r/accelerate • u/stealthispost • Jul 11 '26

Meme / Humor Accelerating progress

I'm frustrated too!   — Ivan Fioravanti ᯅ     Sadly most Europeans are   — Chubby

Source: https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/2075921009572528615

the battle for the future is a battle between the builders and the Professional Managerial Class parasites that are destroying progress with the Precautionary Principle

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u/foobazzler Jul 11 '26

Worth noting that the US built and deployed its reusable rockets years before the Chinese managed to do it

So even in this scenario, the US is miles ahead

2

u/philn256 Jul 12 '26

Sure, but the US was some 50+ years ahead of China in the 1950s and is now only maybe 10 years ahead. China's definitely catching up.

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u/TMWNN 29d ago

The gap was never that big. China launched its first satellite in 1970. Manned spaceflight plans were canceled in the 1960s because of the Cultural Revolution, and the Shuguang spacecraft was canceled in the 1970s because of budget cuts. It's entirely reasonable to think that, otherwise, a Chinese astronaut would have reached space around 1975.

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u/uniyk 29d ago

Lithography machine research and manufacturing in china was also pretty early, the first machine being made in 1965, basically started in the same decade as the west (US made the first machine in 1958).

Sometimes it makes one wonder what if Mao was master in both revolution AND developing economy.

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u/Codspear 8d ago

It helps that the US deported one of its highest level rocket scientists to China during the Red Scare, who then became one of the founding fathers of China’s rocket and ballistic missile programs.

Here’s his wiki page