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Absolutely. Most corporations have no more loyalty to one "side" or the other nor any more loyalty to an ideology than the Coke/Fanta hybrid-monstrosity of the

Absolutely. Most corporations have no more loyalty to one "side" or the other nor any more loyalty to an ideology than the Coke/Fanta hybrid-monstrosity of the 1940s. It took employees to force Google to reverse some of its policies, not its board of directors. At the same time, as the US withdraws from the world, China fills in. They zealously sell the surveillance state and its equipment world wide just as the US exported its form of capital constrained democracy. So it's not remotely just CBS nor just in the US. For those annoyed by the occasionally harmful American hegemony, just wait till you see what China is going to do.

f5thesystem 7y ago
The last couple of days I've been learning a little more about China's emerging surveillance state and while terrifying to think about and worse sad knowing they're building essentially concentration camps, I am wondering how effective are China's policies. i.e. does China's investment and push towards a controlled society actually come out ahead compared to if they didn't? Without looking at any figures, surely policing the internet, building large re-education camps, and employing a whole lot of social police gobbles up a lot of resources. The people employed could be doing something else productive right? So would the safety gained from their extreme surveillance state increase over all productivity due to less violence or lower productivity because the net gain from a safer society is less than what would be gained if the resources were distributed to other societal needs like healthcare and infrastructure?
- ativzzz 7y ago
  I think it's less about building a productive China, and more about maintaining power for those in charge, but they could also honestly believe that the masses need to be controlled in order to have a productive China.
  - smolder 7y ago
    IMHO, the US also has an overreaching surveillance state, and it also exists to maintain power at the cost of overall productivity and quality of life, but it's to a lesser extent than China.
- smsm42 7y ago
  > i.e. does China's investment and push towards a controlled society actually come out ahead compared to if they didn't? The same question people used to ask about USSR. USSR had it all - mass prison camps, massive industrialization programs, surveillance and terror state (of course, at different technology level), massive successes in some areas - like space technologies, unconditional love of all well-meaning people in the West, especially in academy and significant part of Hollywood - everything was there. Until USSR crumbled into dust. Turns out enslaving and oppressing people under the slogans of "most free society on the planet" is, after all, not sustainable, and free economy (even the semi-free one we're witnessing now) outperforms the socialist planned one. I don't think China would fare much better - though it may take a long time to see it, and sometimes it would seem like they have won - as was proclaimed many times by USSR fans over the course of 20th century.
  - apatters 7y ago
    On that note, an article was just posted on here about how Chinese companies are going bust left and right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19858288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19858288 While many people have stopped believing this, it really is true that free economies outperform planned ones, and when the planned ones explode, they tend to explode spectacularly. The only mitigating counterpoint is that it's not clear how free the US and EU economies really are these days, as they've increasingly become dominated by large companies via market power, lobbying and regulatory capture.
- serf 7y ago
  >So would the safety gained from their extreme surveillance state increase over all productivity .... Most folks that have any opinion on humanitarian or privacy social issues would probably be unwilling to entertain the idea of cost/benefit analysis with regards to whether or not concentration camps (no, not 're-education' camps) provide a societal good.
markdown 7y ago
> occasionally harmful American hegemony Occasionally harmful? Hundreds of thousands slaughtered in the middle east in the past two decades isn't "occasionally harmful! China isn't even in the same league when it comes to the harm of US hegemony.
- toomanyrichies 7y ago
  > China isn't even in the same league when it comes to the harm of US hegemony. No need to pick one or the other. There's plenty of hegemony from both to go around: "The Communist Chinese invasion in 1950 led to years of turmoil, that culminated in the complete overthrow of the Tibetan Government and the self-imposed exile of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans in 1959. Since that time over a million Tibetans have been killed. With the Chinese policy of resettlement of Chinese to Tibet, Tibetans have become a minority in their own country. Chinese is the official language. Compared to pre-1959 levels, only 1/20 monks are still allowed to practice, under the government's watch. Up to 6,000 monasteries and shrines have been destroyed. Famines have appeared for the first time in recorded history, natural resources are devastated, and wildlife depleted to extinction. Tibetan culture comes close to being eradicated there." Source- http://www.umass.edu/rso/fretibet/education.html http://www.umass.edu/rso/fretibet/education.html
  - tepidandroid 7y ago
    > No need to pick one or the other. There's plenty of hegemony from both to go around Indeed, there really is. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti... [couldn't copy and paste an excerpt because it's far too long]
    - blattimwind 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...
  - markdown 7y ago
tepidandroid 7y ago
> For those annoyed by the occasionally harmful American hegemony, just wait till you see what China is going to do. There are plenty of abuses to call out on all sides, but let's not resort to euphemisms when comparing the historical abuses [1] of one side to future abuses from another. It's a great disservice to all those who have been just "occasionally harmed" (I'm sure they don't feel the same way as you do). [1] https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...
- smsm42 7y ago
  Human rights abuses in China are in no way "future". They are very much in present and in the past. Somehow in the West it becomes fashionable to dismiss those just because US has its troubles. But the fact that US government has troublesome part in no way absolves the crimes that Chinese government perpetrated and continues to perpetrate. It's not "either-or" proposition.
  - tepidandroid 7y ago
    I knew my comment would draw exactly this response. My comment was simply stating that the past abuses of one side should not be compared to future, hypothetical abuses of the other (referring to the sentence "just wait till you see what China is going to do"). One may compare the historical abuses of one side to the historical abuses of the other. Is that fair and reasonable?
    - PavlovsCat 7y ago
      Totalitarianism is a scorpion that cannot but sting. So no, in my books that's just suicidal playing for time I have no patience for and will take no part in.
      - tepidandroid 7y ago
        > Totalitarianism is a scorpion that cannot but sting. I'm 100% onboard with this notion. Our opinions differ only with respect to where we think China is headed, which was the premise of my original comment. Yours is the pessimistic view, mine is the optimistic one. I happen to believe that as China continues to modernize, it will reach a point where its government will no longer feel the need to resort to totalitarian policies to ensure the stability and prosperity of its society. You and many others will disagree. The point is, we won't know until we're actually there.

f5thesystem 7y ago

The last couple of days I've been learning a little more about China's emerging surveillance state and while terrifying to think about and worse sad knowing they're building essentially concentration camps, I am wondering how effective are China's policies. i.e. does China's investment and push towards a controlled society actually come out ahead compared to if they didn't? Without looking at any figures, surely policing the internet, building large re-education camps, and employing a whole lot of social police gobbles up a lot of resources. The people employed could be doing something else productive right? So would the safety gained from their extreme surveillance state increase over all productivity due to less violence or lower productivity because the net gain from a safer society is less than what would be gained if the resources were distributed to other societal needs like healthcare and infrastructure?

ativzzz 7y ago
I think it's less about building a productive China, and more about maintaining power for those in charge, but they could also honestly believe that the masses need to be controlled in order to have a productive China.
- smolder 7y ago
  IMHO, the US also has an overreaching surveillance state, and it also exists to maintain power at the cost of overall productivity and quality of life, but it's to a lesser extent than China.
smsm42 7y ago
> i.e. does China's investment and push towards a controlled society actually come out ahead compared to if they didn't? The same question people used to ask about USSR. USSR had it all - mass prison camps, massive industrialization programs, surveillance and terror state (of course, at different technology level), massive successes in some areas - like space technologies, unconditional love of all well-meaning people in the West, especially in academy and significant part of Hollywood - everything was there. Until USSR crumbled into dust. Turns out enslaving and oppressing people under the slogans of "most free society on the planet" is, after all, not sustainable, and free economy (even the semi-free one we're witnessing now) outperforms the socialist planned one. I don't think China would fare much better - though it may take a long time to see it, and sometimes it would seem like they have won - as was proclaimed many times by USSR fans over the course of 20th century.
- apatters 7y ago
  On that note, an article was just posted on here about how Chinese companies are going bust left and right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19858288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19858288 While many people have stopped believing this, it really is true that free economies outperform planned ones, and when the planned ones explode, they tend to explode spectacularly. The only mitigating counterpoint is that it's not clear how free the US and EU economies really are these days, as they've increasingly become dominated by large companies via market power, lobbying and regulatory capture.
serf 7y ago
>So would the safety gained from their extreme surveillance state increase over all productivity .... Most folks that have any opinion on humanitarian or privacy social issues would probably be unwilling to entertain the idea of cost/benefit analysis with regards to whether or not concentration camps (no, not 're-education' camps) provide a societal good.

markdown 7y ago

> occasionally harmful American hegemony Occasionally harmful? Hundreds of thousands slaughtered in the middle east in the past two decades isn't "occasionally harmful! China isn't even in the same league when it comes to the harm of US hegemony.

toomanyrichies 7y ago
> China isn't even in the same league when it comes to the harm of US hegemony. No need to pick one or the other. There's plenty of hegemony from both to go around: "The Communist Chinese invasion in 1950 led to years of turmoil, that culminated in the complete overthrow of the Tibetan Government and the self-imposed exile of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans in 1959. Since that time over a million Tibetans have been killed. With the Chinese policy of resettlement of Chinese to Tibet, Tibetans have become a minority in their own country. Chinese is the official language. Compared to pre-1959 levels, only 1/20 monks are still allowed to practice, under the government's watch. Up to 6,000 monasteries and shrines have been destroyed. Famines have appeared for the first time in recorded history, natural resources are devastated, and wildlife depleted to extinction. Tibetan culture comes close to being eradicated there." Source- http://www.umass.edu/rso/fretibet/education.html http://www.umass.edu/rso/fretibet/education.html
- tepidandroid 7y ago
  > No need to pick one or the other. There's plenty of hegemony from both to go around Indeed, there really is. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti... [couldn't copy and paste an excerpt because it's far too long]
  - blattimwind 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...
- markdown 7y ago

tepidandroid 7y ago

> For those annoyed by the occasionally harmful American hegemony, just wait till you see what China is going to do. There are plenty of abuses to call out on all sides, but let's not resort to euphemisms when comparing the historical abuses [1] of one side to future abuses from another. It's a great disservice to all those who have been just "occasionally harmed" (I'm sure they don't feel the same way as you do). [1] https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...

smsm42 7y ago
Human rights abuses in China are in no way "future". They are very much in present and in the past. Somehow in the West it becomes fashionable to dismiss those just because US has its troubles. But the fact that US government has troublesome part in no way absolves the crimes that Chinese government perpetrated and continues to perpetrate. It's not "either-or" proposition.
- tepidandroid 7y ago
  I knew my comment would draw exactly this response. My comment was simply stating that the past abuses of one side should not be compared to future, hypothetical abuses of the other (referring to the sentence "just wait till you see what China is going to do"). One may compare the historical abuses of one side to the historical abuses of the other. Is that fair and reasonable?
  - PavlovsCat 7y ago
    Totalitarianism is a scorpion that cannot but sting. So no, in my books that's just suicidal playing for time I have no patience for and will take no part in.
    - tepidandroid 7y ago
      > Totalitarianism is a scorpion that cannot but sting. I'm 100% onboard with this notion. Our opinions differ only with respect to where we think China is headed, which was the premise of my original comment. Yours is the pessimistic view, mine is the optimistic one. I happen to believe that as China continues to modernize, it will reach a point where its government will no longer feel the need to resort to totalitarian policies to ensure the stability and prosperity of its society. You and many others will disagree. The point is, we won't know until we're actually there.