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A comment on Beijing bets on facial recognition in a big drive for total surveillance. Parent comment

Re:Beijing bets on facial recognition in a big drive for tot... by forapurpose on Monday January 08, 2018 @02:01AM (#16095129)
Nobody is saying the U.S. is flawless, but people in the U.S. are far more free, prosperous, and safe than those in China. As one simple example, Americans choose who governs them and can openly criticize them. As another, Americans can do all these things you dislike, whether you or the government like it or not.

All of the most prosperous, most free countries in the world are democracies. The most prosperous, most free parts of China are democracies (Taiwan and Hong Kong). As Churchill said (reputedly): Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

I wish my brethren in China great freedom, prosperity and peace.

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Re:Beijing bets on facial recognition in a big drive for tot... by wu-ikkyu on Monday January 08, 2018 @10:10AM (#16097195)
>people in the U.S. are far more free, prosperous, and safe than those in China.

This sort of statement is entirely subjective. As a counterpoint, many people in China would say the US is less free and less safe, because the US has by far the most amount of people locked in cages and a higher per capita homicide rate.

Whether or not one country is "better" than the other is nationalist subjectivity.

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Re:Beijing bets on facial recognition in a big drive for tot... by forapurpose on Monday January 08, 2018 @01:41PM (#16098761)
>> people in the U.S. are far more free, prosperous, and safe than those in China.

> This sort of statement is entirely subjective

It's not at all subjective. There are many objective measurements of prosperity, such as income and wealth per capita, and freedom, such as human rights. Freedom House is a good source for an an objective, annual review of human rights (last I knew; I haven't looked at it in a little while).

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Re:Beijing bets on facial recognition in a big drive for tot... by catnaroek on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @11:39AM (#16107413)
“Freedom” and “peace”, for some bastardized version of those words, presumably something along the lines of “we can go there and do as we wish” [0] and “they will never attempt to contest our dominance”, respectively - that I can believe.

“Prosperity”, nope. That has never been what Westerners wished for China.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterritoriality

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