Ian Jacobson

China's growth model heavily emphasizes infrastructure investment and manufacturing. This works well when far from the technological frontier, but sustained growth requires economic restructuring as a country grows wealthier. Analysts assumed policy would adapt as China developed, but the Chinese government has moved in the opposite direction. It has artificially suppressed the RMB's value, keeping consumers poor; doubled down on manufacturing subsidies, creating inefficiencies and wasted surplus; and continued infrastructure investments that yield diminishing returns. This is the fundamental reason China's GDP projections have been consistently adjusted downwards over the past fifteen years. The competent, pragmatic, and effective government of the 1980s and 1990s is gone. China is discovering the limits of state-directed capitalism.

I do find it weird that somehow the US keeps winning despite a much stronger culture of intense education + broadly higher IQ distribution in China And yet somehow the golden goose is always born here (OpenAI -> Anthropic this time around)

It's remarkable that the suburbanites and rural people of Utah hate Salt Lake City so much that they think calling Blake Moore "Salt Lake Blake" is an insult. The rest of the state doesn't exist without SLC, folks. Get over yourselves.