To me USA and China are both foreign nations, and USA is the one who is far more aggressive in terms of army and spies.
So as a non USA citizen, I'm way more afraid of USA than I am of China.
So as a non USA citizen, I'm way more afraid of USA than I am of China.
Which is why I would like the US govt to have as little data as possible about me (who knows what the mainstream politics will look like, things that are very innocent today might be punishable by death in 10 years).
Chinese govt, on the other hand, can have my data freely, since I don't think I'll ever move to the Mainland China.
> (…) (who knows what the mainstream politics will look like, things that are very innocent today might be punishable by death in 10 years).
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think I’d ever consider moving to a country where I believed politics to be so unstable that an action could go from “very innocent” to “punishable by death” in the span of a decade.
(I also understand that my outsider view on the US political system isn't well-informed. Still, better safe than sorry.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country
It doesn’t seem plausible that in countries where even euthanasia isn’t allowed things could get so out of hand that the death penalty would not only be reimplemented but it would devolve so fast that you’d start executing people for things which aren’t even crimes right now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42803165
I recommend you stop assuming what other people meant and nitpicking for no discernible reason. The only one debating here is you, and you’re doing it with yourself.
What I see is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_oversea...
As I've already said, I never claimed china are the good guys. Just that they aren't the worse guys.
And why would you see enemy tanks on an island? What you do see are many many Chinese ships and planes, constantly violating Taiwanese air and sea boundaries.
I have to say, on second reading, you are right because I basically overlooked that Copilot implies having no problem with being spied on by US corporations. That honestly escaped me.
But since you brought it up, for me mass surveillance and other abuses are simply a human rights issue more than anything. People can chose to not uphold theirs, or we can feel like we "have no other choice", but that doesn't change the human rights abuse, essentially. And we have no clue what the long term pay-off for everything being enmeshed into surveillance of every single data point, no matter how trivial in isolation it might be. And "I don't care about privacy, so let's not have privacy anymore, so nobody ever born will have privacy again" is not a decision anyone has the right to make, to put a point on it.
We all kinda ended up here, and I know it's not so easy, but that we don't have "fixed" it doesn't mean it's not broken, and it staying broken for a long time doesn't normalize it in my books. That people don't care is what raising awareness is for, after all.
And when people like Larry Ellison talk about everybody being on good behaviour because the AI will be always watching (to help everybody and make a great society, of course, because nothing could go wrong), basically, I think adtech isn't the only danger, and the effect of that would also not be "small and indirect". But it also underlines your point about what's the more direct threat to a US citizen.
For example, China killed a lot of people. They were all Chinese.
Look at conquered regions like Tibet and Xinjiang.
Look at how they set up police forces in foreign countries to keep an eye on Chinese citizens living abroad. Even having kidnapped and illegally held Chinese citizens in England because they posted anti-CCP messages on WeChat.
Look at countries like the Phillipines (not even a direct neighbour) who are trying to hold on to small fishing islands just off their coast because the CCP claimed those islands in the 1970s.
Remember a few years ago when they ran a week long military exercise around Taiwan... because a US representative spoke to the Taiwanese president. Sure I agree with you that the US also overstepped a line here, but for your response to be shelling the waters around the island is excessive to say the least.
Look at the aggressive nationalist and imperialist news they feed their own population, and the propaganda spread to make the Japanese seem like demons. Did you know there are several theme parks in China where children are encouraged to Bayonette a mannequin of Japanese Imperialist soldiers?
Call the US as bad as you like, but I've never seen a theme park where children are actively taught how to kill and demonise the Taliban or Nazis.
We renamed it to the Gulf of America, talk about annexing Canada, own Hawaii, fund the colony of Israel, invented Manifest Destony, destabilize democracy via the CIA, firebombed Vietnam, etc etc etc
And don't talk to me abt Chinese spying when the NSA and Five Eyes hoovers up and processes the entire internet.
Re: propaganda, read your own comment. The American propaganda machine got you to demonize China pretty well
And to top it all off, despite having a much smaller population AMERICA HAS MORE PRISONERS THAN CHINA. Its insane!
But I want to respond to this:
> And to top it all off, despite having a much smaller population AMERICA HAS MORE PRISONERS THAN CHINA. Its insane
1. The US publically acknowledges who is in prison, China doesn't. You can be disappeared in China without anyone knowing.
2. The Chinese operate several Black prisons both within and without their borders. These are Prisons without actual sentences, laws or rights. The public doesn't even know of their existence. This is where you land up as a political prisoner in China.
3. The Chinese have placed thousands of Uigur muslims in "re-education camps" (not prisons) - many of whom are only guilty by association (i.e. there's no direct crime the CCP arrested them for, other than being a blood relative of someone who did commit one of these "crimes")
4. Chinese police are already spread thin enough dealing with all the political prisoners meaning there are many dangerous criminals who are freely committing crimes in China. The CCP keeps this information under tight wraps so as not to cause a panic. As a result the Chinese are a lot less cautious than they should be so (unofficial) crime levels are much higher than they should be. It's not uncommon to hear of (or see) Children who were kidnapped and had their limbs chopped off so they could beg more effectively - there has never been a widespread crackdown on this behaviour and many perpetrators are still walking the streets forcing children to beg for them.
5. Not to even talk about the prison organ harvesting claims made by several groups who have been persecuted by the CCP. From Falun Gong practitioners to Uigur muslims.
Also don't be lazy and just call this propaganda - I could easily do the same with other messages in this thread ("CCP propaganda") meaning it's not a strong argument to anyone on the fence / on the other side. Yes, it is very anti-China, but that's because I'm trying to bring it in contrast to the very anti-US message. I don't think either country is perfect and in fact I prefer to not live in (or near) either.
The US importantly has a robust and independent judiciary where a fair trial is infinitely more likely than in China. Even for foreigners, the US legal system is accessible, understandable, and weildable for protection. It’s far from perfect, but 100x what you’d get in China.
Except if you have an abortion. Then laws don't matter.
They already started this work yesterday: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/01/22/congress/se...
Which countries did China invade in the last 3 decades?
I never said china has never done anything bad. There is no such country on the planet.
China doing bad stuff doesn't make the bad stuff the other countries do disappear, and my point remains valid on which one is more of a threat to nationals of other countries.
At least if the Americans win I don't have to be worried about becoming a political prisoner, forced into re-education camps, or having my organs harvested.
Also there are many more conflicts currently where China is involved than the US.
I live in scandinavia and I can tell you people aren't feeling particularly safe about USA not going to invade.
(I don't think they'll do it for real… but then again I also didn't think Putin would go into Ukraine for real so, don't take my work as gospel)
Nazis, also factual.
So I don't think I fully understand the last sentence. Do you mean it's not appropriate for specifically _minors_ to have a theme park about how Nazis are bad guys? Because there's a lot of western content to this effect, including movies and video games, which are also accessible to children.
If anything, Chinese content guidelines usually prohibit graphical display of violence, so it's much more of a milquetoast thing than e.g. South Park.
My point is more to do with seeing little kids being dressed up in CCP uniforms, handed a bayonette, and told to charge at the Japanese. I also agree we see this around the world "including movies and video games, which are also accessible to children" but I draw the line where it's being encouraged by the government to do these actions in person. Combine this with the anti-japanese rhetoric taught in primary education and it's a nasty combination*. [1]
Another thing to consider is that children are generally not given access to games/movies/whatever that have such mature themes by their parents.
I'd make this same argument if I saw US children being dressed up as US soldiers and asked to charge at Nazi "soldiers". Even though we can both (hopefully) agree that Nazi ideologies are/were disgusting and deserve to be bayonetted.
> If anything, Chinese content guidelines usually prohibit graphical display of violence, so it's much more of a milquetoast thing than e.g. South Park.
Not when the Japanese or another of China's enemies are involved. Then it's gloves off.
* Also I do want to give some slack here too, the Japanese have never acknowledged or apologised for their attrocities in WW2.
[1] https://asiatimes.com/2024/07/china-scrambling-to-unplug-ant...
"(A) learn that communism has led to the deaths of over 100,000,000 victims worldwide;
(B) understand the dangers of communism and similar political ideologies; and
(C) understand that 1,500,000,000 people still suffer under communism."
Including an oral history "Portraits in Patriotism"
If this isn't propaganda against the CCP I don't know what is. Call it truthful or not, kids are being told China is The Enemy.
They're dressed up in military uniforms as early as middle school if you're in JROTC.
And funny you bring up them suppressing hate speech when here in America we've recently decided to do the opposite with X and Facebook.
If I was presented with two options: waking up tomorrow as the child of a poor farmer in a third-world country, or waking up as one of Donald Trump's children, I would definitely choose the latter. However, that doesn't mean that I trust Trump more than I would trust the farmer. In other words, quality of life (or a preferred way of living) are not inherently tied to trust, morality, or anything like that.
Quality of life is inherently tied to trust and morality - both in terms of the effect of fear (a lack of trust) or isolation (a lack of moral consensus, or equality and sense of shared belonging).
Perhaps revalidate the "thriving economy" assertion before taking the plunge though (and be mindful of how hyper-localised that is).
[Edit: hey Europeans commenting and downvoting below, note the words "in principle" in the above comment and evaluate which of the two countries do or do not purport to stand for these things despite whatever your hot take may be on the current moment.]
Only of of them is hypocritical, that's it.
Edit:// "In principle" chinas gov stands for stability, economic development and national unity...
I am happy for you and your flags.
However I didn't claim that china is more "free" just that the US definitely isn't seen as that from the outside anymore. It's not always a direct competition
As did Stalin, Mussolini, Hirohito and the National Socialist Party. It's the "how" that matters.
Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator is a piece of art that demonstrates this absurdity in the best possible way.
I wouldn't trust a US data company to not capitulate to... "personal requests" by Musk or Trump any more than I trust it not happening in an hungarian, russian, turkish or chinese one with their respective leadership (official or otherwise).