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US "asks" Canada to detain prominent Corporate exec. China "convicts" Canadian spies. You're right that this is all related to global politics. Should you real

US "asks" Canada to detain prominent Corporate exec. China "convicts" Canadian spies. You're right that this is all related to global politics. Should you really trust a modern nation? All three nations I've mentioned prove that they spy on their own and each others citizens. Its been well established that encryption standards have been tampered with from the outset, all our modern CPU's exploitable microcode, if not backdoored. I don't even consider this a conspiracy, from a strictly technical perspective, if it's possible, its probably either been tried or fully implemented to exploit.

kfprt 5y ago
China's hostage diplomacy is a bit different than breaking export laws.
maerF0x0 5y ago
But who do you trust more? I prefer a revolving door of elected leaders more than a false democracy. It's more the non-transient "state" that worries me how we get to elect our representatives, but many of their staff are in practice there across many terms influencing the direction of the country across their career[1]. I prefer countries with a better track record on human rights and freedoms than the CPC. [1]: Edward snowden talks about this in his book Permanent Record
- freeflight 5y ago
  > I prefer countries with a better track record on human rights and freedoms than the CPC. Because the United States track record on human rights and freedoms is so much superior?
  - scottLobster 5y ago
    For the last 100 years or so, yes.
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      Just a small selection of domestic crimes from within the past 100 years. Our crimes abroad are even more significant. https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CRC_genocide.shtml https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CRC_genocide.shtml
      - hall0ween 5y ago
        Great leap forward
        vimacs2 5y ago
        Will all due respect and speaking as somebody who hates the CCP, painting the "Great Leap forward" as anything other than a tragedy borne from massive government incompetence and a breakdown of communication is propoganda. The US keeps trying to paint it as if the CCP decided (for some reason) that what would best help their goals is to kill millions of their own population and plunge their country into a food crisis. It would be like the CCP pretending like the mass deaths of the indigenous people of America from smallpox was intended genocide by the Europeans instead of a consequence of the lack of knowledge of microbes and the lack of domesticated animals for the indigenous peoples, except at least that lie is some level of plausible.
        maerF0x0 5y ago
        > massive government incompetence and a breakdown of communication is propoganda. The difference is that many of us believe that the authoritarian communist style of government they have causes these issues. No one believes that the US government of the time causes small pox. Now there maybe a good argument about the profit motivated system not placing sufficient value on human life over growth & exploration.
        vimacs2 5y ago
        Except it had little to do authoritarianism or communism, it had to do with the fact that at the time, telecommunication technology had not sufficiently proliferated in the rural communities for individuals aside from the beauracrats sent by Mao to oversee the project would have been able to report the unfolding disaster. The beauracrats were ironically sent to those rural communities precisely because Mao was worried that the government was becoming overly Byzantine in it's structure so the motivation was in fact to flatten power structures. The problem is that those bureaucrats were motivated to misrepresent the level of success the agriculture project was having out of a desire for increasing their standing. Mao primary fuck up here was in assuming that these cushy officials would somehow be "purified" by being forced to interact with the salt of the earth rural people. In fact, they just recreated the social hierarchies that they were used to prior to the revolution - using Mao as their justification which would have been fairly effective since he was fairly beloved in the rural communities at the time prior to the cluster fuck that was about to unfold. Ultimately, the real lesson is that the myth of the "strong leader" is innately counter revolutionary. Mao should have realised this since he had studied some anarchist theory as well as what happened with Lenin when he decided to patronise his entire population and murdered all the independent worker communes and any chance of democracy in the post-Tsar Russia. Mao tried many experiments including trying to form equitable arrangements with capitalists and land owners, and a national day dedicated to facilitating criticisms of the government. Ultimately though, a combination of ego and niavity ruined what could have been a far more successful and less destructive revolution than what happened in Russia. Of course the modern day CCP is so byzantine in structure and dehumanising that even Mao's worst nightmares couldn't have imagined it.
  - maerF0x0 5y ago
    in addition to what others have said, Canada is also in there. And yes I think both the US and Canada have a better track record than a country actively committing genocide (Uyghurs, Fallun Gong) or persecuting its people (tibet, taiwan, hong kong) ...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - nerbert 5y ago
    By a large margin yes.
  - stale2002 5y ago
    Hey, it is still better to only have 1 group spying on us than 2 groups. Even if the US government is spying on us, that is not a good reason to also allow China to do it.
  - pcwalton 5y ago
    > Because the United States track record on human rights and freedoms is so much superior? Yes, and it's not even close.
    - trasz 5y ago
      You are ignoring the million dead civilians in Iraq alone, aren’t you?
      - maerF0x0 5y ago
        "An independent British-American group, the Iraq Body Count project (IBC project) compiles reported Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from war since the 2003 invasion and ensuing insurgency and civil war, including those caused directly by coalition military action, Iraqi military actions, the Iraqi insurgency, and those resulting from excess crime. The IBC maintains that the occupying authority has a responsibility to prevent these deaths under international law. The IBC project has recorded a range of at least 185,194 – 208,167 total violent civilian deaths through June 2020 in their database.[8][19] The Iraq Body Count (IBC) project records its numbers based on a "comprehensive survey of commercial media and NGO-based reports, along with official records that have been released into the public sphere. Reports range from specific, incident based accounts to figures from hospitals, morgues, and other documentary data-gathering agencies." The IBC was also given access to the WikiLeaks disclosures of the Iraq War Logs.[9][87] Iraq Body Count project data shows that the type of attack that resulted in the most civilian deaths was execution after abduction or capture. These accounted for 33% of civilian deaths and were overwhelmingly carried out by unknown actors including insurgents, sectarian militias and criminals. 29% of these deaths involved torture. The following most common causes of death were small arms gunfire at 20%, suicide bombs at 14%, vehicle bombs at 9%, roadside bombs at 5%, and air attacks at 5%.[88] The IBC project, reported that by the end of the major combat phase of the invasion period up to April 30, 2003, 7,419 civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces.[8][86] " -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Iraq_Body_Count_project_(IBC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira... So about 7k directly attributable to US forces, a very large multiple of that due to instability, insurgency, and crimes. I'm not sure that's the most fair take on US culpability vs CPC direct action against Uyghurs .
  - _3u10 5y ago
    One of the ways to look objectively at this stuff is net migration. So on the one hand you have people like Snowden who have migrated to Russia and on the other hand you have millions of Chinese people and many high level Chinese officials moving to the US and Canada.
zie 5y ago
> all our modern CPU's exploitable microcode, if not backdoored. I wonder how the M-series Apple chips will do with this over time. The predecessors have done OK so far, but are definitely not bulletproof. As these move up the stack, I wonder how it will go.
throw0101a 5y ago
> US "asks" Canada to detain prominent Corporate exec. The scare quotes here are completely unnecessary and inappropriate. A formal extradition request was made by the US government and Canada was treaty-bound to follow it. There were formal fraud charges against Meng Wanzhou filed in the US and since there is equivalence in Canadian law (often a prerequisite for extradition), there was no legal reason not to proceed. There was no '"asking"' involved. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_case_of_Meng_Wanzhou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_case_of_Meng_Wanzh...

kfprt 5y ago

China's hostage diplomacy is a bit different than breaking export laws.

maerF0x0 5y ago

But who do you trust more? I prefer a revolving door of elected leaders more than a false democracy. It's more the non-transient "state" that worries me how we get to elect our representatives, but many of their staff are in practice there across many terms influencing the direction of the country across their career[1]. I prefer countries with a better track record on human rights and freedoms than the CPC. [1]: Edward snowden talks about this in his book Permanent Record

freeflight 5y ago
> I prefer countries with a better track record on human rights and freedoms than the CPC. Because the United States track record on human rights and freedoms is so much superior?
- scottLobster 5y ago
  For the last 100 years or so, yes.
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    Just a small selection of domestic crimes from within the past 100 years. Our crimes abroad are even more significant. https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CRC_genocide.shtml https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CRC_genocide.shtml
    - hall0ween 5y ago
      Great leap forward
      - vimacs2 5y ago
        Will all due respect and speaking as somebody who hates the CCP, painting the "Great Leap forward" as anything other than a tragedy borne from massive government incompetence and a breakdown of communication is propoganda. The US keeps trying to paint it as if the CCP decided (for some reason) that what would best help their goals is to kill millions of their own population and plunge their country into a food crisis. It would be like the CCP pretending like the mass deaths of the indigenous people of America from smallpox was intended genocide by the Europeans instead of a consequence of the lack of knowledge of microbes and the lack of domesticated animals for the indigenous peoples, except at least that lie is some level of plausible.
        maerF0x0 5y ago
        > massive government incompetence and a breakdown of communication is propoganda. The difference is that many of us believe that the authoritarian communist style of government they have causes these issues. No one believes that the US government of the time causes small pox. Now there maybe a good argument about the profit motivated system not placing sufficient value on human life over growth & exploration.
        vimacs2 5y ago
        Except it had little to do authoritarianism or communism, it had to do with the fact that at the time, telecommunication technology had not sufficiently proliferated in the rural communities for individuals aside from the beauracrats sent by Mao to oversee the project would have been able to report the unfolding disaster. The beauracrats were ironically sent to those rural communities precisely because Mao was worried that the government was becoming overly Byzantine in it's structure so the motivation was in fact to flatten power structures. The problem is that those bureaucrats were motivated to misrepresent the level of success the agriculture project was having out of a desire for increasing their standing. Mao primary fuck up here was in assuming that these cushy officials would somehow be "purified" by being forced to interact with the salt of the earth rural people. In fact, they just recreated the social hierarchies that they were used to prior to the revolution - using Mao as their justification which would have been fairly effective since he was fairly beloved in the rural communities at the time prior to the cluster fuck that was about to unfold. Ultimately, the real lesson is that the myth of the "strong leader" is innately counter revolutionary. Mao should have realised this since he had studied some anarchist theory as well as what happened with Lenin when he decided to patronise his entire population and murdered all the independent worker communes and any chance of democracy in the post-Tsar Russia. Mao tried many experiments including trying to form equitable arrangements with capitalists and land owners, and a national day dedicated to facilitating criticisms of the government. Ultimately though, a combination of ego and niavity ruined what could have been a far more successful and less destructive revolution than what happened in Russia. Of course the modern day CCP is so byzantine in structure and dehumanising that even Mao's worst nightmares couldn't have imagined it.
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  in addition to what others have said, Canada is also in there. And yes I think both the US and Canada have a better track record than a country actively committing genocide (Uyghurs, Fallun Gong) or persecuting its people (tibet, taiwan, hong kong) ...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- nerbert 5y ago
  By a large margin yes.
- stale2002 5y ago
  Hey, it is still better to only have 1 group spying on us than 2 groups. Even if the US government is spying on us, that is not a good reason to also allow China to do it.
- pcwalton 5y ago
  > Because the United States track record on human rights and freedoms is so much superior? Yes, and it's not even close.
  - trasz 5y ago
    You are ignoring the million dead civilians in Iraq alone, aren’t you?
    - maerF0x0 5y ago
      "An independent British-American group, the Iraq Body Count project (IBC project) compiles reported Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from war since the 2003 invasion and ensuing insurgency and civil war, including those caused directly by coalition military action, Iraqi military actions, the Iraqi insurgency, and those resulting from excess crime. The IBC maintains that the occupying authority has a responsibility to prevent these deaths under international law. The IBC project has recorded a range of at least 185,194 – 208,167 total violent civilian deaths through June 2020 in their database.[8][19] The Iraq Body Count (IBC) project records its numbers based on a "comprehensive survey of commercial media and NGO-based reports, along with official records that have been released into the public sphere. Reports range from specific, incident based accounts to figures from hospitals, morgues, and other documentary data-gathering agencies." The IBC was also given access to the WikiLeaks disclosures of the Iraq War Logs.[9][87] Iraq Body Count project data shows that the type of attack that resulted in the most civilian deaths was execution after abduction or capture. These accounted for 33% of civilian deaths and were overwhelmingly carried out by unknown actors including insurgents, sectarian militias and criminals. 29% of these deaths involved torture. The following most common causes of death were small arms gunfire at 20%, suicide bombs at 14%, vehicle bombs at 9%, roadside bombs at 5%, and air attacks at 5%.[88] The IBC project, reported that by the end of the major combat phase of the invasion period up to April 30, 2003, 7,419 civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces.[8][86] " -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Iraq_Body_Count_project_(IBC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira... So about 7k directly attributable to US forces, a very large multiple of that due to instability, insurgency, and crimes. I'm not sure that's the most fair take on US culpability vs CPC direct action against Uyghurs .
- _3u10 5y ago
  One of the ways to look objectively at this stuff is net migration. So on the one hand you have people like Snowden who have migrated to Russia and on the other hand you have millions of Chinese people and many high level Chinese officials moving to the US and Canada.

zie 5y ago

> all our modern CPU's exploitable microcode, if not backdoored. I wonder how the M-series Apple chips will do with this over time. The predecessors have done OK so far, but are definitely not bulletproof. As these move up the stack, I wonder how it will go.

throw0101a 5y ago

> US "asks" Canada to detain prominent Corporate exec. The scare quotes here are completely unnecessary and inappropriate. A formal extradition request was made by the US government and Canada was treaty-bound to follow it. There were formal fraud charges against Meng Wanzhou filed in the US and since there is equivalence in Canadian law (often a prerequisite for extradition), there was no legal reason not to proceed. There was no '"asking"' involved. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_case_of_Meng_Wanzhou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_case_of_Meng_Wanzh...