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My problem with it is that the US government does plenty of horrible shit, including spying, warfare and torture. The Snowden leaks showed without a doubt that

My problem with it is that the US government does plenty of horrible shit, including spying, warfare and torture. The Snowden leaks showed without a doubt that US intelligence has no qualms collecting and admitting to spying on ALL communication between non-US citizens. Without telling anyone... hacking a marriot database is peanuts in comparison. Somehow whatever the US does to protect its interests is moral but when another country does the same its evil or "concerning". Bullshit US paternalism.

wybiral 8y ago
That sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- zaptheimpaler 8y ago
  ...because in the context of global politics, it applies. If country A can spy on B, what right does it have to demand B not spy on A? Whataboutism is about responding to a criticism of your countries internal problems with a criticism of theirs. This is not about internal problems, its about what one country can do to another.
  - wybiral 8y ago
    Many people in the US criticized that behavior from the NSA. Maybe you didn't notice those stories. It doesn't make all other instances of hacking or spying okay. But surveillance is one issue (which is valid and we should talk about it). Stealing intellectual property using your intelligence apparatus in a way that benefits your state-sponsored businesses is another. We can talk about that too.
    - zaptheimpaler 8y ago
      People did criticize it but that didn’t stop them did it? Last I checked Snowden was declared a criminal. I’m talking about the Chinese governments perspective. From their perspective, until the the NSA stops spying (whether its criticized by US citizens or not) it does not make sense for China to stop spying either, purely to equalize the playing field. I’m against spying too but i can understand why any country wants to protect its interests.
      - fermienrico 8y ago
        “People did criticize it...” In China, that is not possible. Freedom of speech does not exist nor does freedom of press. Whether critizing made a difference (btw, yes it did. Snowden’s revelations has had a profound impact on spying on citizens, not just in the US but in the history of mankind in the digital age) is irrelevant. China deserves criticism and so does US. The difference is that in the US, we can freely critize everything without the fear of anything. China has no such luxury and therefore, it needs even more criticism.
      - wybiral 8y ago
        There is a FISA court system in place preventing random access to data collected by the NSA. It has to be obtained via warrant, on record, from a judge. Most of it is metadata (call times, etc) and most of it was collected by cooperating with tech companies. The rumors about widespread NSA infiltration into all of our devices via hacking were greatly exaggerated. The closest you come to that is with the CIA Vault 7 stuff (from WikiLeaks) which as we now know probably came from Russian sources, was probably also exaggerated, and we don't have any proof that it was used outside of targeted operations. It would be dumb for government not to develop tools for dealing with other nation-state hackers. In fact, maybe that's exactly how we can pin attribution to China in this case. I'll repeat my previous position: > [...] surveillance is one issue (which is valid and we should talk about it). Stealing intellectual property using your intelligence apparatus in a way that benefits your state-sponsored businesses is another. We can talk about that too. There is a difference, imo, and we should continue to talk about what China is clearly doing.
King-Aaron 8y ago
See, I really detest this argument because it's pretty low-level. Yes, there is equally horrible shit going on with both sides. But that is absolutely no justification for accepting it.
- zaptheimpaler 8y ago
  Would you then be comfortable with the US stopping all spying on foreign governments while those countries continue? And surrendering all nukes while other countries keep theirs? I'm against spying too, but if everyone else does it I can understand why China would want to also purely to equalize power. Its the same situation as nukes - i dont like them, it would be great if no one had them, but if some already do i fully understand why others would want to get them.
  - King-Aaron 8y ago
    While this is a bit of strawman logic, I'll bite. My answer is this - what we are seeing I feel is a build-up to a massive power shift in the coming decades. As the climate changes and resources undoubtedly become scarce (water, food, etc) something will eventually trigger a conflict between the major nations, which currently people refuse to believe is a possibility. I'd guess the relative economic stability of the last several decades has lead to this. When the curtain inevitably falls, which would you prefer to take the baton. A quasi-democratic nation (US) that has clear pitfalls but at least a large portion of people living in relative freedom of thought, or the nation which has revoked the need to run elections, actively black-bags people for saying the wrong thing about their government, and institutes wide ranging censorship on a variety of important issues? Neither side is perfect, but it must be objectively said that the humanitarian state of affairs in China is dismal. Currently we are seeing the government in China stifling dissent as well as preparing to quash as much possibility of it in the future, while actively probing "the other side" for weaknesses. In any strategic sense, what's going on right now should be concerning. And while the thought of 'picking sides' does honestly suck, I'll throw the question back at you. What would you prefer?
    - 8y ago
fermienrico 8y ago
Your comment, and similar cliche arguments on HN are tiring to refute over and over and over. Before you put US on the same pedestal of morality as China, you must equate them on apples to apples basis. Picking and choosing horrible things US has done in the past is very convenient. I immigrated to US and I’ve travelled extensively over the world. If you’re picking and choosing Guantanamo, Iraq war, etc. then I can do the same about Tianman square. Let’s objectively assess the situation without picking and choosing - I can do the same about positive aspects of US: functioning justice system, representative democracy, cultural diversity and acceptance, LGBT rights, freedom of speech, freedom of press, right to run for public office, ... we could go on and on about this with no end. I have a humble request: When arguing about A, please do not talk about B to escape the reality and scrutiny that A deserves. It’s distracting and tiring.
- zaptheimpaler 8y ago
  You’re missing my point. Digital espionage/cyberintelligence/hacking is a boring standard part of intelligence for ANY country that has the capability. I brought up the Snowden stuff only as evidence that the US does it too. The point is not to criticize the US, the point is any country that can do digital espionage, China included, is doing it, simply because no one wants to fall behind in a global arms race. I don’t think that makes China the evil boogie man. And I don’t appreciate the straw manning and condescension. I’m not trying to make some broad “China is better than the US” argument.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > I don’t think that makes China the evil boogie man. > And I don’t appreciate the straw manning If you have to turn "scrutiny" into "makes it the evil boogie man", that's kind of a giveaway. I would call this the compiler error of online comments, and static typing can catch errors without having to run the program every time. Which doesn't only save you time, but the readers too; starting the program, getting bogus results, freeing memory and writing a bug report takes much more time. > I’m not trying to make some broad “China is better than the US” argument. I don't know what you tried, but going by what's written here, you responded to the criticism of nonchalance with "the problem is that $random_stuff_about_the_US_nobody_denies", as if that refutes said criticism. When there is an article about a disease, wouldn't it make sense to talk about all sorts of other diseases instead, so nobody thinks that disease is "the evil boogie man"? Are comments about US spook stuff also riddled with comments about China or Israel or any other the hundreds of nations, just so nobody gets the impression that "the US is the only country doing this"? Why not simply assume everybody knows these very basic things? It's not like any comments (I saw) imply that they don't, unless you read that into them.

wybiral 8y ago

That sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

zaptheimpaler 8y ago
...because in the context of global politics, it applies. If country A can spy on B, what right does it have to demand B not spy on A? Whataboutism is about responding to a criticism of your countries internal problems with a criticism of theirs. This is not about internal problems, its about what one country can do to another.
- wybiral 8y ago
  Many people in the US criticized that behavior from the NSA. Maybe you didn't notice those stories. It doesn't make all other instances of hacking or spying okay. But surveillance is one issue (which is valid and we should talk about it). Stealing intellectual property using your intelligence apparatus in a way that benefits your state-sponsored businesses is another. We can talk about that too.
  - zaptheimpaler 8y ago
    People did criticize it but that didn’t stop them did it? Last I checked Snowden was declared a criminal. I’m talking about the Chinese governments perspective. From their perspective, until the the NSA stops spying (whether its criticized by US citizens or not) it does not make sense for China to stop spying either, purely to equalize the playing field. I’m against spying too but i can understand why any country wants to protect its interests.
    - fermienrico 8y ago
      “People did criticize it...” In China, that is not possible. Freedom of speech does not exist nor does freedom of press. Whether critizing made a difference (btw, yes it did. Snowden’s revelations has had a profound impact on spying on citizens, not just in the US but in the history of mankind in the digital age) is irrelevant. China deserves criticism and so does US. The difference is that in the US, we can freely critize everything without the fear of anything. China has no such luxury and therefore, it needs even more criticism.
    - wybiral 8y ago
      There is a FISA court system in place preventing random access to data collected by the NSA. It has to be obtained via warrant, on record, from a judge. Most of it is metadata (call times, etc) and most of it was collected by cooperating with tech companies. The rumors about widespread NSA infiltration into all of our devices via hacking were greatly exaggerated. The closest you come to that is with the CIA Vault 7 stuff (from WikiLeaks) which as we now know probably came from Russian sources, was probably also exaggerated, and we don't have any proof that it was used outside of targeted operations. It would be dumb for government not to develop tools for dealing with other nation-state hackers. In fact, maybe that's exactly how we can pin attribution to China in this case. I'll repeat my previous position: > [...] surveillance is one issue (which is valid and we should talk about it). Stealing intellectual property using your intelligence apparatus in a way that benefits your state-sponsored businesses is another. We can talk about that too. There is a difference, imo, and we should continue to talk about what China is clearly doing.

King-Aaron 8y ago

See, I really detest this argument because it's pretty low-level. Yes, there is equally horrible shit going on with both sides. But that is absolutely no justification for accepting it.

zaptheimpaler 8y ago
Would you then be comfortable with the US stopping all spying on foreign governments while those countries continue? And surrendering all nukes while other countries keep theirs? I'm against spying too, but if everyone else does it I can understand why China would want to also purely to equalize power. Its the same situation as nukes - i dont like them, it would be great if no one had them, but if some already do i fully understand why others would want to get them.
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  While this is a bit of strawman logic, I'll bite. My answer is this - what we are seeing I feel is a build-up to a massive power shift in the coming decades. As the climate changes and resources undoubtedly become scarce (water, food, etc) something will eventually trigger a conflict between the major nations, which currently people refuse to believe is a possibility. I'd guess the relative economic stability of the last several decades has lead to this. When the curtain inevitably falls, which would you prefer to take the baton. A quasi-democratic nation (US) that has clear pitfalls but at least a large portion of people living in relative freedom of thought, or the nation which has revoked the need to run elections, actively black-bags people for saying the wrong thing about their government, and institutes wide ranging censorship on a variety of important issues? Neither side is perfect, but it must be objectively said that the humanitarian state of affairs in China is dismal. Currently we are seeing the government in China stifling dissent as well as preparing to quash as much possibility of it in the future, while actively probing "the other side" for weaknesses. In any strategic sense, what's going on right now should be concerning. And while the thought of 'picking sides' does honestly suck, I'll throw the question back at you. What would you prefer?
  - 8y ago

fermienrico 8y ago

Your comment, and similar cliche arguments on HN are tiring to refute over and over and over. Before you put US on the same pedestal of morality as China, you must equate them on apples to apples basis. Picking and choosing horrible things US has done in the past is very convenient. I immigrated to US and I’ve travelled extensively over the world. If you’re picking and choosing Guantanamo, Iraq war, etc. then I can do the same about Tianman square. Let’s objectively assess the situation without picking and choosing - I can do the same about positive aspects of US: functioning justice system, representative democracy, cultural diversity and acceptance, LGBT rights, freedom of speech, freedom of press, right to run for public office, ... we could go on and on about this with no end. I have a humble request: When arguing about A, please do not talk about B to escape the reality and scrutiny that A deserves. It’s distracting and tiring.

zaptheimpaler 8y ago
You’re missing my point. Digital espionage/cyberintelligence/hacking is a boring standard part of intelligence for ANY country that has the capability. I brought up the Snowden stuff only as evidence that the US does it too. The point is not to criticize the US, the point is any country that can do digital espionage, China included, is doing it, simply because no one wants to fall behind in a global arms race. I don’t think that makes China the evil boogie man. And I don’t appreciate the straw manning and condescension. I’m not trying to make some broad “China is better than the US” argument.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > I don’t think that makes China the evil boogie man. > And I don’t appreciate the straw manning If you have to turn "scrutiny" into "makes it the evil boogie man", that's kind of a giveaway. I would call this the compiler error of online comments, and static typing can catch errors without having to run the program every time. Which doesn't only save you time, but the readers too; starting the program, getting bogus results, freeing memory and writing a bug report takes much more time. > I’m not trying to make some broad “China is better than the US” argument. I don't know what you tried, but going by what's written here, you responded to the criticism of nonchalance with "the problem is that $random_stuff_about_the_US_nobody_denies", as if that refutes said criticism. When there is an article about a disease, wouldn't it make sense to talk about all sorts of other diseases instead, so nobody thinks that disease is "the evil boogie man"? Are comments about US spook stuff also riddled with comments about China or Israel or any other the hundreds of nations, just so nobody gets the impression that "the US is the only country doing this"? Why not simply assume everybody knows these very basic things? It's not like any comments (I saw) imply that they don't, unless you read that into them.