Comment by ViceCitySage | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ViceCitySage | Hacker News Reader

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I suspected this since Day 1 and never downloaded the app. Don't have a problem with Chinese people, just the government. China is known for its callous authoritarian state that openly express their goal of surpassing America. By law, Chinese companies have to comply with authoritarian demands from their government (iirc there is even a CCP member assigned to each company) and at any time can turn into an pseudo arm of the state. On top of that, China has had numerous scandals where they send Chinese spies to various institutions like universities and companies and steal research and trade secrets. I also distanced myself from most social media in general as American companies are still horrible when it comes to privacy. Surprised by the amount of people that hate China spying on Americans via TikTok but say nothing about our tech companies. Big Tech hands out our data to our government so they can circumvent the fourth amendment as well as other nefarious acts.

It amazes me to no end that some people appear to be genuinely surprised by stuff like this. Or they just continue business-as-usual, entirely ignoring massive risks.

In Germany, chancellor Scholz is actively trying to enable the sale of a third of Hamburg’s port (one of the largest in Europe) to Chinese investors by blocking a chamber vote about it. All security services and ministries sound alarm, yet if no vote is completed or investigation into the matter started by the end of the month, the contract passes by default.

Germany has not even encountered the worst effects of the energy crisis brought on by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Yet the highest ranked executive politician tries to ensure that whenever China decides to follow Russias example, Germany’s economy will be destroyed in an instant.

It’s lunacy. It doesn’t even make headlines. What is going on regarding China? Is everyone with economic interests still simply blinded by the volume of the potential Chinese market? Does the Chinese government have career-ending dirt on all of them? I don’t get it. This is not regular, rational behavior for a head of state within Europe.

Trade is normal, selling out your countries’ critical infrastructure to a country holding very different values is plain unconscionable.

RIP Nortel

In the US, we pretend to have a “democracy” when in fact a handful of competing and colluding corporations control everything. Is that any better?

Are you asking if the US COULD be better than it is, or if it IS better for the average citizen than many places in the world, including China? The answer is an obvious YES to both.

Competing and yet also colluding? Corporations want to fulfill consumer or shareholder desires in exchange for money. The CCP wants to dominate you and determine your way of life. They want to tell you what you’re allowed to desire. It’s very different.

I would not say that corporations in America are characterized by merely fulfilling consumer desires, rather creating consumer desires—often without precedent—and then fulfilling those desires that were created. As can be seen by the sheer quantity and market size of advertisement (which is the business of manufacturing desire itself).

It appears that we can be encouraged to desire almost anything, or at least an incredible amount of things…

>wants to dominate you and determine your way of life. They want to tell you what you’re allowed to desire.

I'd like to note that corporations do want the same thing. I believe all power structures converge to this, no matter their origins - an abusive partner, a out of control corporation, a totalitarian government, a fanatic cult, law enforcement when given too much power.

So what remains? Forces that keep the system in balance, "checks and balances" as they say. I don't know the recipe and I don't believe anyone does. What I'd just like to point out is that corporations, as they are, are not exempt from abuses of power.

Oligarchies. See the Canadian telecom and CRTC situation. It looks like competition from the outside, but really it's collusion with false attempts at competition.

The result speaks for itself. The desire to dominate is identical, there's just more or less legal or culturally acceptable ways to going about getting there.

Why do people from the US always assume others are from the US too..

But yeah, it's way better.

HN is US-based. Most people on HN are from the US.

You're right, but I half agree with the intention. Sure, one could say HN was built in the US, domiciled in the US - but it's still a tech forum on the global internet. As for whether "most" people on HN are from the US, look I can't really prove or disprove you here, I have no statistics, but I'll say that the US is ~1/4th of the english speaking population (330M/1.3B).

Obviously, I'd guess the demographics of Americans is more than a quarter here, but I (think) there are enough non-Americans that you can't really be certain that the individual you're speaking to is actually American.

Yes it's better, because in America we don't get whisked off in the night to a work camp or straight up killed for simply airing our grievances about government or corporate control. It absolutely sucks that American companies have near total control over our lives here, but at least you and I are free to mention that fact online.

Yep, it's better.

One datapoint: Looking at the "Human rights protection" index, US stands at -0.17, and China at -1.2.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-protection

Interesting question. Well, both are now capitalist hells, but very different forms.

Both individualism and collectivism have positive and negative sides. With individualism, the positive is e.g. self-expression, creativity, innovation, while the negative is e.g. selfishness and disconnection. With collectivism, the positives are e.g. connection and supporting others, while the negative is e.g. imitation and lack of diversity. Ironically, when pushed to extremes the negatives of individualism and collectivism seem to kind of equate with each other (though it may not look that way at first glance from the outside).

All this to say that yes I mostly agree with you, though it’s complicated since the pros and cons are often quite different. And I think this is often misunderstood (since people may, for example, for their own more individualist country focus on the positives of individualism while for another more collectivist country focus on the negatives of collectivism—-or vice versa).

> Surprised by the amount of people that hate China spying on Americans via TikTok but say nothing about our tech companie .

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