Honestly, I think the West's best defense is young otherwise powerless people on the internet making memes mocking the irresponsible behavior of people in power.
I honestly am going to need you to explain why this is your thought.
Chinese top leaders generally are only in power for ten years. I don't see why they have more motivations than leaders in democratic states to think about the long term.
Longterm goals and progress are quite separate from the everyday life of most people. China recently completed the largest radio telescope in the world. Next year they begin work on what will be the largest particle collider in the world. And then there are their rapid advances in space. In appealing to the lowest common denominator of demographics, these achievements are easy to tear apart. "Spending billions to grow potatoes on the moon while people are starving back here on Earth!? WTF!?" That's an illogical but common argument. It implies you should not achieve greater things until you solve the fundamental ails of society. Problem being it's likely impossible to solve those ails in complete -- certainly without any technological advancement. The argument is tantamount to suggesting a freeze on progress for the sake of progress.
And the partisanship issue goes practically without saying. Our founding fathers wrote extensively on the dangers of parties, but were unable to solve the issue. China solved the issue, but at great cost - there is only one party. But for now at least they seem to be avoiding the issues we're facing. As for how this applies to longterm progress, in 1972 Nixon remarked “This may be the last time in this century that men will walk on the Moon.” [1] A significant part of the reason he decided to strip NASA down was because of a feud he had with JFK. He lost to Kennedy in an extremely close and contentious election in 1960. Apparently even Kennedy's assassination was insufficient to put that feud to rest. One president wanting to destroy things associated with another's legacy, because of a political feud? As always, what's new is old. Hard to achieve much when in a few years the next guy's going to try to destroy everything associated with you because of a feud driven by our partisan nonsense. And then the voting masses just get dragged along between the feuds. And as our political leaders become ever more effective at this game, it seems to be causing a greater and greater fragmentation within society which means things like big picture progress are going to be ever less likely.
[1] - http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/jason-callahan/20...
Source? I would love to add this to my collection of knowledge...
Booking and cancelling and booking and cancelling and... It would be terrible to change your mind so often. So you decide to just go with the option you picked first even though it temporarily seems suboptimal.
Switching flights and hotels on a moment's notice is expensive. Arbitrary days off work are difficult for most. For some travel you're looking at visas, rental cars, etc as stated.
There's a lot of inertia in the boring and stable path.
Well you are in luck, China still has that whole South China Sea thing going on these days.
No. Even if this were a moral position, China doesn't follow this either.
Human rights should not be geofenced.
Just because the US et al aren't perfect (and they certainly aren't) doesn't mean the behavior in China is equivalent to what is going on in the west.
Because it's a volunteer, private process and not the government doing it, we still call it "freedom" but it really doesn't feel like an open society anymore. But I do acknowledge that we still have it way better in the West than they do in China (for now).
Russians and Chinese citizens in my company, along with us citizens, europeans. These aren't exactly outliers. The tech world has been this tolerant over my 30 years of working. It's only gotten more tolerant over time. There's a hell of a lot less acceptance of sexist crap though - hard to argue against that change.
As for arbitrary detention, how about the National Defense Authorization Act (2012) Section 1021 [2]? The language is a mixture of strong and weak. What I mean is that it says, for instance, one can be detained for providing direct support of a specific terrorist group, but it also includes anybody engaging in a "belligerent act" against the United States as similarly sufficient grounds for arbitrary detention or transferal to the custody or control of any other nations. This remains one of the loopholes for 'we don't torture' - we just transfer to countries that do. When Obama signed this bill into law he openly acknowledged this, as well as the rather extreme constitutional conflicts, and simply claimed his administration would "interpret" the law in a way that would avoid a constitutional conflict. [3] Whether that was true or not is anybody's guess. In any case 'the law's still here, he's all gone' (in my best Springsteen impersonation.)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...
[3] - https://www.ajc.com/blog/jamie-dupree/obama-defense-bill-sig...
One AG trying != it happened.
> and social scores are just as possible to implement in the US as in China
Not under the current laws, no.
> we already know that a form of such scoring has already been applied to those thought to perhaps be "terrorists".
No, there is no “terrorist” score that comes up based on posting tweets about how much you hate the US government when you go to apply for a job. In fact, it would probably be worse for your job prospects in the tech industry if you had public posts supporting the current admin.
As to the terrorist score, you are right. That would be too simple to target.
Instead, we have amalgam of various private entities collecting information and selling it to highest bidder. At best, the score is distributed.
Indeed. The closest you get is the No Fly List.
Which laws forbid the construction of a US social credit score?
Translation: would I prefer a government that is openly hostile to human rights, or one that has some laws.
In answer, I'd prefer my system not yours.
> which is why they're kept misinformed + uninformed
And out comes the usual claim that westerners are ignorant.
This thought causes victim of scams to mortgage their houses and send the money to scammers - even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Causes victim of abusive relationships to remain even when their lives are in danger. It's also what will keep western companies in China - even as China slowly strangles them to death.
Sunk Cost Fallacy