Are the Chinese dumping photo gear?

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 7, 2015

That's only the beginning

MartinCrabtree said:
I've a feeling in the next 50 years China will lose more than a generation to disease from environmental poisoning. Sad.

Not only disease from an expanding economy. Just like more affluent countries, there will be greater alienation by the youth that will be spoiled brats. More drug use, suicide and greater unhappiness.

China wants what every other country wants, but there's great social upheaval now.

If you want to dive a little deeper, take a look at these two docos.

http://www.eyesteelfilm.com/lasttrainhome

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/

Many Chinese are leaving villages and go to the big city make cheap crap for us.

Just for disclosure, my parents are immigrants from China, but I was born and educated here. I also visited my family's village before the economic miracle.

gzhuang · Apr 7, 2015

Progress demands sacrifice. They took on the pollution of the entire industrial world.

MartinCrabtree said:
I've a feeling in the next 50 years China will lose more than a generation to disease from environmental poisoning. Sad.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 7, 2015

It doesn't have to be that way

gzhuang said:
Progress demands sacrifice. They took on the pollution of the entire industrial world.

The Chinese has access to technologies to mitigate pollution that the US and Great Britain did have when their industrial happened. Since those technologies hinder output and complicate the process, China would rather forgo cleaner technologies. It's going to take angry hoards of Chinese to create change. China is the world's oldest continuing civilization, yet the Chinese government is ass-backwards when it comes to the environment and human rights.

DREW WILEY · Apr 7, 2015

It's a very complicated situation. My wife has a degree in Chinese literature and lived there awhile, during a particularly turbulent episode.
I have a nephew who explored a bunch of the Chinese Karakorum never seen before, but then got sick from the pollution on the return trip through the developed areas. I worry about the loss of glaciers, which will spell real trouble for several of the world's most populous nations down the line. Our modern lifestyles come with a terrible price to the environment.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 7, 2015

Yes Drew. To make things worst, the Chinese are developing a taste for American tobacco. Lung cancer is on the rise. The Sleeping Dragon wakes with a hang over from these heady times.

DREW WILEY · Apr 7, 2015

The Marlboro man moved to Asia some time ago. Our tobacco industry seems to be in better shape than ever, despite the shrinking US market. But they are doing some very smart things too, like sending their most promising students here for subsidized higher educations,
while we put our own students under staggering education debt. Here in this important UC town numerous such persons have become friends
of ours. And they certainly don't share much of the narrow viewpoint of the regime itself.

blansky · Apr 7, 2015

An interesting interview about China:

http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60526012

DREW WILEY · Apr 7, 2015

The Chinese don't simply get these huge contracts with WalMart etc and the vulture capitalists simpy based on price. These also bribe corporate buyers like crazy. A handful do get caught and sent to summer camp. But they're just the tip of the iceberg. I could have upped my personal income twenty times if I had taken that career path. But even in my kind of career, the bad actors are probably only around two percent. But that's all it take to make life miserable for everyone else.

blansky · Apr 7, 2015

Not wanting to get into any great political debate, but viewing or criticizing China with our relatively new middle class eyes (less than 100 years) we probably need to cut them some slack.

They are trying to bring a peasant economy of one and a half billion people into the 21 Century. Naturally, individual rights take a backseat to interests of the whole, in this dynamic.

As for bribery, we have nothing to feel superior about, when every single politician in Washington takes bribes on a weekly basis.

China is also leading the world on alternative energy research due to their developmental issues pertaining to smog and pollution.

If people think that a democratic China, at this point in their progress, is a good thing, I think they are nuts.

They are presently operating as a state run capitalistic nation and as the population in the next few generations reaches middle class, a democratic country is probably going to be the end result.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 7, 2015

blansky said:
They are presently operating as a state run capitalistic nation and as the population in the next few generations reaches middle class, a democratic country is probably going to be the end result.

I think the population of China is slowly getting fed up with the corruption and they want more freedom and self expression. There are more lawsuits for injustices perpetrated by corrupt officials.

This is a great doco on the Ai Weiwei. China's population appreciating and wanting great self-expression.

http://aiweiweineversorry.com/

blansky · Apr 7, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I think the population of China is slowly getting fed up with the corruption and they want more freedom and self expression. There are more lawsuits for injustices perpetrated by corrupt officials.

This is a great doco on the Ai Weiwei. China's population appreciating and wanting great self-expression.

http://aiweiweineversorry.com/

I have no doubt the population feels that way and the tightrope the people in charge have to walk is progress vs uprising.

This is always the way it works.

When western countries are in crisis they first thing they do is curtail "rights". The country reverts to a "the whole is more important than the individual" status, which people hate.

But in the long view it's probably the necessary steps to take.

Like I said, the problem for the people in charge is, maintaining a balance between progress and creating a revolution. Giving enough rights to keep the population at bay while the nation reaches it's goals. Whatever they are.

DREW WILEY · Apr 7, 2015

Corruption takes on a very different shape here than in China, where bribery has a rather predictable ladder shape. Here we've got a more
convoluted method tied to political shenanigans. But business vs business here is a difficult problem if there's not a level playing field, and there isn't. The big bullies get away with all kinds of things that would put any mom n' pop business in jail. But laws are laws, and they can make a difference. Give more offenders a taste or real jail time instead of just having corporations paying relatively tiny "slap on the wrist" fines for bad behavior, and word gets around pretty fast. At least we don't end up with PEG in toothpaste or melamine in baby formula.

blansky · Apr 7, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
At least we don't end up with PEG in toothpaste or melamine in baby formula.

Yeah, I think the life is cheap, dog eat dog world of people in terrible circumstances dissipates somewhat as people progress towards middle class status.

But here, drug companies test their drugs in third world countries before they can be approved here.

So we with all our human rights blather have no problem using those "lesser people" to be test subjects for us.

DREW WILEY · Apr 7, 2015

That's always been the case. One of the pioneers of medical experimentation in a vaguely modern sense was Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles and collaborator with Ben Franklin. He learned that foxglove was a rumored folk cure for heart ailments
and decided to experiment. Naturally he went to the poor Welsh mining towns to try to learn the correct dosage. It worked almost miraculously a few times, but killed six times as many other subjects. He obviously had no way back then to properly isolate and measure the specific compound (digitalis). But he did achieve a scientific milestone via a form of statistical testing. But with those odds, there was no way he way going to try the same thing on his rich and powerful London patients.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 7, 2015

Different mind set in China

blansky said:
When western countries are in crisis they first thing they do is curtail "rights". The country reverts to a "the whole is more important than the individual" status, which people hate.

The Asian mentality has always been thinking as a group. Individualistic views are considered vulgar and selfish. I think if China does achieve democracy, it will be different than the Western version.

What deeply ingrained is the concept of Mandate of Heaven with how leaders rule. I think the Communist Leaders in Beijing always keep this in mind despite the corruption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

MartinCrabtree · Apr 7, 2015

I meant no malice. It's just sad how we (US) exported the pollution by hooking another nation on the almighty dollar. And boy are we all going to pay.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 7, 2015

Pollution karma

MartinCrabtree said:
I meant no malice. It's just sad how we (US) exported the pollution by hooking another nation on the almighty dollar. And boy are we all going to pay.

This shows how connected we are economically and environmentally.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/w...pollution-to-western-us-study-finds.html?_r=0

blansky · Apr 7, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
The Asian mentality has always been thinking as a group. Individualistic views are considered vulgar and selfish. I think if China does achieve democracy, it will be different than the Western version.

What deeply ingrained is the concept of Mandate of Heaven with how leaders rule. I think the Communist Leaders in Beijing always keep this in mind despite the corruption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

Interesting, thanks.

DREW WILEY · Apr 7, 2015

We knew a few of the leaders of the Tianamen uprising personally. A few who escaped China even visited us here. Some very bright idealistic young people. Hope they didn't get totally disillusioned once they found out America is not exactly a pristine democracy but a pretty complex system with a few cockroaches of its own. But at least they aren't in jail like some of their companions. Things are SO different now. A friend our ours actually set up the business school at a major Beijing university as and adjunct of a California program! Things are pretty open now, just so you don't challenge the position of the Party itself. But there's not much immunity to Western materialism there yet. They seem to want every electronic toy the minute it comes out. I don't know about a Chinese "middle class", but there sure are a lot of fresh millionaires. A few of them came as tourists are were being led on a horse ride in the mountains one day,
well dressed and with, of course, their newest digi cameras etc. The horse train rounds a corner and one of them sees me over there on
a rock with my 4x5 Norma propped up on my wooden Ries tripod. "Real film?" he asks me, then gives me the thumbs up!

blansky · Apr 7, 2015

My other vice is wrist watches and the Chinese were the biggest market for Swiss watches for a few years, although that is waning somewhat due to a downturn in their economy.

In a country that probably makes most of the fake top end watches in the world is also a major market for authentic Swiss watches.

What that means is, they could wear a really good fake Patek Phillipe for $150, but instead prefer to spend $30,000 and buy the real thing.

So they're hungry for the same unbridled consumerism that is rampant in the west.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 7, 2015

We had an old family friend that started a factory. He escaped to Hong Kong from China in the 60's from the Communist. He didn't even own a pair of shoes. But he became a HK millionaire by making watch hands. Ordinary hands were only a few pennies per set which included the minute, hour and the second hands. He moved his operations in the 90's to our family village near Guangzho in southern China. He got young girls from the north to work in his factory for $50 per month with room and board.

Xmas · Apr 7, 2015

blansky said:
My other vice is wrist watches and the Chinese were the biggest market for Swiss watches for a few years, although that is waning somewhat due to a downturn in their economy.

In a country that probably makes most of the fake top end watches in the world is also a major market for authentic Swiss watches.

What that means is, they could wear a really good fake Patek Phillipe for $150, but instead prefer to spend $30,000 and buy the real thing.

So they're hungry for the same unbridled consumerism that is rampant in the west.

There is very little genetic variation in homo sapiens.
Chimps longer arms are better adapted for selfies.

benjiboy · Apr 8, 2015

The way things are going at the moment it may be a good idea for us in the West to learn the Chinese language if we don't already speak it because in the next fifty years China will become the Worlds predominant power.

Xmas · Apr 8, 2015

benjiboy said:
The way things are going at the moment it may be a good idea for us in the West to learn the Chinese language if we don't already speak it because in the next fifty years China will become the Worlds predominant power.

Hi Ben

Too late many of them speak perfect English already. And you would need to learn at least two.

Noel

Richard S. (rich815) · Apr 8, 2015

benjiboy said:
The way things are going at the moment it may be a good idea for us in the West to learn the Chinese language if we don't already speak it because in the next fifty years China will become the Worlds predominant power.

This is why I spent 5 years living there from 1996-2001. I can speak very decent Mandarin Chinese now. And decent Spanish too. I'm set! My English sucks though

Are the Chinese dumping photo gear?

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