"evidence is worse than". Excellent start on one side of the story though.

I think it's great that the Chinese government, known for welding people inside their house, forcing citizens to continue paying into unfinished apartment building, taking passports away from teachers, transferring organs from young bodies into CCP leaders, amongst other things, have a massive tool to brainwash Americans.

Don't forget genocides they are committing

More great[1] material for the one side, but to prove out more, someone is going to have to produce material on other apps & nations to compare it to.

[1] the misinformative rhetorical nature of it is going to lose people like me, but I suspect I am an outlier in this regard, misinformation aligned with culturally conditioned subconscious bias appeals to almost everyone in my experience.

Even if we grant that US-based apps give similar access to the USG (I don't know, I just know it's a likely claim that I don't care to dispute), it's ludicrous to say that it's just as acceptable to give that access to the Chinese government. If you think those are equivalent you have not been paying attention.

Is there adequate content in my short comment that substantiates the full model you've formed of my stance in your mind?

Ironically, if you tune your TikTok feed carefully, it can offer plenty of great learning material on human psychology and cultural cognition, I highly recommend it.

I also recommend the YouTube channel Asian Boss, I enjoy watching how frequently Asian people pause to think before answering questions posed to them, they seem unable to immediately know the correct answer like most westerners.

You quote "evidence is worse than" for emphasis, suggesting that you don't find that standard to be met by evidence that TikTok gives major inside access to an actively repressive and genocidal government. That suggests you think other social platforms are equal or worse, somehow, but you don't give any basis for that idea. Indeed your commentary consists entirely of snarky side tangents, rather than actual arguments. If you mean something other than the obvious interpretation, you best be explicit.

> Indeed your commentary consists entirely of snarky side tangents

I informed you that you are describing a model. And asked you a question about it, which you did not answer.

You are presenting your uncharitable take as representative of my stance, and then knocking it down with ease.

Might the same be happening with China in discussions in Western media (mainstream, social, etc)?

How could "worseness" of various platforms and these two countries even be calculated in a reasonably objective, unbiased manner? Is such a thing even possible?

I explained the part of my model that actually exists quite explicitly. Perhaps you are making unwarranted assumptions about my assumptions? (Two can play the snarky pseudo-Socratic question game)

Perhaps I am, and I would very much like to know what those are if you don't mind sharing.

But for clarity: do you believe your performance here to be error free?

Oh, you can make smug insinuations about how I'm misunderstanding you, but you expect me to be fully explicit. I've said all I'm going to.

Your dependence on rhetoric and presenting speculation as fact is unsurprising.

If the mind is like muscles and needs exercise to become stronger, this culturally normal approach may not be to our long term advantage.

...says the guy who refused to make an actual argument on the original topic.

Here you are correct.

Making a counter-assertion of fact is not a requirement. In fact, making claims of fact when one lacks the expertise is generally a poor idea, though it is extremely popular.

If you are so smart, why can you not answer simple questions about your facts?

Possibly related:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840390

I already tried answering your initial question about my reasoning, and you responded with meandering snark. Now you pretend I'm the unreasonable one for not treating any of your other "questions" seriously. If you wanted a real discussion, you could have said something of interest at that point, maybe made an actual claim about cultural influence or prioritizing problems in the social media landscape or somesuch, even just a hypothetical idea. But you've shown you don't actually want to exchange ideas, you just want to feel clever and righteous.

Here is an idea: your thinking is to some degree based on heuristic predictions, which are a consequence of millions of years of biological and cultural evolution, and it is possible to notice when a human is engaging in such behavior.

More speculatively: I think there may be a way to get someone to transcend their cultural conditioning and admit when they slipped up in this manner, something that inevitably happens to all of us.