Naomi WuJan 31, 2023

RT @[email protected]

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Why is China not creative? NASA is planning a crewed mission to Mars. China is not planning to go to another planet to perform a mission but wants to beat the US on the same goal. If China were a person, it has one fucking personality.

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/BerniceMa8/status/1620335323741061121

Bernice Ma on Twitter

“@RealSexyCyborg @chineseciv @zhao_dashuai Why is China not creative? NASA is planning a crewed mission to Mars. China is not planning to go to another planet to perform a mission but wants to beat the US on the same goal. If China were a person, it has one fucking personality.”

Twitter
Show threadNaomi Wu
Obviously, these aren't good-faith questions, it's conclusions from decades of Sinophobic propaganda. But that does not mean from the outside looking in, it can't look a bit like this sometimes- particularly if we don't try to show evidence to the contrary.
I'll give it a shot.
Jan 31, 2023 at 1:15pmMastodon Twitter Crossposter
Show threadNaomi WuJan 31, 2023

>Why is China not creative?

This is more "Why does China often appear to not be creative in ways Western cultures recognize and value?"

I'd start here with this article I wrote way back for @[email protected]

https://hackaday.com/2017/08/30/lu-bans-axe-and-working-with-your-chinese-suppliers/

Lu Ban’s Axe And Working With Your Chinese Suppliers

It is nearly impossible to build any kind of hardware these days without at some point in the process dealing with China — Chinese suppliers, and so by extension Chinese culture. Difficulties…

Hackaday
Show threadVictoria McIntoshJan 31, 2023
@SexyCyborg Anyone who thinks "China is not creative" hasn't paid attention to the country's arts, science, technology, literature or industrial sector ever.
Show threadmhoyeJan 31, 2023
@vmcintosh @SexyCyborg Well, sure, but if we turned the question around to something like "what's keeping me from seeing and understanding this" then we'd have to engage in some sort of introspection about the scope of our own vision and maybe even reflect on the influences that limit our worldviews, and clearly we could never do that, that sounds like work.
Show threadDaigoro Toyama Jan 31, 2023
@SexyCyborg When they say "China," do they mean the Prople's Republic of China, or the east Asian region that has traditionally been part of "China," where people invented things like noodles, gunpowder, etc., etc...?
Show threadStrypeyFeb 4, 2023
@SexyCyborg
I'm so going to start asking know-it-all trolls why they show their axe to Lu Ban :P
Show threadMath LoverFeb 7, 2023

@SexyCyborg that was interesting to read (as well as the comments). I’m more familiar with Japanese culture and this is similar to issues there (at least back when I lived in Japan).

From a foreigner’s perspective, China seems super creative to me looking at all the recent innovation. The changes in China since I was last there in the early 90s are incredible. No one would have believed it would change this quickly. What you describe makes sense regarding hierarchy impacting creativity.

Show threadMath LoverFeb 7, 2023

@SexyCyborg I brought up Japan because what you describe sounds like issues in Japan but in my experience I found Japanese and Chinese culture to each be more like the USA in many ways that like each other. They seemed so very different from one another to me in the 80s and 90s.

I did a project on creativity in grad school and talked about the Chinese artistic method of copying from your master first and then being creative as opposed to the American way of being creative before gaining skill.

Show threadStrypeyFeb 10, 2023

@SexyCyborg
Incidentally, I think the anglophone world traditionally has the same problem with info about on-the-ground engineering reality not making it up the management hierarchy in large organisations, where status is often based on seniority rather than ability. There's a great book about this called Why Your Boss is Programmed to be a Dictator, which can be digitally borrowed from the IA library:
https://archive.org/details/whyyourbossispro0000dhru

The author's old blog is worth a look too:
https://dhruve.blogspot.com/?m=1

Why your boss is programmed to be a dictator : a book for anyone who has a boss or is a boss : Dhruve, Chetan : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xiv, 189 pages ; 22 cm

Internet Archive
Show threadMmmmJun 14, 2023
@SexyCyborg China is very creative. It takes vast creativity to have rocket artillery and printing press before everyone else.
Show threadXuu 🌹(he/him) ☮️🗽🚀Feb 9, 2023
@strypey @Mathlover @daihard @gargantua @mhoye @vmcintosh @SexyCyborg it appears this was the last thread to make it before Twitter shut down API access.
Show threadStrypeyFeb 10, 2023

@xuu
> Twitter shut down API access.

Does this mean my crossposter won't work anymore?

@Mathlover @daihard @gargantua @mhoye @vmcintosh @SexyCyborg

Show threadStrypeyFeb 10, 2023

Hmm, looks like it. No new crossposts since Jan 30. I recently posted a policy suggestion to make it illegal to block good faith interoperation, without requiring platforms to actively support it.

@xuu
@Mathlover @daihard @gargantua @mhoye @vmcintosh @SexyCyborg