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Cake day: June 26th, 2024

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  • I can’t elaborate on the Dutch, but I feel that your prediction that they won’t hire native speakers/chartered translators will hold true not only for the Netherlands. I used to work for international publishing houses in various roles and guess I have some idea of this industry, and I think they won’t hire experts just for saving money (not because they overestimate their language proficiency). They won’t care about quality as long as the financials are fine, even if such a commercial success has a short life.

    The only exceptions I see at the moment are some small media organizations and/or grassroots media. But large publishing houses will use AI to further drive down costs, no matter what.

    A user in another thread on this topic has guessed that there will be a ‘parallel economy’ (their word) dedicated to human-made goods, while the rest is AI generated. Maybe that’s the future?










  • https://feddit.org/u/petrescatraian@libranet.de

    Seems all fine, right?

    Pro-EU leader claims Moldova victory despite alleged Russian meddling

    Moldova’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu has claimed a second term after a tense election run-off seen as a choice between Europe and Russia. With most votes counted Sandu had won 55%, and in a late-night speech she promised to be president for all Moldovans.

    Her rival Alexandr Stoianoglo, who was backed by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists, had called for a closer relationship with Moscow.

    During the day the president’s national security adviser said there had been “massive interference” from Russia in Moldova’s electoral process that had “high potential to distort the outcome”.

    Russia had already denied meddling in the vote, which came a week after another key Eastern European election in Georgia, whose president said it had been a “Russian special operation”.





  • This is maybe a devastating example why centralization and central planning is a bad and dehumanizing act for individuals in a society. There is a good documentary about China’s so-called “Ghost Children”. These are those who were born as younger siblings during China’s One Child policy.

    The documentary was made in 2014. It shows how quickly things can change, and how people suffer now and then due to bad politics.

    It’s really worth your time.

    China’s Ghost Children – (video, 36 min)

    Second or third children born illegally during China’s One Child Policy - implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country’s population growth by restricting many families to a single child - are banned from marrying, having children or simply boarding a train. Condemned to a non-life, these ghost children do not officially exist according to the Chinese state. ARTE Reportage goes in search of these ‘Haihaizi’, those children who should not have been born.

    [Edit typo.]


  • This is maybe a devastating example why centralization and central planning is a bad and dehumanizing act for individuals in a society. There is a good documentary about China’s so-called “Ghost Children”. These are those who were born as younger siblings during China’s One Child policy.

    The documentary was made in 2014. It shows how quickly things can change, and how people suffer now and then due to bad politics.

    It’s really worth your time.

    China’s Ghost Children – (video, 36 min)

    Second or third children born illegally during China’s One Child Policy - implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country’s population growth by restricting many families to a single child - are banned from marrying, having children or simply boarding a train. Condemned to a non-life, these ghost children do not officially exist according to the Chinese state. ARTE Reportage goes in search of these ‘Haihaizi’, those children who should not have been born.

    [Edit typo.]




  • Income equality is just one of many other factors to assess a just society as we know. But as many focus on China’s GDP growth in its recent history, here are just numbers:

    Between 2014 and 2022, in China the share of the bottom-50% income group (pre-tax) in the national income fell from 14.4% to 13.7%. In the same period, the shares of the top-1% and top-10% income groups rose from 13.7% and 41.5% to 15.7% and 43.4%, respectively. In a nutshell: the Chinese rich got richer, the poor got poorer.

    For Western-style democracies, the numbers are diverse:

    In European democracies like Germany and especially Norway, top income groups lost while the bottom-50% gained, while in countries like Finland all three mentioned groups gained, suggesting that the ‘middle class’ paid the bill. In other countries like Sweden, Denmark, and the U.S., the numbers show gains for the top at the cost of the bottom half.

    And in Australia, top income groups lost significantly more than the bottom-50% gained, suggesting the middle class benefited, while in countries like Canada and Japan there appear to be only slight or even no significant changes in the period between 2014-2022.

    But as I said, we must also focus on other factors that make a good society (the four freedoms come to my mind: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear). Given the fact that some in this thread cite China’s growth of GDP and national wealth as a factor of societal success, it is clear that this argument does not hold, though.

    [Edit typo.]


  • In a piece published in November 2022, Nobel Economist Daron Acemoglu argues that China’s economy is rotting from the head.

    For a while, [China’s leader] Xi, his entourage, and even many outside experts believed that the economy could still flourish under conditions of tightening central control, censorship, indoctrination, and repression [after Xi secured an unprecedented third term (with no future term limits in sight), and stacked the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee with loyal supporters]. Again, many looked to AI as an unprecedentedly powerful tool for monitoring and controlling society.

    Yet there is mounting evidence to suggest that Xi and advisers misread the situation, and that China is poised to pay a hefty economic price for the regime’s intensifying control. Following sweeping regulatory crackdowns on Alibaba, Tencent, and others in 2021, Chinese companies are increasingly focused on remaining in the political authorities’ good graces, rather than on innovating.

    The inefficiencies and other problems created by the politically motivated allocation of credit are also piling up, and state-led innovation is starting to reach its limits. Despite a large increase in government support since 2013, the quality of Chinese academic research is improving only slowly.

    […] The top-down control in Chinese academia is distorting the direction of research, too. Many faculty members are choosing their research areas to curry favor with heads of departments or deans, who have considerable power over their careers. As they shift their priorities, the evidence suggests that the overall quality of research is suffering.

    Xi’s tightening grip over science and the economy means that these problems will intensify. And as is true in all autocracies, no independent experts or domestic media will speak up about the train wreck he has set in motion […]




  • Persecution of 10 Catholic bishops in China intensified after Vatican-China deal, report says

    A new report sheds light on the repression faced by 10 Catholic bishops in China who have resisted the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to exert control over religious matters since the 2018 China-Vatican agreement on the appointment of bishops.

    The report, authored by Nina Shea for the Hudson Institute, documents the harrowing experiences of Vatican-approved bishops who have suffered detention without due process, surveillance, police investigations, and banishments from their dioceses for refusal to submit to the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), a state-managed group controlled by the CCP’s United Front Work Department.

    “This report shows that religious repression of the Catholic Church in China has intensified since the 2018 China-Vatican agreement on the appointment of bishops,” Shea said.

    “Beijing targeted these 10 bishops after they opposed the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which requires its members to pledge independence from the Holy See,” she added.