/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

https://www.youtube.com/live/iDMLq0Zv3Ns
Stream starts at around the ten and a half minute mark.

Fair warning 7 hours long so probably something to fall asleep to or digest in sections.

https://www.youtube.com/live/iDMLq0Zv3Ns
<China at 75: Changes Unseen in a Century


From the International Manifesto Group

>October 1, 2024 will mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, when Mao Zedong declared that "the Chinese people have stood up."

>These unified events are monumental because of the enormous role China plays in the world today. The People’s Republic of China 75 years ago was a colonial holding looted by the world powers. China is now the economic powerhouse of the world providing hope for other developing countries of Africa and the Global South fighting for sovereignty against the forces of imperialism

>U.S. threats, military encirclement and hostile propaganda are escalating daily. In this consequential moment, it is paramount that socialist, anti-imperialist, and progressive forces join together to explain and defend the role of China today.

>Discussions will include the ongoing processes of poverty alleviation and modernization; China's role in the struggle against climate catastrophe; China's contribution to Marxist thought; the significance of the Africa Summit and recent meeting of all the Palestinian organizations in China and more.

>>484592
My apologies apparently I found an Easter egg.
The actual discussion starts that the twenty and a half minute mark.

https://youtu.be/nHYSkm9Jl-g
Interesting citations in the video description.

Babe wake up, the new China update just dropped.

They have new planes…

>>486600
And a new train…

>>486601
And a new boat

>>486600
They look very futuristic, without the tail-fin.

The one in the first pic is huge and looks like it's got 3 engines. And the rear landing gear looks heavy duty with the double wheel config. Maybe it's a small bomber optimized for long range and or high altitude.

I wasn't aware China was investing a lot of RND into traditional jets.

It seems like everybody is demonstrating their new toys for the year 2025

>>486601
When societies build fancy trains that's usually a sign of a society in a golden age of enlightened industrial progress. I wish we had that.

>>486607
That train looks sexy as fuck. Allegedly this is the CR450, a newer version of the CR400 which from youtube looks quiet and comfortable.

Where I live we have one set of tracks connecting three major cities where like 90% of the country lives, and they have to share that track with freight trains. The freight company owns the tracks so their trains have priority. Passenger trains have to pull over and wait at certain areas, and you are regularly 45mins to an hour late. We desperately need high speed rail ffs.

>>486608
>That train looks sexy as fuck.
Yup
Allegedly this is the CR450, a newer version of the CR400 which from youtube looks quiet and comfortable.
CR450 sounds like a name for a coin-cell battery. I guess that doesn't really matter.

>Where I live we have one set of tracks connecting three major cities where like 90% of the country lives, and they have to share that track with freight trains. The freight company owns the tracks so their trains have priority. Passenger trains have to pull over and wait at certain areas, and you are regularly 45mins to an hour late. We desperately need high speed rail ffs.
It's not uncommon that trains wait on side-tracks to let another one pass, but not giving passenger trains priority that's kind off weird. Three-quarter to a hour delays that's hardcore tho, my condolences.

>>486600
These seem to have some characteristics in common with the trillion dollar turkey the F-35. "Stealth" technology was always scammy bullshit and I sure hope neither of these are "fighter" aircraft. What's China's military-industrial complex like? Why does it need these when it has missiles that can sink aircraft carriers?

>>486603
Speaking of which, someone just wasted a ton of money on this. Hypersonic missiles have made aircraft carriers essentially obsolete floating coffins.

>>486614
>These seem to have some characteristics in common with the trillion dollar turkey the F-35. "Stealth" technology was always scammy bullshit
What made the F-35 a turkey was
the stubby wings: compromised range, loitering time and maneuverability.
the hovering ability: added too much weight, complexity and cost.
feature overload: too many roles.

VTOL would have made sense on civil passenger planes, so big planes can go to small airports with short landing strips, but for military it's odd, jets have overpowered engines with afterburners that enable them to use tiny air-strips anyway.

The Chinese plane especially the diamond shaped one has a whopping wing-span of an estimated 20 meters, which should give it excellent range and loitering time. it doesn't look like it's got hovering either. So if it's a turkey it's not because it copied bad design cues from the f-35.

Given the big size of this thing, stealth is somewhat relative anyway.

>and I sure hope neither of these are "fighter" aircraft.
Obviously not, without a tail, maneuvering on these have got to be somewhat leisurely. Maybe the strange shape is for going fast at high altitude. I think the diamond shaped plane could be a counter to the B2 (the one shaped like a manta-ray fish)

>What's China's military-industrial complex like?
Mostly state run, and not very communicative. Most of the stuff they put into production so far seemed to be value-optimized and very mass producible. Boring shit that wins wars. If you like playing online armchair general it's not very enticing, no fancy super-units, no glorious battle behemoth. Their weapons manufacturing is tied into civilian production, they have very little fully dedicated military production. So they're probably intending to scale down after "big-power competition" is done.

>Why does it need these when it has missiles that can sink aircraft carriers?
>Speaking of which, someone just wasted a ton of money on this. Hypersonic missiles have made aircraft carriers essentially obsolete floating coffins.
Given the timing, this ship is a political statement towards Taiwan, it's primary function is stated to be an amphibious troop transport, the aircraft carrier function is secondary.
If you ask me they're not planning on using these until after Chinese rocket forces have pounded any advanced military into dust. If this comes into play it'll be the van for the mop-up crew that cleans out what remains of the "imperial infestation" in Taiwan province, after the big showdown. If there is a big showdown… I think it's primarily intended as a demonstration of capacity and conviction. And the secondary function is a prestige object like a giant statue, except that it's mobile. Like you said the aircraft carrier is past it's prime in terms of combat and would quickly become a floating coffin. But it's still the Geo-politics version of having a enormous car, just to park it somewhere to annoy people with it taking up so much space.

>>486631
Perhaps for rich executive private aircraft, but VTOL would make the least sense of all on commercial airlines because they consume so much fuel to operate. Energy efficiency is the absolute #1 overriding concern for commercial airlines. If they can't make money off it because it's too expensive to operate then it's dead in the water.

>>486640
>executive private aircraft
You mean private jets ?
I gotta be honest, i have never investigated these. All the good small-to-medium size passenger planes seem to be using turbo-props and a different fuselage/wing configuration, so i don't really get why private jets are a thing.

>VTOL would make the least sense of all on commercial airlines
From an engineering perspective adding vertical thrust makes more sense the bigger the plane. They're harder to get off the ground and hence benefit the most.

there would be benefits. You can do smaller airports in less perfect locations. Takeoff and landing could be done at low speeds, previous-plane-turbulence would dissipate really quick and have less impact in general. You could stack flights almost back to back. Passenger throughput could be improved a lot. Runway conditions would be less critical. It would get easier to pull off more radical configuration like boxed-wings (which have fuel efficiency benefits), because the vertical thrust provides an extra safety cushion that hedges against unforeseeable flaws in new desings.

Is there any more info about the CPC's campaign to eradicate corruption? Are there any write-ups about it or translated documents about the party's strategy?

I feel like since this was a successful strategy the standards and rules written for it could be useful for us for example.

>>487232
I've looked for that as well, and i can't say that i have found anything that really explains how their anti-corruption campaigns work.

>I feel like since this was a successful strategy the standards and rules written for it could be useful for us for example.
Anti-corruption campaigns often fail because the corrupt elements manage to bend it into a which hunt to eliminate their political enemies, and end up entrenching them selves deeper.

Chinese politics for some reason appears to not work like that. I have a hunch that you can't just copy their recipe.

>>487232
>this was a successful strategy
And yet China still has half of the world's billionaires.

>>487236
But a pro-proletarian government

>>487237
Perhaps you're unaware how many zeroes are in a billion, anon. Every zero is 10x the surplus value appropriation as the next zero.

>>487238
Well that kind of ties into my question here: >>487232 How exactly did they fight corruption? Can billionaires there influence politics? It doesn't seem so. Do the economic projects set out by the CPC get done? It certainly seems so, so what are they doing correctly, exactly?

>>487239
>Can billionaires there influence politics?
Obviously or they wouldn't exist at all. A billionaire is a grotesque accumulation of labor exploitation that would never exist in a system that's actually on the side of workers.

>>487239
My pet hypothesis is that the CPC is doing some kind of "selective capitalism".
They have developmental goals for things like technology, infrastructure, and so on. All the capitalist that build stuff that fits those goals are allowed to flourish or even get boosted, while the other capitalists get, lets say "de-prioritized".

Marx had this thing where he considered a part of the bourgeoisie as a progressive force (in the classical sense of the word) and a part of the bourgeoisie was considered reactionary. An example of a progressive bourgeoisie was one that invented labor saving machine capital, which paved the way for the higher mode of production that is socialism.

>>487240
How did the Chinese government do that massive poverty reduction thing. 800 million people raised above the level of extreme poverty, within a relatively short time period, that's no small feat. They have improving labor conditions too, and a growing number of people whose living conditions have become "pretty good actually".

How do reconcile these developments with Chinese billionaires running the show ?

If chinks build this it will be actually fucking crazy:

China’s 1km-wide solar array in space is expected to collect as much energy in a year as the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth

https://sustainabilitymag.com/articles/chinas-1km-solar-array-the-manhattan-project-of-energy

>>487253
It certainly would: a crazy waste of resources and a crazy display of poor engineering. Orbital solar energy collection is not a good application of solar power. It requires an enormous amount of regular propellant delivery to maintain orbit and to get all that mass in orbit in the first place that offsets the gains from energy collection. An actual great application of space-based solar energy collection is to build solar panels on the moon, an object in permanent orbit that doesn't require maintenance and can provide its own materials for simple photovoltaic construction.

>>487255
>a crazy waste of resources and a crazy display of poor engineering
I'm sure you're just as qualified as Long Lehao and this really is a terrible plan! Oh wait what are your credentials again?

>>487253
>If chinks build this it will be actually fucking crazy:
If they can do this economically, meaning they get out a lot more energy than they put in, that would enable a mad expansion in power generation, potentially representing an even bigger leap than going from an agricultural society to an industrial society.

However i do want to stress that there have been sooo many research projects for orbital power satellites, and none of them turned out to be economical. This is the kind of project that requires excellence in every field. Let me paint you a picture of the technological scope. That thing is a giant catchers-mitt, and earth orbit has a bit of a littering problem. It's somewhat likely that you'll need some kind of a directed energy weapon that can vaporize space debris in order to keep maintenance low. You probably can do most of the work with robots but you'll still need some astronauts picking up the slack. That means space habitats.

There are political difficulties too. Some neocon ventriloquist dummy with an Exxon Mobil hand up his bum in the US is going to look at this thing and conclude it's a threat to American "energy dominance", we need to destroy it. It will be necessary to convince these people that all their oil-rigs go up in flames if something happens to your orbital solar chandelier.

Is this doable ? probably yes. But this is playing the game on extra hard.

>>487258
the falling rate of billionaires ?

>>487256
Thankfully science and engineering aren't about credentials, they're about evidence and math. The energy gain from the energy put in is highly unfavorable to maintaining an enormous fleet of artificial solar power-beaming satellites.

>>487294
The project is underway. And you're still trying to convince everyone you know better than the top experts in China.

>Oh nooo the energy gain is highly unfavorable

Are you aware of how cringe you sound?

>>487349
Again your fallacy is: appeal to authority. Just because someone has chosen to fund an idea doesn't mean it's a good one. Otherwise every gamble on Wall Street ever made is also smart and enlightened.

>>487349
I'm not the anon you replied to.

I want power satellites to succeed for several reasons:

Beaming power via microwave-to-rectenna or monochromatic-laser-to-band-gap-tuned-photovoltaic-collector, that is really elegant. It's 70% efficient, which is about as good as you can get with a power-grid, but most of the waste heat remains in space. And you can beam power to just about anywhere. Buildings, ships, and perhaps even trains and planes. Best of all, there are no more middlemen in a energy-beam.

The oil-barons that lobby for war and regime change would loose the power to do that. You can't own the sky, and there are no governments to overthrow in the sky either.

Obviously the amount of power that shines our way is enormous, we could become a Level-1 civilization on the Kardashev Scale, if this works, that's enough power to live in the nice future like in classic Star Trek.

However this is not a new idea, the first serious research into this was during the early space race where both Nasa and the Soviets considered using mirrors and a broad range of heat generators to power microvave power transmission. When photovoltaic cells became more efficient it spawned new projects. Many countries are researching this. By the way, the little brother of solar-power-satellites is satellite based night illumination by reflecting sunlight back to earth creating a similar effect to a full moon, economizing on electricity for outdoor night illumination. I imagine something like that taking off first, and consider it as a sign of this technology branch becoming viable.

Over the last 3/4 of century, there have been many proposals, with varying designs, and none got build, usually because of cost.

I would also consider that the Chinese might not primarily build this for power-generation, they might want to use this as a project to focus their space-industry. You know a goal-post. If they can build this mega project, they'll have the industry lined up and dialed in to tackle space industrialization, the massive power generation capacity is a really nice bonus.

There is of the course the possibility that they figured something out all the other power-sat projects didn't, and they're about to lap everybody 57 times, and I'll have egg on my face, and you get to say i told you so. Like i said i wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

>>487362
>>487362
>>487362
>>487362
i calculated and it was like few gigsvats ithink (in total power)

like on each you have about 180-200 peak power in m2
then, if it's like stated 10 times powerful, it's then 2000 watt per m2
but now 24h

then you can calculate 1km2 is 1000x1000 m2
and then it's 1000*1000*2000 watt = 2,000,000,000 or about 2 giga watt constant power (therretical)

from 1kmx1km array

>>487407
>but now 24h
This isn't an enormous orbital battery we're talking about here. In order to actually utilize that power is needs to be both a) out of the Earth's shadow to collect solar power and b) at an unobscured location to transmit microwaves back to a rectenna site in China. It's a safe bet that both of these factors converge less than 50% of any given 24-hour period, probably something closer to 30-40%.

>>487408
in article it sort of said it will be only temporary shadowed by solar eclipses (it is on very far orbit)

>>487409
The Moon is on a very far orbit and it's only above the horizon for 12 hours of every day. You can't reconcile both of these needs at once more than 50% of the time.

>>487407
This is nice, however the absolute power generation capacity is less important than the following 2 metrics:

1 how long until net power

2 what is the net power gain

What this comes down to is how fast can this be expanded. If it takes a long time to recoup the initial energy for building it, than it will take a long time until you can build another in a self-powered expansion.

Maintenance will use up energy too, like sending repair parts into space, and obviously the ground stations will use power as well. All of that diminishes the net power gain. That is important for knowing how big of an economy can be powered off the back of this thing.

Does anyone have the China poverty alleviation graph webm? May have been made by Ginjeet. It had spooky classical/orchestral music in it.

Edit: The title was
>'The historically unprecedented alleviation of poverty in China'
and the music was:
>Prokofiev: Cinderella Suite No. 1, Op. 107 (VIII. Midnight)

>>487697
Gochu fam

>>487699
Based! Thank you, I thought it was lost forever.

>>487705
Now that I think about it, this is the greatest achievement in human history.

>>487699
Should be paired with Jason Hickel's work on exposing the "global poverty reduction" lie.

https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty

>>487699
>>487711
By which I mean to point out that measuring poverty by how many people make $1.90 a day is an extremely shit way of assessing poverty and for all we know China could have a lot more or a lot less poverty than this graph implies. We shouldn't accept junk science just because it makes China look good.

>>487699
Indeed, if we accept the self-serving trash measurement of poverty as invented by the World Bank and regurgitated in this graph, we would also be forced to accept that not only China but most other top countries have managed to reduce world poverty over the span of recent decades. And we can all thank the wonderful neoliberal policies of free trade and debt entrapment via the World Bank for doing it.

I REALIZED TODAY:
SINCE THE WEST WANTS TO DESTORY CHINA THEY MAKE WESTERN RIGHTOIDS SAY THAT CHINA IS EVIL COMMUNISTS AND THEY MAKE THE WESTERN LEFTOIDS THAT CHINA IS EVIL CAPITALISTS

>>464441
THERE IS NO ONE TRUE HOLY PURE-INTERPRETATION OF SOCIALISM BECAUSE THE SINATRA DOCTRINE WAS NEVER RESCINDED WERE ALL SUPPOSED TO KEEP GAMBLING WITH THE COMBINATIONS AND TAKE NOTES FROM WHO SUCCEEDS THE MOST

>>487730
Ok lets unpack this, the US wants to encircle China and keep it in a subordinate role, of providing labor-power for what they call low and medium value added economic tasks. Basically design and finance is supposed to happen in the US while resource processing and assembly is supposed to happen in China. That way imperial capital can extract imperial super-profits, and they can play Chinese workers against US workers.

While China accommodates US companies and lets them exploit Chinese workers, they haven't been doing that for free. China was technologically behind and this arrangement allowed closing the technology gap. The US got cheap labor-power and the Chinese got newer technology. And the Chinese are now caught up and capable of generating homegrown technologies too. The Chinese consider this a fair exchange where both sides benefited and now want to continue the trade relationship with the US but in a way where the Chinese also do the high valued added stuff like design.

The US will now proceed to try various schemes to knock China back down into a subordinate role (like what it tried and failed with Russia) and when that fails, the US will be forced to divest from imperial militarism and re-invest into domestic industrial production and all the other stuff like infrastructure etc.

You are correct about the propaganda method, it's trying to portray China as the [insert political faction appropriate boogieman here]. And that's why the portrayal of China is so contradictory.

If you are listening to what the Chinese are saying, they plan on doing something similar to social democracy by the mid 2030s. That will be completed in the 2050s and by the late 2070s they will begin transitioning to communism which they think will take another 100 years to fully realize. So full communism in the latter third of the 22nd century. The 2050s date is also the time frame when the falling rate of profit bottoms out according to Marx's theories, so that time-table probably isn't a coincidence.

>>487732
WHEN THE RATE OF PROFIT ACTUALLY HITS 0% ON 2059 WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS? WILL THE ENTIRE WORLD ALL BECOME SOCIALDEMOCRACY AT ONCE? WHO WILL ESCAPE TO WHERE?

>>487740
When the profit rate declines, competition between capitalists intensifies. Meaning that one capitalist will try to increase their profits at the expense of another capitalist.

It's hard to predict how exactly this is going to play out. I guess that in the 2050s about half the workforce will work on stuff related to consequences of climate change. Many coastline cities will have flooded and there will be a big rebuilding and relocation effort. Combined with declining population demographics labor-power will be very scarce. So that'll probably squeeze the profit rate.

I don't know what the Chinese are planning to do, they've been doing a lot of cooperatives, maybe those can be turned into non-profit orgs or something.

In the past capitalism used wars to destroy capital and clear out the balance sheets to restore the profit rate, but as far as i can tell that recent big-ish war in Ukraine didn't really move the needle, so warfare as a means of counteracting the falling profit rate could be over. Not sure why that is tho.

It's already getting harder to commercialize technology, there's a bunch of cool stuff we could technically do, but we aren't doing it because there's no business-model for it. I guess that aspect of technology will continue to grow and eventually find expression in some other form.