31–40 of 43 posts
I'm a bit alarmed at how disinterested people are being here. Here is China, a global power, doing all it can to undermine Western countries and amass influence/power, and nobody here cares. While they steal the IP of the companies that allow us our quality/way of life, you guys are all "Ah, well, we do it too". Well, fuck, I hope so, because the US is the only superpower with anything resembling Western values that…
I'm a bit alarmed at how disinterested people are being here. Here is China, a global power, doing all it can to undermine Western countries and amass influence/power, and nobody here cares. While they steal the IP of the companies that allow us our quality/way of life, you guys are all "Ah, well, we do it too". Well, fuck, I hope so, because the US is the only superpower with anything resembling Western values that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And I don't have a policy regarding dating super models. do you know why? Because I don't have the opportunity to do that thing so I don't plan for it. Rest assured if that was a thing I could do the. I would certainly have a policy regarding it. Its the same for countries and expansionism. Those that can, do. Those that can't, dream.
How do you know this?
Those with sufficient survivial instinct will have a drive to dominate and those that don't won't dominate.
I'm a bit alarmed at how disinterested people are being here. Here is China, a global power, doing all it can to undermine Western countries and amass influence/power, and nobody here cares. While they steal the IP of the companies that allow us our quality/way of life, you guys are all "Ah, well, we do it too". Well, fuck, I hope so, because the US is the only superpower with anything resembling Western values that…
I think it is an issue worth discussing but the way it’s usually framed is from some sort of morally superior position instead of a tactical position. You’ve framed it like a game of chess, which is closer to how geopolitics works in reality, so I can get behind that.
And I probably would've remained that way if I didn't watch on the news how Russia literally annexed a part of Ukraine without a "war" while NATO twiddled its thumbs and went "Well, they didn't invade, so dunno". Or how the US squanders its influence and power while China branches out into Africa, Asia, Europe and the US by buying out everybody and everything they can - meanwhile ensuring they maintain an iron fist over their own press or any critics, and their entire economy and culture and population. In the middle of all this, Europe is in a decade-long crisis over, well, everything and Germany couldn't influence its way out of a paper bag, despite its impressive economy.
For all its flaws (and there are a depressing fuckload), I prefer the US's world order over China's, where they can imprison a million Muslims with no repercussion. I just wish the US were better, in every way, because I know there are tons of people who'll point at the US-Mexico border and what Trump has done and say "See, they're just as bad". And they have a point that the US does terrible things, while still missing the point, and it's both infuriating and depressing because if the US actually held itself to its own standards, I wouldn't have to qualify my every statement where I defend the US over China/Russia.
I'm a bit alarmed at how disinterested people are being here. Here is China, a global power, doing all it can to undermine Western countries and amass influence/power, and nobody here cares. While they steal the IP of the companies that allow us our quality/way of life, you guys are all "Ah, well, we do it too". Well, fuck, I hope so, because the US is the only superpower with anything resembling Western values that…
For one, these opinions are essentially a list of judgments based on a biased set of observations. There is a difference between making an observation and making a judgement:
For example, perhaps you observe that there are few replies on this thread and therefore judge that people are disinterested. Perhaps you observe China is a rising power and you judge that it is gathering power for the purpose of undermining Western countries. Perhaps you observe that Chinese people have copied a lot of Western ideas and you judge what they are doing to be selfish stealing. Perhaps you observe that China doesn't have due process, free press, etc and therefore judge that Chinese authorities are "happy" to jail people.
These kinds of judgments tend to attribute intention to behaviors. Such judgments aren't falsifiable nor testable, are too narrowly focused, and they put people at risk of committing fundamental attribution errors. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)
I suspect people who post opinions like these tend to have some less-than-virtuous private psychological desire they want to fulfill. Perhaps they are projecting their own life metaphors onto abstract geopolitical entities - which I think is often silly. Even though we all know China is a country and not a person, people often personify the abstract entity of _the whole of China_ as “wanting” things or having "values" or being "happy to do anything". Perhaps they think life is supposed to be fair and so they frame the actions of countries in terms of fairness. I don’t think it is always correct to think about countries in terms of these metaphors.
Sometimes I also suspect people who have these kinds of opinions to be low-key racist since they are quick to turn observations into more than they are. Perhaps they believe Chinese people are only good at copying people and not making anything original of their own. Perhaps they think Chinese people live in inferior ways and are too inferior to come up with a superior way of living. Perhaps they think it is only natural we should always be drawing negative attention to divergences between what those people do and what we do. I can sympathize with these views but I wonder what the end goal of propagating these views are - is it a war based on an obsession with something related to identity? Or are people calling for help in finding some way to peacefully coexist? Or do people just want to stroke their own ego?
It is no great intellectual achievement to come up with a political narrative. Many narratives aren't falsifiable, some are psychologically driven, bias driven, and many should never be considered politically-actionable. It is one thing to be disinterested and another to be informed yet cautious about jumping to judgment.
I'm a bit alarmed at how disinterested people are being here. Here is China, a global power, doing all it can to undermine Western countries and amass influence/power, and nobody here cares. While they steal the IP of the companies that allow us our quality/way of life, you guys are all "Ah, well, we do it too". Well, fuck, I hope so, because the US is the only superpower with anything resembling Western values that…
I'll offer a contrasting viewpoint - I'm scared to see people propagate opinions like these though I see why people might believe these things. (In no way do I mean any disrespect to you. Power to you for being brave enough to post what may contribute to an interesting discussion.) For one, these opinions are essentially a list of judgments based on a biased set of observations. There is a difference between making a…
"Even though we all know China is a country and not a person, people often personify the abstract entity of _the whole of China_ as “wanting” things or having "values" or being "happy to do anything". In this case, and in this context, "China" as a concept can be entirely reduced to the Chinese government, and we do know exactly what their values are (entirely antithetical to everything that I listed), how they behave and what their interests are (hint: None of it is in our best interests). Hell, at this point, we could probably reduce it down to President Xi Jinping. Depending on context, "China" could also mean the corporations that represent China abroad, which are almost always state-sponsored, owned and subsidized anyway (they just hide it pretty damn well), and the end point is, again, the Chinese state.
As for the idea that a country can't "want" anything or have "values" ... that's just not true. I'm not even sure how you can say that as a fact, even though countries often behave in goal-oriented ways to get what they want - and what they want is generally entirely dependent on its government, its economy, its population, etc. A country isn't a separate concept from these things - it is these things. Do you know what we call a country's values? Culture.
You've essentially said a whole bunch of nothing while addressing none of my actual concerns. It's disingenuous and deceitful and I'm not sure why you're trying to paint my comment in such a bad light in such a way.
Does anybody have a clue what this is really about? Obviously it's not about the Chinese gov't putting backdoors in Huawei equipment. They put backdoors in everybody's equipment, as does the NSA and, where they can, GCHQ, the GRU, and Mossad. It's surprising any cellphone still works with all the backdoors in the baseband processors, completely invisible to (e.g.) your Android kernel running as a contained guest. My…
I'm a bit alarmed at how disinterested people are being here. Here is China, a global power, doing all it can to undermine Western countries and amass influence/power, and nobody here cares. While they steal the IP of the companies that allow us our quality/way of life, you guys are all "Ah, well, we do it too". Well, fuck, I hope so, because the US is the only superpower with anything resembling Western values that…
I'm a bit alarmed at how disinterested people are being here. Here is the US Government , a global power, doing all it can to undermine national sovereignty and amass influence/power, and nobody here cares.
While they steal the resources that allow us our quality/way of life, you guys are all "Ah, well, we do it too". Well, fuck, I hope so, because China is the only superpower doing anything that resembles caring about climate change, and thus human survival.
While the West is the only cultural sphere that pretends to any interest in things like due process, democracy, free press, freedom of speech, etc., the US and their constituent companies are more than happy to jail, fire, or otherwise ostracize anyone who's critical of them or their politics.
I'm a bit alarmed at how disinterested people are being here. Here is China, a global power, doing all it can to undermine Western countries and amass influence/power, and nobody here cares. While they steal the IP of the companies that allow us our quality/way of life, you guys are all "Ah, well, we do it too". Well, fuck, I hope so, because the US is the only superpower with anything resembling Western values that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you know this?
Survival of the fittest Those with sufficient survivial instinct will have a drive to dominate and those that don't won't dominate.