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I don't understand what this has to do with China. Can't they both be bad? How does the NSA spying on people make China doing it any better? If I've got five ey

by tdeck 6y ago

I don't understand what this has to do with China. Can't they both be bad? How does the NSA spying on people make China doing it any better? If I've got five eyes spying on me I'm still not keen to add a sixth.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
It has to do with China as the parent comment made clear: We’re constantly told China is a threat, and that’s probably a reasonable bit of advice. We’re not constantly told our own governments are a threat, and that forms the basis of propaganda and misinformation.
- thephyber 6y ago
  > We’re constantly told China is ... > We’re not constantly told our own governments are ... When I read these statements, I can't help to substitute these nouns with "a used car salesperson". Of course a used car salesperson will talk up the cars on their lot and won't go out of their way to point out the defects or bad value. That's exactly why we should look for sources other than the salesperson and their allies. Look for data supplied by neutral third parties who have a slight adversarial stance. Also look for data from strong adversaries and evaluate the likelihood of truth versus pure propaganda.
- roenxi 6y ago
  And just to be clear; in the normal case a local government is much more of a threat than a foreign government. The experience in the 20th century made it very clear - if a government causes you to die, it was probably your government. Not a foreign government. The experience in the 21st century has thankfully been a little bit milder but (1) we're only 20 years in and (2) if you are going to be persecuted it is still far more likely to be by a local government than a foreign government.
- unishark 6y ago
  > We’re not constantly told our own governments are a threat, and that forms the basis of propaganda and misinformation. On the contrary I'd say a very notable feature the US culture is the adversarial view people have of the government. It's practically part of every major party's platform.
- catalogia 6y ago
  > We’re not constantly told our own governments are a threat That has not been my experience living in America. Not even remotely.
thephyber 6y ago
Also worth mentioning: Five Eyes is an older concept. That's an inner circle, but the outer circle is at least 14 countries strong[1]. [1] https://restoreprivacy.com/5-eyes-9-eyes-14-eyes/ https://restoreprivacy.com/5-eyes-9-eyes-14-eyes/
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  When I was at uni (in the 80's) we used to laugh about echelon, and ridicule the idea that everything was being recorded and stored under Cheyenne mountain, only the tin foil hat people would treat it seriously - who knew.
  - oska 6y ago
    Similarly I remember reading a comment on Slashdot in the late 90s warning how much of a dystopia the Web would become. I also remember myself mostly dismissing the comment as buzz-kill.
    - thephyber 6y ago
      It's important to remember that those posts are only relevant now because of hindsight bias. If the web had moved in a different direction, we would be looking back on posts with different predictions with the same hindsight bias.
inopinatus 6y ago
Hypocrisy on ethical concerns fosters abuse and corrupts the host. The key bias here is normalisation of deviance, both on an individual and regime level.
thereare5lights 6y ago
Usually China is brought up in order to deflect and avoid discussing how much power our government has accumulated and how disturbing the parallels are. This is one of the rare cases when China has been brought up in the opposite direction.
milofeynman 6y ago
There is an active Chinese propaganda campaign on HackerNews. New account, upvoted to the top despite all comments disagreeing with them. I've noticed this over the past several months. This example perfectly encapsulates it. I have been avoiding talking about it because it's part of the rules to bring up astroturfing etc. but this comment was too much. You think the people running hackernews have time to fight a disinformation campaign? Twitter, reddit, facebook, etc can't, I can't imagine the minor resources that go into HN even have a chance.
- Confiks 6y ago
  Please "remember that the community is divided on divisive topics and that the person disagreeing with you is probably not a spy, but just someone who disagrees with you." [1] Also, specifically about astroturfing: "[T]he overwhelming majority of the insinuations and accusations [of astroturfing] that people come up with about it lead to precisely nothing when we investigate. It's like flipping a coin and having it come up tails a thousand times in a row: you start to look for simpler explanations, and there are clear, simple explanations for why this might be." [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23835613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23835613 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23837456 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23837456
- newen 6y ago
  Is it so strange to think that not everyone buys into the anti-China propaganda that's relatively recently popped up in US media? It's only in the last few years that you see every other person on the internet go on a frenzy about China and it's not too crazy to think that there will be people skeptical of this frenzy.
- dang 6y ago
  I've spent countless hours looking into these things. I've found no evidence for what you're saying. Literally zero. I'm not saying that to pick an argument—it's just the factual situation. Meanwhile, there's enormous evidence that people imagine things based on what they believe they see in internet threads. That's why the site guidelines ask you not to post such insinuations unless you have something objective to go on. The appearance of a comment getting upvoted doesn't count—that's simply an indication that people have different views. In addition to the links Confiks posted, I suggest https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20wilderness%20mirrors&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... And there are hundreds of past explanations, going back many years, at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by tdeck 6y ago

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

It has to do with China as the parent comment made clear: We’re constantly told China is a threat, and that’s probably a reasonable bit of advice. We’re not constantly told our own governments are a threat, and that forms the basis of propaganda and misinformation.

thephyber 6y ago
> We’re constantly told China is ... > We’re not constantly told our own governments are ... When I read these statements, I can't help to substitute these nouns with "a used car salesperson". Of course a used car salesperson will talk up the cars on their lot and won't go out of their way to point out the defects or bad value. That's exactly why we should look for sources other than the salesperson and their allies. Look for data supplied by neutral third parties who have a slight adversarial stance. Also look for data from strong adversaries and evaluate the likelihood of truth versus pure propaganda.
roenxi 6y ago
And just to be clear; in the normal case a local government is much more of a threat than a foreign government. The experience in the 20th century made it very clear - if a government causes you to die, it was probably your government. Not a foreign government. The experience in the 21st century has thankfully been a little bit milder but (1) we're only 20 years in and (2) if you are going to be persecuted it is still far more likely to be by a local government than a foreign government.
unishark 6y ago
> We’re not constantly told our own governments are a threat, and that forms the basis of propaganda and misinformation. On the contrary I'd say a very notable feature the US culture is the adversarial view people have of the government. It's practically part of every major party's platform.
catalogia 6y ago
> We’re not constantly told our own governments are a threat That has not been my experience living in America. Not even remotely.

thephyber 6y ago

Also worth mentioning: Five Eyes is an older concept. That's an inner circle, but the outer circle is at least 14 countries strong[1]. [1] https://restoreprivacy.com/5-eyes-9-eyes-14-eyes/ https://restoreprivacy.com/5-eyes-9-eyes-14-eyes/

chadcmulligan 6y ago
When I was at uni (in the 80's) we used to laugh about echelon, and ridicule the idea that everything was being recorded and stored under Cheyenne mountain, only the tin foil hat people would treat it seriously - who knew.
- oska 6y ago
  Similarly I remember reading a comment on Slashdot in the late 90s warning how much of a dystopia the Web would become. I also remember myself mostly dismissing the comment as buzz-kill.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    It's important to remember that those posts are only relevant now because of hindsight bias. If the web had moved in a different direction, we would be looking back on posts with different predictions with the same hindsight bias.

inopinatus 6y ago

Hypocrisy on ethical concerns fosters abuse and corrupts the host. The key bias here is normalisation of deviance, both on an individual and regime level.

thereare5lights 6y ago

Usually China is brought up in order to deflect and avoid discussing how much power our government has accumulated and how disturbing the parallels are. This is one of the rare cases when China has been brought up in the opposite direction.

milofeynman 6y ago

There is an active Chinese propaganda campaign on HackerNews. New account, upvoted to the top despite all comments disagreeing with them. I've noticed this over the past several months. This example perfectly encapsulates it. I have been avoiding talking about it because it's part of the rules to bring up astroturfing etc. but this comment was too much. You think the people running hackernews have time to fight a disinformation campaign? Twitter, reddit, facebook, etc can't, I can't imagine the minor resources that go into HN even have a chance.

Confiks 6y ago
Please "remember that the community is divided on divisive topics and that the person disagreeing with you is probably not a spy, but just someone who disagrees with you." [1] Also, specifically about astroturfing: "[T]he overwhelming majority of the insinuations and accusations [of astroturfing] that people come up with about it lead to precisely nothing when we investigate. It's like flipping a coin and having it come up tails a thousand times in a row: you start to look for simpler explanations, and there are clear, simple explanations for why this might be." [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23835613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23835613 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23837456 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23837456
newen 6y ago
Is it so strange to think that not everyone buys into the anti-China propaganda that's relatively recently popped up in US media? It's only in the last few years that you see every other person on the internet go on a frenzy about China and it's not too crazy to think that there will be people skeptical of this frenzy.
dang 6y ago
I've spent countless hours looking into these things. I've found no evidence for what you're saying. Literally zero. I'm not saying that to pick an argument—it's just the factual situation. Meanwhile, there's enormous evidence that people imagine things based on what they believe they see in internet threads. That's why the site guidelines ask you not to post such insinuations unless you have something objective to go on. The appearance of a comment getting upvoted doesn't count—that's simply an indication that people have different views. In addition to the links Confiks posted, I suggest https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20wilderness%20mirrors&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... And there are hundreds of past explanations, going back many years, at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html