Hacker News Reader

Comment by baseballdork | Hacker News Reader

I don't get this sentiment at all. China is notorious for stealing IP, they're a major military player (threat), and this professor lied about his ties to China and still worked on DoD funded projects. The government reaction seems pretty reasonable.

View on HN

What exactly is the Chinese “threat” here?

Are they going to send a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier loaded with soldiers to invade the shores of Seattle and Los Angeles? And then claim the mainland United States as their own property?

Countries are continually jockeying for power. There's cyber wars, trade wars, cultural wars.

Not the countries. The "elites".

That's a straw man, I never said they're an invasion threat. They're a threat to US military superiority.

Well power has to be balanced. Otherwise one with the biggest club might get wrong ideas.

Currently, China is the one with the wrong ideas. That's why we need to oppose them every step of the way.

It isn't like he's arguing for a preemptive strike against China. Just a rule about giving taxpayer funding to their agents (which is what one becomes when agreeing to work on their behalf)

Seattle and LA no. But are they going to make territorial claims over islands in the South China Sea, islands that are also claimed by US allies such as the Philippines, South Korea and Japan? Will they use the threat of military force in an attempt to support those claims? Well yes they have already done so.

Many many projects are DoD funded and have little to nothing to do with immediate military applications. China is a threat to US hegemony in its own backyard, but to state that China is a threat to actual US citizens is kind of absurd. We're over there, they're not over here!

They're not over here - yet. Never in the history of the world has there been a surveillance state like they're building, there's no telling how effective it might end up being.

Do you really think any student gets near anything that could remotely impact national security without a background check?

This is Charles Lieber's latest paper: http://cml.harvard.edu/assets/Nanowire-probes-could-drive-hi...

It's a review article on nanowires, and in the acknowledgements an Air Force is listed, obviously because a student's salary is funded by the Air Force. The guy is stupider than the FBI permits but there is no reason to drift into xenophobia.

>> China is notorious for stealing IP,

> xenophobia

Really? So stating that China steals IP is now "xenophobia"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com