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DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

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

#691

Post by deciplex »

toss1 wrote: post #676
deciplex wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Playing false equivalence games will end very badly. Okay: Chinese report higher satisfaction with their government and the direction their country is headed in than virtually any Western nation and much more than in the US. The Chinese economy is doing the opposite of enshittification, whereas the US is openly embracing the trend at this point with inflation / capital strikes, shrinkflation, consolidation, rent-se…

I was not talking about false equivalence about their economic status; I was talking about falsely equating or 'whatabout-ing' their human rights status. And if you think that polls of life satisfaction are meaningful among a population who are forbidden to criticize their govt except in limited ways (e.g., local officials), I'd like to talk about some fantastic oceanfront land in Kansas... Economy? Of course people…

> China has OFFICIALLY one party, a massive and highly intrusive surveillance and censorship apparatus second to none in the world

Second to ours.

> mobile execution vans literally seizing and executing people on the street by the tens of thousand or more

Absolute nonsense.

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

#692

Post by mrtksn »

mardifoufs wrote: post #669
mardifoufs wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but that wasn't the main thrust of what I was replying to. Also, I guess it only has its own Wireguards or (if we want to talk about inflated promises instead of outright fraud) hundreds of start up like Qwant that promised to challenge the big American man in (2) more weeks or just a few more subsidies. The only difference is that we hear a lot more about American success and failures as they are sadly utterly…

Late correction: I meant wirecard, not wireguard!

Fun fact: Wirecard was a spy operation by the Russian intelligence.

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

#693

Post by janalsncm »

rchaud wrote: post #683
redserk wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It really doesn’t matter that China is worse. It’s not a competition. The fact that people in other places have even less privacy doesn’t make me feel better. This is exactly the sentiment I wanted to convey. I'd feel far more comfortable if we didn't settle for "at least we're not as bad as..." levels of rhetoric. Unsavory surveillance practices in one country shouldn't give us a justification to accept the declin…

Whataboutery has become increasingly common post-Patriot Act America, especially as surveillance technology improved in the smartphone, always-connected age. It was common to criticize the USSR/Iron Curtain countries for encouraging citizens to spy and report on each other. Today, in the world after the 2013 NSA revelations, Ring.com cameras, Alexa smart speakers, bossware apps and Palantir, surveillance is a "market…

Yes, and I think people take exactly the wrong lesson from pointing to worse places. Seeing pervasive surveillance should be taken as a warning about where we don’t want to go, not as a new limit. Having secret, private versions of everything the Chinese government is openly doing isn’t better, but that seems to be the trend.

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

#694

Post by mardifoufs »

mrtksn wrote: post #692
mardifoufs wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Late correction: I meant wirecard, not wireguard!

Fun fact: Wirecard was a spy operation by the Russian intelligence.

Yes, or at least its leadership had ties to Russian security services. Yet European authorities were more than complacent with them, in a way that the SEC would rarely be especially after 6 years of red flags. I don't think German financial authorities were also Russian controlled so my point, that Europe is very pro corporate as long as the corporations are European, still stands I think even with the Russian connection in this case!

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

#695

Post by ethbr1 »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #623
ethbr1 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of running any internet-connected software with a push-update mechanism, built and controlled by a company in a country without a strong independent rule of law, should terrify far more people than it apparently does. This is one of those 'It's not a problem until it is a problem, and then it's a big fucking problem' scenarios.

It's pretty obvious that this is not a problem at all, the only problem right now it's fabricating a narrative where someone is bad "because" while everyone allied with us (the west) it's not "because not". You seem to be worried that an unfair judicial system poses a threat to everyone connected to the internet, well I got some news for you: Uber received $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and t…

A pile of facts is not an argument.

I understand this is how modern pro-wrestling news addresses issues, but assembling a mass of emotionally-inflammatory things doesn't buttress your point.

Specific countries have greater or lesser individual rights and adherence to law.

Why doesn't it make sense to take that into account when extending trust to specific pieces of software running on your device?

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

#696

Post by dctoedt »

rayiner wrote: post #615
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, with all those examples in that video of Democrats saying those things (some of which I think are valid, e.g. that Russian propaganda did help Trump get elected even if there was no collusion, though I don't agree at all that this makes Trump's presidency "illegitimate"), trying to say that is equivalent to what Trump did in 2020/2021 is plain ridiculous. For one, despite her rhetoric, Hillary Clinton actual…

A concession has no legal effect. We have the tradition because it reassures the supporters of the losing candidate that the election system is trustworthy. If you say the word “concede” but then spend the next four years saying “the election was stolen” and “the president is illegitimate” you’re damaging public trust just as much as if you hadn’t conceded. Gore, more than anyone in recent memory, deserves a special…

> If you say the word “concede” but then spend the next four years saying “the election was stolen” and “the president is illegitimate” you’re damaging public trust just as much as if you hadn’t conceded.

False dichotomy.

> Gore exploited a loophole in Florida election law to seek hand recounts only in counties that had gone heavily in his favor.

What you call "exploit[ing] a loophole," others would call "invoking a statutory procedure to exercise a right created for candidates by the legislature." Nothing stopped the Bush campaign from doing the same in counties that went heavily for them — instead, the Bush campaign lawyered up to try to stop the recounts altogether [0]. (And perhaps you've forgotten about the infamous "Brooks Brothers riot" [1] by out-of-state Bush lawyers and staffers.)

And let's not forget: Gore won the popular vote nationwide, which is irrelevant legally but of nontrivial weight morally.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia...

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

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

#697

Post by palata »

ryandrake wrote: post #686
palata wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is to say, if you can make a drone for $200, and DJI puts one out for $50, you don't really stand chance The situation was more that western companies could make a drone for $1000, and DJI would make a significantly better drone for $500. Were they both $1000, the DJI drone would still clearly be better. I am not praising DJI for free here. I just think that we need to face the truth. There is no way to improv…

It's not like their drones run on Black Magic or Wizardry. Surely someone can just buy that $50 drone, take it apart, see what components they are using and how much their costs are, and start from there?

Yes, that's what we do!

But haven't we been saying this in the West forever: "the Chinese copy: they buy our products, take them apart, and just copy"?

Now we realize that they actually learned, and it was not straightforward. They are ahead in robotics, and we can't just "copy": we have to learn. And it takes time.

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

#698

Post by palata »

solardev wrote: post #671
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They competed until they were undercut, and then just didn't bother pursuing more profitable business instead. That is to say, if you can make a drone for $200, and DJI puts one out for $50, you don't really stand chance, so get out of the way and find more profitable businesses. Anyways, DJI seems to just publish its revenue ($3.83b in 2021) but is it actually making money (profit, not revenue)? I'm not finding anyt…

Drones weren't just a commodity to be farmed out to the lowest bidder, though. DJI had significantly better technology in addition to being cheaper. They had better transmitters (with the standalone controllers), redundant sensors, obstacle detection and avoidance, camera sensors and lenses, FLIR, flight time, range, wind correction, gimbals, FPV headsets... all of it. Each year they'd come up with some major innovat…

> I think we have a tendency to look down on Chinese manufacturers as copycats, but DJI is an exception to that rule.

Either they are an exception to the rule, or we under-estimate the work needed to make proper copycats.

Maybe we are just realizing that it takes a lot of work to learn what's needed to "copy", as we are trying to copy DJI ourselves.

DJI is just extremely good. It feels like we have been trying to copy them for 10 years, but they are still moving faster than we can catch up. It feels like the gap is getting bigger, sometimes...

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

#699

Post by seanmcdirmid »

palata wrote: post #663
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really true. Western drone companies haven't bothered competing in the consumer space, but they have made lots of advancement in the non-consumer space, where, arguably, the profits are better. Why try to compete with DJI for mail order drones going to kids when you can get a multi-million dollar contract with the Pentagon?

> Western drone companies haven't bothered competing in the consumer space This is factually wrong. Most drone companies have tried in the consumer space before pivoting towards the military. The military has been more and more present since around 2019, and most Western drone companies have pivoted to the military since Ukraine. Not because it's more profitable, but really because they failed in the consumer space.…

Military is 100x more profitable than consumer. It isn’t clear they DJI is even making money since all I can find on a Google search is them bragging about revenue. If they made $3.83b in revenue in 2021, what were their expenses on that (or better yet, what is the break down of hardware/assembly costs vs. R&D costs if they aren't profitable yet)?

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

#700

Post by seanmcdirmid »

palata wrote: post #697
ryandrake wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like their drones run on Black Magic or Wizardry. Surely someone can just buy that $50 drone, take it apart, see what components they are using and how much their costs are, and start from there?

Yes, that's what we do! But haven't we been saying this in the West forever: "the Chinese copy: they buy our products, take them apart, and just copy "? Now we realize that they actually learned, and it was not straightforward. They are ahead in robotics, and we can't just "copy": we have to learn. And it takes time.

It isn’t clear they aren’t taking a loss on each of their drones. If they are, you c ant really copy it at the price point they are selling it for.
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