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Ah yes, let's do business without concerns of morality. Make western funded technology available CCP SOE's. After all, they gotta power their "exciting" and "in

Ah yes, let's do business without concerns of morality. Make western funded technology available CCP SOE's. After all, they gotta power their "exciting" and "innovative"[1] algorithms with some sort of architecture. Less we miss anyone[2]. [1]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/11/12/chinese-firm-sold-cctv-cameras-nhs-advertised-racial-profiling/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/11/12/chinese-firm... [2]:https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/sep/23/footage-blindfolded-shackled-prisoners-china-video https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/sep/23/footage-...

wayoutthere 7y ago
Morality is simply "things I like" and "things I don't like". It's not a good basis for policy, especially when moral standards vary significantly between individuals. It's a fool's errand to try to impose your morals on another person as if they were somehow superior (though that arrogance is the foundation of the American psyche). You literally just can't.
- riversflow 7y ago
  There are such things as universal human rights, and China is absolute violating of them. >You literally just can't. Right, which is why we let Hitler exterminate the Jews.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    > There are such things as universal human rights, and China is absolute violation of them. You mean the ones that the US routinely violates for "terrorists" and "criminals"? China uses the exact same rhetoric for the people whose rights it violates. The situation with the Uyghurs mirrors a lot of the tactics used in the 70s by American police against black Americans under the guise of the "war on drugs" (hint: our police and prison guards were way more abusive than many people realize). > Right, which is why we let Hitler exterminate the Jews. What else could we have done? Anti-semitism was considered morally acceptable at the time. The American people were completely against the war until Pearl Harbor. Then we locked anyone who looked Japanese or spoke German up in camps. What we were doing was the exact same thing Hitler said he was doing with the Jews. Obviously in hindsight Hitler was awful and the Holocaust was frighteningly real. But the extent of the Holocaust was not understood until after the war. By the standards of the time, what Hitler said he was doing to the Jews didn't cross any hard moral lines -- to both the German people and most Americans. I actually believe it's the belief in moral absolutes like this that allow monsters to perpetuate atrocities: people assume "well, no rational human would round up all the Jews and murder them" -- which is exactly why it was possible.
    - riversflow 7y ago
      >What else could we have done? We could have engaged with the Japanese in the Pacific and let Europe duke it out and weaken themselves to nothing. Then rolled into Europe with tanks and taken over the whole world? Seriously. I'm not a historian, but I'm pretty sure we could have taken a very different route in WWII. If we really lacked morality, why didn't we just take over the World after WWII, or force the countries we helped out into terrible economic deals like China is doing in Africa. The Marshall plan was charitable.
      - nine_zeros 7y ago
        The America of WW2 was very different from America of today. Today, America is the thug that everyone wants to replace.
      - Bendingo 7y ago
        > why didn't we just take over the World after WWII Both the UK [1] and US [2] developed plans to do just that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable? [2] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-pentagon-estimated-204-atomic-bombs-could-destroy-the-soviets-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-pentagon-estimated-20...
      - wayoutthere 7y ago
        > If we really lacked morality, why didn't we just take over the World after WWII, or force the countries we helped out into terrible economic deals like China is doing in Africa. We didn't do both of those? That's news to me, because I thought that's what the Cold War was about. We just learned from Europe's colonial failures and allowed the countries to remain nominally politically autonomous while being economically bound to the US. The only thing that stopped us was the USSR, and it really only delayed the eventual US takeover by about 40 years. > The Marshall plan was charitable. It absolutely was not. It was designed to prevent nationalism from taking hold by making economic conditions in the defeated nations tolerable to the populace and to make those countries economically dependent on the US. It also led to former global powers Germany and Japan becoming proxy states of the US -- they are still occupied by US forces today. But it wasn't about charity by any means, it was a response to the lesson we learned from WWI that if you leave the losers destitute, resentment and nationalism follow.

wayoutthere 7y ago

Morality is simply "things I like" and "things I don't like". It's not a good basis for policy, especially when moral standards vary significantly between individuals. It's a fool's errand to try to impose your morals on another person as if they were somehow superior (though that arrogance is the foundation of the American psyche). You literally just can't.

riversflow 7y ago
There are such things as universal human rights, and China is absolute violating of them. >You literally just can't. Right, which is why we let Hitler exterminate the Jews.
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  > There are such things as universal human rights, and China is absolute violation of them. You mean the ones that the US routinely violates for "terrorists" and "criminals"? China uses the exact same rhetoric for the people whose rights it violates. The situation with the Uyghurs mirrors a lot of the tactics used in the 70s by American police against black Americans under the guise of the "war on drugs" (hint: our police and prison guards were way more abusive than many people realize). > Right, which is why we let Hitler exterminate the Jews. What else could we have done? Anti-semitism was considered morally acceptable at the time. The American people were completely against the war until Pearl Harbor. Then we locked anyone who looked Japanese or spoke German up in camps. What we were doing was the exact same thing Hitler said he was doing with the Jews. Obviously in hindsight Hitler was awful and the Holocaust was frighteningly real. But the extent of the Holocaust was not understood until after the war. By the standards of the time, what Hitler said he was doing to the Jews didn't cross any hard moral lines -- to both the German people and most Americans. I actually believe it's the belief in moral absolutes like this that allow monsters to perpetuate atrocities: people assume "well, no rational human would round up all the Jews and murder them" -- which is exactly why it was possible.
  - riversflow 7y ago
    >What else could we have done? We could have engaged with the Japanese in the Pacific and let Europe duke it out and weaken themselves to nothing. Then rolled into Europe with tanks and taken over the whole world? Seriously. I'm not a historian, but I'm pretty sure we could have taken a very different route in WWII. If we really lacked morality, why didn't we just take over the World after WWII, or force the countries we helped out into terrible economic deals like China is doing in Africa. The Marshall plan was charitable.
    - nine_zeros 7y ago
      The America of WW2 was very different from America of today. Today, America is the thug that everyone wants to replace.
    - Bendingo 7y ago
      > why didn't we just take over the World after WWII Both the UK [1] and US [2] developed plans to do just that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable? [2] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-pentagon-estimated-204-atomic-bombs-could-destroy-the-soviets-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-pentagon-estimated-20...
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      > If we really lacked morality, why didn't we just take over the World after WWII, or force the countries we helped out into terrible economic deals like China is doing in Africa. We didn't do both of those? That's news to me, because I thought that's what the Cold War was about. We just learned from Europe's colonial failures and allowed the countries to remain nominally politically autonomous while being economically bound to the US. The only thing that stopped us was the USSR, and it really only delayed the eventual US takeover by about 40 years. > The Marshall plan was charitable. It absolutely was not. It was designed to prevent nationalism from taking hold by making economic conditions in the defeated nations tolerable to the populace and to make those countries economically dependent on the US. It also led to former global powers Germany and Japan becoming proxy states of the US -- they are still occupied by US forces today. But it wasn't about charity by any means, it was a response to the lesson we learned from WWI that if you leave the losers destitute, resentment and nationalism follow.