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On the face of it I don't think it's terribly different, no. Anyone who wants to make a moral judgment about which is "worse" should start with moral judgments

On the face of it I don't think it's terribly different, no. Anyone who wants to make a moral judgment about which is "worse" should start with moral judgments of the American and Chinese governments.

whynotminot 7y ago
^ this one right here. Not going to pretend the US is perfect. But in a world where the future is basically a choice between one of two super powers to throw your lot in with, imma go with the US.
- tremon 7y ago
  The US is the one with a track record of hostile aggression outside its own borders. So far, China seems to focus more on domestic issues than on international assassinations. As a person not living in China, Chinese spying seems less dangerous to me than US spying, at least for now.
kelnos 7y ago
Both the American and Chinese governments have bad track records when it comes to abusing civil liberties, privacy intrusion. I would say that the Chinese government is worse, but that doesn't really matter from my perspective for this particular thing. As an American, I expect that the US government, if it wants it enough, can obtain access to my communications (at least while using US infrastructure), assuming they're not e2e encrypted. Hopefully such access would be gated by a warrant, and I expect in most cases that's how it works, though I do expect there are abuses here and there. The Chinese government, however, should not have any kind of access to any of my communications (unless I am visiting China, using their infrastructure; or perhaps am communicating with someone in China from abroad). In addition, if the relationship between the US and China ever sours to the point of war, presumably the Chinese would have no problem using any possible backdoors to disrupt US telecom networks. Given this, I would much rather the US use US-built telecom infrastructure than Chinese-built infra. I think an argument over which government is more moral or trustworthy is just not useful here.
- p1necone 7y ago
  If I was living in America, I'd much rather have the Chinese government spying on me than the American government, and vice versa if I were in China. Obviously that's me as a selfish individual - it does indeed make more sense for America as a whole to not want other nation states snooping on them.
  - smnrchrds 7y ago
    Real choices (if you live in America) are (1) American government only or (2) American and Chinese governments both. As a resident of Canada, my choices are (1) Canadian and American, or (2) Canadian and Chinese.
  - 07d046 7y ago
    The scary thing about this attitude is that if it's widely adopted and results in Huawei being welcomed (or something that facilities spying), it puts the people who do push back against the Chinese government in the crosshairs.
- caconym_ 7y ago
  Well, the reason I bring it (the moral judgment) up is that in the comment I replied to we see the usual "whataboutism" being invoked, and that leads naturally to the domain of moral judgments by implicitly strawmanning the opposing position that the Chinese government is bad and the American government is good so we should accept the latter doing shitty things but not the former. I mean, why else would you bring it up at all? No shit, governments are going to spy on people ... it's still useful and interesting to know which governments are doing the spying, and how, and who's accusing who of what (which is obviously not the same thing). It's newsworthy even without moral judgment. But the whataboutism drags morals into the picture. I agree with your comment in the sense that it is a reasonably accurate description of reality and some notions of "should" in the (very fuzzy) [international] legal sense. On the other hand, assuming that future people will have to live under both regimes, and given that "cyber-intrusions" are moves in a greater conflict that is likely to escalate and has profound implications for the future shape of human society and thought, I think it's quite useful to bring morals into the picture if one of our goals is to maximize good outcomes and minimize bad outcomes for other humans.
bangboombang 7y ago
Which isn't that easy, since the world isn't black and white. And do I even care about morals, or mostly just about my personal data? As an American it's probably easy to make a choice here, but as a 3rd party I'm not so sure. The US has definitely wreaked more havoc across the globe during the past century, from overthrowing democratic governments to bombing the shit out of countries. The Chinese are reckless whenever they see someone threatening their authority, but egoistically speaking, that 99% applies to Chinese nationals or people living in China. Not my problem. If my country would go with US equipment, I already know they will get all my data because of things like the patriot act and all the niceties Snowden revealed the NSA et al have. The Chinese probably have the same, but we don't know anything definitive, which makes it more scary, also they are evil commies. But then again, having access to telco infra only means they get meta data, since traffic is all encrypted nowadays, while the US still gets all my content thanks to Facebook/WhatsApp, Google/Gmail, Amazon, ..., no matter what the 5G equipment is. So is it safer to then say you better buy the 5G stuff from the US so only one party can steal all your data?
- caconym_ 7y ago
  I don't think I implied it's easy. I commented because whataboutism drags us into moral territory, and having been so dragged we should attempt to form robust moral judgments rather than making do with hey, man, like, it's all relative, you know?
  - bangboombang 7y ago
    Didn't mean you said it is. Just wanted to go further with that thought from my perspective, because I assume the majority of users on here are from the US and thus might not immediately see why this whole situation isn't as easy to decide on for everybody. Thus I just tried to lay out several aspects you might consider as an "outsider", and hopefully I didn't make it look like there is a final conclusion to that.
Taniwha 7y ago
I think that my point above is that spying is bad, we're forced to choose between two evils and rather than choosing sides we should armor ourselves against evil
Nasrudith 7y ago
Really the sane thing to do isn't to choose sides but reject both of them and tell both known actors to fuck off.

whynotminot 7y ago

^ this one right here. Not going to pretend the US is perfect. But in a world where the future is basically a choice between one of two super powers to throw your lot in with, imma go with the US.

tremon 7y ago
The US is the one with a track record of hostile aggression outside its own borders. So far, China seems to focus more on domestic issues than on international assassinations. As a person not living in China, Chinese spying seems less dangerous to me than US spying, at least for now.

kelnos 7y ago

Both the American and Chinese governments have bad track records when it comes to abusing civil liberties, privacy intrusion. I would say that the Chinese government is worse, but that doesn't really matter from my perspective for this particular thing. As an American, I expect that the US government, if it wants it enough, can obtain access to my communications (at least while using US infrastructure), assuming they're not e2e encrypted. Hopefully such access would be gated by a warrant, and I expect in most cases that's how it works, though I do expect there are abuses here and there. The Chinese government, however, should not have any kind of access to any of my communications (unless I am visiting China, using their infrastructure; or perhaps am communicating with someone in China from abroad). In addition, if the relationship between the US and China ever sours to the point of war, presumably the Chinese would have no problem using any possible backdoors to disrupt US telecom networks. Given this, I would much rather the US use US-built telecom infrastructure than Chinese-built infra. I think an argument over which government is more moral or trustworthy is just not useful here.

p1necone 7y ago
If I was living in America, I'd much rather have the Chinese government spying on me than the American government, and vice versa if I were in China. Obviously that's me as a selfish individual - it does indeed make more sense for America as a whole to not want other nation states snooping on them.
- smnrchrds 7y ago
  Real choices (if you live in America) are (1) American government only or (2) American and Chinese governments both. As a resident of Canada, my choices are (1) Canadian and American, or (2) Canadian and Chinese.
- 07d046 7y ago
  The scary thing about this attitude is that if it's widely adopted and results in Huawei being welcomed (or something that facilities spying), it puts the people who do push back against the Chinese government in the crosshairs.
caconym_ 7y ago
Well, the reason I bring it (the moral judgment) up is that in the comment I replied to we see the usual "whataboutism" being invoked, and that leads naturally to the domain of moral judgments by implicitly strawmanning the opposing position that the Chinese government is bad and the American government is good so we should accept the latter doing shitty things but not the former. I mean, why else would you bring it up at all? No shit, governments are going to spy on people ... it's still useful and interesting to know which governments are doing the spying, and how, and who's accusing who of what (which is obviously not the same thing). It's newsworthy even without moral judgment. But the whataboutism drags morals into the picture. I agree with your comment in the sense that it is a reasonably accurate description of reality and some notions of "should" in the (very fuzzy) [international] legal sense. On the other hand, assuming that future people will have to live under both regimes, and given that "cyber-intrusions" are moves in a greater conflict that is likely to escalate and has profound implications for the future shape of human society and thought, I think it's quite useful to bring morals into the picture if one of our goals is to maximize good outcomes and minimize bad outcomes for other humans.

bangboombang 7y ago

Which isn't that easy, since the world isn't black and white. And do I even care about morals, or mostly just about my personal data? As an American it's probably easy to make a choice here, but as a 3rd party I'm not so sure. The US has definitely wreaked more havoc across the globe during the past century, from overthrowing democratic governments to bombing the shit out of countries. The Chinese are reckless whenever they see someone threatening their authority, but egoistically speaking, that 99% applies to Chinese nationals or people living in China. Not my problem. If my country would go with US equipment, I already know they will get all my data because of things like the patriot act and all the niceties Snowden revealed the NSA et al have. The Chinese probably have the same, but we don't know anything definitive, which makes it more scary, also they are evil commies. But then again, having access to telco infra only means they get meta data, since traffic is all encrypted nowadays, while the US still gets all my content thanks to Facebook/WhatsApp, Google/Gmail, Amazon, ..., no matter what the 5G equipment is. So is it safer to then say you better buy the 5G stuff from the US so only one party can steal all your data?

caconym_ 7y ago
I don't think I implied it's easy. I commented because whataboutism drags us into moral territory, and having been so dragged we should attempt to form robust moral judgments rather than making do with hey, man, like, it's all relative, you know?
- bangboombang 7y ago
  Didn't mean you said it is. Just wanted to go further with that thought from my perspective, because I assume the majority of users on here are from the US and thus might not immediately see why this whole situation isn't as easy to decide on for everybody. Thus I just tried to lay out several aspects you might consider as an "outsider", and hopefully I didn't make it look like there is a final conclusion to that.

Taniwha 7y ago

I think that my point above is that spying is bad, we're forced to choose between two evils and rather than choosing sides we should armor ourselves against evil

Nasrudith 7y ago

Really the sane thing to do isn't to choose sides but reject both of them and tell both known actors to fuck off.