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Admin
The privacy question is tricky. Should people have the right to trade their "profile" in exchange for "free" Facebook and Google? If it's made illegal, isn't that taking away rights?
Regarding sinophobia - sorry that's just the type of naive stuff which drives people crazy and makes them vote for trump. The idea that being suspicious of the Chinese communist party, is somehow racist, is stupid. (Not that I expect professionalism from the new administration 🤣) CCP is the enemy of Chinese people, enemy of Americans and the USA as a whole, and in fact, it's the enemy of the world.
But yes, i agree with the main point of the article. Sometimes I hear conspiracy theories and they're so outlandish, that is almost like they tried hard to contort logic to come up with them. My favorite one, bar none, is flat earth. It is entertaining and very educational to watch flat earth debunk videos. My guilty pleasure 🤣
Admin
Why would you think the CCP is an enemy of anyone? What precisely have they done to deserve this label? I am genuinely curious.
I mean yes, there was their involvement in Korea, the conquest of Tibet and the war with Vietnam in the 70's. But that's it. For the last 50 odd years China has been doing nothing but peacefully trading and expanding its economic reach. And the CCP has been the peaceful head of all this.
Compare this to OTAN and Russia both whose list of sins involve in no particular order invading and bombing sovereign nations in violation of UN charters, carving out new countries in Europe on a whim using military force, using sanctions to cripple countries they dislike resulting in humanitarian disasters, supporting and actively instigating Jihadist movements, civil wars, revolutions and coups, fighting proxy wars in Africa and Asia, fighting proxy wars in Europe (seriously, bloody Europe. This is supposed to be a safe continent not a colonial battleground!) etc.
Frankly, China and the CCP have are the one and only major power in the last century that has NOT engaged in world raping colonialism and imperialism. So how are they the enemy of anyone?
Admin
Whilst every social media company may be in business to spy on users and sell eyeballs to advertises, not every social media system does. Try Mastodon for example.
Admin
My favourite is the one where "planes don't need fuel to stay in the air, just for take off and landing".
Sir George Cayley would be turning in his grave...
Admin
My favourite is the one where "planes don't need fuel to stay in the air, just for take off and landing".
Sir George Cayley would be turning in his grave...
Admin
I personally find it funny, that it's a big deal in the US. The EU-US privacy shield treaty died years ago, because the US has laws that not only violates the privacy of EU citizens but also those of it's own citizen. So in other words, they ain't any better than China in that regard, just less technically sophisticated. And if you don't believe me, you just have to go to China and see how fast you get excepted as a foreigner from local rules without doing anything, just because they identify you with super neat pattern matching after a while.
Now sorry, if you care about privacy then the EU is the only block in the world that provides a somewhat working framework that doesn't violate the right to privacy. Somewhat because GDPR, DSA, DMA are also far from perfect and the practical control is deeply flawed. But at least there is something while all other countries have their fingers deep in the surveillance business and don't even hide it in laws or application.
Admin
Off the top of my head: broken promises in Hongkong, treatment of Uyghurs, continued elimination of Tibetan culture, 1989 Tiananmen massacre, expansion in the China sea. Lemme guess, those are all internal matters, right? So if I annex some country, none of what goes on in there is anybody else's business?
Admin
Considering that a fair number of articles on this site are because management didn't listen to their experts, I'm surprised that anyone here needs to be told this.
Admin
Add to that the debt entrapment and neo colonialism in Africa and some other regions; support for various evil regimes around the world, like Iran, north Korea, etc; flagrant theft of IP and unfair trade practices, etc.
Russia is terrible, too. NATO is up and down, but overall, it's a force for good.
The CCP is the enemy of the world.
Addendum 2025-01-21 08:54: CCP treats the han Chinese like crap, too. I guess it's not a bad for them as it is for Tibetans and Uyghurs, but it's still very very bad.
Admin
Wait, is that a part of the flat earth ideology i missed? Or it's a different idea altogether? What are they getting at, air resistance doesn't exist? I need more details 🤣
Addendum 2025-01-21 09:00: ChatGPT to the rescue: "A fringe belief sometimes referred to as the “Jet Fuel Hoax” (or “Airplane Fuel Hoax”) claims that airplanes do not actually need fuel to remain aloft—only to taxi, take off, and land. Proponents argue that planes use hidden or suppressed technology (like free energy, antigravity, or some kind of air compressor system) to stay airborne, and that the aviation industry perpetuates a conspiracy to hide this “fact.” "
Up until now, I thought flat earth was the dumbest idea, but this one is a strong contender!!!
Admin
What happens between a country and its citizens is of no concern to any third party. Arguments to the opposite are the root of all evil in world politics as they are the eternal excuse used by imperialists to justify their policy of pillage as somehow being good for the conquered. Only if they are abandoned will we ever have world peace.
As to what you mentioned, out of all of those the only external matter, and therefore the only one worthy of consideration, is the part where they are making tiny islands in the sea to expand their control. Which, fair enough, is something of a dick move. But than again, so is setting the middle east on fire. Or feeding a proxy war in Europe. Or invading and tearing off pieces of sovereign countries, IN BLOODY EUROPE. And last time I checked only one side of that equation involves feeding people to the slaughterhouse of modern industrial war.
My point is, that frankly China is the LEAST of all the evil empires on the world today. And that it is deeply hypocritical of any of its piers, especially america to be judging it. Let he who has no sin cast the first stone and all that. Only in this case, the crowd throwing stones is made of literal demons.
Admin
I am surprised they didn't just claim aircraft glide most of the way. I mean, they don't, but it's far more plausible than any of what you cited.
Admin
I think you've missed the mark on conspiracy theories. While what you said is true, in my view conspiracy theories are popular specifically because - as you note - the experts are not trustworthy.
I am not sure why I have never seen this theory proposed, but it seems obvious to me that NASA directly caused the resurgence in Flat Earth conspiracies by putting out "fake" photos of the Earth every year. What people expect is that a satellite far enough away took a photo of the Earth as a whole, but instead the photos are all collages and artistic renderings that don't even look similar from year to year. Insisting that they are a "photo of the Earth" is absolutely not true. Doubling down on this lie is insane. This is the kind of shit that makes people lose trust in experts, when they not only lie, but double down on a very silly lie. This only gets dumber when the "experts" are on record saying one thing and later say another, and are not willing to explain why they changed their mind or even entertain the idea that they did so.
The average person does not decide whether the Earth is flat or not by weighing all the evidence. It's true that most people don't know how things work, and why should they? Unfortunately, I believe this sort of exploitation/capture of experts is simply the nature of mature systems.
Admin
This can be summed up as "Be aware of (and recognise) your own ignorance."
Admin
A little humility goes a long way.
Admin
But also be aware that a) it's not a theory when they openly discuss on video with the right people, or documents; b) some people have a lot to gain in creating the right narrative, no matter how self-contradictory and evidence free it is.
I'm not elaborating because I don't have time to die in those mountains on the wrong place. Great article in general, though, but it's going to keep getting worse until it craters.
Admin
That's perhaps true if the government is democratically elected, the citizens get what they asked for. But if an autocracy is violating the human rights of their citizens, they deserve the concern of the rest of the world.
Everyone deserves basic human rights -- there's a limit to cultural relativism. Some things, like genocide, should be unthinkable. You can't excuse the Uyghur situation as "That's just China being China".
Saying that it's not our business is like saying twe should look away if a parent is committing child (or elder) abuse -- it's a family matter.
Admin
1, regarding "internal affairs", that's not true - bad internal policies inevitably lead to crises, which is often addressed by a foreign intervention. See russia and its attack on Ukraine. That's on top of the fact that just from morality perspective, CCP is absolutely evil and we shouldn't just "brush that under the rug" because it's internal. That actually is racist - basically, it's like saying, yeah, CCP oppresses and murders the Chinese, but who cares about those, AMIRITE? Sorry, no.
2, "But than again, so is setting the middle east on fire." how is that the "west's" fault? Have you read anything about the history of Jews being exiled multiple times through millenia? Or about the history of Islam, and its barbaric conquest and internal fighting?
3, "Or feeding a proxy war in Europe. Or invading and tearing off pieces of sovereign countries, IN BLOODY EUROPE." What are you even talking about here?
"China is the LEAST of all the evil empires on the world today" You are either completely ignorant about world affairs, or are somehow financially motivated to spew pro-CCP propaganda.
Admin
Really? You really think that anything a government does inside its own borders should be ignored by outsiders? As much as I hate to go to this extreme example, you're saying that there are no examples in, say, the 1930s, between a government and its citizens which might have been worthy of outside intervention?
Admin
Applying live electricity to somebody's genitals is evil no matter whether they are your citizen or not.
When you argue that internal affairs should be of no concern to us because
you are arguing we should sit by and let people suffer horrifically because somebody in the past did something bad. That doesn't wash. In fact it's moral cowardice.
That said, we have to let China be because there is nothing else we can do that doesn't involve things like world wars or armageddon.
Admin
Bizarrely, I have more confidence that the Chinese government will not do anything bad with my private information than I do that Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk will, even though the Chinese government is far from benevolent.
I do not understand how Americans can take their distrust of government to unhealthy extremes and yet have such a blind spot where their corporations are concerned.
Admin
When it comes to corporations, people understand what they want and "how it works": corporations want money, so in the case of big tech, it's tailored advertising, etc.
Do I wish that people cared more about their privacy? Yes, of course. But, most people don't - they're fine getting targeted ads and all that, in exchange for "free" Gmail etc.
Now, I do think US needs more laws around mandatory disclosure; there are some regulations, but it becomes "fine print" which most people don't read before accepting, and it should be made more explicit.
Admin
The CPP just had it's easy of doing things in a more indirect, sneaky way. Take colonialism. They don't do it directly, they do it economically over a long agenda timeline such as the Belt and Road Initiative which is locking down countries in their grasp in exchange for economical "favors". As for not invading countries, I think Tibet and Hong Kong would differ on that. Again it's more of a passive aggressive long term approach. And it's clearly working with Hong Kong and the entire South Sea.
Admin
I'd argue trust in experts has never been there, since the dawn of humanity. Many times through history, science has been placed in the background when not convenient, and often silenced entirely when it did not align with what the controlling elite desired.
It's hard to trust experts as, for people who don't know better, there's no difference between someone who actually knows what they are taking about, and some fraud who just happens to be charismatic -- and often the former person will be incomprehensible whereas the fraud one will know how to make an appealing discourse.
Admin
The only thing I can say is welcome to the beginning of the end.
Admin
The reference to conspiracies reminds me of this quote:
“Once you’re crazy and know nothing about numbers, the chances of finding something psychotic and hateful in a scrabble factory explosion are hovering just around 100%.”
Admin
"what good is it to listen to experts if it doesn't lead to good outcomes?"
I don't think that's the problem. There were, and are, plenty of experts warning us to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions or reduce waste or do something to ensure animals don't go extinct. The problem is that governments don't listen to those experts, and the people don't vote for people that do (although you can't really blame them there, there are very few in government who do the right thing).
Admin
"So, I'm going to put out this call: when you know how things work, share that. Share what you know! Share it on social media. Share it on your own personal blog. Share it in local meeting groups. Hell, share it on TikTok, because gods know, they need it."
And then be prepared for a deluge of abuse, death threats etc. from those who feel their "truth" is being attached by your "truth". It seems these days that (in my opinion) many have their own "truth" and are prepared to die on some hill somewhere defending it, regardless of any supporting or conflicting evidence.
Admin
Blaming shadowy conspiracies for things is one small step up from blaming them on the gods. But it amounts to the same thing.
Admin
@Barry Margolin And yet that is precisely what I am saying. A good neighbor does not peek through his neighbors window to check if the goings on in someone else's home fit your their of morality. And especially not with a mind to break in and impose those standards on the unfortunate occupants "for their own good". Views like that are a twisted form of morality promoted by the strong to give them an excuse to pray on the weak.
Countries are and should remain sovereign. And that sovereignty should be sacrosanct. If you happen to be living next door to the Aztec Empire and they really like sacrificing humans to their sun god than that is their prerogative. If you don't like it, don't visit.
@JJ Germany crossed the line when they crossed the border. They should have been stopped at Austria. But just the same, assuming they newer did and Germany newer tried to conquer any territory yes, I would not have supported any sort of foreign "intervention" against them. You do not start a fight to save someone from them self.
@jeremypnet I am arguing that we should not meddle in affairs that do not concern us based on flimsy moral arguments because that only serves to create more suffering and strife.
@Ralf And given that their efforts do NOT involve overthrowing governments, starting wars and civil wars and generally wholesale murdering and destroying people and nations I'd say that it is by far preferable.
I newer said China was the good guy here. Just that it is the least evil of all the current imperialist powers. And that frankly, being called out as "evil" in a world that contains the likes of Russia and the United States is like calling a jaywalker evil while ignoring the serial rapist.
Admin
@Mr. TA
Also, what does race have to do with anything? I am talking about the relationship between a government and it's people. Their race, ethnicity, gender or anything else other than citizenship is irrelevant to the discussion.
I was referring to the some 70 to 1400 years (depending on how you like to count) of Europeans starting wars in the middle east, feeding them and just generally making a mess of the region and not any particular incident. From Alexanders conquests of Egypt to the Crusades, from Sixes-Picot to the Suez Crisis, the invasions of Iraq, the demolition of Libya and handing Syria over to Jihadis and yes, to their support for Israel the west just can't leave the region alone. There is just something in the white man that makes him want to recreationally rape the middle east once in a while for fun and profit and I condemn it.
Yugoslavia, Ukraine, take your pick. The two are certainly similar enough that Russia used the former as precedent to excuse the later.
My solution is simple. Countries should foster an atmosphere of international cooperation with the understanding that when making a deal at the market it's not your job to know what's going on in the other persons home.
Admin
Wait.. The British invaded and took Hong Kong, then signed a deal to give it back to China. Not sure how that translates into China invading it, as they owned it in the first place, before the Brits invaded. The whole thing about it being a special administrative region, that's another story, but there was no invasion as I see it.
Admin
"What happens between a country and its citizens is of no concern to any third party."
That is a genuinely evil thing to say. Absolutely vile. What is wrong with you?
Admin
"First, mind your own business and keep your nose out of the internal affairs of others." This just does not work. The world kept their nose out of internal affairs of pre-WW2 Germany, pre-Ukraine russia, and largely out of China. We know what happened in the first 2 cases, and China is already invading Philippines and other neighbors, and is getting ready to launch a full scale war against Taiwan.
"And second, cross the border and get slapped down by the international community." Yes we have to do that, but do you realize that hundreds of thousands of men die in the process? It would have been much better for everybody if Europe, for example, did stick their nose into russia's internal affairs, and didn't give it trillions of oil/gas euros/dollars, which russia is now using to kill people? And where is the "slap down"? Even the west isn't supporting Ukraine fully, to the extent necessary for Ukraine to win decisively, and many other countries don't even care.
"From Alexanders conquests of Egypt" That was 300 years BC, what does that have to do with modern day Europe?
"Crusades" They were a counter attack against islamic conquest, did you know that at one point the caliphate captured large parts of southern Europe, including almost all of Spain?
"Sixes-Picot" Did you know that Ottoman empire, the last islamic caliphate, was the aggressor capturing tons of lands in Europe?
"Suez Crisis" So it's ok for Egypt to close the passage of ships in order to starve Israel (part of the ultimate plan to destroy them), but it's bad when Israel and its allies counter-act?
Iraq, Libya and Syria - I agree, those weren't handled correctly. But you have to admit that the west didn't gain anything from those interventions; they didn't colonize or profit; whatever was done, was for (however mistaken) ideals of democracy.
Admin
"their support for Israel" First of all, western Europe isn't much of an Israel supporter; in fact, they're Israel's enemies, funding HAMAS terrorists with billions of euros (so call humanitarian aid). Second, they SHOULD support Israel, because Jews deserve the right to live in their home, where they can protect themselves, ESPECIALLY after what Europe has done to them during 30s and 40s.
"Yugoslavia" Have you read anything about that situation? What Milosevic was doing? Are you OK with genocide? Do you like murders?
"Ukraine" So, if the west stopped genocide by one nutcase war criminal, it somehow morally justifies another nutcase war criminal to start another genocide? And again, what should the west do? Let Ukraine fall to russia, tell them to surrender? What happens if russia attacks Latvia next?
"Countries should foster an atmosphere of international cooperation" It doesn't work! Governments which abuse their people internally, like China, are also terrible to deal with internationally - like China. China is a terrible trading partner and a threat to global security; a much bigger threat than USA, for example, even after accounting for USA's mistakes, like the Iraq invasion.
Addendum 2025-01-22 11:22: You brought up things Europe did in the distant past. Well, China did a LOT of military conquest itself over the last 2000 years. And it's currently conquering smaller countries in other ways, but also with small scale military operations. China is the serial rapist, not USA. (I agree Russia is terrible, too.)
Admin
Well said.
Admin
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." as noted by Arthur C Clarke?
Admin
Remy, you can absolutely watch their videos without the app. Right on the website, boom, there they are. No account even needed.
Admin
I grew up in the 1960s, long before the internet, when conspiracy theories were spread by word of mouth. My favorite is that there are automobile engines that run on water, but the oil companies bought the patents so they could continue to sell oil. You’d really have to not know how things work to believe this, but believe it they did.
Admin
Alexa knows much, much more about me than TikTok does, and we allow them to collect this data. Try Amazon Pharmacy! [let them have your medical records, too], so why again is TikTok a "national security threat" if Facebook and Xitter aren't ? Because someone in China knows I watch Postmodern Jukebox videos? And as pointed out, you don't even need to install an app to use TikTok.
Admin
I nominate Ancel Keys for "Worst Person Ever." His cherry picked scientific data keeps poisoning the world population up to this very day.
Admin
"Frankly, China and the CCP have are the one and only major power in the last century that has NOT engaged in world raping colonialism and imperialism. So how are they the enemy of anyone?"
Really - so you think their "deals" with Africa to extract precious metals used in electric vehicle batteries - to corner that market - or building fake islands to illegally claim more fishing waters are not forms of world raping?