There is the possibility that Thiel genuinely believes in such principles but voz_ would need a lot of evidence to convince the majority of the usual commentators.
I think he is the guiding hand behind the weaponization of social media on behalf of conservative/fascist interests.
But yes, the democratic west should aim for weapon and capability parity. We just should not get on too high a moral horse so.
Books are being removed from classrooms and inconvenient history is being rewritten by the state in Florida and other states. However Florida’s governor seems to be eying a run at the White House.
It seems unlikely to succeed, but the unlikely has happened before.
We are very definitely better than them.
Hopefully soon more Americans realize how similar your country and China are, the differences are minor, not major.
So if you’re a Chinese citizen, go ahead and type out your name and where you live, along with a list of things you feel your government is wrong about.
The issue isn't that you aren't writing this post with no pause of concern.
The issue is that after writing it, and, presumably, comprehending what you, yourself wrote, you still harbor the delusion of maintaining some moral high ground (as are some other posters in this thread)
The US maintains a lot more freedoms for its citizens simply due to exerting vast military power to siphon resources from the entire planet (with exceptions to China/Russia, obviously). Otherwise, it's entirely unknown and hypothetical as to whether it would or could be a "shining beacon of democracy" as so many would like to believe it currently is (which it very well may be, compared to CCP/Russia, which is not a very high bar)
I think this is the perfect problem for you not us - to work that out. You're not gonna end where you think.
Stuck for an approach? Look at the 2015 Nobel prize in literature and try that in china then in the US.
Even inasmuch as it annoys a lot of people who don't appreciate this perspective--they tend to overrate it as if it must equate to perfection, a nation without problems, etc.
Americans sure love "whatabout". Every time when pointed to their problems you would hear but look at China / Russia / etc.
>"rather magnificent piece of moral high ground"
I guess crusaders are not yet extinct
It annoys everyone because it's based on a false pretense.
In terms of morals, the US didn't turn up any better than the USSR, judging by how it acted when it became uncontested.
Most guys try to gauge the relative stupidity or goodness of things by reading history, and getting some sense of the state of play from real people and facts.
For most of us belief alone isn't good enough.
No, just killed slightly less people (maybe) while chanting "they asked for it" and "we are the good guys" mantras.
No, you don't. You have an excellent propaganda and a totally chauvinistic attitude.
To put it simply, you are just biased because you can't see yourself from the outside.
Nothing againstvthe latter, thaz was quite necessary, bit entities as rich as the EU could offer the same thing to all people in need, right?
But freedom of speech, human rights, and climate change are areas where BRICS stands in a morally compromised position, relative to the West.
> BRICS stands in a morally compromised position, relative to the West.
So, specifically what did you mean by all that when compared the west to... what exactly, an economic pact of completely culturally different countries?
I find that self-assigned supremacy in matters of climate change to be somewhat contrary to the fact that the West had pushed all the dirty production to the so called "third world states" (some happen to be BRICS) while still remaining the largest consumer, and then when faces with practical issues, engaged in fracking and reopened the coal mines. Do you honestly think you are the only ones who are bothered?
This attitude is counterproductive and dangerous. I am legitimately scared when western folks start that superiority trope.
We should be looking into the a mirror, not greeting ourselves with the thoughts that there are worse places. This way inevitably leads down, not up, if we are talking "high moral"
Can I have more details please
>"I'll take the good old US"
I would choose the US as well. Because the US treats their own citizens better (at least for now). Not because it stands on "high moral ground" - it does not.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-03/bob-hawke-tiananman-c...
I love a lot about China, love Chinese people, but we have to be realistic about the differences in governance and its capacity for acts like this. We (non-Americans) are very lucky that the US became the world hegemon after WW2 and the sole superpower after the fall of the Soviet Union. For all its faults and mistakes, it usually recognizes them eventually and tries to improve over time. So, while it annoys me a bit that young Americans are so anti-US, it's a very healthy sign that there is so much criticism.
The rush to privatize everything in Russia came from the West - particularly the US. The US encouraged Putin's protege Yeltsin to use tanks to shell Russia's parliament - which was celebrated on US news shows, in government etc.
You're upholding the beacon of the US to militantly right what it had a hand in creating in the first place.
Russia doling out their biggest companies to their friends turning them into oligarchs was probably a predictable outcome in retrospect. The difference between Russia and the surroundings smaller states was that it was the power center of that entire part of Europe and beyond. That huge amount of backroom power structures (not to mention the KGB) were far larger and not things that were going to fade away easily. It was primed to turn into a pseudo mafia state without proper reforms... By the people themselves, not some foreign overlord (although good advisor's always helps). The responsibility is always ultimately going to rely on people caring internally, as we saw in Afghanistan/Iraq you can't externally prop up democratic/fair organizations without local buy in and local cultural adhesion. So it comes down to what Russia could/would do themselves.
I'm curious what the alternative would have been given Russia's sovereignty. The west not getting involved and pushing raw privatization and not pushing back during the power struggle by the communist factions... I guess it would be more like a modern extreme top-heavy state-capitalism.
So basically China? The oligarchs would have to do their deals via gov annoited monopolies, being run by princelings. Elite party members rather than Oligarchs.
Or maybe best case scenario some top heavy EU style country like Belgium (53%) / France (58%) . Finland (54%) / etc where >50% of GDP is via gov (Russia is currently 36%)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...
Source: i was there.
To relate it solely to or even just directly with privatizing things in the US is not only not necessary, but misleading, especially given the near 1:1 relationship of the de facto world Putin operated in early in his career as compared to what is being exposed to the west about his government's operating style right now.
This is a popular Putinist talking point, and like all of his other propaganda vehicles untrue.
No thank you. The fact that you insist specifically on "recent", i.e. decades after actual events and during a very specific political climate makes me 100% sure that there is zero substance.
> capital given freely
You have no idea what you are talking about right? Dude, what capital? The only capital that went through Russia were the investors buying state assets cheap and oligarchs filling their pockets for selling "well fluid" (oil, but not taxed)
(https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1117290.pdf, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c..., https://ips-dc.org/aid_to_russia/). Also Warcast from the ISI which recently did a great podcast on the subject.
On the contrary. I actually criticise dismissing all the research except for "recent". And no one actually brought up any numbers.
Sorry, what is your point exactly? It's hard to figure with link-only answers to huge longreads. I've skimmed the first link and didn't find anything contradictory.
The second link provides a quote that doesn't have too much to do with the topic at hand? Did you read every word attentively? I don't understand how a quote about someone on some economic summit making some statements and the US allocating funds for some operations (might as well be as useful as "building sustainable democratic institutes") on ex-USSR (that's not Russia) is not representative of anything.
> Also Warcast from the ISI which recently did a great podcast on the subject.
Sorry, I am sure this podcast has amazing entertainment value, but referring someone to a podcast is akin to referring to a facebook post.
> You're upholding the beacon of the US to militantly right what it had a hand in creating in the first place.
translation: Russians have no agency.
What happned in Russia post USSR is entirely on Russians and Russian culture. You should show more respect to a people and arguably a civilization than painting them as chumps that do the bidding of foreigners to their own detriment. Russia is responsible for Russia's situations. Just like we are responsible for our (equally not optimal lately) situation over in US.
+I have no idea where you get your facts: Yeltsin wasn't "Putin's protege", Putin wasn't Yeltin's protege either. The mayor of St. Petersburg was Putin's patron and he (being powerful) apparently* brokered a deal for transition from Yeltin's clique to his own (and then Putin ran with it). Yeltsin promoted Putin because he got a deal for himself and his family after the transition. That does not make him Putin's protege.
As to the tanks, it's possible CIA called and suggested something. Is this America's fault that Russian politicians overnight turn from fire breathing communist to CIA lapdogs?
Is it really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Sobchak
* that's actually wrong. Sobchak was in exile in Paris at that time. So Putin's actual patrons in his rise may have been KGB all along.
In other words, communism with extra steps if you think it through to its logical conclusion.
Communism's entire thesis (which, frankly, I agree with) is that all historical conflict is class conflict. I have my disagreements, however, with (1) how much of a problem it is purported to be and (2) with both the theory and the implementation of the solutions offered.
Eh there's a lot of propaganda from the US about China I wouldn't buy into it. Ethno facist is a bit insulting it's like calling the US a Corporate dystopia. Both terms are technically true but the terms also incite conflict.
I would say China is definitely from certain angles more flawed then the US but it shouldn't be characterized as a "villain" which your post seems to move in the direction towards. People in China are generally happy, they live well and the rise of China has been one of the biggest upliftings of people out of poverty the human race has ever seen. This isn't north korea or some terrorist state.
Both China and the US would do better if the countries had no rivalry as most well put by Charlie Munger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujMA3QRlN7w
The arsenal democracy is absolutely insane. The world doesn't need this.
I feel these statements at least partly stem from contrarian origins. We have a huge supply of facts as to why China indeed is a fascist totalitarian state - look at what happened to Hong Kong as an example. Pooling these facts into ”US propaganda” is borderline intellectually dishonest.
>People in China are generally happy
In happiness, China ranked 82nd out of 146 countries in 2023.
You mean the violent breaking off of it from China by the imperial "enlightened" United Kingdom? Its massacre of Chinese protesting UK imperialism in the 1960s?
What a hilarious joke it is to see the westerners finally kicked out of their imperial colony taking some self-righteous posture of supposed concern about the Chinese there. What a laugh.
Sandwiched between posts complaining about African "vagrants" begging for food in San Francisco.
Of course theirs plenty of evidence. There's also plenty of evidence that the US is a nation of violent psychopaths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes. That's just one example of the bad things in the US.
The US is far from great and when viewed through the right lens there's tons and tons of stuff. The Chinese are fed this stuff and all of it is true. All of it. The problem here is that this information isn't a full characterization of the US. It's a small slice of the pie.
What I'm saying is that the information you are being fed is also a small slice of the pie. It's nearly impossible to prove this to both you and your Chinese counterpart being fed anti-American propaganda. So I can only tell you about my perspective and hopefully you can at the very least consider the fact that your universe of information is limited.
I'm a Chinese American. Meaning I was born in the US to immigrant parents from China. I have many immigrant friends from China, many friends that were born here and lived in China (myself included) and I can only tell you that if you lived in China and it's not what you think. It's quite normal living in China, it's not some imagined fascist dystopia so many misinformed Americans fantasize about.
It's unlikely you'll change your opinion based off this one post. But perhaps this post can be a seed for the future where you might become more informed about what it's really like.
Perhaps I can convince you to at least mistrust western propaganda. Western propaganda is highly, highly sophisticated because it's fed to you under the guise of Freedom of the press. It's more sophisticated then Chinese propaganda because the Chinese on a certain level are aware of lies and censorship. It's actually not violating any freedom of press policies. Government sponsored lies in the press is still technically freedom of the press. Take a look at these sources:
https://graphika.com/reports/unheard-voice https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/sio-aug-22-takedowns https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7z77m/facebook-twitter-take...
I guess the best way to break out of that mode is to have several Chinese friends from china here. Ask them what it's like.
>In happiness, China ranked 82nd out of 146 countries in 2023.
If you lived in China you'll know it's not because of the government. It's actually because of capitalism. China is a dog eat dog competitive society. People are overworked there. The unhappiness is the same sort of unhappiness that corporate drones feel here for their 9-5 job but 1000x worse. The Chinese aren't unhappy because of "lack of freedoms" or anything like that.
The majority doesn't really care about censorship because it doesn't effect peoples daily lives. Most people aren't protestors or part of organizations with an agenda.
Not to mention free speech isn't something that's available on HN too. Watch if this thread becomes too heated, dang will swoop in and shut it down. You're not free to say whatever you want. The government in China is much the same way except it's global law.
Some things are worse in China other things are worse in the US. Think about it. A chinese guy is telling you like it is right to your face but you stubbornly refuse to even consider it. How is this different then say Big Oil denying climate change or Big Tobacco denying the addictiveness and health effects of tobacco? At the very least none of what I said should flip your beliefs but a wise person should begin to question it.
Have you considered that the majority aren't protestors _because_ of censorship?
HN is not a country, I don't have to use it.
I am from Russia, and many people were telling me the same thing, but they are fools. After the last February most of them got their senses though.
Conflict to resolve a dispute when one party is coerced is justified.
If a slave killed their master, they are resolving the dispute of whether a slave is a person or property. If Russia says Ukraine is not a country and Ukraine says yes we are, Ukrainians are not in the wrong for asserting themselves. If someone taxes you but doesn't give you the benefit of that tax money, then conflict to stop the theft is justified (revolutionary war).
So where you see conflict and think conflict is bad, I see conflict as a possible force for good. I don't want the US to become a corporate dystopia, but we are most definitely headed in that direction and that is a good conflict to have. I don't want China to be an ethno fascist state, but china is headed in that direction (and I personally believe they are already there), and putting a stop to that is a good conflict to have.
You have the privilege of saying china is not a villian, but if you put yourself in the shoes of Uighurs, people from Hong Kong, Tibetans or Taiwanese citizens rather than in privileged shoes, I think you would come to a different conclusion.
> People in China are generally happy
And that is the point. When you say people, you are referring to Han people. That's the ethno in ethno-fascist.
> The arsenal democracy is absolutely insane. The world doesn't need this.
I absolutely disagree. Sometimes your only choice is fight or submit, and I would rather live free than die a slave.
Sometimes that is the only choice. On that we can agree.
Unfortunately when it comes to China that is clearly not only Not the only choice, but also the stupidest and most harmful choice to both sides.
Think about it.
>Conflict to resolve a dispute when one party is coerced is justified.
Whatever did China do to you? And whatever did you do to China? Mostly nothing. Just a trade war. I think China's biggest crime is attempting to get a GDP per capita bigger than the United States. Or stealing and copying technology being a big second. But China has been stealing tech since before the US-China rivalry so I think most of it spawns from the economic rivalry. These aren't legitimate coercion's, it's all dick size comparisons.
>And that is the point. When you say people, you are referring to Han people. That's the ethno in ethno-fascist.
What is this? That's obviously bullshit. So when it says "We the people" on the declaration of independence it's only referring to White males? That makes the US a ethno-sexist-corporate dystopia. Come on man.
Although the "All men are created equal" part of the declaration literally, refers to white males. It's written on a historical document. If I used this to argue with you to make the claim that the US is a white supremacist country of males it'd be disingenuous and lacking nuance. I am telling you that's exactly the kind of arguments you are parroting from the US propaganda machine.
Peter Thiel has a very different worldview from you. Essentially he believes that the US should have an industrial policy, but that it should be run by someone like Vannevar Bush in the same manner that he ran the Office of Scientific Research and Development during WW2. So not a command economy or an autocracy, exactly, but with maximal autonomy and minimal external accountability. It's understandable to be hostile to bureaucracy in general, but my impression is that Thiel strongly believes in the 'noble lie' and considers that the public doesn't really know where its own interests lie.
This is based on a presentation he gave at a private event some years ago. I have a lot of respect for Thiel's intellect but have some fundamental differences with his values. Anyway, don't fall into the trap of assuming that because some of your opinions/outlook are aligned with his, that you're necessarily on the same page overall.
Philosophically, I have some dissonance.
My first piece of dissonance is that if we model the world under the game of prisoners dilemma, having too much relative power creates a situation where our optimum strategy is to defect, because even when someone else defects, we can still win through superior force. This is the mathematical model behind "absolute power corrupts absolutely." So if we generate an arsenal of democracy, which is at it's core power, what prevents us from arbitrarily using it? What prevents an arsenal of democracy from becoming an arsenal of totalitarianism through democratic decay and fascist seizing of power?
My second piece of dissonance is that on one hand I believe in the 2nd amendment, but on the other hand, if we bring the idea of the 2nd amendment to the world stage, using the same logic, every country should be well armed and have nukes so that they can fight the oppressors of their state. Every country should be able to practice MAD. Why not? Who shouldn't get nukes (and using that same rule, who shouldn't get guns?)?
The third piece of dissonance is mostly pedantry: A democracy could choose to oppress or enslave others. The US was founded as a democracy, yet we had slaves. If our founding fathers had an "arsenal of democracy," what prevents them from using that arsenal to go to Africa, load people into boats, and make them labor with the threat of force here? The 3/5ths compromise is a product of flawed democracy, so "democracy" seems like a philosophically flawed idea to reference. What is good in America is rule of law (prevention of arbitrary uses of power) and human rights protected by that law. Democracy allows for a tyranny of the majority. "Equal rights under law" is the idea that gives us freedom.
My core critique of your post, while still agreeing with it and still considering myself your ideological ally, is that we have an unhanded fascism problem at home and it is very much a larger problem than a genocidal China. Without dealing with our problem at home this "arsenal of democracy" seems too easily turned into the "aresenal of oppression." Furthermore, if we dealt with this problem at home, those same power structures we have to deal with are the one's that result in Chinese and Russians being slaves to their governments.
In summary: "leading by example" is probably going to have better outcomes when our example is fighting fascism at home and having the highest quality of life rather than if our example is "build the most amazing tools of destruction so that when there is a conflict about freedom, we get to be the arbiter."
In a fight between China/Russia and the US, I support the fight.
What I do not believe in is the ethno-fascist state of China, run by the CCP, nor do I believe in the kleptocratic crony carnival that is Russia.
So, if there is to be an AI arms race, then I do hope that the West will win. It is good to have qualms, it is right to have reservations, but to over enthusiastically hamstring our own efforts here will give us a momentary peace from ourselves until we are devoured by nations (note, nations, not people, I firmly believe that both the Chinese and Russian people are trapped by their government) whose values and morals do not, at all, align with ours.
If it is time again for us to build a new Arsenal of Democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy) let us do so with a weary sigh, but own the responsibility fully and not shy away from it.