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Depends hugely on who you are and what happens with the politics. CIA and FBI are very big threats to you, which is why you vote regularly to ensure that your

Depends hugely on who you are and what happens with the politics. CIA and FBI are very big threats to you, which is why you vote regularly to ensure that your rights are represented and those agencies aren't able to abuse their power. China is a much more distant and abstract, but much more serious threat. If the FBI or CIA fucks up, they will put let's say 10% of people in prison for opposition to the state. If China is allowed to gain upper hands on the United States, it will result in broad scale societal problems which I couldn't even begin to estimate. Imagine a world where Russia is allowed to take Europe. Imagine a world where the United States is convinced to stand by as Taiwan is invaded and our chip supply is shut down. They are very different threats, and should be treated very differently. The FBI and CIA are immune system type systems, where China is a guy with a knife. The CIA and FBI have checks on them and are balanced as we speak. China is a fully rogue actor with no balancing systems to prevent it from damaging our society. Both can kill you, both will kill you if given the opportunity. You shouldn't worry not about the guy with a knife because your immune system can kill you in 5 minutes if it wanted to. You should worry about both.

phpisthebest 4y ago
>>which is why you vote regularly to ensure that your rights are represented and those agencies aren't able to abuse their power That never works out in practice as the administrative state (which includes the FBI and CIA) are soo far removed from representative government they are basically unaccountable at this point, that is with out even getting into the idea that 1 vote in a nation of 350 million plus holds no real power anyway, or the problems with First past the post, or countless other topics around voting "Democracy" is more or less an delusion those in power perpetuate to ensure the cattle think they have a choice >>Imagine a world where the United States is convinced to stand by as Taiwan is invaded I think we already live in such a world. >>The CIA and FBI have checks on them and are balanced as we speak. Do they? In any real sense? We have confirmed and rumored massive violations of constitutional rights both here and abroad yet there is no accountability. From the Torture report, to massive violation of 4th amendment via "parallel construction" to even the possibility of actual assassinations.. Who exactly are they accountable to? it is certainly not the people, or the constitution
- bioemerl 4y ago
  > "Democracy" is more or less an delusion those in power perpetuate to ensure the cattle think they have a choice I had a much larger post, but I'm going to only respond to this one now, because it sums up basically off the disagreements and no further discussion is going to resolve anything. I don't agree with this sort of cynicism at all, and I very much do believe that while it is very flawed, democracy ultimately is still doing its job.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    I understand the resistance cynicism, however your statement about democracy seems to be more faith based than any kind of data What data do you have to support the position that "democracy ultimately is still doing its job. " further what "job" do you believe democracy is doing. I can point to many data points that show it is not, the for mentioned lack of accountability. The fact that most of the voting population does not even vote. I can point to research studies like that from political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Paige [1] that shows Average citizens have little impact on public policy. I have all kinds of data, and clear examples in history to support my position, I would be interested in seeing a counter offer [1] https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-little-impact-on-public-policy/ https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-...
    - spookie 4y ago
      You can point out individual points of data as much as you want, the end result is what matters. Have you seen journalists attacking a dictatorship while living there, and go unpunished? Have you seen the same, but on democratic countries? That should answer it.
      - bombolo 4y ago
        Nothing bad happened to snowden after all right?
        4y ago
iechoz6H 4y ago
"Imagine a world where Russia is allowed to take Europe." Russia can not even 'take' Ukraine the chances of it being able to take Europe are zero at this point.
- bioemerl 4y ago
  A big part of the issues Russia has had taking Ukraine has been because America is funding and helping them out as well. I don't want to totally discredit Ukraine here, but there is a world where without American support Russia would be having a much easier time.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    [dead]
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    In that world without American support, Russia would probably have been occupied or severely weakened by the Nazi in WWII, and history would have been way different. Just nitpicking, I agree on principle.
    - rsj_hn 4y ago
      That is a very curious reading of history not shared by the majority of military historians in either the West or East. For example, according to the US military (See The West Point Military History of the Second World War which is available on Kindle), without US support, WW2 would have lasted 1-2 years longer but the Soviets could have defeated Germany all on their own, both without lend/lease and also without any US involvement at all in the war on Europe. Here is what the West Point history says at the start of their section on Lend/Lease: "Although nearly half the population and the great industrial regions of the Donets remained under German occupation, the Soviets still found men for new armies and vastly increased war production. They defeated the Germans at Stalingrad almost entirely through their own efforts and would probably have won the same victory if they received no assistance at all." Or you can read When Titans Clashed by noted British historian David Glantz, which reads "If the Western Allies had not provided equipment and invaded Northwest Europe, Stalin and his commanders would have taken twelve to eighteen months to finish off the Wehrmacht. The results would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers would have waded at France's Atlantic beaches rather than meeting the Allies at the Elbe". It is sad that many in the West don't know that 80% of German war deaths were at the hands of Soviet soldiers. The reason why historians believe this is because of the timing. The vast majority of Lend/Lease aid was delivered in 1945. Only 20% of aid was delivered before 1944 to the Soviets, but by that time the tide had already turned (Stalingrad, recognized as the turning point, was in winter of 1942 to the start of 1943). By the time Lend/Lease really took off, the Soviet army was already vastly larger and more capable than the German army, which was in full retreat. During the dark days of 1941 and 1942, Lend/Lease was miniscule, primarily consisting of things like cans of spam and beans. The Soviets derisively called Spam "The Second Front", because instead of delivering the promised second front, they received cans of spam in small quantities during the darkest period of the war for the Russians in 1941-1942. The massive factories and military gear were sent after the Germans were retreating, and therefore most historians believe they had the effect of speeding up the collapse of the German forces, which was the main effect of the Normandy invasion as well.
wonnage 4y ago
I think the comment you're replying to is specifically addressing the browsing data discussed in the post... I don't see how any of these issues are related to Bytedance having your IP history It's a different story if you are a Chinese national in the US, have family in China, are reporting on China, etc. But for most Americans it probably matters more if Google is sharing your info with various three-letter agencies.
jychang 4y ago
> They are very different threats, and should be treated very differently. The FBI and CIA are immune system type systems, where China is a guy with a knife. This analogy is great, because it's a better analogy than you think. Immune issues kill a LOT more people than knife attacks in the USA every year. In general, external enemies are less dangerous than internal enemies. It's easy to rally people against an external enemy (see the Robbers Cave Experiment in psychology), but much harder to rally people against an internal enemy. There are 0.60 knife deaths per 100k people in the USA. [1] There are 3.97 deaths for SAID per 100k [2], and that's just the first type of autoimmune issue that I googled for off the top of my head. Rome faced plenty of external enemies over the years, what actually caused the fall of Rome was internal. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-.... [2] https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/60/3/1321/5908065 https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/60/3/1321/5908...
- bioemerl 4y ago
  > Immune issues kill a LOT more people than knife attacks in the USA every year When there are 100 million Americas with 100 million CIAs and all governments are ruled under a common government that makes all knife stabbings and war illegal, that maybe something that is the truth in geopolitics as well. Until then, this isn't an analogy that works very well.
cute_boi 4y ago
"CIA and FBI are very big threats to you, which is why you vote regularly to ensure that your rights are represented and those agencies aren't able to abuse their power." Never worked, will never work. Big people/elites will always have access to every data. The pretext will be "National Security" or "Children". It is like baptist vs bootleggers, so voting won't solve the problem.
jinonoel 4y ago
>If China is allowed to gain upper hands on the United States, it will result in broad scale societal problems which I couldn't even begin to estimate. Imagine a world where Russia is allowed to take Europe. Imagine a world where the United States is convinced to stand by as Taiwan is invaded and our chip supply is shut down. When You're Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression. The world doesn't need to imagine, because we had to stand by while the US launched illegal wars in Iraq, continues the unjust economic sanctions on Cuba just just for election politics, or all the shenigans the CIA pulled in South America in the previous decades. Heck just this month the US has said it will ignore a WTO ruling[1] just because it says so and everyone will have to stand by. The multipolar world threatens Americans so much because they'll finally have to live like there's another version of themselves in the world. [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-12/supply-chain-latest-us-snub-of-wto-called-a-step-back-for-trade https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-12/supply...
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  That's totally fair, and as a non American, I have a bunch of sympathy for this viewpoint. The US government have behaved like absolute shitheels for much of the Cold War and beyond. That being said, they have a relatively free press and relatively fair and liberal laws, especially compared to China.
MisterMower 4y ago
> The CIA and FBI have checks on them and are balanced as we speak. Haven’t the Twitter files proven unequivocally that is not true? I agree that we should worry about both. I’m honestly unsure which of the two is a greater threat.
autoexec 4y ago
> The CIA and FBI have checks on them and are balanced as we speak. Considering the director of the NSA lied to congress about what they were doing and got away with it, I'm not sure we should be putting much faith in any checks or assuming the balance of three letter agencies.

phpisthebest 4y ago

>>which is why you vote regularly to ensure that your rights are represented and those agencies aren't able to abuse their power That never works out in practice as the administrative state (which includes the FBI and CIA) are soo far removed from representative government they are basically unaccountable at this point, that is with out even getting into the idea that 1 vote in a nation of 350 million plus holds no real power anyway, or the problems with First past the post, or countless other topics around voting "Democracy" is more or less an delusion those in power perpetuate to ensure the cattle think they have a choice >>Imagine a world where the United States is convinced to stand by as Taiwan is invaded I think we already live in such a world. >>The CIA and FBI have checks on them and are balanced as we speak. Do they? In any real sense? We have confirmed and rumored massive violations of constitutional rights both here and abroad yet there is no accountability. From the Torture report, to massive violation of 4th amendment via "parallel construction" to even the possibility of actual assassinations.. Who exactly are they accountable to? it is certainly not the people, or the constitution

bioemerl 4y ago
> "Democracy" is more or less an delusion those in power perpetuate to ensure the cattle think they have a choice I had a much larger post, but I'm going to only respond to this one now, because it sums up basically off the disagreements and no further discussion is going to resolve anything. I don't agree with this sort of cynicism at all, and I very much do believe that while it is very flawed, democracy ultimately is still doing its job.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  I understand the resistance cynicism, however your statement about democracy seems to be more faith based than any kind of data What data do you have to support the position that "democracy ultimately is still doing its job. " further what "job" do you believe democracy is doing. I can point to many data points that show it is not, the for mentioned lack of accountability. The fact that most of the voting population does not even vote. I can point to research studies like that from political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Paige [1] that shows Average citizens have little impact on public policy. I have all kinds of data, and clear examples in history to support my position, I would be interested in seeing a counter offer [1] https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-little-impact-on-public-policy/ https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-...
  - spookie 4y ago
    You can point out individual points of data as much as you want, the end result is what matters. Have you seen journalists attacking a dictatorship while living there, and go unpunished? Have you seen the same, but on democratic countries? That should answer it.
    - bombolo 4y ago
      Nothing bad happened to snowden after all right?
      - 4y ago

iechoz6H 4y ago

"Imagine a world where Russia is allowed to take Europe." Russia can not even 'take' Ukraine the chances of it being able to take Europe are zero at this point.

bioemerl 4y ago
A big part of the issues Russia has had taking Ukraine has been because America is funding and helping them out as well. I don't want to totally discredit Ukraine here, but there is a world where without American support Russia would be having a much easier time.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  [dead]
- squarefoot 4y ago
  In that world without American support, Russia would probably have been occupied or severely weakened by the Nazi in WWII, and history would have been way different. Just nitpicking, I agree on principle.
  - rsj_hn 4y ago
    That is a very curious reading of history not shared by the majority of military historians in either the West or East. For example, according to the US military (See The West Point Military History of the Second World War which is available on Kindle), without US support, WW2 would have lasted 1-2 years longer but the Soviets could have defeated Germany all on their own, both without lend/lease and also without any US involvement at all in the war on Europe. Here is what the West Point history says at the start of their section on Lend/Lease: "Although nearly half the population and the great industrial regions of the Donets remained under German occupation, the Soviets still found men for new armies and vastly increased war production. They defeated the Germans at Stalingrad almost entirely through their own efforts and would probably have won the same victory if they received no assistance at all." Or you can read When Titans Clashed by noted British historian David Glantz, which reads "If the Western Allies had not provided equipment and invaded Northwest Europe, Stalin and his commanders would have taken twelve to eighteen months to finish off the Wehrmacht. The results would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers would have waded at France's Atlantic beaches rather than meeting the Allies at the Elbe". It is sad that many in the West don't know that 80% of German war deaths were at the hands of Soviet soldiers. The reason why historians believe this is because of the timing. The vast majority of Lend/Lease aid was delivered in 1945. Only 20% of aid was delivered before 1944 to the Soviets, but by that time the tide had already turned (Stalingrad, recognized as the turning point, was in winter of 1942 to the start of 1943). By the time Lend/Lease really took off, the Soviet army was already vastly larger and more capable than the German army, which was in full retreat. During the dark days of 1941 and 1942, Lend/Lease was miniscule, primarily consisting of things like cans of spam and beans. The Soviets derisively called Spam "The Second Front", because instead of delivering the promised second front, they received cans of spam in small quantities during the darkest period of the war for the Russians in 1941-1942. The massive factories and military gear were sent after the Germans were retreating, and therefore most historians believe they had the effect of speeding up the collapse of the German forces, which was the main effect of the Normandy invasion as well.

wonnage 4y ago

I think the comment you're replying to is specifically addressing the browsing data discussed in the post... I don't see how any of these issues are related to Bytedance having your IP history It's a different story if you are a Chinese national in the US, have family in China, are reporting on China, etc. But for most Americans it probably matters more if Google is sharing your info with various three-letter agencies.

jychang 4y ago

> They are very different threats, and should be treated very differently. The FBI and CIA are immune system type systems, where China is a guy with a knife. This analogy is great, because it's a better analogy than you think. Immune issues kill a LOT more people than knife attacks in the USA every year. In general, external enemies are less dangerous than internal enemies. It's easy to rally people against an external enemy (see the Robbers Cave Experiment in psychology), but much harder to rally people against an internal enemy. There are 0.60 knife deaths per 100k people in the USA. [1] There are 3.97 deaths for SAID per 100k [2], and that's just the first type of autoimmune issue that I googled for off the top of my head. Rome faced plenty of external enemies over the years, what actually caused the fall of Rome was internal. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-.... [2] https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/60/3/1321/5908065 https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/60/3/1321/5908...

bioemerl 4y ago
> Immune issues kill a LOT more people than knife attacks in the USA every year When there are 100 million Americas with 100 million CIAs and all governments are ruled under a common government that makes all knife stabbings and war illegal, that maybe something that is the truth in geopolitics as well. Until then, this isn't an analogy that works very well.

cute_boi 4y ago

"CIA and FBI are very big threats to you, which is why you vote regularly to ensure that your rights are represented and those agencies aren't able to abuse their power." Never worked, will never work. Big people/elites will always have access to every data. The pretext will be "National Security" or "Children". It is like baptist vs bootleggers, so voting won't solve the problem.

jinonoel 4y ago

>If China is allowed to gain upper hands on the United States, it will result in broad scale societal problems which I couldn't even begin to estimate. Imagine a world where Russia is allowed to take Europe. Imagine a world where the United States is convinced to stand by as Taiwan is invaded and our chip supply is shut down. When You're Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression. The world doesn't need to imagine, because we had to stand by while the US launched illegal wars in Iraq, continues the unjust economic sanctions on Cuba just just for election politics, or all the shenigans the CIA pulled in South America in the previous decades. Heck just this month the US has said it will ignore a WTO ruling[1] just because it says so and everyone will have to stand by. The multipolar world threatens Americans so much because they'll finally have to live like there's another version of themselves in the world. [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-12/supply-chain-latest-us-snub-of-wto-called-a-step-back-for-trade https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-12/supply...

disgruntledphd2 4y ago
That's totally fair, and as a non American, I have a bunch of sympathy for this viewpoint. The US government have behaved like absolute shitheels for much of the Cold War and beyond. That being said, they have a relatively free press and relatively fair and liberal laws, especially compared to China.

MisterMower 4y ago

> The CIA and FBI have checks on them and are balanced as we speak. Haven’t the Twitter files proven unequivocally that is not true? I agree that we should worry about both. I’m honestly unsure which of the two is a greater threat.

autoexec 4y ago

> The CIA and FBI have checks on them and are balanced as we speak. Considering the director of the NSA lied to congress about what they were doing and got away with it, I'm not sure we should be putting much faith in any checks or assuming the balance of three letter agencies.