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Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

#221

Post by FooBarWidget »

seppin wrote: post #194
FooBarWidget wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not surprised that you think that. A lot of western discourse has gone so far off to the anti China direction that anything neutral people say can come over as pro CCP. I am not. I have plenty of critique against them. But the sentiment in HN is already so anti China that there is no need for me to voice that critique. I am not even saying "CCP good". I am saying "CCP not as bad as you think" and "there are alte…

You just keep saying "everyone is anti-China" over and over without clarifying what you actually mean. Your insistence on not making a distinction between the CCP and the Chinese people makes it hard to engage in any discussion, as criticism of one is taken as criticism of the other. I have a strong feeling the CCP is depending on this mentality from it's people, playing up ethnonationalism and xenophobia to distract…

You raise an interesting point when you ask me to explain why I think HN is anti-China. It was so self-evident to me, but apparently you don't experience it as such. Maybe the HN crowd is not so much anti-China, but rather just misinformed, by virtue of living in the western media bubble which paints a one-sided picture of China.

I gave the Wuhan lab virus theory as an example. Actually the entire COVID-19 reporting is a big example, and is what triggered me to speak up in the first place. I was in China in January, I personally witnessed the news, lockdown progression, etc. And yet when I look at western reporting, there is so much misinformation, so much unjustified blame for things that are obviously not true.

For example, I see so many comments on HN saying China covered up for months (they didn't -- downplayed jan 1 to jan 20 at most), saying that China deliberately allowed international flights from Wuhan after the lockdown in order to infect the world (they didn't), and more. I see so many extreme, obviously untrue information, that I see this as anti-China.

And Chinese media is very weak against such unsubstantiated attacks. How can I sit back, see all the lies and bullying, and not hope that Chinese media gets their act together? This has got nothing to do with whether I support the CCP in the end -- just because CCP has problems, and that there are legit criticisms against CCP, doesn't mean we should accept lies against CCP, nor does it mean that they shouldn't be able to defend themselves against lies.

Re: Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

#222

Post by FooBarWidget »

msla wrote: post #203
rimjongun wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is confusing Chinese people with the PRC. Stop muddying the waters of an important and policy impacting conversation.

Someone in this very thread is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23111557

I am not confusing CCP with the entirety of Chinese people, culture and history, as I have already explained elsewhere.

I am, however, claiming that the CCP is massively intertwined with mainland Chinese people. See this article that explains this in more detail: https://oxfordpoliticalreview.com/amp/2020/04/24/china-serie...

So if you say "I am against CCP, not the Chinese people", then that statement only makes sense if you exclude "many many mainlanders" from the definition of "Chinese people". Which makes the statement rather weak, or even nonsensical.

You say that if we accept this intertwine, it makes criticism impossible. Not so. You can still criticize the CCP, but you need to be more nuanced with your criticism, do more due diligence instead of merely rehashing western narratives, and realize that you're criticizing the CCP and the people at the same time (which could be entirely legit).

I therefore argue that recognizing the CCP - mainland people intertwine is a good thing, as it makes criticism more honest, more accurate, and possibly more helpful/constructive. No longer can you put all the blame on "just the bad guys" -- all of us mainlanders are complicit in some sense. We all own the problem, so we can't stop at just blaming, and have to actually find a solution.

Re: Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

#224

Post by nske »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #220
nske wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should this progress in economic development be enough to make it legitimate? I mean, even if we assumed that the end justifies the means and that all that matters is economic prosperity, they didn't even have to do a lot of things right -just less badly than before (which admittedly wasn't that hard when someone looks at how bad they were). And if this progress happened to coincide with loosening up the restrict…

There is no proof that your latter claim is true. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were all authoritarian before they got economically prosperous. Only after that did they become democratic. The states in the middle east, which had democracy forced upon them, aren't doing that well either. It takes a while to get there, and not all stages of development of a country is a good match for democracy. And you say that it…

Ok, I suppose we all have our priorities and biases. I can see how being able to feed for one's family can feel more urgent than being able to exercise their freedoms.

Perhaps the (late) CCP deserves credit for improving economy, infrastructure, efficiency and quality of life, to the extent that it did. And for being less cruel than its predecessors.

It is just that from the perspective of westerners, it is hard to judge positively a government that still has no respect for individual freedoms and private aspects of people's lives -i.e. looking the social score system, it is a step to the wrong direction.

My worry is that if the Chinese people become complacent and just feel grateful that they have more prosperity than before, the day where they are able to enjoy the freedoms that every person deserves will be far. And that, if they are not used to having free access to information and being in control, it will be more likely for someone less peaceful than the current CCP leadership in the future to start a war or something.

Re: Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

#226

Post by seppin »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #221
seppin wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just keep saying "everyone is anti-China" over and over without clarifying what you actually mean. Your insistence on not making a distinction between the CCP and the Chinese people makes it hard to engage in any discussion, as criticism of one is taken as criticism of the other. I have a strong feeling the CCP is depending on this mentality from it's people, playing up ethnonationalism and xenophobia to distract…

You raise an interesting point when you ask me to explain why I think HN is anti-China. It was so self-evident to me, but apparently you don't experience it as such. Maybe the HN crowd is not so much anti-China, but rather just misinformed, by virtue of living in the western media bubble which paints a one-sided picture of China. I gave the Wuhan lab virus theory as an example. Actually the entire COVID-19 reporting…

> You raise an interesting point when you ask me to explain why I think HN is anti-China. It was so self-evident to me, but apparently you don't experience it as such. Maybe the HN crowd is not so much anti-China, but rather just misinformed, by virtue of living in the western media bubble which paints a one-sided picture of China.

Again, you're not actually saying anything here, these are just your perceptions.

> I see so many extreme, obviously untrue information, that I see this as anti-China.

Right as I said it seems that you view all criticism of the Chinese Communist Party as criticism of China and Chinese people. This makes you a (ethno)nationalist, which is ironically another western stereotype. That Chinese see all criticism of China as criticism of them personally.

> And Chinese media is very weak against such unsubstantiated attacks. How can I sit back, see all the lies and bullying, and not hope that Chinese media gets their act together?

It's hard to make any conclusion other than you see the CCP as fighting for your image as well as their own. I'm wondering if you are willing to concede this is the case, and if so how do you suggest someone like me to attempt any sort of dialogue? Seems self-defeating.

And if in your opinion I got something wrong, what is it? Thanks for your response ahead of time, I come in good faith to better understand you and your perspective.

Re: Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

#227

Post by baby »

lucideer wrote: post #16

> I myself mostly use the following features from Keybase: Chat, KBFS, Git repositories and encrypting messages sent out-of-band via PGP in Keybase (and the various cryptographic tools [signing, validation etc]) While all these features are individually nice, I kinda started to worry about Keybase as a product when they started bolting on stuff like this. I think the key (pun intended) to stable & ongoing success in…

> when they started bolting on stuff like this

I was not necessarily worried, but it's true that it's nice to have a tool that does a few simple things. keys.pub looks like it's doing this.

Re: Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

#228

Post by baby »

ceejayoz wrote: post #39
lucideer wrote: post #16

> I myself mostly use the following features from Keybase: Chat, KBFS, Git repositories and encrypting messages sent out-of-band via PGP in Keybase (and the various cryptographic tools [signing, validation etc]) While all these features are individually nice, I kinda started to worry about Keybase as a product when they started bolting on stuff like this. I think the key (pun intended) to stable & ongoing success in…

None of these really worried me. The Stellar airdrop was my "oh shit" moment.

I can picture them being "OK I want to implement some cool cryptography stuff right now, what about a cryptocurrency wallet? Like that we can even get some funding".

Honestly I would have done the same stuff, I don't see why people are mad, it doesn't make the product less good.

Re: Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

#229

Post by baby »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #213
novok wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they were making a general secure E2E 'corporate team software' kit, with a focus on software dev. Storage, chat, git, etc. But then they forgot to charge money :( For corps especially, they want to be able to pay money so they can get support and SLAs. But keybase files have always had somewhat bad performance and undefined storage limits, so you couldn't rely on it as a company. It was always the bigges…

Agreed. I was really impressed with the software quality for an all-FOSS team, but it wasn't quite good enough for enterprise, and without charging money it won't ever happen. I wonder what if any features besides for the core crypto code Zoom will try to adapt. They are after all a rapidly growing enterprise app and I could see chat or file sharing being added.

> and without charging money it won't ever happen

they got to do some pretty cool stuff and just exited pretty nicely joining a company that is on the rise. I'd say that's a success. Being in the field that's pretty much what I wish I could do whenever I'll start a startup.

Re: Ask HN: Keybase Alternatives?

#230

Post by baby »

nikolay wrote: post #133
rasengan wrote: post #15

Handshake [1] is a great keybase alternative that doesn’t even rely on centralization. All information is verifiable with the blockchain acting as the root of trust. [1] https://handshake.org

Sorry, can't use that - it uses Node v10.

more context pls
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