We can call it “most advanced” when it actually works.
The US and Europe also don’t have inferiority complexes where they feel like they have to build the tallest or biggest anymore. Look at skyscraper competitions — generally 2nd tier countries trying to outdo each other for bragging rights but for no real other reason. It’s like the Soviet Olympic team — they had to win to make the political statement trunpeting a triumph of communism. The US did the same thing once upon a time, but then we grew up (and not necessarily for the better.. it’s a lot of fun to be “first, bigger, best.”) 1990s Korea, modern China, 1950s USA, the Soviet Union — those places and eras were representative of a national need to foster patriotism to create unity against real or perceived competitors on the world stage as well as remind the proles of the power and achievements of their benevolent state.
> The US and Europe also don’t have inferiority complexes where they feel like they have to build the tallest or biggest anymore.
Wasn't the whole space-race and moon landing a, excuse the language, rocket-waving contest?
As you point out, it is easy to not have "inferiority complexes" or "grow up" as you put it, when you have once established credibility. Don't dismiss achievements just because it is by others.
I think you mean rocket waving, although the idea of weaving rockets does sound interesting...
More substantively, my understanding is that while the space race turned into a PR exercise, it started out as a serious military exercise in demonstrating ICBM capabilities; "we can put a man on the moon" is more politically acceptable than "we can put a big bomb in Moscow" but it is understood just the same.
> More substantively, my understanding is that while the space race turned into a PR exercise, it started out as a serious military exercise in demonstrating ICBM capabilities; "we can put a man on the moon" is more politically acceptable than "we can put a big bomb in Moscow" but it is understood just the same.
It's also important to remember that "space race == moon shot" was US PR. The USSR had the first satellite, man (and woman) in space, the first space walks, etc. Lunar landings were singled out by the US as something they could beat the Soviets to; once that was achieved, the US declared victory and mostly lost interest.
The USSR kept going, ratcheting up capabilities, which carried on all the way until their collapse. The ISS is basically a continuation of their space program (funded largely to keep soviet space/rocket/ICBM experts busy and off the open market). Whilst PR and politics undoubtedly drove the USSR's space budgets and spectacles, there did seem to some long-term thinking, both for science/engineering and more politically (e.g. outposts, potentially colonies, etc.).
In fact, trying to compete directly with the US seems to have mostly hindred the USSR's space program (e.g. the N1 moon rocket was a spectacular failure and the Buran shuttle only flew once). They got some decent engines out of it though.
Do you know the one thing all great mega-powers of the past have in common? They no longer exist. Ceasing to strive to be the best and greatest at everything is not 'growing up', it's resting on your laurels. There's much more than just bragging rights to being 'first, bigger, best'. Technology is what dictates and drives society. If Germany or Japan (or Italy or ...) had developed nuclear weapons before the US, the world would be quite a different place today. If North Korea had not developed nuclear deterrence, Kim would now likely rest alongside Gadaffi and Hussein.
And while it's now easy to say in hindsight 'Well, [insert new form of bigger, better, badder] is not particle physics.' This is true, but at time nobody knew where particle physics would take us. The idea of bomb the size of a small table that could destroy entire cities is something that would have seemed impossible before the US worked to to become 'bigger, better, badder' in what was at one time mostly theoretical particle research.
The worst part of this all is that while we don't know the future, we do have a very good idea of where it's headed. Space is likely where the nest greatest achievements and breakthroughs will come from. But predicting how or where is going to be all but impossible, which is why working to be the king of all pursuits is critical. China is headed straight in this direction. They have not matched our technical skills yet, but at the time when we were conquering the world through technology and taking the baby steps into the computer age -- China was a backwoods nation where people were literally starving to death by the tens of millions. That they're now the second most powerful nation in the world, pushing forward technology and development at an unprecedented rate, is way more than enough reason to believe that one should not underestimate their resolve and ability.
The irony behind all of this is that to the neoliberal mindset China's extraordinary willingness to invest in pure research is some sort of Communist plot. Literally, discussions just a few weeks ago about China taking the lead on R&D spending in 2019 [1] and having that lead become "indefinite" by 2025, break down (not unlike this thread) into mindless accusations against Big Government. Of course the Chinese will tell you China is just doing exactly what the West did post-War when huge government investments in science and technology provided transformative wealth that gave Westerners the best quality-of-life in the world.
The real story here is that while China's strategy is risky -- there's no guarantee all this investment will pay off -- you could argue the neoliberal strategy is even riskier. Technology tends to be a winner take all affair and it's very often the first to market that wins.
I think this is a pretty rose-tinted look with hindsight bias. The USSR was pretty driven to be "the best" right up to their demise. North Korea existed for half a century because China intervened in the Korean War and MacArthur's warmongering got him ousted, not nuclear deterrence. Finally, the idea of a "city-wiping bomb the size of a suitcase" was well understood by all nations with advanced physicists, not just the US: so the Nazi regime was also very close to having a completed nuclear bomb.
China does actually have what, 4x the number of people? Is it really all that out of the ordinary for it to have projects that are 4x larger?
Hanzho is 22 million people, Shanghai is 32 million people, Nanjing is 12 million people. That's just 3 of the over 100 cities larger than 1 million people. I'd expect their projects to be larger. I was blown away by the size of their bullet train stations. Japan's Tokyo station has like 4 bullet train tracks. Shanghai's has 30. Is that bragging or just planning ahead for a much larger population?
Me, I love the skyscrapers. I find it interesting that Tokyo no longer feels remotely "future modern" compared to Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and I'm sure a bunch of other cities in Asia.
> Hanzho is 22 million people, Shanghai is 32 million people, Nanjing is 12 million people.
If you're counting like this, you're over-counting radius and doubling up. Sue the region is populous, about 80mn in that radius but including Nanjing means a 45 minute ride on high-speed rail (400km/h) from Shanghai.
I often wonder whether it is possible to become a developed nation without some "inferiority complex" that drives you as a country. Would the US space program have been so great without the Soviets? I see from the story that villagers where moved from the location. This is something that would not be possible in South Africa, at the best it would take years and years of negotiation and cost billions. The inverse is true, South Africa needs to create more jobs and more tourism. But the laws here are the laws of a developed state (I doubt the countries followed the same modern laws during their developmental phase). I am not complaining, just an observation.
I don’t know about France, but Germany is failing 2 huge projects right now: Stuttgart 21 and BER airport. There was also Elbphilharmonie. And Transrapid that even didn’t start. And China is building and building and building. I don’t know how good it is in China, but the infrastructure in Germany from seventies isn’t that good anymore. Not talking about scientific projects, because there are close to none.
I'm not sure where you heard that there are no scientific projects in Germany but check the pages of Max-Planck-Society, Helmholtz Association and Fraunhofer-Society at least to get a current view. They should be spending 5-10 billion Euro per year on research in for example plasma physics (Wendelstein 7-X fusion research experiment in Greifswald for example), particle physics (DESY, GSI), applied research (Fraunhofer society) and cooperate with others to build things like the European free election laser (XFEL, at DESY).
Saw DESY, they are looking for FPGA developers. The problem with all applied research is simple: salary is a joke compared to their industrial partners. You end doing work for Infineon, BMW, Siemens, you-name-it for 1/3 salary. Catching greenhorns to work for free isn’t sustainable operational model. Think about mp3 patent case.
Well, comparing these two countries infrastructure-wise to a software project, then China is a greenfield project which is able to pick whatever is the hippest technology at the moment because its still growing whereas Germany is the years old legacy Java project on its fourth partial rewrite that everyone relies on every day. And by everyone I mean people from those living on welfare to the billionaires at the top, not just upper class members or those belonging to the ruling party.
I'll bet that those failed projects would not have been called a failure in China.
There's really nothing in China could be called a "greenfield project." Germany doesn't grow because it doesn't want to grow. You're talking about a country with an absolutely unprecedented budget surplus and the lowest investment spending in the developed world [1]. China grows because it is just the opposite; it's willing to take on unprecedented deficits and invest those in the country's future.
Germany and much of the West as a whole has largely stopped investing in anything but tax cuts and entirely pointless military spending. The neoliberal gamble is that private actors can produce growth if government just gets out the way. At this point, given the last forty years of so-so growth and massive inequality, it's not looking too good.
It's probably for the best since Germany is only going to get older and older [2]. They can use all the savings to build hospital beds etc while economic growth continues in Asia and Africa.
Germany and much of the West as a whole has largely stopped investing in anything but tax cuts and entirely pointless military spending.
I don't understand this claim; Germany and many EU countries top the lists of tax-to-GDP and effective tax rates in the world, while its military expenditure (as % of GDP) is lower than China's.
The US and Europe also don’t have inferiority complexes where they feel like they have to build the tallest or biggest anymore. Look at skyscraper competitions — generally 2nd tier countries trying to outdo each other for bragging rights but for no real other reason. It’s like the Soviet Olympic team — they had to win to make the political statement trunpeting a triumph of communism. The US did the same thing once upon a time, but then we grew up (and not necessarily for the better.. it’s a lot of fun to be “first, bigger, best.”) 1990s Korea, modern China, 1950s USA, the Soviet Union — those places and eras were representative of a national need to foster patriotism to create unity against real or perceived competitors on the world stage as well as remind the proles of the power and achievements of their benevolent state.