This genuinely wouldn't surprise me, and I need to go back to looking at balance sheets to see if I can sus out the validity of that narrative. As AI subsidization ends prematurely and costs skyrocket, we should expect to see those costs reflected in the operation statements of major customers.
Since I had Coinbase up for review already, I decided to peek there first for any sort of correlation. In 2023, their "Technology and Development" line item shows $1.32bn going out, and by 2025 it'd ballooned to $1.67bn. This is despite headcount actually contracting by almost a thousand people between those two statements, which would normally mean a smaller technology spend since a lot of corporate software is seat-based nowadays. This suggests that yeah, actually AI spend is creating a heavier drag on the balance sheets and it's being offset with layoffs since the "job replacement" narrative is strong. That said, I'd need to check dozens' more balance sheets to draw any sort of industry-wide conclusion.
There's multiple simultaneous narratives: the industry-wide one of slashing well-paid tech talent under the guise of AI productivity boosts, and what's actually going in at each company.
Cloudflare is an outlier because the company doesn't actually make money at present; their past three annual statements show net losses in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Not hemorrhaging cash per se (their cash reserves alone could cover ~9 more years of losses), but still enough to warrant some cutbacks - and AI is the current scapegoat, thus they finger AI and throw folks out the door.
Coinbase's story is different: they're making good money, but their industry is inherently volatile. Again, recent volatility in the crypto markets related to...things...is dragging down long-term prospects for currencies, while ongoing trades are broadly just insiders doing insider things or exiting their positions for liquidity. Still, their share price is down 27% over 5 years and 18% YTD, so they also need to pump their share price so the executives get paid; layoffs are consistently rewarded by the shareholders, thus they axe part of their workforce for the bump and fingerpoint to AI.
Never take what a company says at face value, and always check their balance sheets. What Cloudflare did sucks but could be warranted to some degree; what Coinbase did has no justification whatsoever beyond naked greed.
> Cloudflare is an outlier because the company doesn't actually make money at present; their past three annual statements show net losses in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Their free cashflow is high; they're choosing not to report a profit. I don't think it's useful/accurate to say they don't make money.
Don't get me wrong, they may be doing a layoff to boost margins or enter GAAP profitability but the company revenue exceeds its operating cost by quite a bit.
> First quarter revenue totaled $639.8 million, representing an increase of 34% year-over-year
So they're growing 34% annually.
> Free cash flow was $84.1 million, or 13% of revenue, compared to $52.9 million, or 11% of revenue, in the first quarter of 2025.
Cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale securities were $4,163.9 million as of March 31, 2026.
...and they have $84 million free cash flow in one quarter, and it's consistently pretty good cashflow.
And they have $4b of cash or cash equivalents stockpiled. It seems pretty healthy to me.
Its quite filthy but it benefits them all to lay off lots of people to reset the wage rate in the market... Im sure we will see a wave of re-hiring when this stuff starts to blow over but many initially will be at a much lower wage rate.
I'm going to start calling these "Canary" moments.
Assuming we take everything at face value for these sorts of cuts, it creates the following scenario:
A company finds itself with surplus labor capacity due to the efficiencies in AI while also posting substantial profit or revenue growth. The company could downsize the workforce to capitalize on short-term efficiencies and increase margins, though this will come at the cost of long-term reputational harm due to posted profits/health as well as burning out staff who must do the same (or increasingly, more) work with less headcount, leading to attrition when the market shifts in their favor. Alternatively, it could leverage this surplus labor for a period of moonshot R&D or paying down technical/process debts while they have the capacity and the profit to pay for it, which harms short-term share price relative to their competitors slashing jobs, while improving the company's capabilities in the marketplace in the long-run, potentially through mastery of these AI tools or the creation of new product lines.
The fact so many orgs opt for immediate greed over long-term growth really is its own canary that leadership and governance both has failed the marshmallow test.
Yeah, I wrote this before I dove into their balance sheets for another comment. Cloudflare’s cuts are more defensible than most, but the timing and explanation are shady given that they’ve had the same problems for years.
If the market had been saturated then there wouldn't have been any (hypothetical) revenue growth which is what the comment above was arguing.
Personally I don't think there was any revenue growth to begin with. They are spending a lot on AI and haven't seen any ROI but for reasons they prefer to fire people and keep investing on AI.
Damn. Phenomenal read. Just a really excellent piece of prose in its own right, topic be damned.
Yet the topic is also what makes it so good. It's written by someone who has also seen the vastness of impact technology has had, who has a firm grasp of the difference between technology and industry. Someone who knows the technology didn't get people addicted to social media and short-form videos and click-bait headlines and microtransactions, it was the industry that consciously chose greed and harm.
I love technology, and I'll keep wielding and mastering it until I'm dead in the ground. It's the industry aspect that I'm increasingly dissatisfied and disillusioned with.
Oh my god I finally get a very specific Harvey Birdman joke as a result of this factoid. Fuck me, Phil Ken Sebben as a parody of Ted Turner kinda works.
That I was aware of. I'm more familiar with his media and wildlife conservation efforts than his business acumen or sports achievements. Captain Planet, Turner Classic Movies, Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network, etc.
The bottleneck has always been the human element. I too used to be one of those up-my-own-ass engineers who thought the most important part of my work was the machine, and it wasn’t until I began actually listening to others and their problems that I realized my function was far more than mere technology scaffolding.
That said, I’m also increasingly aware that puts me in a minority group. I got to see this first hand in a recent org where their codebase and product design hadn’t meaningfully evolved in nearly thirty years. NAT was a “game changer” to them - and one they refused to implement without tons of extraneous testing they would deliberately undermine, stall, and sabotage so they didn’t have to modernize their code accordingly. It was easier for the developers and stakeholders to preserve their own status quo rather than entertain alternatives, to the point of open hostility (name calling, insults, screaming, and a few threats) to anyone suggesting otherwise.
The human element has always been, and always will be the bottleneck. Stakeholders who don’t contribute updated or accurate datasets to automation systems, or who hold back development to preserve personal status and power, or who otherwise gum up the works on purpose to game their own careers.
That’s not to make the argument of “replace all humans with machines”, mind you. Just stating that an organization that incentivizes bad behavior will be slowed down versus ones that incentivize collaborative outcomes, and AI is just going to turbocharge that by removing the friction associated with code creation and shifting that elsewhere.
Never experienced this at a job in 30+ years, and that includes my first jobs in fast food. If you experience this at work, find another job. This isn't normal. It's extremely dysfunctional in fact.
I was already looking, but they ultimately made the decision for me in January with a RIF.
Thing is, this job market is hell. There are folks who have to choose between the abuse or making rent, which is why we need stronger incentives for organizations to discipline said abuse rather than let it permeate because existing penalties lack teeth.
(Im)patiently waiting for this AI-generated memory crisis to pass (or the bubble to pop) so SSD prices can crash back down again. Been dreaming of replacing my RAID6 HDD setup with a RAID1 of SSDs and a hot spare.
I suspect this is more of a warning shot to others attempting the same playbook ("Singapore-washing", as I've heard folks call it): the state is watching, and shifting geopolitics means it's in their interest to retain successful talent and entities at home rather than let opposition have them.
If anything, I'm genuinely surprised it took them this long. America's been doing this for decades without much in the way of pushback, so China must feel very confident in its position to use such tactics.
I don't know if America has done anything quite like this. The example I'm looking for is where a company starts in the US but leaves and incorporates outside the US and then the US attempts to block acquisition by a foreign company. Also, the enforcement mechanism while vague seems un-American. America might tax the company upon exit but it wouldn't hold the founders hostage in America. If you have examples I'd be curious.
This chap was arrested in Thailand, extradited, and did a decade in a US prison because he had the audacity of selling weapons from Russia to Colombia. I'm not sure how exactly US law is of any relevance to such transactions...
---
[1] Or, since 2025, just shoot a missile at your boat, with an option for a follow-up salvo if there any survivors. Strangely enough, everyone who has managed to survive both the initial attack, and the double-tap has so far been repatriated to their countries of origin, with no charges filed by the US.
You don't need to incorporate in the US for this to happen to you. You should look up what happened to Marc Lasus after he founded Gemplus (spoiler, he's on social security while the company the CIA stole from him has $3b revenue) or how Frédéric Pierucci was taken hostage to force the sale of France's nuclear reactors to General Electric. I assume the US does this to all the other countries too.
Being stopped that late is a bit different than the US AFAIK,
but there is certainly the possibility of being stopped from work and (depending how you react) prevented from leaving the US for purely economic inventions:
I find it notable that the US' actual checks on government have worked against expanding the secrecy act further into economic protectionism for favored industries, etc.
Xiamen Sanan Optoelectronics tried buying Lumileds, blocked again by US. Also Chinese ofc.
Broadcom and Qualcomm deal was also blocked, Broadcom was then Singapore based in process of moving to US I believe... (very sus happened in 2018 too, someone didn't pay Donald enough)
I am certain there must be European examples as well but smaller ofc, AI companies are over valued these days, most acquisitions were never this big in the olden days of pre 2020s...
I know for a fact that most folks don't want to invest in US for this reason other than in public equities or bonds ofc. Private foreign investment in US has been high only due to European pensions and Middle-eastern money going into it.
I don't know about how fair, far, or right it was compared to these were, detaining founders is also not confirmed, but sure let's assume it's true still...
Only difference in US is perhaps foreign folks can sue over it. Sometimes, if they are lucky and if the deal is worth it.
I find it strange people of HN being based in US can be so ill informed of what their country, does to foreign companies but be mad about things foreign companies do to them?
I mean sure rest(96%) of the world doesn't really exist, it's but a myth or a land the better folks of US only want to take value when needed?
Unsure what this comment meant, this has happened before as well btw, these are just post 2010s examples because they are relevant. Russians and US used to do this too, India and US were worse of pre-2000s, Japan and US were at their throats in 1980s, in terms of trade and acquisition...
Famously back in the day Grindr , which had a plot point in the Silicon Valley series . Probably more obscure ones that havent been heard of outside software in the Hard tech space like MotorSich (Ukranian) was being courted by Chinese investment got blocked due to US pressure. And very recently the whole TikTok fiasco.
What examples do you have of the US government doing to CEOs what has happened to people like Jack Ma and many other public figures?
For China, there are so many examples of people doing 180s and being full of contrition after those interventions, it's hard to imagine anything but severe intimidation or worse happening behind closed doors.
I'm totally fine with what-about-ism here; making China a better place to live and do business is out of my jurisdiction and doesn't help me, encouraging the USA to do better will.
You've been all over this this thread responding with the same whataboutist comments claiming America does the same thing. And yet, I'm pretty sure America hasn't held American citizens hostage in order to force them to unwind a sale of a foreign company they founded to a different foreign company.
US absolutely has exit bans on people who break/is being investigated for national security and export control laws, which is what Manus did. Except Americans don't call it hostage taking when they do it.
It's not their thought, it's core technology created under PRC registered entities before Singapore switcheroo, which makes their IP PRC origin and under purview of PRC according to PRC law. For actual law, article 13 of PRC 2020 export control. Basically catchall provision / blanket ban hammer (for cases of new tech like AI agent), i.e. presumption of denial / ban.
USA has banned the export of some EDA software from Cadence/Synopsys to China.
Therefore the export-control laws of USA obviously make illegal the export of "thoughts".
An even more clear example if that any US citizen who knows classified information or even just a trade secret of some private company and who would tell that information to China would do something illegal.
In this case China argues that the IP has been created in China and its transfer to Singapore does not make it eligible for transfer to USA.
This is the same argument that USA has used multiple times in the past, e.g. for forbidding ASML to sell equipment to China and for forbidding TSMC to have Chinese customers for its advanced fabrication nodes, despite the fact that in both cases the IP that originated in USA some time ago was only a very small part of the products sold by those companies.
If USA may do this, then China is certainly also entitled to do the same. This is not whataboutism, but both countries must be treated equally, either such actions should be forbidden for both under the international laws, or they should be permitted both to do whatever they please.
There is absolutely no doubt that USA is the country who has invented this concept that its laws can be applied outside its territory and they can be applied to things that are the property of non-US entities, as long as they have any component, no matter how small, which has originally been sold to them, directly or indirectly, by an US entity.
I consider any legal interpretation of this kind as abusive and ridiculous, but no American may criticize a foreign country that does nothing else except imitate what USA does.
As another comment mentioned, comparing "employees trying to selling GPUs to an unauthrorized country" and "CEOs selling a company built on national resources to an outside country" is spherical cows levels of comparison.
Another wrong comment doesn't make being wrong less wrong. CEOs/persons trying to sell controlled technology unauthorized for export by origin country. They are direct legal analogs.
Wrong how? It is your comment that is missing the point. The contention isn't whether USA has export control (you are the one who brought it up), it's whether USA has actually prevented a company from being sold overseas by detaining their owners.
> it's whether USA has actually prevented a company from being sold overseas by detaining their owners.
notably china isnt doing this either: they are barring exit, not detaining, and the reason for barring exit was not reported, so its a stretch to say that its to prevent the sale of the company overseas.
The US:
- makes broad claims of jurisdiction
- has export control, which is listed in the article as a potential reason for blocking the sale, and
- restricts exit from the country when it wants to make sure certain people are available to chat
I dont see whats so exciting about pushing on this specific case. There's an error of, "who's tried to export controlled IP by selling their company to a foreign adversary?"
I dont see what's so exciting about this case that the US definitely absolutely wouldnt take a pretty similar approach to china - bring the CEOs to testify before congress and keep them in the country til the government is satisfied. What's so out of the ordinary that makes this interesting? This is the stuff that goes into work compliance courses.
you might instead want to answer which high tech defense contractor for the US has successfully been bought out by say, iran, china, north korea, or russia, that the US has given the OK on?
I expect there's a lack of data either way. It doesnt come up because people generally move their companies to the US, not out
Although it's true that there's no stated direct link between barring the CEO's exit and Manus's deal, it's not that much of a stretch to say that, specially given China's priors.
Still, I'll concede since that's not what's relevant to me. I'm more curious about the claim that USA would do the same. I can see congress calling the CEO to testify, but keep them in the country until the government is satiafied? How? AFAIK congress has no such power, and the executive may try, and they might be struck down by the courts.
While US has export controls, this wouldn't be a company incorporated, or running, for that matter, in the US (so the Supermicro already doesn't qualify). It would be a company, say, incorporated in the UK. Even if the company started in the US, this, AFAIK, would be unprecedented. Hence the relevance of showing a prior case.
And, make no mistake, I'm not here to say USA is better than China, but these "China is just doing what USA does" claims are getting ridiculous.
US export controls prevent companies from selling controlled tech. If US companies tried o circumvent then they would absolutely be denied, if they did secretly anyway, against, the law of course they'll likely have passport surrendered, i.e. exit ban if flight risk.
Like this isn't complicated, the difference is Manus was full blown retarded enough to transparently circumvent PRC export controls after PRC closed loopholes and politely signalled them to stop, which they didn't, i.e. they broke actual export control laws. Like Manus didn't try to sell, they fucking sold, sign and dotted, despite being told not to, because its against export control laws.
Even US companies rarely this blatantly dense. Americans getting exit banned for selling controlled hardware is LESS serious then what Manus tried to do, i.e. lesser (relative) export control crimes in US getting same treatment.
What are you talking about? Here are the concrete differences:
1. The U.S. has had a long-standing, extremely public policy that you Cannot Sell Nvidia Chips to China since 2022. Supermicro is an American company (based in San Jose, California), and they sold chips to China from 2024-2025, and they got caught, so they were arrested.
2. Manus founders created... an agent harness? And their company was incorporated in Singapore, not in China. And after they sold their Singaporean company to Meta, China decided that selling Singaporean agentic software "violated export controls" (and even the CCP representative couldn't list which supposed control it violated), and detained them all in China and is attempting to force the Singaporean company to unwind the sale.
These are not really comparable. The Supermicro folks are running a company in America and knew ahead of time, for years, that what they were doing violated American export controls. In the case of Manus, they weren't a Chinese company, no one knew they were supposedly violating unwritten export controls, and China decided post-hoc to detain them all and attempt to force the (Singaporean!) company to unwind the sale.
Quite simply this has never happened in corporate America. America is very friendly to corporations and you'd have to be wildly, knowingly in the wrong to get arrested for an M&A deal.
No they're exactly the same, except Manus more retarded than Nvidia and Supermicro.
1. US had wiffle waffle export control policies on what TIER of compute that was exportable. When policies were unclear and compute threshold shifted, Biden admin signalled blank understanding of "presumption of denial" in interregnum while policy figured out exact controls. Nvidia stopped exporting until clarity. That's what due diligence / compliance means.
2. Manus created AI algo in PRC and hence under PRC purview. Fired their PRC team and thought incorporating in Singapore was loophole to transfer PRC controlled tech to US for fat paycheck. PRC was signalled before sale finalizes the Singapore loophole was not some lawfare gotcha to circumvent export controls. This was PRC version of presumption of denial. Ultimately PRC gets to decide if Manus technology CREATED IN PRC is exportable, and under what conditions. PRC company in Singapore fine, using Singapore to transfer to US... not fine. The amount of signals Manus got was similarly clear. PRC writings were talking about art13 of PRC export controls being triggered long before sales. Manus did the retarded and illegal (treasonously) thing and decided to go through with sale and forced PRC hand, when due diligence meant you know, not. AKA Manus did a supermicro but more egregious.
America so friendly they have to export control PRC... prevent US talent from working in PRC semi amirite. Oh wait, turns out when it comes to national security / duo use tech both sides are wildly not business friendly and can play the same geopolitical game. This hasn't happened in America, because quite frankly US businesses are not retarded enough to flaunt US national security instruments due to US gov extraterritorial reach. Manus thought they can do so with PRC who has less extraterritorial = reach, and now PRC slapping them as example. Also no one's arrested yet, just exit ban for ongoing investigation. But would not be surprised if they do end up getting arrested, because they wildly, knowingly in the wrong.
The U.S. restrictions on Nvidia compute were clear and extremely widely reported on for years prior to Supermicro's sales. That's why Nvidia created special Chinese-market versions of their GPUs, e.g. the H800 and H20, which Supermicro was free to sell at the time (although eventually those were banned as well, which was similarly widely reported on and well known). The rest of your post is, similarly, basically nonsense.
You mean the widely reported and well known industry confusion around TPP revision and timeline of ban a800/h800, first 30 days then immediately i.e. it was moving goal posts / wiffle waffled and anything but extremely clear. US used presumption of denial to stop NVidia from selling A800 and H800 when US gov had no solid idea what TPP threshold to set, Nvidia had to wait months for BIS to specifically determine denial bucket for H20 (notification requirement). This directly analogous to Beijing hinting to Manus to hit the breaks for clarity... which you know Nvidia did in absence. Nvidia did not ILLEGALLY sell POTENTIALLY/UNDER EVALUATION export controlled goods, which Manus did. Nvidia HALTED ~3B in PRC orders and ate like ~5B inventory tax due to regulatory fog. If Nvidia sold, they would have done a supermicro, this comparison of Nvidia correct behavior vs supermicro and manus incorrect behavior, and you can bet your ass someone at Nvidia was going to get the supermicro/manus treatment.
Your grasp of subject matter and timeline is actually, complete nonsense.
Just last year the USA de-banked (from EU banks) EU citizens who are International Criminal Court officials for "opening preliminary investigations against Israeli personnel". The USA wields incredible power over financial interactions.
Trump is making it worse, but there had been examples of bad behavior. Now the US is completely uncontrolled. I can't say we wouldn't do something like happened here (trying to stop a foreign company from selling stuff or developing stuff) if it was doing something significant about weapons or ai.
I don't think anyone is holding the US as blameless or perfect, but it gets exhausting to see Chinese propaganda every single time anything like this happens.
When the US does something reprehensible, people rarely come up in droves going on and about China's enablement of the North Korean regime or the many abuses enacted on its population, but every single time the US does anything we had to read a whole lot on how "at least China doesn't invade countries" as if the prime reason as to why China doesn't tend to involve itself militarily isn't precisely American hegemony. The rate at which the country is portrayed as some paragon of human rights, equality and peacefulness is either insane, deluded, or paid for.
The media is almost daily full of China scares.
Also, the comments here are not talking about who started this war, with the GPU sanctions and the arrest of the daughter of Huawei's founder.
Does it mean the Chinese are the good guys? No, because there are not good guys, but there is certainly a side that is extremely aggressive an can't conceive that others can have their own interests. And it's not the Chinese.
The Taiwanese? This is actually a perfect example of what I was saying.
Talking about 'Taiwan' and 'border disputes with the PRC' meanwhile the USA is doing a maritime blockade of Cuba and Iran. And that it's without talking about bombing countries or military deployed thousand of miles away from their borders, of God forbid, unconditional support to Israel, who just displaced one and a half million people.
But, let's forget about all those small details, don't you see how the Chinese are very bad?
Have you not been reading The Economist for the past 20 years of the WSJ since its acquisition by Rupert Murdoch? They've been predicting the downlfall of China every other month.
Nah I prefer to discuss with people who have some basic literacy or googling skills because if you search for "economist predicting the fall of china" you'll find both their articles and the commentary surrounding it.
I also regularly keep up with The Economist and other western news outlets and I completely agree with GP's impression that we see a "China is doomed" opinion piece every other month. Same with geopolitical youtubers.
Obviously none of us are committed enough to this internet discussion to do a formal study to prove our impressions but I think the majority of regular readers would also agree. Asking for sources for what is common knowledge is just a silly way to shut down discussion instead of engaging with it
If you can't show any proof or even circumstantial evidence of your theory, it's worthless and the Economist is not a China-doomer paper.
The reality is that it's a lie and the Economist is quite balanced about China (even while they are banned from publishing there!). For instance, their latest cover was quite positive about the country: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/04/01/how-china-hopes...
Finally, some sources. At least we can analyze those.
The first, from 2015 (year of the 2015-2016 Chinese stock market turbulence), is an analysis of the response of the other countries to the aforementioned issue. With that context, its cover seems to be the usual attention grabbing shit other journals do, lest you want to conclude that the Economist also has a vendetta against USA for some of its covers.
The other articles simply show specific issues they noted: the second is about the effect of the trade war and how that will slow China but it'll be fine otherwise; the forth is repeating a concern of some authrorities, but it has no tone of "this will end China".
The third one is the closest, being about discrepanciea between the numbers reported by the top officials and the local governments. It mentions the possibility of being worse than it appears, but, at the end, it also posits whether it actually is given the lack of worry from party officials.
In all, doesn't seem that different from the average doomerism you see for other countries (including the US). They, to me, appear much more likely to be clickbaits than actual propaganda pieces.
Given the dates of these results, I suspect you specifically searched for the Economist saying anything negative about China's economy. If so, not exactly a good starting point for measuing bias. Now, to be fair, Google results can be different from user to user and you did at least post some actual the Economist links, in contrast to that bogus Reddit post you linked.
What's actually impressive is how you are baffled for doing the bare minimum. "That's common knowledge" is just a cheap excuse for ending discussions. But I'll elaborate on that on the other chain.
Now, for comparison, here are my 3 top results from searching "The Economist china" in Google:
I read it regularly and listen to their podcasts. You clearly didn't read any of these. As pointed out elsewhere the "Great Fall of China" is about a giant stock market crash. The title is the Economist's puny house style.
As bit-anarchist points out[1], you obviously did a simple google and you're bullshitting about articles you didn't read. This sort of bad faith argument doesn't belong on HN.
That user always does this. They make bold claims then frantically google and fail to read their own links, and it’s always in favor of China or some communist dictatorship.
If I were discussing a formal argument in debate club sure. I don't do googling for others when the first 10 results in google for this is either source articles from The Economist of a half dozen forum threads commenting the same thing for the past 5 years.
I asked you for a single article representing your claim, since it is so common it should be easy to find? It's as ridiculous as if I declare that the earth is flat, but provide no explanation since "you can google".
Common knowledge shouldn't need a source. Asking for one is a technique used to dissuade further discussion. If someone has evidence contrary to the common knowledge then they should be the one to produce that evidence
Buddy, they literally had a magazine cover with "GREAT FALL OF CHINA" as the heading.
Anyone who actually reads The Economist is well aware of the constant articles about China's imminent collapse. What's happening in this thread is a bunch of people who clearly don't read it very often are asking for proof of something that is obvious to anyone who does actually read but is hard to prove without a formal study. I can, and have, link(ed) you many articles but no single article will change your mind anyways.
If you genuinely cared you would just google it yourself. But you don't. You are a time suck. There is nothing to be gotten from this exchange except to waste energy into the void of the internet.
(and you give anarchism a bad name. You're probably more similar to ancaps then you'll ever admit)
I have tackled the cover in another comment, so I'll skip it here.
You speak for others as if you are a representative for them. Somehow, it doesn't go through your mind that other people might have different readings and perspectives from articles or papers, and you default to accusing them of just not reading. A view that's possibly amplified by certain social bubbles. Evidence of that lies in your, basically gratuitous, accusation of sinophobia.
This ties to the "common knowledge" issue. Due to diversity, there is no such thing as objective "common knowledge", thus it is always subjective to social groups. Best case scenario, appeal to common knowledge is simply an intolerant way of uncritically asserting your biases onto others, who might not even belong to any of your social groups. Worst case scenario, it's used by bad actors to gaslight their way through a discussion.
Someone asked you to fetch the current month's article (not a study) to use as a sample. Instead of just quickly googling and linking it, allowing the conversation to go forward, you kept trying to dismiss and avoid doing your due dilligence. Only after many posts, you managed to post a analyzable sample. If that's not a waste of energy, I don't know what is.
If you genuinely believe this was a total waste of energy, you could've just left. If your arguments were solid, no further comments would take them down (that is, if you made actual arguments, not just claims before).
I'm not here to change your mind (specially given how you treat all your proof as "common knowledge", which indicates that is so enshrined in your perspective, that only a serious event can actually change), but to either: present a point or debunk bogus/baseless claims (primarily this one). Other people can read through our posts and reach their own conclusion.
That was a cover article with the sub heading "Fear about China’s economy can be overdone. But investors are right to be nervous" and it was about China's biggest one-day stockmarket fall since 2007 that caused broader market contagion in SE Asia. You're being disingenuous or not reading the things you're posting.
>If you genuinely cared you would just google it yourself. But you don't. You are a time suck.
If you cared you'd read the article you're mentioning, but you didn't. You're a time suck.
You're arguing that you shouldn't need a source to say that the Economist has an anti-China bias. But that's not common knowledge, and the link you provided elsewhere didn't point to an Economist article demonstrating that you either didn't read it or are acting in bad faith.
Also bringing up the Holocaust in this context is just fucking weird.
Yes, of course, the perceived editorial line of the Economist is similar to the Holocaust. Also, it is quite easy to do in the later case, you can link the relevant wikipedia article.
Depends if we are in agreement. If we are, no. If we aren't and we want to have a sincere discussion, yes.
If all you do is come, claim that the Holocaust happened in a certain way, and hoped to call it a day without any proof nor evidence, that's just a demonstration of your own bad faith and intolerance.
Luckily for many, the internet is filled with evidence about it, so any good faith argumenter should have little difficuty doing so.
The only people averted to do so are people not interested in a proper discussion, at which point, they should just leave rather than spout baseless claims. Even if their conclusion is correct, poor arguments do nothing more than hurt the pursuit of the truth (normally for spreading intolerance, which helped the Holocaust happen).
>but there is certainly a side that is extremely aggressive an can't conceive that others can have their own interests. And it's not the Chinese.
It's not the Chinese? You sure? There's probably nobody more economically aggressive in the planet and they just threw a hissy fit at the EU the other day for doing something they've been doing since forever.
I care not for "the media", I care that I don't have enough fingers to count the amount of people trying to justify this in this very comment section. I'm sure western media is not favorable to Chinese interests, I'd be utterly baffled if Chinese media was favorable to western interests. I do not expect public sentiment to follow a party line because we are better than that, but I do expect a certain reticence to go all out and justify opposition in intellectually rotten ways.
I mean, the whataboutism is a critical tool in negating propaganda. Rather than focus on the reprehensibility of anyone using threats of violence like this to force specific outcomes favorable to domestic policy, everyone is instead hung up on the fact China did this.
Whataboutism, used effectively, is meant to draw parallels rather than excuse behavior. Fuck China for what it's doing here, but also fuck the countries and entities who have used similar tactics in the past to great effect. Don't just conveniently put on blinders for what's happening/happened at home all because the government-labelled "baddie" did it too.
Whataboutism, used effectively, is designed to change the subject and stop detailed exploration of the topic at hand. Which is what you're doing in this thread. We don't need to turn a news-relevant thread specifically about the CCP into a thread relitigating decades of American government and business behavior. You can make a separate submission to discuss the US if you'd like.
I think you need to give some concrete examples, considering the US happily let its companies offshore a lot of work to China over the years, and Chinese funds own large chunks of American companies.
* We continue to embargo Cuba instead of letting it succeed or fail on its own merits - while also controlling their own land for a Black Ops prison and having attempted repeatedly to assassinate their leaders or create coups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...
* Our centralization of global finance and status as a reserve currency lets us dictate global policy on everything from Intellectual Property to National Defense, meaning companies generally have to "play ball" or the host country will incur penalties
I can go on, but really, Wikipedia is right there. If you're looking for a specific analogue to "we kidnapped CEOs and demanded a foreign company unwind their merger", I don't think I can provide that right away; however, if instead you're looking for examples of "country used threats and force to foment an outcome favorable to its domestic policies", well then, boy howdy are there tons and tons of examples out there just a cursory search away.
You basically just parroted a bunch of Howard Zinn agitprop and didn't cite a single example that was remotely similar to this specific incident, because you literally can't. What exactly is your motivation here, because it's certainly not truth-seeking.
Since you think Cuba and China are such nice places, perhaps try living there. You'll quickly find out about their "merits" (such as the fact that they execute dissidents).
Not even getting into the more dubious part of this claim, just because the British or Americans did it doesn't mean it's right or acceptable. If you disagree with that, you're implicitly pro slavery, pro penal expeditions, etc.
There is this thing called implicit acceptability. If you really find it unacceptable you might want to start close to your circle of concern. Otherwise, pretty sure you find it acceptable by action.
Many, even most people are pro-slavery and pro-whatever as we speak, even paying to see it happen. They only mouth some useless moralizing words.
Oh, no, it's incredibly reprehensible what China's doing.
Just like it was reprehensible that America propped up the Iranian shah to ensure western oil interests were served. And reprehensible that the British Empire got the Chinese addicted to Opium to force more favorable trade agreements. Also reprehensible is the Cuban blockade imposed by America, which has prohibited the country from thriving or failing on its own merits and forced suffering onto its people.
It's all reprehensible, and it should all be held up lest folks get this notion that America is this infallible savior who can do no wrong. It's bad, and it should never happen, but it does and it will so long as people keep buying into Nationalist narratives like these.
Can you please stop with this style of commenting? This is not what HN is for – ideological battle, cross-examination, sneering/snark. The thing HN is for is curious conversation, and you'll be much more at home here if you can keep that in mind and make an effort to heed the guidelines.
I think you're misreading my tone because the other poster was so opinionated. I didn't think being Chinese was insulting or something, but had expected a continuing discussion there.
And I think my prior response in the thread was rather highbrow and clever, referencing ancient history.
Since I had Coinbase up for review already, I decided to peek there first for any sort of correlation. In 2023, their "Technology and Development" line item shows $1.32bn going out, and by 2025 it'd ballooned to $1.67bn. This is despite headcount actually contracting by almost a thousand people between those two statements, which would normally mean a smaller technology spend since a lot of corporate software is seat-based nowadays. This suggests that yeah, actually AI spend is creating a heavier drag on the balance sheets and it's being offset with layoffs since the "job replacement" narrative is strong. That said, I'd need to check dozens' more balance sheets to draw any sort of industry-wide conclusion.
reply