The Chinese Are Coming! The Chinese Are Coming! (Only It’s Not How You Think)
Holy shit, the Chinese are coming. But it’s not how you think. They’re not coming to take over a depressed, podunk American town and fight an insurgency of armed high school jocks. They’re not coming to buy up all of our real estate, convert the dollar to renminbi, or force us all to speak Mandarin (I mean, hello? This is America, where most people only speak American, so good luck with that). They are coming to America in record numbers as tourists, but that’s only a temporary phenomenon and, quite frankly, we could use the dough.
According to Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, the Chinese are coming…to take over the Internet. In a talk given at last week’s Gartner Symposium, Schmidt predicted that the internet in 5 years would be dominated by Chinese-language content.
For those who are “extremely terrified of Chinese people” and can only speak American, take heart. The scarier news that Schmidt delivered?
Today’s teenagers are the model for how the web will work in five years. You know, the same teenagers who we always hear are getting dumber. Schmidt’s exact words:
Talk to a teenager about the way they consume information, and remember that five or ten years from now, that’s your employee. It’s a little frightening, by the way.
A little frightening?!
Building my bunker now…
[ReadWriteWeb: Google's Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years]
Filed under: Google, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, I Am Extremely Terrified of Chinese People, Predictions, Red Dawn, Teenagers, Teenagers Getting Dumber, The Chinese Are Coming, The Internet in Five Years, We're Taking Over Everything, Yellow Peril
Lucky for me I’m studying Mandarin. Five years should be enough time to get ready. …现在我去学习中文。
Me too Shaw! 现在我学汉语，可是我的汉语很不好。
…’course that was only after speaking two “useless” asian languages. Because, goodness knows,if millions of people speak it but they are all farmers, its worthless. *rolls eyes and resists the urge to punch someone*
Who needs Mandarin when almost the whole country is trying to learn English:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jay_walker_on_the_world_s_english_mania.html
You’re kidding, right, J-Mah? Even Cambridge University is now insisting on Mandarin courses. It’s a brave new world.
Ha ha. I’m kidding of course. Internationally, if you want to do business then Mandarin is the way to go. But in the far future I predict the English and Mandarin language will merge into ummm… Engdarian? or Mandrish?
I like both choices. Good ring to ‘em.