So when American companies invade the privacy of European citizens its okay, but when Chinese companies do the same with American citizens this is "digital totalitarianism"? Anyone care to explain this to me?
There's a lot to unpack here. But no, European countries can't realistically take too many measures, mostly under the threat of economic and political retaliation. No more than Chinese citizens are free to take whatever actions they see fit against their leadership. We're all free to take any action we want but it's not freedom if we can't exercise it out of fear of retaliation.
You can see this in action with most EU countries disagreeing with many sanctions imposed on US enemies but eventually caving under pressure from the US. Or when having to switch the frequencies used for the Galileo system to something that could be more easily jammed by the US.
The US is exhibiting towards other countries the same kind of tyrannical behavior bent on maintaining power that the Chinese leadership is exercising towards its citizens. It's the age old need to maintain power, and the more power, the further you're willing to go to maintain it. From a global surveillance exercise where every human is spied on relentlessly, to meddling into most countries internal affairs to the point of changing regimes to suit them, to oppressing their own citizens. These are all publicly and officially documented issues. It's all great if and only if your interests align.
If you cannot acknowledge this then you are certainly not prepared to have a discussion beyond "we're good, they're bad".
> But no, European countries can't realistically take too many measures, mostly under the threat of economic and political retaliation.
They can also threaten economic and political retaliation. That's international politics and negotiation and diplomacy in a nutshell. It's a dirty game but the rules have been known for centuries. Europe isn't some tiny South American nation, it's a global power whose GDP rivals the US. That it's failed to successfully do this is the fault of Europe and no one else.
Europe has failed to protect itself against US power and now you seem to be upset that the US wants to not fall into the same trap in terms of China?
See, you're not actually contradicting me, just finding a justification for why the US is to the world what China is to its citizens.
> They can also threaten economic and political retaliation.
Sure but threats and negotiations work if you actually have the bigger gun and leverage. Given that the US is both the largest economy and military power this feels like a moot point.
> Europe has failed to protect itself against US power
Yes, just like Chinese citizens failed to protect themselves against their leadership. They aren't just a tiny South American nation, they are 1.3bn people who want freedom. That they failed to successfully do this is the fault of the people and no one else.
But really, the fact the EU stood quietly next to the US while the US tightened its grip on the world is indeed a failure of the EU (Europe, given that this started happening long before the EU). They took the easy road of growing in someone else's shade, even if post WW2 it may have been the best or only thing Europe could have done. This doesn't change anything about my characterization of the US, it's just a tangent.
I'm not saying what China is doing is ok because the US does it too. But just like OP, I pointed out the double standards obvious even here on HN. Whether it's mis- or dis-information, ignorance, hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, or whatever else you may call it, the fact that people hold 2 completely different and opposing opinions on the same kind of action differentiated only by "us vs. them" is a massive failure of those people.
> ... they [Chinese citizens] are 1.3bn people who want freedom.
Is there evidence that a significant portion of the population really do want more freedom? While I would hope so it's possible the majority there prefer the status quo. (Of course lack of evidence doesn't prove it.)
I have no evidence either way, the truth might as well be in the middle (many like it, many hate it). In an attempt to show how "double standard" GP's opinion was I just repurposed the argument that one party failing to counteract an opponent which has more power than them, being dominated instead, is entirely the fault of the weaker party. I replaced "the EU" with "the Chinese people". To my surprise GP went on to confirm even this exaggerated interpretation of mine, later adding that allowing them to make the mistake and implicitly paying for it is the only way the weaker party will learn to be strong. Such opinions are far too cynical and extremist for my taste.
>Sure but threats and negotiations work if you actually have the bigger gun and leverage. Given that the US is both the largest economy and military power this feels like a moot point.
China's growing influence and Russia's influence on international politics clearly show that it's not about absolute power but how you apply it. Europe is large enough and powerful enough that the US can't invade it or cause massive economic damage without significantly hurting itself. Europe has massive leverage in negotiations and politics and diplomacy. It just fails to use it likely because it's not unified enough to fully and quickly apply it.
Please stop blaming Europe's diplomatic failures on external factors. All that does is ensure that they will continue to happen because you won't blame the government that is actually at fault.
> Please stop blaming Europe's diplomatic failures on external factors
After I clearly stated this:
>> But really, the fact the EU stood quietly next to the US while the US tightened its grip on the world is indeed a failure of the EU [...] They took the easy road of growing in someone else's shade
Is a sign that you did not bother to read, let alone understand my comment. That is terribly disrespectful and a sign that you have no interest in a discussion, just a monologue of meritless opinions.
Your posts can be summarized as "Europe messed up in the past but now it's totally not their fault because the US is just too big to do anything." My post was "the US isn't that big and Europe has plenty of options so Europe is still messing up due to it's own fault even if you keep deflecting that point."
No, my comments (direct response to OP's "why are we pretending what US is doing is different form what China is doing") can be summarized as "pretending China and the US are different is just un/mis/disinformed or hypocritical". They are both superpowers and they both resort to any measures within their grasp to maintain or increase that power. Pretending otherwise is just euphemistically "double standards".
The EU only appeared in the discussion as a reference or "witness", just like the Chinese people are used as reference for what their leadership is doing. You turning the discussion towards some EU blame for whatever isn't only a meritless distraction from the topic, it's also akin to blaming the Chinese people for not overthrowing the CCP. They are 1.3bn people, surely they have "massive leverage".
I reiterate, you have no interest in reading or understanding any of my comments. The extent to which you perverted and rewrote my words just to fit whatever narrative you're more easily able to support really makes for low quality discussion. I have more than adequately made and supported my point and will politely withdraw.
A long time ago, in a 'Modesty Blaise' book, when Wille Garvin is incarcerated and the guard tries to cut a deal with him saying that he'll set him free - Garvin says "I already have my freedom, what you'll give me is liberty".
I always think of this phrase whenever questions of freedom come up.
And like you mention, all of us our free, but mostly our liberty is curtailed by external circumstances or by our own fears of retaliation.
I will not deny the atrocities the US has committed and will undoubtedly continue to commit. Any nation with that level of power will end up doing the exact same thing in order to maintain that power. It’s no secret that China wants that power. However I’d much rather live in a world where the US has that power than China. I’m sure my personal bias play into it, being from a western (though not American) nation, but I’ll try to remain objective.
- The US has at least a two party system. It’s not much, and is deeply flawed, but at least the governmental power is not completely unchecked. That and the government is ostensibly at the mercy of the people. Propaganda, disinformation, and manipulation aside, if a government does something egregious enough the people of the US still have the power to vote them out. The Chinese people do not have that power. Their government is much more top down and prescriptive. The only checking of power is the willingness of lower level people to enforce rules.
- Freedom of Speech. Nobody is above criticism. Simple as that. Not being able to question the government is an awful situation to be in. Imagine a world where you could get extradited to China for saying something critical of the CCP online. I’ll remind you that the CCP jailed 8 doctors in Wuhan last year for raising the alarm about the coronavirus, saying they were spreading false rumours online. No thanks.
- From an ideological standpoint the CCP seems to be be hellbent on reclaiming lost territory and retaliating against the evil west who have wronged them for so long. The US has no such motivation, being relatively young.
Please don’t get me wrong. I think China is a beautiful country, having visited several times, and the Chinese people and culture are both wonderful. I just do not want to live in a CCP-centric world.
The best way to understand all this is that the US basically acquired Western European Empire in all but name after WWII.
If you look at history, the US exercises about as much control of Western Europe as Rome did. Basically the areas were free to run their daily affairs but military matters went through Rome. Similar to now.
The fiction lasted well throughout the Cold War but is starting to fray. It will be interesting to see what happens going forward.
Whataboutism is simply not a good justification for a country doing bad things.
Go ahead and say that the US does bad things. But, regardless of that, we should still retaliate against China for doing bad things to us.
And you bringing up even more bad things that the US has done is not relevant at all, to how we should definitely still stop China from doing bad things.
It was a means to highlight the double standards many people (on HN included) hold, as OP also pointed out. Deciding whether atrocities get a free pass or not depending on the country doing it is just nationalism. Somehow considered those atrocities "necessary" due to some misguided Messiah complex is extremism. Others have done it in the past so we should know how to recognize it. You're judging nationalities instead of crimes, giving murder a free pass when you do it, punishing it when other nationalities do it. At some point you punish them simply because you already established they're bad.
> we should still retaliate against China [...] we should definitely still stop China from doing bad things
You can retaliate. Should implies an obligation. Since the narrative (yours included) is that you're punishing actions ("bad things") not nationality, not following up with retaliating against your own leadership for the same "bad things" or worse means having exactly that misguided Messiah complex (misguided because you don't understand the purpose of your own country's actions) as well as holding a healthy dose of double standards or hypocrisy. You live in a democracy, this is your will. The unspoken desire to enjoy and exert dominance, followed by the inevitable rationalization that gives it a morally acceptable varnish.
As I said in my original comment on this thread:
> If you cannot acknowledge this then you are certainly not prepared to have a discussion beyond "we're good, they're bad".
That is a weird phasing. By "should" I mean that it is a good thing to call out bad things that happen, such as in this case with these apps, and I am happy when the US retaliates against bad things, such as what is happening in this example. The reason being, that these apps are doing bad things that should be stopped. You have not contradicted this point.
> established they're bad
In this specific case though, regarding these app and the actions that they are taking, they are bad though!
> You live in a democracy, this is your will.
Ok. And bad things being punished in this specific example. Thats good. And misdirection to talk about something different does not overrule the fact that it is good in this specific example that these specific bad things are being punished/retaliated against.
> gives it a morally acceptable varnish.
Specifically in this example, it is morally accepted to punish these specific bad things that these apps are doing though. So there are no problem with retaliating against these apps and actions, because in this example they are indeed bad and should be retaliated against.
I don't think the US is the same as China even if the US isn't perfect. The CCP actually commits genocide, takes political prisoners, and its justice system is a kangaroo court. Compare that to the US which spies on people and is taken to court for even attempting to kill a citizen who's become an enemy combatant in a warzone and has a justice system which often invalidates the actions of the legislative branch.
Europe with GDPR does set its own rules for how American tech can operate and penalizes them heavily for perceived infractions. So that continent is taking the actions they want to take which is their right. Beyond that, there are more examples: Spain did effectively shut down Google News, and I don't remember any retaliation.
Look at the wars the US continuously waged over the past decades and count the the deaths and destruction. You can rationalize it any way you want if it makes you feel better, you can pretend it's a fight for freedom on one side, and a fight for oppression on the other, you can say those school children were just combatants. But in the end it's the same on either side: those with power kill to maintain it. Some kill locally, some kill globally.
On the other hand the examples you gave are absolutely minor and barely noteworthy. I referred decisions with global impact, not inconsequential things like Google News being affected in Spain. Intel never payed the fine the EU imposed for unfair practices close to a decade ago. Facebook and Google barely saw a blip due to GDPR since it was basically (and legally it seems) rolled into their ToS.
The real consequential things are the public support the US demands from the EU for sanctions or wars. For political and economical issues that involve far more than you mentioned as a counterpoint. For countless human lives lost.
The US isn't the same, it's just worse as a whole over a longer period. What we've done to South America and the Middle East will impact those areas for decades more. We've got a lot of blood on our hands in the name of democracy, colonialism, and oil futures.
Even more with how our soon to be ex-president pardons convicted war criminals on a whim.
It would be nice if US would be taken to court for everything done, but that is very far from the truth.
For example the US is guilty of criminal negligence during the invasion of Iraq, when an important part of the historical heritage of the entire humanity has been destroyed.
It would have been extremely easy to avoid that, and there were ample efforts to warn the US political and military leaders to take appropriate actions, but all the warnings from competent people were ignored.
A common thief or vandal who destroys one picture from a museum might rot in jail, but US presidents or generals who have destroyed historical artifacts far more valuable will never be punished in any way.
USA actually performs genocide; its prisons are full of people convinced for political (mostly racial) reasons, see the justification for war on drugs; and it’s courts can punish convinced murderer with a fee instead of proper sentence. Not mentioning crimes, which often end up with decorating the perpetrators.
Maybe we should add to this that this is a unforceable ban (as the TikTok and WeChat bans demonstrate) probably mostly designed to annoy incoming Biden administration.
> European countries are free to take whatever actions they see fit against US companies.
And the EU does. But ironically whenever that happens Americans argue that such action isn't about privacy but instead about the EU trying to promote their own domestic industries.
Though I guess that same spin would likely be argued by those on the receiving end of the US/China ban too.
>And the EU does. But ironically whenever that happens Americans argue that such action isn't about privacy but instead about the EU trying to promote their own domestic industries.
International politics isn't fair or just or honest. However that's been known since probably before written history. So of course the US will spin things with propaganda and false statements and whatever. You can't change it or impact it or do stop it directly. So blame Europe for not successfully countering it rather than the US for knowing how to play the game.
> So blame Europe for not successfully countering it rather than the US for knowing how to play the game.
Can this be applied to any situation where one party found itself (through error, inaction, incompetence, inability, etc.) in a position to be dominated or abused by anther party? Or is it only selectively applied based on personal preference or inclination? Because applying it selectively is exactly the double standards people (myself included) highlighted in this thread.
This may be pragmatic but it's also vicious towards the losing party. Politicians or corporations bribing or abusing power to get away with anything know how to play the game. The people being abused or losing everything are to blame for not successfully countering them.
Double standards are a good way to justify anything to your advantage by simply flipping the argument the way it suits you. As I wrote in a previous comment, it makes for exceptionally low quality conversation.
In my view, yes, when the party being dominated or abused has massive power itself. This isn't about a small entity being abused by a large entity no matter how much you seem to want it framed as such. It's two incomprehensibly massive and powerful entities going at at with one losing due to its own actions.
edit: This is the only view I see that allows the losing entity to learn from the experience and avoid it in the future. Any other view just results in the same thing happening again in the future.
> when the party being dominated or abused has massive power itself
The expected "relativistic" cop-out. "Massive" means nothing if your opponent has substantially more. It simply means that no matter how much you want to escalate they can take it a notch higher and you will suffer just a bit more than your opponent. There are examples literally all around you.
> This is the only view I see that allows the losing entity to learn from the experience
The only way? It is a way best used when everything else has failed, like education. Am I to understand that you learned everything from personal experience? If you truly believe things are only ever learned on your own skin then you understand close to nothing about the world, history, and consequences, not living through almost any of them yourself. Which explains the narrow view.
I don't think Europe needs to counter it as American opinions on this sort of action don't matter to most Europeans. I think the user above was more likely calling out the HN community for its double standards with regards to this.
I'd add to this (as a US citizen)
please take action against US companies. The last time, with Microsoft, it was a very good thing for the US, the EU, the World, and the internet.
Not that hard for me. Americans have criticized, sued and raised awareness about their government misconducts, with little repercussions. Joseph Gordon-Levitt didn't get persecuted for playing Snowden. Adam Driver didn't receive state sanctioned intimidation for playing Daniel J. Jones. Director, screenwriters, producers and etc get to live their life normally.
Can you imagine what will happen to Fan Bing Bing if she plays Chai Ling (One of Tiananmen Square student leader)?
So to answer your question - no it's not okay. But I would expect HN audience to be able to see the obvious distinctions.
The committee McCarthy chaired at the time of his notorious anti-Communist crusade was the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which still exists.
You may be thinking of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which also spent some time doing similar anti-Communist witch hunts, which existed until being renamed as the House Internal Security Committee in 1969, and was abolished with it's functions transferred to the House Judiciary Committee in 1975.
Well, no, 63 years ago was Yates v. US; even through the height of the anti-Communist witch hunting phase, the US had a stronger protection of free speech rights of Communists than China has for dissidents today.
It's ironic that you mention Hollywood, because our studios are now catering to CCP sensibilities. You'll never see a film critical of China made domestically. Our studios want access to the Chinese market and they know that if they produce such a film, they'll be blacklisted.
This is why we need top-down decoupling. China knows we're addicted, and they've got us in a good spot to continue growing off of our market.
It’s happening in gaming too. The most recent thing in memory was something Blizzard did, and apparently the word Taiwan is censored in all chats in PubG[1]
Isn’t it the case that only 10 or so US movies are allowed in China in any given year? I figure that we optimize our 10 movies for China and then leave the rest alone.
At a basic level, I agree there’s not a fundamental difference. But I think it’s reasonable to look at practical differences between China and the US and consider which one you’d prefer to be secretly recording your personal data. The US has cultural and constitutional support of free speech, due process, and independent judiciary. On the flip-side, the US has PRISM, theocrats, an insane president, and a history of covert violent foreign intervention. China has little support for freedom of speech, separation of powers, etc.. And is frequently accused of extrajudicially disappearing people for their speech/beliefs.
I think at present I’d still significantly prefer the US over China to secretly collect my personal data (even if I wasn’t a US citizen). It’s certainly possible that difference will further erode over time.
I don’t necessarily mean to endorse banning Chinese apps, as that seems very problematic and arguably cuts against our own value system. It’s always seemed very protectionist when China did that to us, and it seems the same when we do it to them, and comes with the same surface area for corporate corruption of our government.
But does this make a difference in practice? I’ve been to China only for short business trips, so I can’t judge. But when I looked at the city and talked to people in China and outside of it, I didn’t get an impression people are oppressed or suffering. I don’t claim I have the evidence, but it’s just that so many people here paint a grim picture and I’m afraid it’s only based on US propaganda.
Yes, it’s very different. Here’s a Chinese interrogation video of a “suspect” being interrogated for posting a comment mildly criticizing the local police on QQ:
It’s also to a significant extent moot because much of the data that can’t be gathered from banned apps in the US can be bought from data brokers.
When your domestic privacy laws are weak enough to allow a largely unregulated marketplace in personal information and to largely allow domestic apps to gather and sell personal information, banning foreign apps that also do so won’t keep such data out of foreign hands.
It's not difficult to explain. The American government acts in the interests of Americans (or attempts to do so). European governments act in the interests of Europeans. The Chinese government likewise. Their rhetoric reflects those goals. What's the alternative: governments that act against the interests of their population in order to conform to notions of morality that only really apply to individuals?
Governments exist to serve a specific population, not humanity as a whole.
In each case, you also have to consider the possibility that each government is acting in the best interest not of the governed, but of the individual or group doing the governing.
Is this genuinely in the interest of America, or just in the interest of the person making the decision? That's a question you always have to ask, but it seems particularly pertinent in the case of a leader who has been issuing numerous baseless complaints about various opponents, whose actions have repeatedly been refused by courts, and who was denied a second term.
So while it's true that the government doesn't need to act in the interests of anybody but its own citizens, it would be nice to know if this decision achieves even that much -- or if it's just spite.
> In each case, you also have to consider the possibility that each government is acting in the best interest not of the governed, but of the individual or group doing the governin
That's absolutely true, which is why we have courts, representative legislatures, and elections. Methods of mitigating the corruption of the governing class are built into the system. It doesn't work quickly or perfectly, but it's better than autocracy.
America's foreign policy (as a government as evidenced through history and present-day) is to police and/or spy on the world but not to be policed and/or spied on.
Everyone wants to spy, nobody wants to be spied on. It's a typical part of what we call international power politics and it's been going on for roughly all of human history.
I honestly don't understand the point you're tying to make. Are you just complaining that it's unfair?
I think the question was on the lines of "why do people think it's ok when their country does it but not ok when others do it". The answer if simple: ignorance and cognitive dissonance (hypocrisy?). Ignorance because most aren't even aware their own country engages in the exact same tactics and even far worse. And cognitive dissonance because "I must be good so my opponent must be bad" [0].
Unfortunatley that's just the way the world works. We don't have world peace yet, and have plenty of countries that if not outright hostile in the rhetoric and stance, have the capacity to elect leaders who could change those stances. All of those countries have complex sets of relationships with one another, and its not a given that if your country is attacked (and is not the US or some other super power), that someone else will come and defend it. The concern over China is, of course, quite a bit more obvious given the _ongoing_ abuse of their own citizens.
China just jailed a number of pro-Democratic leaders in Hong Kong, and have now shown they are willing to pursue people outside of their own borders that are a threat to the CCP. I'm sure they will be using meta data to justify their arrests. I don't see how any reasonable person can compare the two.
It's true the US has been promoting "freedom" throughout the world, but at the end of the day they should only care about their own citizens or interests.
When American companies invade the privacy of European citizens, it's because Facebook is collecting marketing data to make a buck. The concerns the US has about these Chinese companies is not that these companies are collecting too much marketing data, but that the CCP has coopted them into doing espionage operations on their behalf. Note that the US didn't care about these Chinese companies back when they were only collecting marketing data. It has only been since Xi's recent consolidation of power and crackdown on the autonomy of big tech that these issues have been hot topics.
I'm a liberal, but I agree with Trump on this. The world needs to stop China.
China is stealing Western tech to gain an economic and strategic advantage. They're going to out-compete our tech and leave us in the dust. They have far more engineers that are willing to work "996". (Sure, founders might work "996", but our workforce doesn't/can't/won't.)
Playing unfair isn't great, but it's not the most worrying component of this. Our opponent has concentration camps, organ harvesting, no free press, crushes dissidents, disappears billionaires. And this is a regime that wants world domination. This gives me nightmares.
We should be doing everything in our power to disentangle and stop China.
When China has a military that surpasses the US in terms of scale and tech, they're going to start invading and taking more than they already do. They've shut off water to Vietnam, set up shop in the energy/resource-rich South China Sea, etc. They're not going to stop.
Our media is already censored and caters to Chinese tastes. None of our movies are ever critical of China. They're actively manipulating us.
Western democracies aren't primed to fight this. This is such a lopsided fight. We have to start playing hardball.
edit: I'm being censored right now. This is the game we're playing.
> China is stealing Western tech to gain an economic and strategic advantage.
Cry me a river.
Western companies went there for cheap labor. They could've rethought this any time in the past 20+ years, when it became apparent Chinese companies aren't willing to follow US IP laws and keep buying the trinkets they (and at this point, only they) know how to make at a markup. Instead, our corporations still outsource manufacturing, and solve their IP issues by telling the people to tell the government to cry foul and do something about a now nuclear-armed nation that decided to grow past being a source of cheap labor.
There are plenty of bad things to say about China as a country/government, but on the IP front, that's just funny. IP laws in the West are a ridiculous racket. For all the companies here talk about innovation, there's sure as hell more of it happening in China than over here.
In the West it's commonly believed that working too many hours reduces creativity and productivity in the long run. So that feature of the Chinese economy may be good for Western competition.
The US has a decades long history of using it's vast military to crush anyone, even people living in literal caves with all the brutality of black sites, torture, murdering of entire villages of civilians, etc.
US don't have the moral superiority to get anyone against China and that's sad and harsh but it's true. No one reading this thinks the US is any better and this is the US fault. When they starve entire countries to death over a 50 year old embassy attack, then who in the world will eagerly listen to them about which countries are good and which are bad?
Really? You're going to out-compete? What happened to the free market? What happened to the advantages of capitalism? You're worried about them becoming economically dominant because they work harder? Why does the US deserve to remain dominant then?
Yup this is exactly the point. Everyone can throw around all the whataboutism they want in this discussion (which there will be plenty) but this remains true in the end.
We’re also I’ll equipped right now to fight this, our culture is divided and most of the intellectuals in power are more concerned about seeing everything through the social justice lens. So anything we do against China for our own national safety is being chalked up as racism etc. China sees this and is taking full advantage. I hope Biden takes a strong stance on China domination so at least one end of the political spectrum can be convinced to get on board here.
We can’t just simply out battle evil regimes like we could in the past. Each major power (Russia, China, US) has weaponry that could destroy the world if unleashed against each other. We are at a turning point in world history. So we have to fight this on the economic level, banning apps is part of this strategy.
Eventually this will become a battle of systems, and it is not clear that this time, freedom will win. The Chinese system works very well, and in some regards much better than the western model of governance. It feels very much that the western world is in decline - we can no longer coordinate on large-scale projects, or produce beauty. The aqueducts are still standing, but we can't build new ones.
> we can no longer coordinate on large-scale projects, or produce beauty
This is some incredible malarkey.
> The aqueducts are still standing, but we can't build new ones.
SpaceX, Tesla, Moderna, Apple M1, Nvidia, OpenAI, Google Brain, James Webb telescope, the new Perseverance Mars rover ... what the heck are you talking about?
> The Chinese system works very well
Not for Uyghurs or political dissidents. Also, we just voted out the Republicans wholesale (!!) Can you do that in China?
I'd take our system any day of the week over being disappeared for disagreeing with officials.
As much as I dislike the anti-maskers, we have freedom. And that's so much better.
> SpaceX, Tesla, [...] what the heck are you talking about?
Capitalism works well both in the US and in China. Those are private companies, and I hope you don't try to list NASA projects. Elon wants to bring down the cost of space transportation to 10$ per Kg, a Space Shuttle launch used to cost 1.5B$.
My point was about the public sector. Last time I checked, the high-speed railway they were trying to build in California added another billion $ to its budget. Meanwhile, feel free to look how much high-speed rail China has built in the last few years.
> Not for Uyghurs or political dissidents.
Just because a system works very well for the majority of its citizens doesn't mean it works for everyone. You are not refuting the central argument.
> I'd take our system any day of the week over being disappeared for disagreeing with officials.
You seem to have the impression I'd prefer the Chinese system. I don't. That does not mean you can't take a hard look at what they do better.
Jesus, this reads like GPT-2 output. In a light skim it looks fine, but then you start actually looking at the structure or the writing and it falls apart.
Your comment is full of (and I mean FULL, nearly every sentence) anti-Chinese assertions with zero factual evidence involved:
> The world needs to stop China.
> China is stealing Western tech to gain an economic and strategic advantage.
> Our opponent has concentration camps...
> And this is a regime that wants world domination.
> Our media is already censored and caters to Chinese tastes.
This is not an argument, it's bullshit. Oh don't get me wrong, some of it is probably true at some level, and Chinese foreign policy is just as acerbic as in the US, but without any evidence given, it's not worth reading.
Which makes it funny that there are a bunch of comments just below where people chime in "spot on!", as if the parent commenter made some EXCELLENT points with his jumbled and disjointed word-vomit.
What's going on here? Did I have a stroke or something? The words are just no longer making sense.
I’ve skimmed the articles you’ve linked to. However, I have an honest question: how do I decide whether the linked sources are trustworthy? Ok, there’s a book by a guy who claims to have interviewed Chinese doctors and policemen. But why should I trust him?
I never mentioned your grammar; you misinterpreted "structure" here. If you read past the first sentence, it's clear I'm referencing your logical structure.
GPT-2 actually produces decent grammar, but not any context-aware logical structure to the text it produces. Just a bunch of disjointed sentences with keywords that all generally lie on the same semantic vector.
More importantly, you are ignoring the entire rest of my argument. Thank you for posting some source links, those make two of your initial assertions more credible. What about the rest?
It's rational. The US government exists to protect and promote the interests of US citizens and companies. So it is the US's job to protect its citizens from foreign surveillance.
I'd say it's Europe's job to protect its citizens from foreign surveillance. It's not "OK" so much as "Not my job."
