Dan Traficonte

Is China an Engineering or Developmental State? Breakneck is excellent, but could use a touch more developmental thinking.

In my review of Dan Wang's Breakneck, I argue that China’s trajectory looks less unique—and less puzzling—when viewed through the lens of the developmental state, a framework long used to explain the (also building-heavy) rise of Japan and Korea.

www.valueadded.tech/p/is-china-a...

The ongoing denigration of expertise, science, and the research enterprise will have both short- and long-term costs for human health and lives

See this chart for one stark example: NIH funding has dramatically slowed down.

Grant awards are down *$3 billion* so far, compared to same time period last year

I asked the White House to explain.

“This is not a researcher entitlement program,” said an official, defending their new approach.

A major advantage of state-sponsored science — particularly in-house government R&D — is (or was?) the avoidance of the low-risk short-termism of corporate research

Trump admin may think corporate R&D alone can maintain national tech competitiveness — a pre-WW2 idea that every country with the means to do so has since abandoned

We could add to @quinnslobodian.com’s analogy Trump’s gutting of state capacity — SA is famously reliant on outside “experts” from McKinsey et al for any and all major decisions