4 ms·

> so long the companies' own countries is also on the US side as well The US side of what? What does it mean to be on the US side?

by Udik 6y ago

dade_ 6y ago
I don't understand how someone can be on HN for 6 years and not already know this. Look up Five Eyes.
- Udik 6y ago
  Five Eyes includes US, CA, UK, NZ and AU. Does it mean that German or French social networks are not allowed in the US? Conversely, should Italy or Russia ban US social networks? There are no absolute friends and absolute enemies. China was a good commercial partner of the US until a few years ago. Italy has been spied for decades by the CIA. The US wiretapped Germany's PM. Israel was caught installing spy mobile phone cells around the White House. Or is threatening the economic and technological supremacy of the US by competing on the global markets already a way of not siding with the US?
  - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
    Fourteen Eyes
  - dade_ 6y ago
    China - Not Five Eyes Italy - Not Five Eyes Germany - Not Five Eyes Israel - Not Five Eyes Notice a pattern? Anyone new US foreign policy should also lookup the Munro Doctrine. Would have saved Maduro and the Venezuelans a great deal of suffering.
AndyMcConachie 6y ago
The USA has enemies, NATO has enemies. The short list is China, Iran, Russia, N Korea, Venezuela, Cuba. There are others, but these seem to get the most attention. Remember the Axis of Evil?
- Retric 6y ago
  As 1984 put it ‘oceania has always been at war with eurasia’ edit: eastasia. Country’s have complex relationships. At the height of the Cold War the US and USSR still had some trade. It’s really propaganda that boils things down to allies and enemies.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Allegiances shift over time. I like to remind people of The Living Daylights (1987), in which James Bond helps a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists blow up a plane. (it's a Soviet plane running drugs, so it's OK, and the Mujahedein involved are run by a chap who went to Oxford, and are fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, so that's OK too)
    - meddlepal 6y ago
      Rambo 3 also comes to mind where he aids the Taliban. The end scene even has a commemoration to the brave freedom fighting Taliban.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > It’s really propaganda that boils things down to allies and enemies. Yes and no, there are some ways of seeing things that are not really compatible. For example, the USSR wanted to export communism internationally which meant incidentally fomenting violent coups around the world to create socialist powers they could control. If you are a target of such strategies you can't seriously be "friendly" with such powers - it's not just propaganda.
    - omphalos 6y ago
      People are not their governments. Viewing competing governments as competition between their countries - I think that is propaganda. The US government violates the privacy of US people through mass surveillance. Now it is competing for control over social media. Yet the goal of mass surveillance of US people, which harms US people, is justified in terms of US interests. During the cold war all sorts of things were justified because they made sense from the perspective of US (governmental) interests. The Vietnam war, the Mujahideen, the toppling of free and democratic governments. In a "realist" framework, the ends justify the means. The "ends" and "means" here are considered from the point of view of the statesman. When the world is viewed as a chessboard between competing nations, human beings outside the decision making centers suffer - we are reduced to being expendable resources, collateral damage, in the pursuit of "national" interests.
smolder 6y ago
I don't think this question deserves the downvotes, because it's not easily answered in a clear fashion. It's a question that leads to many others. We know there is geopolitical maneuvering by different countries to improve their standing on the world stage, politically and/or economically, and that includes how they engage on business and technology. The great firewall was not for nothing. Same with fights over 5G or who can operate where, data privacy laws, etc. OTOH, it's not clear exactly what's at stake when there's a dispute over control of tiktok. Are the worlds governments competing over data sources they could tap to make weaponizable models of societal function? Are they just competing for ownership of emerging markets to help their economies? Does all this amount to a pissing match between the worlds elites? Or are ideological differences sufficient to cause wildly different outcomes for humanity, especially the little folks, depending on who gets the upper hand?

> so long the companies' own countries is also on the US side as well The US side of what? What does it mean to be on the US side?

by Udik 6y ago

> so long the companies' own countries is also on the US side as well The US side of what? What does it mean to be on the US side?

dade_ 6y ago

I don't understand how someone can be on HN for 6 years and not already know this. Look up Five Eyes.

Udik 6y ago
Five Eyes includes US, CA, UK, NZ and AU. Does it mean that German or French social networks are not allowed in the US? Conversely, should Italy or Russia ban US social networks? There are no absolute friends and absolute enemies. China was a good commercial partner of the US until a few years ago. Italy has been spied for decades by the CIA. The US wiretapped Germany's PM. Israel was caught installing spy mobile phone cells around the White House. Or is threatening the economic and technological supremacy of the US by competing on the global markets already a way of not siding with the US?
- _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
  Fourteen Eyes
- dade_ 6y ago
  China - Not Five Eyes Italy - Not Five Eyes Germany - Not Five Eyes Israel - Not Five Eyes Notice a pattern? Anyone new US foreign policy should also lookup the Munro Doctrine. Would have saved Maduro and the Venezuelans a great deal of suffering.

AndyMcConachie 6y ago

The USA has enemies, NATO has enemies. The short list is China, Iran, Russia, N Korea, Venezuela, Cuba. There are others, but these seem to get the most attention. Remember the Axis of Evil?

Retric 6y ago
As 1984 put it ‘oceania has always been at war with eurasia’ edit: eastasia. Country’s have complex relationships. At the height of the Cold War the US and USSR still had some trade. It’s really propaganda that boils things down to allies and enemies.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Allegiances shift over time. I like to remind people of The Living Daylights (1987), in which James Bond helps a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists blow up a plane. (it's a Soviet plane running drugs, so it's OK, and the Mujahedein involved are run by a chap who went to Oxford, and are fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, so that's OK too)
  - meddlepal 6y ago
    Rambo 3 also comes to mind where he aids the Taliban. The end scene even has a commemoration to the brave freedom fighting Taliban.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > It’s really propaganda that boils things down to allies and enemies. Yes and no, there are some ways of seeing things that are not really compatible. For example, the USSR wanted to export communism internationally which meant incidentally fomenting violent coups around the world to create socialist powers they could control. If you are a target of such strategies you can't seriously be "friendly" with such powers - it's not just propaganda.
  - omphalos 6y ago
    People are not their governments. Viewing competing governments as competition between their countries - I think that is propaganda. The US government violates the privacy of US people through mass surveillance. Now it is competing for control over social media. Yet the goal of mass surveillance of US people, which harms US people, is justified in terms of US interests. During the cold war all sorts of things were justified because they made sense from the perspective of US (governmental) interests. The Vietnam war, the Mujahideen, the toppling of free and democratic governments. In a "realist" framework, the ends justify the means. The "ends" and "means" here are considered from the point of view of the statesman. When the world is viewed as a chessboard between competing nations, human beings outside the decision making centers suffer - we are reduced to being expendable resources, collateral damage, in the pursuit of "national" interests.

smolder 6y ago

I don't think this question deserves the downvotes, because it's not easily answered in a clear fashion. It's a question that leads to many others. We know there is geopolitical maneuvering by different countries to improve their standing on the world stage, politically and/or economically, and that includes how they engage on business and technology. The great firewall was not for nothing. Same with fights over 5G or who can operate where, data privacy laws, etc. OTOH, it's not clear exactly what's at stake when there's a dispute over control of tiktok. Are the worlds governments competing over data sources they could tap to make weaponizable models of societal function? Are they just competing for ownership of emerging markets to help their economies? Does all this amount to a pissing match between the worlds elites? Or are ideological differences sufficient to cause wildly different outcomes for humanity, especially the little folks, depending on who gets the upper hand?