China knows how to be the stork.
Citing Aesop:
= = = = = START FABLE:
The Fox one day thought of a plan to amuse himself at the expense of the Stork. “You must come and dine with me today,” he said to the Stork, smiling to himself at the trick he was going to play. The Stork gladly accepted the invitation and arrived in good time and with a very good appetite.
For dinner the Fox served soup. But it was set out in a very shallow dish, and all the Stork could do was to wet the very tip of his bill. Not a drop of soup could he get. But the Fox lapped it up easily, and, to increase the disappointment of the Stork, made a great show of enjoyment.
The hungry Stork was much displeased at the trick, but he was a calm, even-tempered fellow and saw no good in flying into a rage. Instead, not long afterward, he invited the Fox to dine with him in turn. The Fox arrived promptly at the time that had been set, and the Stork served a fish dinner that had a very appetizing smell. But it was served in a tall jar with a very narrow neck. The Stork could easily get at the food with his long bill, but all the Fox could do was to lick the outside of the jar, and sniff at the delicious odor.
= = = = = END FABLE.
We constantly underestimate everyone who isn’t German. We admire and emulate German vapid theories and contemptuous imperialism. We look down on everyone else. We underestimated Russian technology badly before and after Sputnik. Since we were training our scientists the Kraut way, led by Nazi retreads, we assumed with Kraut arrogance that our science would win every time. Russia was training its scientists the Booker T way, with industrial experience instead of theories. They won.
In 1960 we underestimated them again. We flew a surveillance plane over their territory, “too high for their defenses.” Oops. They captured Powers and proved he was a spy, and we stupidly claimed he got lost while checking the weather over Norway. We keep playing the same stupid game when our spies pose as “lost hikers”. Nobody except our own idiot “journalists” is fooled by this shit.
We have a long history of underestimating China. We trained their engineers in the 80s, figuring they couldn’t possibly do more than copy our methods. They took what they learned and multiplied it in their own directions, because they KNOW THEIR OWN SKILLS. We offshored all of our industry at the same time, figuring that China would always be low-wage slave labor for us. They learned our manufacturing methods and multiplied them in their own direction again.
Now we’re making the same mistake with AI. We think we have a monopoly, EVEN WHILE OUR EQUIPMENT IS MADE IN CHINA. Our entire economy is being reshaped to benefit Altman’s Holy Share Value, while China calmly reads our code in the equipment THEY ARE BUILDING, and uses their 5000 year history of mathematical thinking to beat our clumsy brute force Kraut methods.
We made the same mistake with Cuba and Persia and Russia and Venezuela from the angle of sanctions and deprivation. We blockaded them, assuming they couldn’t figure out how to use their own resources. When we deprived them of our money and products, they learned how to make their own products and use their own best abilities. We stopped selling oil and wheat to Russia, and now Russia is a massive exporter of oil and wheat.
You’ll always do better when you use your own SPECIFIC INNATE GIFTS. Since 1980 we have abandoned and given away ALL of our specific innate gifts in industry and farming.
Citing a 1903 article by Booker T:
= = = = = START BOOKER T:
Those who once opposed this, see now that while the Negro youth who becomes skilled in agriculture and a successful farmer may not be able himself to pass through a purely literary college, he is laying the foundation for his children and grandchildren to do it if desirable.
Industrial education in this generation is contributing in the highest degree to success in higher education. It is now realized that insofar as the race has intelligent and skillful producers, the greater will be the success of the minister, lawyer, doctor, and teacher.
Another reason for better understanding of the objects and influence of industrial training, is the fact that it has been taken up with much interest and activity by the Southern whites, and that it has been established at such universities as Cornell in the East, and in practically all of the state colleges of the great West.
It is now seen that the result of such education will be to help the black man to make for himself an independent place in our great American life. It was largely the poverty of the Negro that made him the prey of designing politicians immediately after the war.
= = = = = END BOOKER T.
Citing an old TV advertising jingle…
Nothing says livin,
like using what you’re given,
and Booker T says it best.
Or if you prefer the voiceover, here’s my inimitable rendition.
Polistra's Mill 