Comment by keybored | Hacker News Reader

Comment by keybored | Hacker News Reader

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It’s the usual feigned comparison. America is a republic and if you don’t agree well, go to Reddit and argue about it; meanwhile China is just a dictatorship. American “crimes“ are dismissed with some rhetorical non-response like “hmmph, no one claimed we are perfect”, or immediately contrasted with some arbitrary Chinese “crime”, then dropped just as fast; even someone bringing up contemporary killing of Iranian schoolchildren gets contrasted with the “Indian Removal Act stuff” as if, you know, someone didn’t just now bring up something that America did last week. You bring up the ideal of “the American experiment”, then when someone brings up inconvenient facts the Tiananmen Square Massacre makes an appearance.

But to your credit you brought up the Pretti shooting. I have to analyze how that demonstrates why the “AI values” should reflect American ones.

Judge my enemies by their actions. Judge me by my words. About myself...

> American “crimes“ are dismissed with some rhetorical non-response like “hmmph, no one claimed we are perfect”, or immediately contrasted with some arbitrary Chinese “crime”, then dropped just as fast

America debates and exhibits its faults, at least internally. The Tulsa Massacre is a movie and cultural discussion point in a way Tiananmen Square is not in China. Neither should have happened. And neither is universally acknowledged or atoned for. But if we’re debating which system AI should emulate, I know it’s not just the one that explicitly buries its faults.

> Judge my enemies by their actions. Judge me by my words

Judge both by both. The ability to have words about shameful actions is not meaningless.

Yeah you talk about how you stumble into wars. Then you do it again. Then eventually it gets relegated to bah, but who is perfect. (Let me tell you who is not perfect: it’s China)

This is a concept that a twelve-year-old has enough ego formation to understand. Not so for the shared nationalistic consciousness.

Your responses seem politically charged and not in good faith. You've failed to actually engage with what the person you're responding to wrote several times now.

What is your goal here?

> Your responses seem politically charged

We are talking about China and the US.

> and not in good faith.

I am playing with open cards. No hidden agendas.

> You've failed to actually engage with what the person you're responding to wrote several times now.

We disagree on the very premises. That leads to one person saying something then the other one dismissing it then the first person dismissing what the second person says in turn. Completely normal.

> What is your goal here?

To bemoan people glorifying America as it invades countries and causes problems for the whole world.

At no point have any of your arguers said they approve of the crimes perpetrated by the United States government. You repeatedly talk past them while only tangentially addressing their points. Your comments assume bad faith and make liberal use of pejoratives. My recommendation is to self-reflect.

He was simply saying that the same actions China takes are repeatedly brought up, while those the US takes are forgotten after a while.

That is a charitable interpretation. I should follow your example.

It’s good that you are reflecting.

He threw out a bunch of non sequiturs and failed to engage with what was actually said.

On what basis do you claim that US wrongdoing is forgotten? If you bring it up it's acknowledged and talked about. Debating it is within the realm of social acceptability. You can look it up on Wikipedia. Our AI models will happily discuss it with you.

Meanwhile the Chinese equivalent gets you the sorts of disingenuous interactions that can be seen here and domestically much of the information appears to be censored.

Pejoratives?

Note that singling out this part is not some tacit acceptance of the rest of that comment.

Crickets.

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