Taiwan, South Korea, and Ukraine are all de facto western tributary states. I think you should investigate the actual reasons why China was founded, and maybe read up on the 100 years of humiliation. Why do you think western nations are functionally different as they were 100 years ago? Ultimately capitalism will serve to exploit and destroy Taiwanese people, save a few rich business owners
Why are you worried about the world relying on China? The global economy was actually stabilized by China's zero-covid policy for the past few years because although lockdowns were disruptive, the death and disability of workers is an even greater threat. We now live in an even more unstable time now that China has abandoned this policy since the international community has decided to embrace living with covid.
And God forbid a country outside the west hasn't been completely subjugated by it. Why exactly do you think China's goals aren't aligned with the West? Have you read anything about what imperialism was doing to China (and literally everywhere else on Earth not being settled by Europeans with few exceptions) during the 100 years of humiliation? Do you honestly expect a nation to take that in stride without retribution? I think a lot of younger folks like myself forget that colonialism was alive and well until around 50 years ago, which is the blink of an eye in the long-run.
Sure, you can point to Tibet and Xinjiang as signs of hypocrisy, but I counter: where did all the native americans go in the USA and canada? What was done by the Belgians in the Congo? What was done by the French in Indochina? At least the Uyghurs and Tibetans are actually still alive in large numbers of healthy individuals. Even in China, minorities get special treatment. For example, they were exempt from the One-Child Policy. I don't think there's any example of that in western nations. In the US, black people get the privilege of seeing their children murdered at the hands of the police for minor offenses and disobedience! :)
The war drums are beating and it's fascinating to see otherwise brilliant people fall victim to what is very clearly the propaganda being turned up to manufacture popular support for the genocide of billions under the name of "freedom", "democracy" and a "rules-based system". Let's do an exercise: which nuclear states have the weakest policies preventing the use of nuclear weapons? It's the United States, France, the UK, and Pakistan. Even Putin has stated multiple times on the record (even in late 2022) that Russia will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. India and China are strictly under a policy of no first-use.
Let's remember history: the United States is the only state to ever have used nuclear weapons to deliberately kill people. And remember doubly: those bombs were dropped for demonstration purposes, not out of necessity, even a USA general said so.
Clearly, greed and arrogance will be the downfall of Western imperialism. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc. are all de facto USA asian tributary states under USA hegemony, but nobody wants to acknowledge that.
I hope that in the coming 5 - 10 years once you have the luxury to bear witness to western militaries indiscriminately genociding billions of civilians in the name of "maintaining a rules based order" that you realize you cannot wash the blood from your hands.
I am, without complicating things with moral judgements of the different powers involved, simply making the claim that China’s goals are at odds with the West.
You seem to question this claim and yet go on to provide significant support for why China has historical reasons for this. If you are interested, Read further down in the thread of another comment to my post that I responded to and you’ll see that I cover this a little more, but to reiterate a bit of it:
The Opium Wars and Ensuing 100 Years of Humiliation, despite any change to the governmental structure post-revolution, is still very much in the zeitgeist of China’s perception of the West. And China has taken that lesson to heart, in particular the lesson that: just a little technological superiority by an adversary can nonetheless allow a massive nation with significantly more resources but a lower industrial/technological base to be decisively subjugated to the will of a much smaller opponent.
This very much informs Chinas desire to increase it’s power and sphere of influence, along with advancing to the point that it is, at minimum, significantly more self sufficient at a similar level of technological advancement to the west, and preferably more so.
This unavoidably puts its geopolitical goals at odds with the West because this cannot be accomplished to a significant degree without disrupting at least a little bit the power and influence that the west (particularly USA) has in the world.
I am deliberately not bringing anything like forms of government, realpolitik games, moral judgements and human rights issues etc into my claim because those are all extremely complicated topics and muddy the water in addressing the very narrow and simple claim that China’s goals are not the same as the goals of western powers, and this necessarily results in conflicts and disagreements between these powers.
You and I probably disagree and other aspects of these issues, but from what you wrote I don’t thing we disagree on the claim that goals differ, and that is the source of many conflicts, and that this is true before bringing in any value judgements of which side is right/wrong/has the moral high ground/etc, which are separate (thought certainly intertwined) claims.
Finally, to address the dependency issue: a significant reason that countries are worried about over reliance on China is for the same reason people should be worried about having a single point of failure in any critical system.
It sounds like you are falling victim to propaganda from the other side.
Profiling and racism by police in America is obviously a problem. Unfortunately, we don't have a nuanced view of policing in China because any criticism of laws and policing by Chinese press is illegal because no freedom of press. The stories we do hear don't paint a rosy picture. A couple of examples are death sentences for drug crimes and organ harvesting.
To your point about "USA asian tributary states under USA hegemony". First, this sounds like Chinese propaganda. Let's assume you're right for the sake of argument. All of those countries you list have free or low-cost healthcare while American society pours money into weapons and military research. They don't pay the USA any kind of tax tribute that I'm aware of. Their economies have flourished and they have kept their own culture. They set their own laws and manage their own governments. It's not clear to me what we get out of the arrangement.
From my point of view, we are gearing up to defend Taiwan if necessary. That is all. I haven't heard anyone mention anything else in the press. Can you explain to me why defending a sovereign country that has existed as long as China would make us guilty of genocide?
Maybe I'm biased, but I think cheering on the toll of remote work on cities is being sanguine. Cities have existed for a long time for reasons beyond proximity to work. Their decline will represent a decline in wider society. We centralize people and resources to give everyone better access to resources and economize on infrastructure. This pattern is as old as civilization itself. Bully for you if you can make off with the loot to the hills. As cliche as it sounds, we live in a society. Of course there will be winners and losers. But to me, the picture of wealthy, isolated, and spread out exurbs hoarding the wealth while cities languish in poverty is an incredibly bleak picture of the future. My hot take is that remote work is unnatural and has only taken off because of how laborious commuting and unaffordable housing have become in this country. Like others have said, many remote workers will still choose cities because of what they offer, and they could be much better places to live if we re-invested in them as such.
> My hot take is that remote work is unnatural and has only taken off because of how laborious commuting and unaffordable housing have become in this country.
Prior to the industrial revolution, most people worked in the same place that they lived. Farmers farmed the land adjacent to their house, shop owners lived above their shops, etc. Working in an office is not natural; working in or adjacent to one's home has been the norm throughout human history.
I largely agree, minus the "unnatural" part: remote work can co-exist with urban development, and does in many places. The US is somewhat unique in the extent to which it's externalized the costs of non-urban (primarily suburban) living; there's no particular reason (other than difficult politics) why we can't price those externalities in and have both strong cities and remote work for those who want.
I don't like that this article makes it mostly a binary of polyester against cotton. There's a wide variety of fabrics available that could do a better job of solving environmental issues in clothing. This article makes no mention of semi-synthetic materials (e.g. rayon, tencel, viscose), which have gentler land-use and actually biodegrade.
If you're really reading what the IPCC is saying, you'd understand that western lifestyles are under threat. Within most peoples' lifetimes, the carrying capacity of earth will be cut in half, unless emissions are reduced severely. Perhaps this is not the demise of mankind, but I think most people would categorize that as a kind of apocalypse. I'd love for you to tell me how human population being halved is somehow okay.
The clathrate gun hypothesis this is referencing has been largely discredited. I'm not familiar with the science, but I trust the researchers who say there are good thermodynamic reasons the clathrate deposits in the arctic will probably not suddenly destabilize. That being said, we should be absolutely be terrified of this because we're not certain clathrate destabilization is off the table. Plus, thawing permafrost is a nearer-term and more realistic methane monster barreling toward humanity.
Please consider laying off the Deep Adaptation doom reading and pick up a phone to bully your representatives and industry leaders into decarbonizing their operations. Even if there is a climate apocalypse the only way any of us survive is through collective and community effort.
Nothing in my comment was in reference to the clathrate hypothesis. My comment was about methane production that is actually occurring due to ancient organic matter that is/was frozen that is now fermenting as the permafrost thaws. In the Arctic circle the land is belching out huge quantities of methane right now. Pockets have formed and exploded, sending bedrock flying a half mile in each direction. Lakes are bubbling out methane profusely. You can poke a hole in the ground and lite a fire.
Exactly - it's not a smart bet to make on technology on behalf of billions of humans who stand to suffer or perish if technological progress does not keep up. Sure, the neolib Steven Pinkers of the world have been right so far that we're not sleepwalking into a malthusian trap, but you only have to be wrong once to spell incalculable consequences for humanity and the planet. The greatest challenge of this century will be moving human activity globally to operate within the safe planetary boundaries, of which we are currently exceeding 5. Our global society is certainly playing with some very risky dice right now.
> "Why don't you support anything made by Google or Apple?"
> At this time, we are reliant on both Google and Apple to be listed in their respective app stores. As such, we have been advised that in order to remain in good standing we should not offer support for these services.
What a disturbing reality these developers are up against. Even though this is a big limitation, the project is wonderful!
I got the chance to casually work through this course while stuck at home during COVID-19. I highly recommend it to anybody who has a surface-level understanding of statistics and wants to dive deep. This is NOT a course for absolute beginners. It is rigorous and thorough. Overall a great resource, especially the notes, but the lecturer is entertaining too.
I disagree with that, as long as you have some mathematics background (calculus, a bit of linear algebra), and an understanding of probability theory (which can be taken from the prerequisite course https://www.edx.org/course/probability-the-science-of-uncert...), this course is self-sufficient and does not need prior knowledge of the subject.
I was a complete beginner in the subject and I am able to follow the course without too much difficulties.
I took a look at the material (the slides on Method of Moments, in particular) and my feeling is that it is a particularly mathematically-heavy treatment of statistics. As it states in its goals, it aims to introduce the mathematical theory of statistics. On the course's main page, it is listed as a senior undergraduate/graduate course. The style tends toward being expository rather pedagogical -- it's a very French/European approach to teaching mathematics.
It does seem to require mathematical maturity beyond the basics, and in my opinion this is likely not accessible to most beginners without some advanced mathematical training.
If you find it accessible as a beginner then I congratulate you on your mathematical prowess.
So I've taught undergrad courses, and my sense is, the average US college engineering sophomore with linalg and say Calculus II (but no Real Analysis) might struggle with this material somewhat. They may know the material for linalg and calculus (and may have gotten As), but my feeling is that many would not have reached the mathematical maturity to truly internalize concepts.
I would place this course maybe at the senior level (with graduate level cross-registration)...400-500 level elective.
What is your sense?
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Side note: it's interesting in that in other countries, e.g. say France, the math curriculum is so darned advanced. In undergrad Year 1 at École Polytechnique, real analysis and variational methods are already covered in common courses.
I'm in the demographic you describe, yet I've had a hard time finding resources to develop that "mathematical maturity" short of going back to graduate school. Which I'd love to do, but am at a point in my career where that would be devastatingly expensive to my future since these are the prime earning and wealth building years.
I wish there was more of a self directed way to achieve this.
I just finished an MS in math and statistics a long time after doing a non-mathematical undergrad degree. I feel a lot of what is called mathematical maturity is actually getting comfortable doing proofs, which I think is hard to learn while also learning more advanced math. I would recommend working through "Mathematical proofs" by Polimeni/Chartrand/Zhang. Unlike math at an earlier level, you can't just check your answers against the official ones to see if you made a mistake - writing proofs is more like writing essays, the grammar is the easy bit, it's the process of putting the arguments together in the right detail and the right order that's important and hard to do without feedback. So you also need to get feedback from mathematicians on your proofs if possible. The best way to do that if you don't have a buddy who happens to be a mathematician is to learn to use LaTeX and ask questions on math.stackexchange.com.
I know someone who took these courses and felt like they got good feedback on their homeworks from the profs running the course.
Feel free to get in touch if you want to chat, I spent a long time trying to self-learn this stuff before starting my math MS, so happy to help in any way I can!
Since it's seems like you were already motivated and interested in learning Math on your own, how would you describe what your learnings were before you enrolled in formal studies? In other words if you could travel back in time to talk to yourself before you made the decision to enroll in a Master's program, what would the younger you have asked the older you and what would be the response?
For example I'm thinking a reply might be like "well you're going to miss out on opportunities xyz by commiting to a Master's program, but because I know you and know you wouldn't be happy without satisfying your desire to learn Math in a more formal study the trade of is worth it. And you don't know this yet but when you start learning about P,Q,R you'll really get a kick out of it" :-)
I'm currently doing MITx's Fundamentals of Statistics MOOC, which seems fairly similar to this one. The course material doesn't require too much understanding of real analysis, though the instructor does make cursory acknowledgements of the "technical details" he's glossing over, presumably for the more advanced students. The only analysis concepts we've used are continuity, differentiability, and convergence. It isn't a proof-based course: the instructor does prove some theorems in class, but the psets are all just computation. I do agree that it'll be harder to internalize some of the concepts w/o a background in analysis, but I think you can get a reasonable amount out of the course regardless.
That said, I did study analysis (but not measure theory) in college, and I don't entirely remember what I learned from calc vs analysis classes, so I may be a bit off here.
The "undergrad Year 1 at École Polytechnique" is really the junior year, since the freshman/sophomore years of university education would have be done in prépas. It is undergrad, and it would be their first year at the school, but it is quite misleading to call it "undergrad Year 1". Given that undergrad is three years in France, "undergrad Year 1 at École Polytechnique" means "last year of undergrad".
Ah what you say is true... upon examination, this curriculum is for the 4-year ingénieur polytechnicien program, which culminates in a Master's degree (diplôme d'ingénieur).
Note that this is unusual in that it lasts four years, not three.
Standard curriculum is three years of bachelor's, then two years of master's.
In the prépa - engineering school track, it is two years of prépa, then three years of engineering school that gives out a master's in engineering.
Thus the first year of engineering school maps to a (third) last year of undergrad, the second to a first year of a master's and the last to the last year of a master's.
For those who might speed through 18.650, the natural next step is [0] 18.655 (Mathematical Statistics) followed by the new course [1] 9.521 (Non-Asymptotic Perspectives in Statistics).
I actually agree with your point on prerequisites. I think by absolute beginner I meant to say no experience with probability theory either. With the prerequisites you outlined, I think a determined person could do well with the material. Mainly posting this follow-up to correct myself so people curious on whether they'd be able to follow the course are better-informed.
"I disagree with that, as long as you have some mathematics background (calculus, a bit of linear algebra), and an understanding of probability theory"
I agree with this. I'm currently taking the Statistics and Data Science MicroMasters from MIT on the EDX platform. When you see a course titled "Introduction to .... ", it's never really an introductory material. They go really deep. I've taken the "Probability and the uncertainty of data". Granted, it starts with introducing very basic concepts, however quickly delves deep into very advanced topics. I must admit, Prof. John Tsitsiklis has done an awesome job in the course and even a beginner can take it. It's not an easy course to complete under deadlines.
how was your experience ? I am thinking to take micromaster. please do mention your background and what was your goal before taking the couse and what you achieved?
thanks
Hey mate.. the probability course was really rigorous and I found the difficulty to be hard, especially with a full time job. I failed the first time, but mostly because I didn't have enough time to study. It's awesome deep dive into the world of probability and lays a solid foundation to get into statistics. I'm currently taking the "Data Analysis for social scientists" course right now. It's ambitious and has a lot of content. However, the material only covers the subject at a very shallow level and expects a lot from the students when it comes to home work exercises. Also, make sure you learn R before you start the course, that'd help a lot.
I completed my bachelors in Electrical Engineering 14 years ago. I'd been looking to get some formal education in Statistics as I work as a data analyst. The course has been really good and I'm learning a lot of the theoretical aspects of Data analysis that I otherwise would never have learnt thought DataCamp or Udemy or others. I'm glad to have started it, however, it's not practical and it won't help you get a job immediately. It's very much academic in nature, however you can learn the practical stuff from other sources if you need to or learn it on the job. Depends on what you're after. I'm not doing it to get a job, rather doing it to get into academia. Hope that helps.
