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Comment by ddxv | Hacker News Reader

The US is slowly becoming more like China. From talks of nationalizing companies to make US state owned entities to banning foreign competition. It's just so strange how you become the thing you fear.

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> The US is slowly becoming more like China.

Hah, if only. Then at least it would see some of the benefits too. Instead, it's making sure to only copy all of the downsides, with zero of the upsides.

This is the kind of flippant remark that does the gravity of the situation a disservice. Nobody burns witches out of the blue one day, they do it because they figured out that burning witches makes everyone afraid to do anything that could be remotely construed as witchcraft, and they all start being good little church attendees.

So I hate to break it to you but you're not fighting powers-that-be who are just bumbling around and decided to randomly be like China one day. You're fighting powers-that-be who did the analysis and decided that being like China was the right way to go, for the good of everyone, and they backed it up with math and logic. You're going to need math and logic to convince them otherwise.

> You're fighting powers-that-be who did the analysis and decided that being like China was the right way to go

Not at all. If they decided to be like China, then that would include the benefits. They're nothing like China. Xi isn't siphoning hundreds of billions to his personal account through $XI coin. He isn't giving the reigns of the country to his tech CEO buddies. He isn't destroying scientific institutions and looting the country for personal gain.

I hate to break it to you but this is the kind of surfacelevel comparison that doesn't hold up when considered for more than 2 seconds.

I agree actually, we're trending towards China in some ways and not in others. I was just pointing out that the ways we're trending towards China are driven by people who did a bit more analysis than OP is giving them credit for. Since your real disagreement is with OP, I'll bow out of this one.

> who did the analysis and decided that being like China was the right way to go

But again, they are not deciding to be like china, which implies a degree of competency and care for the population. This is just corruption.

Bro, you have "grass is greener on the other side" syndrome. China is a totalitarian state not comparable to the US. Take this from a non-US citizen. There maybe some backsliding or ppl may think things are worsening in the US, but US citizens always have the power to make things right, coz they are free and they can bear arms.

> coz they are free and they can bear arms.

The propaganda about ourselves we sold the world has been much more effective than the rights we've been sold ourselves. I would prefer material rights and competent governance to either "freedom" (whatever the hell that refers to) or the ability to buy guns we're barely allowed to use.

I never said that "as of June 2026, the grass is greener in China". What I did say is that the US has rapidly been adopting all of the downsides of China with zero of the upsides. That's an observation.

> There maybe some backsliding or ppl may think things are worsening in the US

If you're phrasing this as "maybe" and "may think", you're not here to have a serious discussion.

The CCP would never dream of giving the state's control to tech CEOs.

You just need to think outside the box: the CCP is big tech, not Congress. The CCP (big tech in the analogy) would never dream of giving control to congress.

This is why they can run their society with such competency, though. All we got are the stupidest billionaires the world can imagine and their servile lapdogs in congress

In some ways its hard to differentiate between big tech and the national security complex, where execs are being sworn into the military

https://www.army.mil/article/286317/army_launches_detachment...

I think America is becoming more like Russia, with a dictator who eliminates any billionaire who disagrees with His Dictatorship. The American groups who want to go back to the "glory years" of the 1950s are equivalent to the Russian groups who want to go back to the "glory years" of the Soviet Union.

This is exactly where we are headed: a has-been that sold itself down a river to a bunch of kleptocrats who only are about themselves and their sycophants.

  > It's just so strange how you become the thing you fear.

how does the saying go? "when you obsess over your enemy, you become your enemy"?

It's a slow motion motorcycle crash[0].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation

I wish we were becoming like china; it feels a lot more like big brother from 1984.

> talks of nationalizing companies

What is this referring to?

https://apnews.com/article/bernie-sanders-ai-public-ownershi...

Nice, doubt anything will come of this though.

Not just Sander, Trump expressed his wish to exchange concessions and privileges for share in AI labs, too. Which is IMO even more problematic.

I was referring to the US government buying a 10% stake in Intel and the ideas being floated of further investment in Intel and other companies by the Trump admin.

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