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Comment by bhouston | Hacker News Reader

I do not know how it works in China, but could someone in the government be paid by Bitmain to care enough? In the US they call that move lobbying...

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Lobbying in the US is a kind of corruption, but I don't think there's any way to lobby to have someone arrested, unless that's in slow motion, where you'd pay lobbyists to press for a law that could be used to arrest your opponent.

Lucky 10000: Lobbying in the USA is constitutionally-protected free speech. [0] It sure does feel corrupt, doesn't it? But it's part of the right to demand that the government listen to and consider our grievances. You can try lobbying today: Pick something that you care about, and write a letter about it to somebody in the government who represents you.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States

“Dear constituent, after reading your carefully written letter and thinking long and hard about the merits of each position of this tricky issue I have decided to side with the people who donated the most to my re-election campaign. Thank you for writing to me, your voice has been heard”

Heard != acted on.

... But it also doesn't equal null.

It wouldn't be the government but the CCP. The CCP pretty much has ultimate authority on everything, so there's probably some close ties between people in Bitmain and people in the CCP that don't exist with MicroBT. Also a lot of it is based around favors more generally not just money.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi

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