slowpacket

"Ironically, this project was built with AI coding and uses AI to filter out articles about AI. Go figure."

- What motivated the hoax and its spread is hard to pin down.

It’s not that hard to pin down. Nobody seriously doubts that the Tang dynasty existed; this was mostly a joke made to satirize the Western Pseudohistory Theory: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Pseudohistory_Theory

That said, plenty of Chinese people genuinely believe Chinese civilization has been the most advanced since antiquity, and that the sophistication of ancient Greek and Western civilization should be questioned.

Sturgeon’s law is absolutely true. Just look at the religious ideas and worldviews children have been taught for thousands of years, and at the hatred, wars, massacres, and slavery religion has brought into the world. Modern dictatorships like North Korea and China also subject children to carefully engineered indoctrination. I think modern AI, and future AI guided by humans, can do much better than Sturgeon’s law would suggest.

China is unpredictable; you never know where their red lines are. An Australian journalist got years in prison for leaking something that was about to be public anyway. The founders of Manus also had their freedom of movement restricted. Entrepreneurs who invested in China have said they can’t get their money out.

If China, or Chinese companies, end up with a monopoly-like advantage in AI, the result will be like the current rare-earth situation. China will absolutely put strict controls on AI models, and that would be much worse than depending on OpenAI or Claude.

So maga actually means make china great again.

Trump is of course the worst US administration, but at least America is still nominally a democracy. As long as free elections exist, the regime Trump represents can be voted out. The American people and press still have free speech—they can freely criticize anyone, including Trump.

China is different. The CCP will rule forever, no matter how terrible the things they do. No one is allowed to criticize the government. Xi is like Voldemort—no one can say his name, let alone criticize him.