- cross-posted to:
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Ohh no thats awful. Where is this happening so I can avoid it?
Also: this wouldn’t work if things were good in the west
This is a peaceful path to global conquest. It is warmongering posture that promotes this workaround, and enslaving people to domestic tech oligarchy is an inherently negative consequence of warmongering. A world at war means AI/tech helping war and disinformation instead of making work/life more productive.
But at what cost
Mmm, China perfidiously stealing the hard-earned talent of Western engineers? I know just the solution! They should build an anti-communist self-defence wall:
We no longer wanted to stand by passively and see how doctors, engineers, and skilled workers were induced by refined methods unworthy of the dignity of man to give up their secure existence in the GDR and work in West Germany or West Berlin. These and other manipulations cost the GDR annual losses amounting to 3.5 thousand million marks.
Some fine historical irony. Of course, given the way the university system works in places like the US, there’s not even a good argument that this imposes costs on the public, who trains personnel only for them to leave and benefit some other state.
Maybe this is what Trump’s wall is for.
trains personnel only for them to leave and benefit some other state.
The entire country of Canada may feel triggered for the last 30 years at this comment.
I mean, all the doctors and nerds come back, but it takes a decade. Are you saying we get a border wall too, and Trump is gonna pay for it ?
Maybe this is what Trump’s wall is for.
There is a video of thin Mexican worker slipping between the bars (wall had to be see through for some reason) from one side of the border to the other. Obviously wall is meant to keep fat Americans trapped inside America.
Why would they say thousand million instead of billion?
At a guess, it’s following older British norms, whereby a billion is what it is in other European languages (a million million) and a thousand million is a thousand million or, more pretentiously, a milliard. You’d have to ask the authors though.
That’s interesting. Thanks
Damn, guess they’ll have to introduce laws to improve transparency in hiring /s
Microsoft, Apple and Google all collectively shed one single tear as their concerns for their multi-billion dollar profits. For the Execs that is.
Wish China would offer to triple my pay but I don’t speak any chinese languages so they probably won’t.
I should learn Mandarin
heyy send some of those bombs my way!|
Such disgustingly deliberate word choice when China hasn’t dropped bombs in, what, 60 year? The bombardment is happening in Gaza, not the the fucking tech sector
“To bombard someone with letters” is an expression actively used in the English language.
China hasn’t dropped bombs in, what, 60 years?
Almost correct. The last war-sized conflict China took part in was the 1979 Chinese-Vietnamese war [1]. That was 45 years ago. Battle-sized events between China and Vietnam have occurred up to 1991 [2], that would be up to 23 years ago. Skirmish-sized events with India are as recent as 2021. [3]. As for what occurs in Gaza, I agree. Bad stuff has been happening there. Going by the tonnage of things blowing up, Gaza is a gang shootout compared to Ukraine, though.
Do you mind noting when/where bombs were dropped by the Chinese during the Chinese-Vietnam war, or any of the engagements you’ve listed? I’m having trouble finding any information about that.
I don’t know the details. Wikipedia estimates Chinese losses as 26 000 killed, 37 000 wounded with 420 tanks and 66 guns lost. Vietnamese losses are estimated at 30 000 killed, 32 000 wounded, 185 tanks, 200 guns and 6 missile launchers lost - so it’s safe to assume they didn’t use butter knives.
Their preferred method of bombing might have been artillery, though - due to the lack of high capacity bomber aircraft, and due to lack of air superiority. Despite this, Wikipedia also mentions:
“The 372nd Air Division in central Vietnam as well as the 917th, 935th and 937th Air Regiments in southern Vietnam were quickly deployed to the north.[61]”
The Vietnamese source article is here. A relevant part seems to be this:
“When the border war began, the Ministry of National Defense also decided to send part of the 372nd Air Division (Hai Van Group) to the North to perform missions. From February 18 to March 3, 1979, squadrons of the 917th Air Regiment (Dong Thap Group), 935 (Dong Nai Group) and 937 (Hau Giang Group) including 10 UH-1 helicopters, 3 U-17 reconnaissance aircraft, 10 A-37 attack aircraft, and 10 F-5 fighter-bombers were deployed at Hoa Lac, Kep, Bach Mai and Noi Bai bases, respectively.”
I’m unable to find more details or an account from the Chinese side.
Ok but hear me out
As Western governments make it harder for China to access sensitive technologies—a trend expected to continue under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump—many Chinese companies are trying to get ahead by luring away top engineers in areas such as advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
Hopefully the wsj made up the part about AI. They would do more harm to China than good
From what I know, AI is used heavily in China’s supply chain management and logistics. This sector being so critical, you can imagine the amount of testing that occurred before being integrated to a level where it began to produce a positive return on investment. Capitalists don’t care to invest in this testing themselves and pass that duty onto the consumer. This is why in the west, instead of AI solving real problems, we get the automated slop producing factories that pump massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Chinese capitalists are just as prone to bullshit as western ones. Chinese government might reign it in but they are slow to react.
Slow, sure. But when they do, it’s usually a very final punishment. Puts other oligarchs on notice.
It depends on what they mean by “AI”
It’s a shitty marketing buzzword so it can mean anything from algorithmic logic to LLMs. Not all “AI” requires it’s own nuclear power plant and a Great Lake to operate.
AI has plenty of good uses. Its just capitalism that finds the shittiest ways for them to be possibly used.
Wym?
I’m not talented enough to get poached 😢
China is Bombarding Tech Talent With Job Offers.
But at what cost?
Oh no! Won’t someone think of the executives? Anyways.
Based. The west has long relied on international brain drain (caused by imperial wars and neo-colonialism) to accumulate the “best and the brightest” and put a stranglehold on the tertiary/quaternary sectors. It’s amusing to see the shoe on the other foot, especially after the western tech giants have worked so hard to suppress tech worker wages.
In fact, the West gobbling up skilled labor is a factor of imperialism and underdevelopment. Labor is the superior of capital, so the loss of a skilled engineer is always worse than whatever remittances they might return home.
Didn’t see any specifics around hours in the article though.
Is it three times the pay for three times the working hours? 996 or whatever they call it?
996 is now illegal in China
Several companies like TikTok still work similar to this. Culturally, I doubt it’ll stop any time soon
If you’re a top engineer (or any similar senior position) for a western company, you ain’t working 40 hr/week. 60-80 hours a week is going to be the norm for that type of position in the west as well.
Well the work takes 20 hours per week in any case. It’s just a matter of if the hour sheet is getting 40/50/60/70 marked in
I don’t know what tech companies you worked for, but when I was working for a software company, I was averaging 45 hours in a client IT position, and all the software devs/engineers were definitely working at least 55-60 hours. And that was during normal periods: things definitely went into crunch mode around version releases and client go-lives. As far as I can tell, this is true across the broader industry.
all the software devs/engineers were definitely working at least 55-60 hours
Sounds insane. Would you say that was useful work for some broader goal, or was it just about money? I could not imagine working like that.
That’s the expectation but apparently according to scientists, and easy to verify empirically, human cognitive levels decline after some four to six hours of deep focus depending on individuals and unique situations. So the ones grinding for 60 hrs all the time basically don’t get anything more or better done. It’s just time sheet theater.
Crunch can be an emergency situation kind of thing but that’s not sustainable and all and needs its own recovery.
The point wasn’t that this work culture was good, but rather it doesn’t make sense to single out China when it’s endemic to the tech industry worldwide.
Yes. Be it the US or China or anywhere else, the hour requirements are an absurd joke