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Comment by nozzlegear | Hacker News Reader

> There was a time I would have agreed with you, but these days even as an American I fail to see a difference.

I don't get it, the person you're replying to didn't mention the US at all – there was no distinction being drawn, and they weren't asserting that American models are better or more resistant to government censorship. It's possible to agree with them about Chinese models without expatiating on why American models are bad too.

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If we’re talking about models that people actually use, there’s really only Chinese models and American models. I haven’t heard anything about Mistral in ages.

From that lens, criticism of one is practically implicit support of the other. If I tell you that you can buy from salesman A or B, but B is a bad person, that implies A is not a bad person. Otherwise I would have said “they’re both bad people”.

“But Chinese models are controlled by the government” makes it sound an awful lot like the US ones aren’t, because it wouldn’t be a meaningful criticism if that were true of both.

But nobody made that comparison, salesman A was never mentioned or alluded to until you brought them up as a reason not to agree with OP about salesman B. We weren't comparing salesmen, we were just talking about what a shitty person salesman B is.

I think it's a worthy retort simply because it's the only other major provider.

The American models are less tied to the government. For now...

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