Actually in most games that are played repeatedly, the optimal strategy is to cooperate with cooperators and defect against defectors.

Simple hole in your simplification: one simple misunderstanding could lead to an endless cycle of defection where everyone will defect on each other: game over.

Of course. Hence why I didn't claim it to be universally optimal. All I'm saying is that your willingness to defect against defectors should always be non-zero, just to keep the players in line who start out with a higher predisposition towards defecting.

The noisiness of the real world should probably bias us more in the direction of cooperation, to avoid a cascade of defection as you mention, but a player who only cooperates will get taken advantage of regardless of the precise details of the game. Some amount of this dynamic can be seen currently in the relationship between western companies and the Chinese state, a relationship that is currently very different from the relationship between Chinese companies and the rest of the world.

It is also generally true that the longer the game, the more defectors suffer.

For this China having TikTok spread propaganda or addiction in the USA does not then give the USA permission to nuke China as a consequence.

This is the only thing that governs international relations. Look at visa reciprocity, trade agreements, etc. for examples.

Usually it's relatively dull stuff, like if country A requires citizens of country B to have a visa to visit, country B will as a matter of course require citizens of country A to have visas to visit too.

But for the Chinese government, social control is an existential issue, not something that can be negotiated away in a trade deal. They're always going to "tit", because allowing people to freely express themselves on the internet could end their rule overnight.

So the "tat" cannot be used as a bargaining chip, but needs to be weighed on its own merits. Does the US benefit from the ability to arbitrarily declare companies to be "foreign adversaries" and shut them down or force their owners to divest? Mightn't TikTok decide to relocate their US headquarters to Europe instead? And shouldn't Chinese founders in the US see the writing on the wall and contemplate a similar move? Is that good or bad for the US?

Sounds like it’s bad idea to freely open the door to China.

> Mightn't TikTok decide to relocate their US headquarters to Europe instead?

The law says they can’t exist in China, Russia, NK, Iran so this is fine.

> And shouldn't Chinese founders in the US see the writing on the wall and contemplate a similar move?

If they leave China, and its influence, it sounds like a clear win for the US goals. If they’re already in the US then it’s a no-op and they shouldn’t be affected because why would they?

for the most part

Those are exact synonyms.

> And tit for tat is the norm for international relations

It’s commonly been a norm (not the norm), and its a norm that usually produces escalatory spirals, because actors tend to be more sensitive to harms to themselves from others policies and less sensitive those from other’s policy.

Tit for tat on the other hand is specifically a game theory term as used here, and it applies exactly to this sort of diplomatic strategic calculation.

No, the law of retribution is not about proportionate justice. It is about retribution.

It’s a association with justice is that it is seen as less unjust and a step toward justice and less socially disruptive than accepting deliberately-escalatory retribution for perceived wrongs as a norm.

At least their propaganda outlets, yes.

> If China deports all Chinese Americans from their country, should the US do the same?

No one is calling for a return to the ugly times of WW2 [1], but banning new immigration outside of asylum claims and especially banning investment into real estate certainly should be on the table.

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

In Africa, it's a similar situation - we poured in boatloads of money and aid, in exchange for the demand of a bare minimum of human rights, and now a lot of the countries there are falling to the lure of Russia and China. My personal position is, drop them. Let Russia and China deal with the mess, fail at it, and keep an open invitation once they realize that Chinese imperialism is just as bad as historic Western imperialism.

Imagine if a company developed a new form of paper and published many books on it. If the paper turns out to be toxic and is banned, the company can't then say "oh, no, we're being censured". It has nothing to do with the message.

IANAL, but this is my understanding.

Same holds true of your 2nd example, if it required Americans to turn in all the books they owned printed on that paper, for example.

For that matter, how was it legal to change to digital tv broadcasts? CCP tiktok can absolutely still operate a website that wont be blocked. The medium of delivery isnt protected speech.

it is not a right to have unlimited access to any and all information.

It is only a constitutional violation (by the gov't) to _prevent_ an american citizen from any speech. It would not be a violation to legislatively ban a company, unless that company was the only place you could make speeches, and thus resulting in the outcome where there's defacto speech repression.

However, such a company ban, if it werent due a violation, would erode the trust in the US financial system. Because if the US decides they can just divest you without you violating any current known laws, it will make foreign investment in the US more difficult.

I'm not convinced about that. Open letter to congress from JFNA: https://cdn.fedweb.org/fed-1/1/Jewish%2520Federation%2520Let...

And they do. This isn't a content-based ban. If a non-Chinese company acquires TikTok, they can continue to host exactly the same material without restrictions.

If you look at the rhetoric of lawmakers and lobbyists supporting the ban, a lot of it is about the content.

Unless, of course, you want to admit that social media applications, through some combination of peer pressure, advertising, propaganda, manipulation, and deception subvert the free will of some portion of their users. In which case naturally they ought to be regulated in order to protect your citizens. Except... then the regulation drafted reads as "only American companies are allowed to subvert the free will of Americans", which comes off as pretty sinister.

Sinister or not this framing makes a lot more sense than the alternative if you write it like this:

“Only companies [beholden to American interests] are allowed to [influence] Americans”.

The core premise is really rather dull. If the company poses a risk to Americans, then it should exist fully within reach of the US Gov regulations and completely out of the control of adversaries.

I’m not arguing if a us citizen should be allowed to use a property controlled by foreign adversary.

I’m arguing should a foreign adversary be able to control such a large US property in the first place?

In my opinion, having a direct line to > 100 million people where they can send push notifications that tell people to contact their government for a specific purpose is not so great. That’s leaving out the more subtle untraceable black box of deranking things their government doesn’t like.

"stay on the moral high ground" only works when the other side is roughly playing by the same rules as you are.

With authoritarian nations, with authoritarian leaders? They see any kind of even the slightest allowance as a weakness to exploit, an explicit allowance to move the Overton window. We should have kneecapped China years ago, when the first complaints about industrial espionage came in, and same for Russia after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. We didn't, and now we're a bunch of lame ducks swimming in a pond of manure.

For example, it's alleged that Russia promoted competing rallies on both sides of the political divide in the US in hopes of sowing discord in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#Ralli...

We do weird things in crowds even without intentional propaganda at play. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8091

I don't think that's the concern.

Its not a ban. Whats going to happen is that tiktok will divest.

Kids will continue to have their social media.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/house-passes-tiktok-...

Blame them for not following the law.

That's no different from anyone else deciding to just leave the app store, or the USA, because they don't want to pay taxes or something.

Companies stop doing business in certain countries for all sorts of reasons.

This isn't new or an out there thing.

Some companies leave because they don't want to pay high taxes, or for numerous other reasons.

All tiktok has to do is follow the law and they won't be banned.

But if they don't, well that's their decision as well.

The bill is overwhelmingly bipartisan though. There isn't anyone for some kids to go after, if it's almost a unanimous bi partisan effort.

Those kids lost. It's over.

And if people are this upset, then that is all the more reason to pull the trigger now, instead of giving our foreign adversaries more time to retaliate.

Anyway, tiktok almost divested the last time this happened. Unless they are OK will losing 10s of billions of dollars for nothing, well chances are they'll just divest, despite the current posturing they are doing.

China can change their policy easily with respect to reciprocity