like_any_other

Your words, posted after my democracy comment: "It's kind of genius - use the one federally-controlled element of voting to disenfranchise your opponents, doing it so late that the courts can't rule in time." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49427947

Are you going to issue a correction to that post, that actually it's not disenfranchisement at all, that restricted mail voting is perfectly democratic, and your only objection is that the correct procedures for how the change is made are not being followed?

If we're going to claim restricting mail-in voting is an assault on democracy, it's very relevant that the great majority of countries we call democracies also do it.

Having a country is now "reverse DEI". Good to know.

Nearly every country in the world restricts mail-in voting (context that is predictably omitted from the article [1]): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_voting

[1] At least from the first six paragraphs that I was able to unpaywall.

> economic efficiency can be overcome by political will

It was political will that created that economic efficiency, that you're now trying to convince us is just a fact of nature.

> Economic nationalism and high tech are incompatible.

China is economically (and traditionally) nationalist - that's why they subsidize and protect their important industries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421633

"To make conversation productive, please explain how outsourcing your strategic industry and know-how to geopolitical rivals and enemies is a threat."

You have a funny definition of "productive".

You don't consider them your adversary, while they strong-arm your corporations to invest in China [1] instead of your own country (this becomes "we have to manufacture in China, we don't have the capability here!"), destroy your corporations through espionage [2,3], or through subsidy-enabled dumping prices and preferential treatment [4,5], extract groveling apologies from your firms [6], operate literal police stations on your soil [7], turn your countries into subordinate receivers of orders [8,9], bribe your politicians [10], censor your media [11], universities [12,13,14], advertising and corporations in general [15,16], and even books [17].

While they plan 50 years ahead, we are stuck re-litigating the most basic "united we stand, divided we fall" logic, even while the consequences are all around us. But congratulations on your enlightened individualism.

[1] Apple CEO Tim Cook "secretly" signed an agreement worth more than $275 billion with Chinese officials, promising that Apple would help to develop China's economy and technological capabilities - https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/07/apple-ceo-tim-cook-secr...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33758673

[3] https://globalnews.ca/news/7275588/inside-the-chinese-milita...

[4] https://www.dw.com/en/from-solar-to-evs-how-china-is-overpro...

[5] EU: Anti-dumping probe into China solar panels - https://apnews.com/general-news-e16007adf4bd468d9acf849734d2...

[6] Mercedes-Benz apologizes to Chinese for quoting Dalai Lama - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mercedes-benz-china-gaffe...

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_servic...

[8] FIPA agreement with China: What's really in it for Canada? - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fipa-agreement-with-china-wha...

[9] Posters depicting Hong Kong protests removed by Massey University within 12 hours - https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/116723925/posters-depicting...

[10] Businesses with Chinese connections gave Australia's major parties more than $5.5 million between 2013 and 2015, making them easily the largest source of foreign-linked donations. - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-21/australian-groups-str...

[11] Apple Told Some Apple TV+ Show Developers Not To Anger China - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/apple-ch...

[12] Chinese students in Australia fear reprisals at home if they speak out, inquiry hears - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/12/chine...

[13] Perry Link, emeritus professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, says that [..] American scholars practice self-censorship about China and adopt the official narrative of the Chinese regime when talking about sensitive issues. “We don’t talk about ‘Taiwan independence.’ We talk about ‘the cross-Strait relations.’ We don’t talk about ‘the occupation of Tibet.’ We don’t call the June 4th Massacre ‘massacre.’ - https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-the-american-academy-misle...

[14] China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/chinese-officials-co...

[15] Leica Camera has sought to distance itself from a promotional video depicting photographers covering the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown three decades ago, after it landed the German company in hot water in China. - https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3006817/lei...

[16] Mercedes-Benz apologizes to Chinese for quoting Dalai Lama - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mercedes-benz-china-gaffe...

[17] China gets German children's book about COVID withdrawn - https://www.dw.com/en/china-gets-german-childrens-book-about...

Edit as reply ("posting too fast", thanks HN) to all the "but the US also does bad things" "counterarguments":

> Seriously, Americans can do this chickenshit nonsense, but you are the worldwide problem.

I'm European, and not stupid enough to believe that because the US is acting poorly or even in some cases hostile to Europe (to say nothing of the Middle East or South America), that we should roll over and allow China to subjugate us instead. Neither should the US. This is "you are not pure and innocent enough for self-defense" logic. Please don't drag the rest of us down in some deluded attempt at atonement.

3. China was not stupid enough to rely solely on the free market to develop strategic industries. A few deliberately old sources to show this is not a sudden new development:

Back in 2014, the central government set up the China National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund. - https://www.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/article/2145422/how-ch...

Over the next decade, China plans to invest up to RMB 1 trillion (US$161 billion) into its domestic semiconductor industry as it seeks to become a global power in the sector. In recent years, Beijing has repeatedly stated that developing its own integrated circuit (IC) industry is of integral national strategic concern. - https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chips-all-in-investing-i...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Integrated_Circuit_Indus...

Meanwhile you still can't buy most food without tons of plastic wrapping it, unless you go to a farmer's market. The only problem this regulation actually addresses is not enough paperwork being generated.

The article is full of guilt-by-vague-association, and never explains what exactly his antivaccine views are.

> He has headed pediatric neurology divisions at Brown and Tufts University and published research on epilepsy and autism. [..] “His strengths were clinical and not really research as he had no NIH funding, nor had he worked on research projects in a way that resulted in publications.”

He published research, but did not work on research projects in a way that resulted in publications? It takes some spin to present someone that headed the neurology division at an Ivy League university as unqualified, just because he didn't work specifically with NIH.

Who knows, maybe he is unqualified, but the article elects to withhold information that would let us judge this. For example:

> Gaitanis has also served as a paid expert witness in a federal court where families can claim neurological harm from childhood vaccines.

The article omits anything specific about his testimony, or name the specific case or court so readers could look it up themselves. It doesn't even say which side in the litigation he was an expert for! Assuming he represented the injured families, does the article want us to believe that alone is disqualifying? Because adverse effects from vaccines, including neurological, are a well established fact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_Adverse_Event_Reportin...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9838503/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41582-024-01000-7

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10573146/

Maybe you trust the hardware and software and firmware to not be malicious or negligent (currently such assurances are extremely rare [1], so it's hard to overstate what a step up in security just this bare minimum would be), but what if it simply gets hacked by a nation-state level opponent? And there are so many ways to hack it - hardware and software supply chains, interdiction and replacement with compromised parts, attacking the software systems connected to it (maybe the camera is secure, but what about the computers it sends its signals to?), or the human systems, blackmailing an employee to insert a backdoored USB key somewhere...

Are traffic cameras worth the risk of giving away the movement of your key personnel, military and political, in the age of drone warfare and targeted strikes?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49248678

So you have no objections to the content of the piece. Good to know.

Oops, I just submitted this story, but linked to the substack instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49406296

It should probably be merged somehow?

There's no direct connection, only noting the spread of censorship. The more places that censor, the worse it is, since there are fewer refuges for free speech.

No more censorious than Cambridge or Ghent universities: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cevmrjd9lj1o

In this hypothetical, my grandpa didn't patent this way to cure diabetes (otherwise the company would owe him royalties, assuming the patent hadn't expired).

So it reduces to a corporation selling services based on public-domain knowledge (I am ignoring the part where a miraculous advance is confined to a single unknown book). Lots of corporations do this, and there's nothing wrong with it.

I'm sure people would prefer if Amazon also offered library-like access to the book, but how is it theft? I'm not asking about "any possible logic" - he called it theft.

> As mentioned elsewhere, this is also IP theft on a massive scale.

Scanning a legitimately purchased book is IP theft? How can he hold such a copyright-maximalist view, and at the same time defend the Internet Archive?

Getting a list of emails from a website by guessing a predictable ID gets your house raided by the FBI and a criminal conviction for accessing a computer without authorization [1]. Why isn't fingerprinting treated the same? And I mean exactly the same - first an FBI raid, arrest, and confiscation of computers, and then they get their day in court.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse_Security#AT&T/iPad_emai...

> I mean if people want to have a distinct culture or ethnicity they will or will not as they desire.

Yes, and they usually want to form a state based around this identity. I suppose you don't consider that desire legitimate. But then who will perform the functions of the state that you baselessly claim the internet solves? Who will settle disputes, determine land ownership, pass and enforce laws, prevent other groups from taking the territory, etc.? The internet?

> Ukraine Iran and Afghanistan are really the only states that have done defense "Alone" in recent memory.

It's telling that you think that because they don't only do good, then the good that they do doesn't count. They're not innocent enough for you, so they should dissolve their militaries, surrender their ability of self-defense, and throw themselves at the mercy of the world (How does that usually work out?) I wonder if you apply this standard evenly, or only to things you dislike.

'Monopoly' is the wrong term. It's abuse of market power.

A good reminder that the corporate-controlled device in your home can be used to spy. Only on your behalf, of course.

> The internet solves every problem the nation-state purports to.

Nations organize themselves into states to protect and promote their interests, including their existence as cultural and ethnic groups, from competing states (and other dangers, e.g. natural disasters). A.k.a. politics.

I was not aware politics has been solved by the internet.

> This exists for a very good reason.

They find a good reason for every little piece of control or privacy they take from you.

> Accurate as in someone said it? Centuries ago, people were worried that if the number of horses increased at the current rate..

"Someone" being a population expert. Of course, "if we do nothing about it" is implied - if nothing could be done, why even bring it up? But of course you know this, and stretching a best estimate prediction by an expert to somehow qualify as "disinformation" is not arguing in good faith.

> And you admit yourself that the "precise number is contentious".

The man jailed did not state any number, and was not in jail for getting the number wrong, so that objection is irrelevant. I only add the caveat to avoid an argument about the number that the source cited.

> Your framing of the stories is interesting: * "UK arrests were also for stickers" - surely there must be a point where we stop someone putting racists stickers everywhere.

The post I replied to claimed "The UK wrongthink arrests were for stuff like calling for a building full of people to be burned down". That example shows this is clearly not the case, and entirely non-violent speech [0] is criminal. That you personally agree with that prosecution is irrelevant.

> "merely possessing materials designed to Stirring up racial hatred" - Presumably you're okay with someone stirring up racial hatred?

What does it matter what I agree with? It doesn't stop being censorship, or a counterexample to the parent post's claim, if I agree with it.

> "Viewing "far-right propaganda" carries a 15 year jail sentence:" - No it doesn't, that's just an MP trying to get votes.

After reading the text of the law [1], you are correct - it only applies to material "useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism". My mistake for believing the word of the UK Home Secretary about the law she was pushing.

> ""young white girls are being raped by these grooming gangs" ". Where does it say anything about a jail term?

I apologize, I should have better organized the citations. [2] only talks about the conviction, the jail sentence is reported in [3]: Jailing him for 10 months and two weeks, Judge Nicholas Barker said it was clear that Heggie had wanted his offensive comments about the Muslim faith "to be read and heard by many".

[0] Yes, speech, not "vandalism" or other charge related to the stickers themselves, not their content - the conviction was literally for "stirring up racial hatred", and the average sticker promoting a nightclub or dance class, even if technically illegal, does not come with a 2 year jail term: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/58 (it says 2000, but includes amendments from 2019)

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce328p9330eo

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rq8r4jdgno

Because I would rather parents make the minimal effort [1] to restrict which pages their children visit and how often, than legally require every website and game to deanonymize, surveil, and censor their users. Which includes not just Facebook, but every forum (HN, reddit, small bicycling pages [2]), game, and chatroom. Because the latter would mean anyone hosting public discussions would be doing so only at the government's will. If they don't like the direction those discussions take, they will use the vague laws against "harm" to force a change. Like the UK government admitted [3]:

First, we are told, the relevant secretary of state (Michelle Donelan) expressed “concern” that the legislation might whack sites such as Amazon instead of Pornhub. In response, officials explained that the regulation in question was “not primarily aimed at … the protection of children”, but was about regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse”, a phrase that rather gives away the political thinking behind the act.

[1] It's not minimal now, but that's the point of government funding and requiring better parental controls.

[2] https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/20/death-of-a-forum-how-the...

[3] https://archive.md/2025.08.13-190800/https://www.thetimes.co...

> Most of what you described is just disinformation though

“We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066” is accurate: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/white-briton...

Burning the Koran is not a statement of fact, so it cannot be disinformation.

"young white girls are being raped by these grooming gangs" is also accurate (though the precise number is contentious, mostly because the police turned a blind eye, or even actively aided the gangs): https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/britains-grooming-gang-scandal-rep...

So can you be more specific in what you were referring to as being "disinformation"?

The UK arrests were also for stickers with: slogans such as “Reject white guilt”, “Nationalism is nurture”, “We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066” and “Diversity – designed to fail, built to replace” - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/16/uk-man-with-...

"Stirring up racial hatred", even merely possessing material that could do so, is a crime in the UK: https://www.thelawpages.com/criminal-offence/Possessing-raci...

Burning the Koran is also illegal: https://spectator.com/article/england-now-has-a-blasphemy-la...

Viewing "far-right propaganda" carries a 15 year jail sentence: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-v...

True factual statements such as "young white girls are being raped by these grooming gangs" come with a nearly 1-year jail term: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce328p9330eo

Note that most of the time, articles are happy to omit actual quotes, instead parroting the prosecution's description of the speech in question, using vague terms such as "racially aggravated comments" or "inciting racial hatred":

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rq8r4jdgno

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68086012

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68074858

I.e. they establish the framework for censorship and deanonymization by making everyone else responsible for child-safety, except the person that should be setting up the parental controls - all they get to do is select a "child" or "not child" option. The law doesn't require they be given any control besides that - no default whitelist of apps and websites that they could edit, no blacklist, no screen time limits, nothing. Just an easy way to hand off control to someone else. A way that would be unnecessary if they instead got real parental controls.

As explained in my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49256731

> Half the laws

If you forgive the slight exaggeration in my use of "always", then I am half right - in fully half the cases, deanonymization is the first thing they try.

But let's look at those "just regulating parental controls" laws, the California one [1]. What does it do? Does it give parents/the owner the tools needed to limit child access? Does it require vendors to include such tools? No, neither of those. It just establishes how to collect (but not verify) and send age data, so someone else can act on it.

It does nothing to empower parents, but does lay the groundwork to grow an age control ecosystem that can later have verification easily added - all the apps and websites will already support it. Not all "regulation" is the same.

> People who conflate these two things are paid lobbyists of Meta

Meta is the most privacy-hostile company there is, despite fierce competition for that title, and nearly all their services are behind a login-wall, even read-only access, and they don't let you make an account without a phone number [2,3,4]. I avoid them like the plague, and they already go above and beyond what you would want of them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Digital_Age_Assuran...

[2] https://www.local3news.com/local-news/what-the-tech/what-the...

[3] Facebook now treats a phone number like a near-requirement - https://quackr.io/blog/facebook-account-without-phone-number

[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/tyrs6c/so_i_had_to...