• Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Well to be fair, it turned out that we should probably have been more hawkish towards China sooner.
    So it seems to me you are arguing against what you say you are arguing for.

    Nothing in what you describe shows anything wrong with the report or the article.
    There is little doubt that China is spending way more on research than most countries, and being a close #2 in the world on economy, that makes it very plausible that China is in fact #1 in research today, and if we do nothing, China is destined to surpass us.

    Silencing that warning is doing work for China.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      2 months ago

      Nothing in what you describe shows anything wrong with the report or the article.

      This is how people defend articles from Fox News.

      When the source has been shown to be severely biased, it is enough to not trust the report on its face. You do not have to vet everything they do once you’ve already seen they can’t be trusted.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        That’s whataboutism, and it’s very easy to point to FOX news spewing lies if you want to.
        Just saying FOX news is right wing is not a very good argument against Fox news either.

        Do you in fact disagree with the main sentiment of the report? And if you do, then why?
        I happen to agree with the report on the main issue, that China is surpassing us on science and technology research.
        Maybe I’m wrong, but I can see that China has made major strides in just about every field. For instance China can make their own quality ball bearings, which Russia can’t.

        Just as an example of a seemingly minor thing, that has had a major impact on Russia when the west embargoed them because of Ukraine.

        It’s OK to warn the report may be biased, but downvoting because you disagree is bad practice.
        Downvoting it because it has false info however, is perfectly allright IMO, but nobody has shown that.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          2 months ago

          I disagree with the concept that you can accurately measure who is leading the way in science overall based on specific individual technologies that you may be the industry leader in at the moment.

          Engineering superiority is not scientific superiority. Your ball bearings example is not suggestive of scientific superiority. China isn’t making massive technological strides in ball bearing studies which are furthering science as a whole.

          Frankly, I disagree with the idea that it is possible to, as The Register puts it, beat the world at science because science is a global endeavor and the scientific method requires it to be in order to make sure things are verifiable.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Yes I mostly agree with that, but it’s also proprietary technologies, and those technologies are based on local scientists working on them.
            I admit I didn’t read the whole report, but as I understand it, the report doesn’t claim China is leading in for instance “advanced aircraft engines” but it claims China is investing 5 times more than USA in research on it.

            I mention this as an example in a previous post, that it doesn’t mean they are leading the field now, because for instance USA has worked on that for 80 years already, and China is probably still catching up.
            But unless we up our own game, China will surpass the west.

            I have read other reports stating that China spend about twice the percentage of GDP on research compared to USA, and most western countries spend less than USA. I’ve been arguing for more education and research for my own country every chance I get for more than a decade now, but everybody is too busy making money, and that’s going so well they think we don’t need it. (Denmark)

            Maybe the report is alarmist, maybe I am alarmist, but I’m not sure I want China to take the role USA has had since WW2. Xi and China are becoming hostile and arrogant in international politics, if this is the way of China going forward, it does not bode well IMO.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          2 months ago

          That would certainly be a better source, yes. There is absolutely no reason to ever trust a source that you already know isn’t trustworthy. On anything.

          However, that source does not really give a full picture.

          For example, who is citing who? Are the Chinese papers all just citing each other? If so, that would be a pretty poor measurement.

          • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
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            2 months ago

            Man… that’s based on Scopus index. Do you even know what you’re talking about.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              2 months ago

              If you won’t answer my questions, please at least refuse to do so without violating our civility rule as listed in the sidebar.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  2 months ago

                  “Do you even know what you’re talking about” was clearly a personal attack. You could have told me why I was wrong, but you decided to go call me ignorant instead.

                  And I think it’s clear that you’d rather go off on this tangent than answer my questions, so I think we are done here.

                  • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
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                    2 months ago

                    How can it be personal attacks. It is simple logic. I give you a simple example -> The research conducted in certain countries usually is based on industry needs of the country. In China, for example, the have demand in the technology of space exploration and High-speed rail. So you’ll see a lot of research being churned out speedily by a number of local researchers due to the immediate demand in the country. You’ve touched about ball bearing tech, for example, and this is an example of recent research article for that which could be beneficial in the HSR areas. When those people in the same country citing each other, we can’t simply claim they’re doing it as a matter of convenience. It could be an indicator that the subject itself is the top priority in the country.

                    Another point to consider -> If the journal where the article have been written is in the Scopus index, there’s even low probability for the work to be of low value, no matter who has been citing them.

                    Of course that the general idea, but there’s still room to debate.