By measures of infrastructure quality, tech integration, and user experience, China's major cities feel more modern and more developed than comparable US cities.
Nathan proposes a blind comparison: spend a week in New York or San Francisco and a week in Beijing or Shanghai without knowing which country is which, and he believes an overwhelming majority would identify China as the richer country because of newer infrastructure and frictionless integrated services. ✦ AI generated
Nathan · The Cognitive Revolution · 2026-07-27 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 53:08
if you were just to go to New York or San Francisco or both and then separately you were to go to Beijing and Shanghai or both and you didn't know anything about the countries or the history and probably would also have to mask the prices because the price differential is definitely significant and just spend a week in in each of these places and then ask which of these countries is the richer country. I think it would be pretty clear to most people. I think you would get honestly an overwhelming majority of people saying that China is the richer country because it does have newer stuff and more integrated lower friction experience that just feels like the future and it's ubiquitous across the at least the major cities that I've been to. But kind of a bottom line, what does it feel to be there litmus test? I think it does feel more modern and in some ways more developed than than life in the United States does, which is a pretty remarkable accomplishment
verbatim transcript · starts at 53:08
53:08experiment that I've been running is if you were just to go to New York or San Francisco or both and then separately you were to go to Beijing and Shanghai or both and you didn't know anything about the countries or the history and probably would also have to mask the prices because the price differential is definitely significant and just spend a week in in each of these places and then
53:31ask which of these countries is the richer country. I think it would be pretty clear to most people. I think you would get honestly an overwhelming majority of people saying that China is the richer country because it does have newer stuff and more integrated lower friction experience that just feels like the future and it's ubiquitous across the at least the major cities that I've been to but from what I understand it
54:00really has extended across China to a really remarkable extent. So, we'll probably come back to that maybe a little bit later today and definitely a little bit more in in the next two episodes that I plan to do about this. But kind of a bottom line, what does it feel to be there litmus test? I think it does feel more modern and in some ways more developed than than life in the
54:25United States does, which is a pretty remarkable accomplishment obviously for Chinese government, Chinese society as a whole. Okay. So, in Beijing, I did a couple days worth of tourism when I first got there before the the real AI focused part of the trip opened up. And again, a couple just highle comments. And I'm not going to turn this into a travel blog, but Beijing is absolutely a
54:51world-class city from a tourist perspective. If you're going there for no reason other than to see some history and see some famous sites, it is absolutely a world-class destination. The number of incredible sites is enough to keep you busy for I would say easily a full week. And I would put it on the level of Paris in terms of just everywhere you go, you're looking at incredible deep history with beautiful