and safety, for example by polluting the air and water. The lawyerly society arose as a response to a need for regulation, and then never went away. 

China's engineering society is not without its flaws however. The 35 year one-child-policy was a social engineering disaster that traumatized people, families, and the population. Their zero-Covid strategy was equally oppressive and miserable. The paranoia of the Chinese government has led the country to become closed to outside influence and stifled innovation and investment. It has become a surveillance state, with extreme internet censorship and social control. Under the hukou system, people's social services, such as education and healthcare, are tied to their place of birth, meaning that people are not able to easily move around the country for better opportunities. In this way the Chinese government controls both external and internal immigration. In a country of 1.4 billion people, internal immigration is an issue. It is also not possible to own land in China, as all land is owned by the government, and is leased out for housing, agriculture, industrial, or recreational uses. This makes it easy to build mega-projects like the high speed rail network and the Three Gorges Dam. 

 

Yet despite its problems, China's people have a great sense of optimism for the future. Meanwhile, the USA's ruling class of elite lawyers can no longer get anything done. They've given us unbalanced budgets for 24 years and $37 trillion national debt. Lawyers don't create, design, invent, innovate, or produce anything. Also people in the USA, and the Western world in general, have forgotten the evils of socialism and would like to try it again as a possible solution to a system they see as failing them. There's also a general disdain for wealth and success among many youths today, who have come to embrace mediocrity rather than greatness.

In any case, I can't wait to go back to China again next month

More thoughts...

You'll be seeing a few shows during the trip. The Tang Dynasty show, the Sichuan Face Change Opera, and the Three Kingdoms on Fire show.

You'll also find Shanghai very different to the other cities as it has British, French, and American quarters

Beijing is the capital so it tends to be stale. Xi'An is ancient. Shanghai is the newest city

I'd like to spend more time in Chongqing, very unusual city, but the tour only visits some shitty pagoda. I was always too drunk and tired to go explore at night. I'll see if I can do better on my next China trip. I'll be doing more of the nature, Zhangjiajie National Park and Guilin Hills. Then Hing Kong, which is also supposed to be very different

But yes, the culture is restricted. The Rolling Stones first toured China in 2006, and only did Shanghai. China has a lot of promise if their govt would stop being so paranoid and doing crazy attempts at social engineering like the one child policy and zero Covid. The one child policy ran for 35 years and traumatized women, families, and the whole population.

They also have the hukou system that ties your benefits like education and healthcare to your place of birth, which allows the govt to control internal immigration. Internal immigration in a country of 1.4 billion people is a big issue

One child policy had forced abortions and sterilizations. Often the abortions were horrifying third trimester abortions because women tried to hide their pregnancies but couldn't once they got to third trimester. An estimated 310 million abortions were done in those 35 years, about the population of the USA

And of course the govt owns all land in China, leasing  it out for housing, agriculture, natural parks, and industry. That makes it a lot easier to build amazing projects like their high speed rail or the Three Gorges Damn. No parasitic lawyers holding up projects like the US and particularly California

California started its high speed rail project in 2008 and just started laying track this year. China started the same year and now has the biggest high speed rail network in the world, over 30,000km of lines. Then again they're a major industrial cixlization, whereas we're a decaying country  of lawyers who profit from obstruction and unsolvable problems

All the Tier 1 cities are mega cities with about 20 million people or more

Did you see life in the park in Xi'An or elsehare yet? People in the cities  don't have yards or balconies so the parks are filled with social life

The lawyerly society began in the US in the 1960s as a response to corporate interests that did unscrupulous things like polluting water and air, then they just never went away. They obstruct everything, good or bad.. Lawyers don't create, design, invent, innovate, or produce anything. Sorry Dale.

And then of course in California we have three times as many laws and regulations as the average state, so parasitic lawyers have figured out thry can get rich by having lawsuits to hold up everything. That's why no one is building Ai data centers or factories in California anymore. For example, Tesla's gigafacfoey would have been held up for 5 years by lawsuits, so Musk simply decided to build them in Nevada and Texas.

All the hyperscale Ai data centers are now being built in places like Texas and Tennessee

I just finished reading "Breakneck" by Dan Wang, a technology analyst who's spent half his life living in the US and half in China. He makes some good cases for and against each society

So the conclusion of the book "Breakneck" is that China and the USA need to learn from each other's strengths. Engineers aren't good at doing things that involve morality and people's feelings. Lawyers aren't good at building. So we need to rebuild our country with industry and infrastructure, and China needs to give people more personal freedoms and protect their rights.

-Dave Badperson

Why the political left really hates Elon Musk

Why does Elon Musk infuriate some people on the political left? What is his great crime? The things the left adored not long ago like electric cars to address climate change, they now despise. It can't be his contributions to clean energy and transportation, space exploration, free speech, satellite internet access to poor and remote areas, re-enabling the disabled with Neuralink, or making the government more efficient. It can't be that he employs hundreds of thousands of people, helping them become wealthy and live their lives more fully, creating new industries, making meaningful contributions to improve society, driving a large part of our economy, pushing science and innovation forward. No, the real reason he's hated is that he's shown the left what progress actually looks like. Even more than that, he does it unapologetically with a thick skin and a sense of humor. He doesn't pander to ideological dogma, he goes against it. He doesn't virtue signal, he acts. He doesn't pontificate endlessly about theoretical utopias, he builds things. And that's what the left finds unforgivable. Musk has revealed what the left’s endless lectures, protests, manifestos, and policing of language truly are, empty words. He's shown them that they're just worthless ineffectual people.
😁

-Dave Badperson

The Anti-Billionaire Ideology

By Dave Lee

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1871461196253311174

Here are some notes on the anti-billionaire ideology - and why it might do more harm than good:

At the heart of the frustration with wealth inequality - especially among younger people - are several overlapping ideas. Broadly, they stem from the following premises:

1. Zero-Sum View of Wealth:
Many who rail against “billionaire greed” subscribe to an implicit zero-sum assumption that if the rich are gaining wealth, it must be coming at the direct expense of everyone else. This perspective sees the economic pie as fixed; a bigger slice for billionaires means a smaller slice for ordinary people.

2. Moral Indictment of Profit:
There is also an underlying moral stance that profits at very high levels are inherently exploitative. Under this view, earning billions can only happen through unethical means - mistreating workers, hiking prices, or bending regulations.

3. Suspicion of Capitalism Itself:
An increasingly vocal segment of young people critiques market economies as rigged or fundamentally unjust. They note that, in their eyes, capitalism privileges capital (ownership) at the expense of labor (wages), and perpetuates a system that traps people in lower socioeconomic strata.

4. Focus on “Equality of Outcome” Over “Equality of Opportunity”:
The critique often goes beyond wanting fair chances for everyone. Instead, it emphasizes the relative gap between the top and bottom, rejecting the idea that big disparities can exist even when upward mobility is possible.

5. Conflation of Net Worth With Liquid Cash:
A common misconception is that billionaires have all their “net worth” in spendable forms. In reality, most wealth is tied up in assets (stock in a company, real estate, etc.). This fuels the anger because it appears that billionaires “hoard” money and choose not to share it.

Why These Ideas Can Be Misleading or Harmful

1. Zero-Sum Thinking Overlooks Wealth Creation
In many industries—think technology, medicine, communications—total wealth isn’t static. When someone creates a product or service that millions of people value (like smartphones, software, or life-saving drugs), it grows the economic pie. That’s not to say exploitative practices don’t exist, but simplistic zero-sum frameworks gloss over the dynamic, generative nature of innovation.

2. Misplaced Moral Indictment
Painting all (or most) large-scale profit as immoral doesn’t address nuances: there are ethical ways to build wealth (improving supply chains, investing in local communities, fair business practices) and unethical ways (sweatshops, unfair contracts, environmental destruction). Lumping all billionaires into the “bad guy” category overlooks differences between, say, a biotech founder who develops critical medicines versus a predatory lender.

3. Ignoring the Benefits of Investment
Much billionaire wealth can be tied to investments that themselves foster economic growth and job creation. When venture capitalists fund startups, they often take on significant risk. While it can lead to high personal returns, it also creates industries (and jobs) from the ground up. The ideology that all returns on investments are undeserved fails to account for the role that investment plays in building healthy economies.

4. Weakening Incentives Kills Innovation
When the system heavily penalizes individuals who become extremely successful, it removes the natural “carrot” that drives ambitious endeavors. Launching a startup or spearheading a major breakthrough usually involves massive risks — entrepreneurs sacrifice time, money, and personal stability on a venture that might fail. If the potential rewards are cut off or capped too drastically, fewer people will bother to take the leap. This doesn’t just affect a handful of hopeful billionaires; it reverberates throughout society as whole industries and transformative ideas (whether in medicine, clean energy, or technology) never get off the ground. In other words, when wealth creation stops being worthwhile, everyone loses out on progress, jobs, and critical innovations that improve lives.

5. “Taxing Billionaires Out of Existence” Derails Society
This approach doesn’t just strip personal fortunes; it severs the capital fueling innovation, startups, and major philanthropic efforts. Without high-stakes investments, lifesaving research and transformative technologies often stall. A scorched-earth method of “leveling wealth” might sound fair, but it ultimately starves society of the breakthroughs and funding necessary for widespread progress.

Yes, young adults face serious economic pressures - from soaring housing costs to student debt - but framing every concern as “wealth inequality” injects a needless negativity that can distort the real issues.  A more constructive focus is keeping living costs down and creating a robust, opportunity-rich economy. That means controlling inflation - primarily through efficient government spending and lower national debt - while removing barriers to innovation and enterprise. By prioritizing stable monetary policy, competitive markets, and better education, we give more people the tools to thrive, rather than just harping on “inequality.” 

- Dave Badperson