Up there with gravity and shit. I wish we could do something with this information, but alas, knowledge isnt power.
Cersei Lannister: Power is power.
It's not a prediction when it's history. That has been going on at least as long as the Roman Empire, yet people are still surprised it's happening today. Modern regimes didn't invent these schemes, they're reusing tried and tested methods because they're known to work because human psychology and behavioral instinct is vulnerable to the same exploits which probably will never get patched anytime soon.
(Said in a sharp German accent)
:-)
No one from that period is still in the exact same position as when it happened - some of them were promoted.
And the rest? Who exactly are you talking about here?
He arrived as an idealistic anti fascist fighter. After experiencing Stalinism in person, he became the man we know.
https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/commentaries/how-spai...
He arrived as a Stalinist into a government and population of anarchists.
None of the storyline actually takes place in 'Eurasia' or 'Eastasia' or any other part of the world. They don't need to even actually exist for the storyline. Indeed, this itself is a message about controlling a populace via control of information. The rest of the world could have been razed by war, they could be total utopias. The propaganda keeps people from thinking about alternatives.
Interpret more broadly and it becomes a much better, more important book.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
We suffer with inefficiency, majority tyranny, populism, short-term-itis, inequalities, and voter apathy which promotes less qualified people.
At least we usually have peaceful conflict resolution rather than firing squads. <3
Orwell being so right about governments using the constant threat of a virtual enemy has got to be one of the all time top on the money predictions ever.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-enemies-from-within-...
Pretty much everyone.
Only difference in which enemy is pointed to, is who you ask.
As for the "pardoned cronies", isn't today a bad day to single one side out based on that?
(Not to mention the singling out for "war criminals", when the other side is warmongering hawks, bombing, openly pushing for war, sabotaging peace deals, and openly assisting a slow burning genocide).
Biden pardoning his son is a black mark, especially for the tax evasion. (I think pardons should be abolished.) Yet an order of magnitude less worrisome than the scum Trump has pardoned and promises to pardon.
As to warmongers... which party voted almost unanimously to invade Iraq without hard evidence of WMDs? Who backed out of the Iranian nuclear deal? Who praises bullies and dictators? Who moved the embassy to Jerusalem? Who is so deluted they claim merely winning an election will bring peace to the Middle East and Europe? Who threatened to pull support from allies -- in the midst of a war -- because they want dirt on political rivals or to catch up on underpaid bills. (Trump knows a thing or two about not paying when he owes someone.)
Why do you carry water for this man?
The warring US tribes certainly made an effort to associate their internal enemy with these (Democrats insinuating Republican subversion by Russians, Republicans insinuating Democrat sympathies with China and Iran). Arguably, this did not really catch and the majority of people are more preoccupied with their internal outgroup, which suggests that the external-enemy strategy is currently falling flat in the US. You could make a better case for it being in place in various European countries.
Has China been accepted as a "real" enemy? To me, China is the main virtual enemy that politicians trout out to create fear and distraction.
That said, China has stated that their long-term plan is to overtake our military, economic, and technological dominance.
That's, at the very least, a clear signal that they want to beat us.
Any source on that? From what I have read, according to CCP's official mouthpieces[1], "China's development strategy focuses on continuous self-transcendence, and does not aim to surpass the US or any other country".
I don't see it as rational, but there is definitely an argument that the USA ought to remain positioned as number one, having the ability to dictate global politics. I don't think we deserve it, but it's certainly 'better' for us in the sense that it gives us an advantage and thus might improve our quality of life (cheaper imports, blah blah blah). I view that argument as entitled and promoting the status quo.
The Chinese people have worked hard. Actually, people all over the world work hard, although the Chinese have gone past industrialization and have a massive and capable population. The idea that they wouldn't have more power and would need to somehow remain under the US's thumb, where we get to say how they treat Taiwan or what currency they can trade in with other countries, just seems absurd. People come up with bullshit reasons for why the US ought to retain some control over their politics or how the rest of the world engages with the Chinese (and we don't just get to do that anyway), e.g., the Chinese are mean to the Uyghurs, as if anyone ever gave a fuck about the Uyghurs or whoever twenty years ago.
In all that sense, China is certainly a real threat. But the level of entitlement behind that argument is so blatant that I can't take it seriously.
But with Trumpism again being the winner, how much of the world still view the US positively? Obama's Iran Deal was a USA-EU-Iran agreement, when Trump pulled it, it didn't just piss off "the enemy" (Iran) but also the allies (EU), and it destroyed US's credibility, even with a Democratic president, anyone going to do a deal with the USA will ask for guarantees in case the deal gets wrecked after the next presidential election...
The USA without cheap Chinese manufacturing is basically dead in the water. It is approximately unfathomable how much of the comfortable and cheap way of life enjoyed in the US is directly dependent on trade with China and mindbendingly cheap Chinese manufacturing labor.
The ~most valuable company in the country is 100% beholden to Chinese manufacturing to make the most popular product that makes all of their money. They are doing their best to replicate manufacturing capacity in India but you can’t make 50,000 iPhones an hour without years of build-up and thousands upon thousands of trained staff.
If China invades Taiwan, the USG is basically game theoretically forced to make Americans endure some significant hardships until a new metastability is achieved.
If anything, the US-led blockade of advanced chips to China will make it more likely for China to use force. If China can't get their hands on the most advanced TSMC chips, then why would they let the US do so and get too far ahead in AI? Both can't have them then.
you watched too much MSM
1. the whole taiwan thing is just an excuse to force the united state to waste more resources on a topic selected and controlled by China. nothing is better at wasting US efforts by forcing it to keep investing borrowed $ in its military presence over 10,000km away from its mainland, nothing is affordable at such distance.
2. Taiwan doesn't make those ASML machines, they operate those imported machines very efficiently, that is all. China is playing a long game, trying to master and eventually control the full semiconductor supply chain at any cost by developing its own industrial bases. In such a big picture, Taiwan with what it has today is tiny, it doesn't worth such an invasion. With 1.4 billion population and its ongoing competitions with the US, China doesn't have the luxury to select which sectors or fields it must control - it has to control everything to just have its people employed on half decent pays.
So much propaganda.
American propaganda...one day Americans are going to wake up and realize, China has taken over in all areas of tech and Americans are going to be in such denial that they'll want war... sigh. China is already leading in many areas, not all of them yet, but they soon are
Man Americans are oblivious to how fast China is progressing.
The Chinese leadership is well aware of this and is massively funding efforts to build these indigenously, but they're chasing moving targets and still decades away from catching up.
China will win through brute scale and determination, I believe.
War is not a joke, it does no good to both sides.
Good "return on propaganda investment" for those guys.
Smedley Butler told us how this was all gonna work a long time ago.
It extends as far as Zuckerberg hiring PR firms to write hit pieces on Tiktok and lobbying government officials in order to stave off competition.
"China bad" is profitable for everyone it seems, except the commoners.
And often it's the very people and organizations supported and lauded as allies and/or freedom fighters and lauded a few years earlier (like Shaddam or the Taliban).
Objectively, the state-promoted bogeymen in the USA are consistently Iran, China, DPRK, and increasingly Russia.
I just spent a month in China and the disparity between what we are told in western media and what is actually going on is substantial, but not in the ways I expected.
Remember that China is not a "free country" (even as much as Western nations have started to make a mockery of that word) like those of the US or Western Europe. Your experience is highly curated by default. If you're just a tourist or a businessman visiting Shenzhen or Shanghai, it's unlikely you'll have any problems - those are major international business cities!
indeed, none of them had the freedom to get a full unconditional pardon by their father with terminal stage dementia.
I mean freedom of what? unlimited number of genders? fat dude wearing a dress competing sports against young girls? or maybe you are talking about the freedom to avoid jail time for convicted felony by being elected the leader of your free world?
I was just in Shenzhen last month. It feels like a city that is 10 years ahead of any place in the US. The city felt extremely futuristic. Most cars on the road are EVs. Payments are all digital. Ordering at restaurants is on your phone. The entire city is extremely clean, civilized, efficient, safe which you can't say about any major US city. Hop on a high speed train at any time and go to anywhere in China within a few hours.
China basically feels like a bigger Singapore except people in China are generally friendlier and more down to earth.
When you're actually in China, the constant negative stories about China in your head will go away. What you'll see is just like any other place: people working hard, minding their own business, and generally friendly people.
It's easy to make changes quickly when the people making the change don't really have a choice. I've heard the murder rate in North Korea is almost 0 and the crime is very low compared to most other countries. The devil is in the details.
"When you're actually in China, the constant negative stories about China in your head will go away. What you'll see is just like any other place: people working hard, minding their own business, and generally friendly people."
There was never any doubt that the people are nice and friendly in China. The issue is the authoritarian government. As an example, do some research on how the Chinese government treats people from the LGBT community and get back to me.
China is a terrible place, the ultimate star wars crab bucket dystopian future. It’s shiny and pretty and has cool LEDs and malls.
Any place can be decades ahead if you simply outlaw the old ways of life. Authoritarianism is a terrible cancer.
I just spent a month in China and the disparity between what we are told in western media and what is actually going on is substantial, but not in the ways I expected.
The vast majority of people on Hacker News have drank so much "China bad" propaganda that they're even afraid of visiting.
669 bills were filed this year that specifically target trans people.
233 explicitly anti immigrant bills this year.
Hundreds of explicitly anti Muslim bills since 2010.
Dozens of local laws criminalizing being poor. Including one Supreme Court ruling that allowed cities to make sleeping while homeless illegal.
I think the data clearly suggests that the state's enemy isn't white men.
Even then, I’m not trying to paint those other groups as the enemy. Our parasitic ruling class pits us against one another to prevent any focus on them.
I also suspect that the idea of whiteness has long held itself to be culturally exclusive ("you are not white if one of your parents is Black") while other racial groups are the inverse. There's a... lot of baggage and history there obviously. But I could see the manner in which the census asks about race being skewed by our cultural understanding of our race.
I also believe that wealthier, more educated folks tend to have fewer children. Which could suggest that, in the US white folks have more access to wealth and education.
Which is a long winded way of saying racial demographics is complicated and I can imagine many reasons why groups might rise or decline that are way less sinister than they are the enemy of the state.
Almost of these are to protect women's spaces (e.g. competitive spaces in sports) or to prevent children from being medically harmed.
> 233 explicitly anti immigrant bills this year.
These are targeting people who have entered the country illegally. Unless you want no checks at all on immigration, this is a good thing.
> Hundreds of explicitly anti Muslim bills since 2010.
Anti-Islam, actually. Or more specifically against Sharia law being implemented. Not really a problem.
Stronger hint: my thesis was focused on which groups the state legislates against, and how it wasn't "white men".
Most of the men trying to use women's spaces are white, there are white male immigrants here illegally, and there are white male adherents of Islam.
You're not comparing like for like.
I suppose if you have people shooting and bombing you, "enemy" is a fair label to put on them. Those are the only types of "enemies" that are the same whether the view is from inside or outside the bubble.
But most of these people talking about their "enemies", are not in those situations at all.
The way modern states leverage external threats to justify abusing people or waging their own external wars is fairly parallel to how the less top heavy kingdoms of the middle ages and early modern period used religion as a justification for comparable atrocities.
One of the reasons "they're oppressing and committing atrocities against some of our people who live there!" has been a perpetual casus belli against neighboring states.
If you trumpet it long enough, eventually people start believing and get mad.
Knowledge is a necessary, but not sufficient component of power
Or in other words observability is a necessary, but not sufficient component of optimization.
There's nothing virtual about North Korea ...
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42306176.
I'm curious if you have some sources for this? I'm not that familiar with SK politics and I'm obviously biased since almost all info about SK I either get from English/Japanese sources.
Afaik he was pretty dovish towards Japan during his election, which goes against the decades long tradition of tit-for-tat during election between SK&Japan since "looking tough to the neighbor" win votes. I wasn't aware of any "Japan whispering in his ear" level embezzlement. He seems just more pro US, closer ties with Japan rather than "balance things between China/US-JP"
I’d say anyone seriously thinking Japan has bought out the conservatives is just as foolish as someone that seriously thinks the liberals are North Korean spies.
That said, there is a contingent of South Koreans that genuinely consider Japan a mortal military threat just biding their time and waiting to attack Korea. And that North Korea is just a merely misguided misunderstood brother that is absolutely harmless despite their sabre rattling.
I wonder what the level of journalistic independences is in KR. What their public discourse is like. How truth, and opinions are tolerated.
> The Republic of Korea (South Korea) is a liberal democracy that respects media freedom and pluralism. However, tradition and business interests often prevent journalists from fulfilling their role as watchdogs, and populist political tendencies stoke hatred of journalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_affair
When the MV Sewol capsized a couple miles off the coast with 300 children actively drowning, the corporate control of the news channels allowed them to suppress the truth of the event, like how there was zero attempts at any rescue, and near zero survivors of passengers. Instead, the news spent a day reporting that all 300ish students had been rescued.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Sewol
South Korea is controlled by just a few Chaebols and that includes its news media. The president during the MV Sewol incident for example was ousted at least partially due to the kinds of corruption and non-democratic influences that were uncovered after the sinking.
When most media is produced, financed, owned, operated etc by a couple hegemons with aligning goals, I don't care what economic system you operate under, you do not have "free" media.
Taiwan is more free than Korea but due its political predicament, it is not a candidate for the bureaus. As for Japan, after a series of controversial bills were passed under Abe, their ranking dropped like a rock over the past decade and it is getting worse with so-called "press clubs" that are reluctant to criticise the govt due to how access is granted.
Source?
Sept 3, 2024 Lee’s raising of suspicions of martial law plans isn’t baseless — just look back to 2017 https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1...
Sept 4, 2024 [News analysis] Why is Korea’s Democratic Party talking about martial law? https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1...
Sept 4, 2024 [ED] No room for martial law talk https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp?newsIdx=381...
Sept 5, 2024 DPK's martial law claim backfires due to lack of evidence https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp?newsIdx=381...
Sept 5, 2024 Martial law equals coup-d’etat: What would it mean for South Korea? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp?newsIdx=381...
If they're actively fighting against the democratic principles (like enforcing martial law to distract from something rather than when really necessary) then yeah, I think we'd want them to take them down if they don't leave by themselves.
Of course, the military could refuse. In the abstract, I think that might be ideal. (I don't know enough to say whether that would be ideal in this situation.)
This AP article is written very unsympathetically towards him
Anyone who has dealt with Japanese bureaucracy and government at large is stifling a giggle at this idea.
Seems to be something that kind of happens when someone in Korea rises to the top of political power. Remember the former president that was pretty much ousted for corruption a few years back? She had a confidant that would pull her strings.