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DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

dronedj.com

601–610 of 742 posts

Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely economic protectionism but it's mostly protectionism for national security reasons. I assume the US is going to start manufacturing drones for war in large numbers in the near term and they need to be made at home (or at least by allies).

Yeah the thing is that the US always, always justified everything by using the "national security" excuse/narrative. When another country does it to the US and its corporations, which has by far the longest modern history of getting involved in other nations national security, then it suddenly becomes an attack on free trade and pure protectionism.

>always justified everything by using the "national security"

Is it any different than China wanting data access from U.S companies that attempted to open their business there? I'm not in favor of this ban. I think they should've at least forced DJI to keep the data local before going for an outright ban.

Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#602
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American brands are much, much more aggressive about making you connect to the internet, install our apps, create an account This whataboutism ignores one very important point. When you connect a device to an American company they might do things that we consider privacy violations, while still staying generally within the bounds of the law. We like to joke about data going to the NSA or something, but in the extre…

I agree with most of your point but. > data going to the NSA or something, but in the extremely limited cases where it does protections exist with oversight. They didn't build the Utah Data Center because of their extremely limited amount of data. We all like to joke about our data going to the NSA because our data has been repeatedly been caught going to the NSA.

> They didn't build the Utah Data Center because of their extremely limited amount of data.

I love that people point to one of the smallest NSA data centers as if its going to prove some sort of point.

Regardless, this is exactly the kind of whataboutism that I am talking about. Every government collects all the data it can. The difference is that the NSA targets foreign governments and terror organizations. The Chinese government targets the same but also goes after their citizens, foreign citizens, foreign corporations, etc.

Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#603
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

none of this insight will help america compete with china. at first blush it seems like instead we're cutting ourselves off at the ankle.

So... what WILL help america compete with China? (without playing the same game) How could the US build out a competitive drone industry with chinese manufacturers able to cut price because the Chinese government will cover the gap? Drones are not yet an "essential" piece of technology for the country as a whole. We're currently at "cutting ourselves off at the toe" territory... in a few years we'd be even more depen…

Surely the feds pumped a bunch of cash into electric vehicle domestic production, alongside a tariff on imports. We could start supporting domestic production of drones? There's obviously a market.

Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that, and I think it's a fair point, but there is also the issue of leadership . E.g. there are tons of Republican "elites" who know that the whole "stop the steal" stuff and falsehoods around Trump winning in 2020 are complete, total, and utter bullshit. We know this because they've said it! My favorite example is when Liz Cheney wrote in her book that Republican Rep Mark Green said, as he was signing e…

I agree in the abstract, but I think that’s encompassed by my point that the Republican base wants to fight fire with fire: https://youtu.be/iRYB6N8fBKQ?si=-bSwtvosf-o4PE0z . I think “principled Republicans” don’t know what time it is. Trump’s only mistake was not saying “I formally concede” before spending years saying the election was stolen. That’s the new normal and has been since 2000.

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Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#606
post #441

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> Longevity, happiness, health, leisure, life satisfaction. Companies are there to make these possible, not to maximise the stock trading price. No? This is exactly the opposite of why companies exist, they are specifically there to increase the stock price via development of their products. That we get better happiness via rising wealth standards is just a coincidence, albeit a very useful and historically true coin…

Right, that's why at the heart of the tech innovation peple are running from mentally ill homeless people the insulating themselves in gated communities to pretend like living in a german village. Huge success. I wouldn't obsess too much with the GDP too, its not as good as a proxy to the important stuff as people are trying to make it. An appendicitis surgery generates much more economic activity in USA than in Euro…

If you paid me just the difference between a US and European Google software engineer salary, I’d be willing to run from homeless people all day

Besides, that’s why americans have cars to insulate them from the unwashed masses

Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can only be side-loaded on Android, because their app breaks a number of policies on privacy and data gathering. I don't think this is the reason, I think it's more that they're just too lazy to jump through the approval and maintenance hoops that come with an app store, especially because their home market (China) doesn't even use the Play Store. The iOS version of their app is Apple-approved and present in the…

>I don't think they're explicitly a CCP data-collection front In China you cannot not be explicitly a CCP data-collection front. China doesn't bring evidence to a judge in order to get a subpoena for data. They just go to DJI an get it. DJI has zero legal recourse if the CCP wants access to all DJI's stored data. Doesn't matter where that data is stored. Same thing for tiktok and why legislators are killing that too.…

> China doesn't bring evidence to a judge in order to get a subpoena for data. They just go to DJI a get it. DJI has zero legal recourse if the CCP wants access to all DJI's stored data. Doesn't matter where that data is stored.

Is this an assumption or do you have first-hand knowledge of how this works operationally, in practice?

Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The competition is literally an arm of the state of China, which is able to subsidize the business and send prices through the floor. Why would any entrepreneur choose to compete with a state-backed enterprise? And by the way, have you heard of tariffs? We literally "ban" all kinds of products with very high tariffs.

You can build your own drone quite cheaply using open source technologies, so I don't believe that industrial competition is as impossible as you say; especially given the existence of US subsidies/tax breaks for anything remotely defense related. And by the way, have you heard of good manners? They make discussions much more productive than smug comebacks.

>you can build your own drone quite cheaply using open source technologies

Problem is that literally ever single part that goes into building a DIY drone is sourced from China. You can 3d print the frame. But that's about it. Most drone hobbyist buy them from sellers in the U.S that import them in bulk from China or they order directly from sites like AliExpress.

Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all reports, Skydio drones offer an excellent user experience. The DJI Mini 3 Prop is currently $899, and Skydio can't manufacture something like that in the US, and sell it for that amount of money. But I bet they could make something comparable at a sale price of $1100-1300. Allowing Communists to dump goods in our market is optional. I don't know that I support a ban on DJI products, I have a Mini 2: I like dro…

At this point China is about as communist as FedEx is federal. They are “state capitalist” which pretty much means the government owns or has controlling stakes in a lot of companies. Singapore’s is similar.

They copied Lenin’s NEP, which was copied later by the German fascists. As it happens, Sun, Yatsen, on his deathbed, met with Mao one time in Guangzhou and they both agreed a fascist (or state capitalist) system would be best for the Chinese people. That was after NEP but before German fascists rose to power. Of course Stalin put an end to NEP and powered and willed full on communism after Lenin’s death.

Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the thing is that the US always, always justified everything by using the "national security" excuse/narrative. When another country does it to the US and its corporations, which has by far the longest modern history of getting involved in other nations national security, then it suddenly becomes an attack on free trade and pure protectionism.

>always justified everything by using the "national security" Is it any different than China wanting data access from U.S companies that attempted to open their business there? I'm not in favor of this ban. I think they should've at least forced DJI to keep the data local before going for an outright ban.

I completely agree but the difference is that we already know China is a totalitarian one party dictatorship. They don't necessarily try to hide it to. That's not the case in the US, but it always sneaks in through dogwhistles like "national security". I mean who wants to be against that, right?

But yes it's obviously better for the US to at least keep the data from going overseas. But that's not really what we've been seeing with this potential ban and tik Tok. It's just outright banning stuff under the same "national security" boogeyman. Again, yes China does the exact same thing but I don't think we want to imitate China out of all nations. The cold war wasn't won by imitating the Soviet Union.

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