I just can't understand why when it comes to geopolitics, HN just can't keep the discussion related to the submission? Somehow US/ western countries have to enter the discussion as a bad benchmark...
America stole Britain's intellectual property for a leg up a century or two ago, now a different country is doing it to them.
It's just the normal cycle, and America have long had a lot of artificial legal protections in place to try and stop it and limit the rest of the world's prosperity.
The harsh copyright laws and IP agreements they've bullied the rest of the world into accepting are beginning to fail, and these sort of articles are a direct consequence of that, why wouldn't we discuss it? It's an intellectually interesting effect.
There's also the other question of is it really stealing? America still has the knowledge, after all. Copyright laws were supposed to encourage innovation, but as many here have argued, have gone too far, what's the surprise now a country has enough power to say No to America, they're saying No.
That's not irony.
Not interested in that discussion? You can collapse the thread using the [-] button.
There's a difference between copying from open source patent database and reverse engineering versus blatantly engaging in industrial espionage, which is a whole another kettle of fish.
Or claiming to be playing by the same set of rules but blatantly violating them.
The harsh copyright laws and IP agreements they've bullied the rest of the world into accepting are beginning to fail, and these sort of articles are a direct consequence of that, why wouldn't we discuss it? It's an intellectually interesting effect.
Patent systems should be considered harmful to nations that enforce or implement them, but that's another story for another day.
https://www.google.com/search?q=america+stole+britain+intell...
There's plenty of documented evidence that America illegally stole tons of IP, often paid for by the state no less, otherwise known as industrial espionage.
I'm sure they did it to all the European powers of the time too, probably plenty of examples of stolen tech from Spain, the Dutch, etc.
As I'm sure Britain, etc. did to the civilizations more advanced to them in the centuries before too, you can bet there were proclamations about not taking technology out of the cities that had monopolies on them, and were smuggled out illegally or simply attacked for them.
What about it? That was over a century ago. It still doesn't make China's industrial espionage ethical or right.
Let's promote actually good things like free speech, privacy, etc., and not draconian IP policies that just allow the same rent seeking giant corporations everywhere to fuck us all over everywhere. If we tie everything together, we'll loose all of it.
Companies have been neglecting the demand side for ages now. Increasing American household debt bought them some time, but isn't a very sustainable resource.
From the Chinese point of view, it is freeing knowledge from imperialist powers that previously conspired to divide its country, drug its populace with opium, set up rape camps for the mere “comfort” their soldiers. It feels that it must be on par with these counties or risk having atrocity after atrocity revisited upon it.
No one feels they are evil, and even when you “cheat” it’s always because you were cheated first.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'ehtical or right'. It really depends on your perspective, and probably the place you were born.
People are dying that could be saved, right now, today, because of America's IP laws.
How is that right or ethical?
You could argue that without those IP laws, more would die in the future. But with how fast tech moves today, I think even a 10 year copyright/5 year patent length is perhaps too long to really justify that.
...and more than a century before, the UK successfully sent a spy to China to smuggle out tea seedlings (which was illegal in China). It's the circle of (IP) life: upstart plays fast & loose with IP laws until they grow into the incumbent, then they get really conservative on IP laws to stay on top. In a hundred years, China will be just as rigid as the US is now.
Pointing out patterns is intellectually interesting by itself - I think those who say "It's different this time: we are civilized now" are the ones who are being less than honest with themselves; the laws and morals didn't change in 100 years, only the side certain countries occupy on the upstart/incumbent fence flipped.
From China, for instance. Porcelain manufacturing and some other things.
And this story of western development as some kind of capital-hoarding process is completely off. A country is developed and wealthy if and only if it has skilled labor producing so much wealth constantly. In the US it was $20T last year, and it will be another $20T the next year (ok maybe a bit less this year). You could be nothing but hired guns producing for contract, and become the richest country in the world. I'm no fan of IP, but its a sideshow here. And if anything I'd say it's far worse for developed countries than developing ones.
I'm reminded of this article that was posted a while ago: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/why-we-...
TLDR: Everyone has an innate sense of justice and fairness, which drives us to engage in cooperative behavior and punish self-serving behavior and allows us to cooperate. However, we also tend to weigh our own good behavior more heavily and downplay our bad behaviors, and we do the opposite for others. This is necessary for us to push for harder bargains when cooperation is over and it's time to split the spoils.
Claiming whataboutism seems like a major case of downplaying bad and unfair behavior when it is pointed out by brushing it off as nonexistent or not relevant to the debate over spoils.
What would you think of Dijkstra if you suddenly discovered that he still wrote goto infested spaghetti code after his notorious "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" paper ?
So yes we should criticize China as the bad actor that it is, but let's not forget that the western world is hardly an example (a good one I mean ;)
Anyway in my usecase, easy is better than efficient : I'm in my 12th year of coding desktop and backend apps in C# and my first time having to rethink my code because it was too slow was only last year where I had to use dictionaries instead of Linq for a project that manipulates a lot of data (yes using dictionaries instead of Linq is the extent of my "optimization" and it's enough).
In those 12 years I never thought "if only I had a lower level, more efficient language than C#" (quite the opposite in fact).
So IMO it all depends on what you do : of course if your code is deployed to something less powerful than an Arduino I understand that efficiency is paramount !
> I just can't understand why... HN just can't keep the discussion related to the submission?
I personally enjoy meta conversations but I hope OP realizes the irony of this comment.
1. Denial of criticism or shifting blame. "Because you had wrongdongs of a similar nature, your criticism of my wrongdoing is null and void." This is the original form of whataboutism, and it's not a legitimate argument.
2. Attack the opponent's double-standard and its authority on being the judge. "Because you had wrongdongs of a similar nature, you are not quantified for judging my wrongdoing." Often the discussion degrades to case (1) and becomes invalid. However, if the existence of wrongdoing is not denied, it can be valid in some cases.
3. Showing additional background of a problem. "Yes, I have wrongdoings. However, you have wrongdoings too, and social studies finds this type of wrongdings is a global problem and widespread in the modern world." This discussion argues the given problem must be examined at a broader context, not as an isolated evil by a single actor. This is a valid argument.
4. Treating the original problem from a different perspective. "If I have wrongdoings and you have wrongdoings, then can it be a possibility that (a) it isn't wrongdoing to begin with, or (b) it's inevitable, or (c) that it's an necessary evil?" Depending on the motivation of the speaker, it can be the same as (1) for denying criticism, but in a honest discussion, this can be valid too.
The "wrongdoings" can be mass surveillance, war crimes, human right abuses, IP theif, and so on. For example, here are some applications of valid "whataboutism" argument. Using mass surveillance as an example.
- "The NSA argues that Government X's foreign surveillance is a threat to the privacy and freedom of Americans. But what about the NSA?! As you see, this is not a real problem but only an excuse for discrediting others politically, and Government X's doing totally fine."
This is an invalid argument and should be frowned upon.
- "The NSA argues that foreign surveillance is a threat to the privacy and freedom of Americans. While it's true, what about the NSA's domestic surveillance that was never really reformed? Thus, the problem of the privacy and freedom of Americans can never be resolved unless both harmful foreign and domestic surveillance have been removed or reformed. If the NSA is only focusing on the first issue, then it's not acting as a fair judge on this problem, and there are reasons to believe the NSA is only acting for its self-interest, not the actual problem."
This can be a valid argument.
- "The NSA argues that foreign surveillance is a threat to the privacy and freedom of Americans. While it's true, what about the NSA's domestic surveillance that was never really reformed? The surveillance capabilities of the NSA is an order of magnitude greater than Foreign Nation X, hence, the threat from the NSA is greater and should be an issue of higher priority."
This is valid argument. Whether the facts and its conclusion is true or false, can be subjected to further debates.
- "The NSA argues that foreign surveillance is a threat to the privacy and freedom of Americans. While it's true, what about the NSA's domestic surveillance that was never really reformed? In addition, the clear evidence showed most liberal democracy governments have unchecked mass surveillance powers on citizens. Hence, it's only a symptom and ultimately, the real problem is ..."
- Liberals: "Unchecked growth of power by secret services authorized by the President, and fueled by its war on terror."
- Libertarian: "Ever-expanding state power in the modern age. "
- Tech-critics: "Dangers enabled by omnipresence of computing and the Internet."
- Infosec researchers: "Disregard of security and privacy in system designs."
-- In conclusion, under certain context, whataboutism can be a perfectly valid informal argument in a debate.
> US/ WESTERN COUNTRIES did this before too and therefore no better than China
I honestly believe this can possibly be a valid argument from some perspectives. But I don't want to start any argument, as I'm not interested in this particular debate.
> Somehow US/western countries have to enter the discussion as a bad benchmark...
In some cases, they are good benchmarks. For example, the legal protection of free speech in the United States has flaws, but arguably it's still one of the best in existence globally. Unfortunately, in other cases, they are a bad benchmark, and it's extremely problematic. For example, the government of the USA historically have a record of conduct illegal experiments on human subjects without their knowledge or consent, tries to persuade minority leaders to commit suicide, blatantly lies to Congress about the scope of their illegal programs, and works to overthrow democratically elected governments of other sovereign nations. Then why should a citizen of any nation-state have faith on the United States to implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
The argument above is invalid if I'm using it to shift blame. But it can be valid if it's meant to point out an inadequacy of the US Government or relying superpowers to ensure justice by enforcing International Laws. A hypothetical argument can follow it: If LessWrong's "friendly AI" is feasible and AGI is only 30 years away, it should take control of the world, at least on human rights issues, as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the scenario is unlikely.
It's not HN, it's human nature, that's why whataboutism is universal. In most cases whataboutism is a nearly uncontrollable impulse, it's a mental sensation the person can barely contain. Whataboutism is used either to relieve anguish that the person feels, or to outlet hatred/rage. They're compelled by the stress they feel to outlet it. In the case of anguish, it's caused when the subject of a negative story - eg China - is being hit, the person desperately needs to redirect fire off of it, because it feels personal, they feel actual mental anguish from the story and need to make it stop. One way to lighten that anguish is to spread it around, try to normalize the negative (by trying to show that other countries are guilty too). Whataboutism out of hatred/dislike is a case where the person literally hates the redirect subject - eg the US - and looks for any excuse at any time to focus their rage onto it; in that case it's not about the focus subject, it's primarily about the redirect subject (the initial focus subject is merely the opportunity provider).
Lots of CCP critical comments getting downtown, and the discussions slightly derailed
Didn't know about that word before, only "troll farms".
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24097185 for a recent explanation, and these links for plenty more:
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24097185 for a recent explanation, and these links for plenty more:
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...
There is also the aspect of hypocrisy that leaves a bad taste. Putin criticizing the lack of black rights in the US is just as hypocritical as the US claiming to take military action to promote democracy.