6 ms·

And you don't think that China can manipulate public opinion and decisions as a bad actor?

by stanislavb 4y ago

falcolas 4y ago
No more or less than every other social network.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  We aren't going to go to war vs the owners of Facebook any time soon. But maybe for the owners of TikTok. China's Navy is already more numerous than the USA's Navy, and they include advanced stealth destroyers and probably Hypersonic Missiles. I don't want to be a racist asshole like some others online. But there is a geopolitical reality coming towards us and we need to start preparing for it. Nothing against the Chinese people or their culture or whatever, but their leaders have some goals that conflict with the USAs goals, and it could turn hot over the next 10 years.
  - jamesredd 4y ago
    It's not the fault of China that America waged decades of war while its industrial base was decimated by the same people waging those wars.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      I'm talking about Taiwan. If China attacks Taiwan, it will be as obvious as Russia attacking Ukraine. And the USA should support Taiwan. Not only because we get AMD, Apple, NVidia, Qualcomm, automobile chips, and F35 RADAR chips from that island... But also because Taiwan is our ally from WW2 days and we have a long history of friendship with them. ------- Let me be clear, once again. Taiwan manufactures Xilinx FPGAs that are in direct support to the F35 project. There is a geopolitical reality here that cannot be ignored.
      - asdfk-12 4y ago
        The United States recognizes the People's Republic of China as the sole legal government of China and acknowledges the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China. This is known as the "One China policy". The United States needs China for industrial and consumer goods. Our economy is brittle and will quickly break without them. This is the logical result of US policy. China clamping down on Taiwan from the official US position is effectively China more tightly controlling thwir existing territory. Not even close to what happened in Russia vs. Ukraine situation.
        RandomLensman 4y ago
        The US One China Policy does not at all say that Taiwan is part of the PRC, it rather states that both PRC and Taiwan view China as one.
      - yannis 4y ago
        > It also because Taiwan is our ally from WW2 days and we have a long history of friendship with them. Taiwan during World War II, was part of the Japanese Empire...
        dragontamer 4y ago
        The Kuomintang were our allies in WW2, and were forced to retreat to Taiwan in 1949. When the famous WW2 Pilot Doolittle did his famous raid on Japan and crash-landed in China, it was the Kuomintang who saved those pilots and returned them safely to the USA, despite the Japanese atrocities that were occurring. (Well, Imperialist Japan did capture some of those pilots... but the Kuomintang did what they could) Communist China then took over most of China and forced Kuomintang to retreat to Taiwan by 1949. And we call those people "Taiwanese" today. Historically, they are the rightful owners of China, though they lost the civil war. Today, we're strategically ambiguous to try to not piss off China about our different viewpoints of history. But we're quickly coming to the point where ambiguity no longer helps. We're likely heading for war unfortunately.
      - InitialLastName 4y ago
  - mindslight 4y ago
    > We aren't going to go to war vs the owners of Facebook any time soon Speak for yourself! From my perspective, entrenched business interests have very much been at war with the people of this country for a long time. A growing military competitor notwithstanding, the real issue we're facing here is that we've based our society around this fiction that wealth makes right - under an assumption that the wealthy will compete amongst themselves to grow their own wealth in a straightforward (short term) manner. This framework is utterly unprepared for dealing with large (extremely wealthy) actors that push in more structured and less immediately profitable directions, with the goal of reaping dividends decades in the future.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      I recognize that we use the word "war" with much hyperbole here in the USA. But when I'm using "War with China", I'm talking about true war, like the kind going on in Ukraine. I'm talking about vicious weapons designed to kill hundreds, or thousands, in the blink of an eye, and at risk of escalation into Nuclear Armageddon. In this context, I am not taking the word "war" with any amount of whimsy or hyperbole. This isn't a "class war", or "war on poverty" or "war on drugs". What we're unfortunately preparing for is a true war. --------- With any luck, China will back down and keep the tenuous peace and status quo.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > China's Navy is already more numerous than the USA's Navy By number of ships, most of which are close-to-shore patrol boats. By volume of ships, the US Navy is more than twice as large.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL33153.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL33153.pdf The USA's count of China's ships ignores the 224 close-to-shore coast guard ships. China has 351 surface combat ships, against the USA's 294. Yes, our Navy is still superior by capabilities, but China continues to mass produce ships, including large cruisers and carriers. They are not a threat to take lightly anymore. If we include the 224 coast guard ships, then China's fleet is well over 575 ships as of 2022. I'm talking only of the 351 combat ships that would likely play a role in a hypothetical Taiwan confrontation.
      - HWR_14 4y ago
        I mean, the US has 243 coast guard ships, if you want to be pedantic (ignoring the 1400+ boats less than 65' long). But yes, China keeps producing ships. I have no idea what will happen in a Taiwan Straight conflict where we've escalated to open conventional war looks like. I imagine that the air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missiles will be the determining factor. But there's also a major difference. The US has a blue-water navy that can project power globally - enough power that it's an open question if the largest country in the world with the second-highest GDP can stand up to it in their back yard. There's no symmetric threat to the US where the Chinese Navy can get close enough to the West Coast have a similar threat.
        dragontamer 4y ago
        Taiwan is not a symmetric threat situation. US Navy will have to expose itself to Chinese missiles and Chinese Air Force, and those small Missile Patrol Boats, to defend Taiwan. China isn't thinking about attacking Hawaii or the West Coast. What China is trying to do in the near term is complete its takeover of ... well... what it believes to be part of China. And because various F35 chips are made in Taiwan, its a threat we cannot afford to ignore. (Along with all of our video game consoles, GPUs, AI Tensor processors, and other strategic level computer systems) Yes, the US Navy is unrivaled. But in a local, regional conflict... especially supported by the largest Airforce in the world (China has a lot of airplanes), and some of the largest ground-based missile forces in the world (China also has a lot of advanced missiles), the US Navy very well could lose the fight to defend Taiwan.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > it could turn hot over the next 10 years. It could, but it really looks to me like it's the US that is trying to make things turn hot, not China.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      China has built hundreds of Naval ships and is beginning to overtly threaten Taiwan with flyovers. We all see where this is going. We know Xi wants Taiwan. Selling weapons to Taiwan so that they can better defend themselves is the moral thing to do. Its the same thing as how the Russians blame USA for "extending" the war in Ukraine. Erm, yeah. That's the point. When we see evil and decide to do something to stop it, it makes it harder for evildoers to do what they want to do. And I think its a good thing to make Taiwan harder to get taken over. ------- All China has to do, to avoid the war... is to not start it. Its not like Taiwan is in any position to attack China right now or anytime in the foreseeable future.
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        True, China's plans for Taiwan are hardly a secret. I was speaking about the larger situation, though, not just Taiwan.
        dragontamer 4y ago
        Shooting down a spy balloon won't start a war. And similarly, sending a spy balloon over won't start a war either. Both sides (USA and China) are smarter than that. The only thing that really has a chance to start a war is this Taiwan situation. I don't see any room for diplomacy anymore.
        JohnFen 4y ago
        I never mentioned balloons. In any case, all of this is far above my pay grade.
      - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Yes and if european countries are afraid the US is leaning on facebook to manipulate their views, they should ban facebook! But if some social media network starts in france, then even if it could manipulate users, france probably doesn't care because they can "control" it with force of law. This is no different than wanting a domestic steel and fertilizer industry. You want powerful entities to be under your control.
  - epups 4y ago
    Ok, so you think the government should police every app and if they are developed in a country they consider to be adversarial, then they should ban it? Do you at least see the potential for abuse here?
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Don't put words in my mouth, I didn't say "every" app. There are lots of infrastructure you don't want to give away essentially. A flashlight app? Yeah that's probably fine. Gambling? Sure go ahead chinese companies and take people's money for your mobile game. What if splunk was a chinese company? For example, I think we should continue to discuss whether zoom is trustworthy, didn't they get caught routing (maybe accidentally) most stuff through china? Facebook once purposely manipulated depressed kids by adjusting what was shown to them in their feed. They should have been burned down the second that happened, and no country should allow that nonsense, even if you trust the american legal system to work. In much the same way, we should not trust tiktok, as chinese companies are incredibly opaque, so we would have a much harder time finding red flags to key us in to any nefarious activity. In the same way, we probably shouldn't let a secretive private company have a thumb on the scale of a significant amount of american life. If we only have the political capital to ban tiktok right now because "China bad" then oh well, sometimes doing the right thing for the wrong reason is okay, like when Trump pushed for transparency in medical pricing. I don't think a free market health system is a workable system, but that was still a beneficial step in our current system. Others say all this talk is cover because the actual law being discussed is much more draconian and gross. I would not be in favor of that.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
They can, as can everyone else, just in different quantities. But you have a very low opinion of people who aren't you in assuming that everyone but you is going to be brainwashed if you can't decide what they are and are not allowed to be exposed to.

And you don't think that China can manipulate public opinion and decisions as a bad actor?

falcolas 4y ago

No more or less than every other social network.

dragontamer 4y ago
We aren't going to go to war vs the owners of Facebook any time soon. But maybe for the owners of TikTok. China's Navy is already more numerous than the USA's Navy, and they include advanced stealth destroyers and probably Hypersonic Missiles. I don't want to be a racist asshole like some others online. But there is a geopolitical reality coming towards us and we need to start preparing for it. Nothing against the Chinese people or their culture or whatever, but their leaders have some goals that conflict with the USAs goals, and it could turn hot over the next 10 years.
- jamesredd 4y ago
  It's not the fault of China that America waged decades of war while its industrial base was decimated by the same people waging those wars.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    I'm talking about Taiwan. If China attacks Taiwan, it will be as obvious as Russia attacking Ukraine. And the USA should support Taiwan. Not only because we get AMD, Apple, NVidia, Qualcomm, automobile chips, and F35 RADAR chips from that island... But also because Taiwan is our ally from WW2 days and we have a long history of friendship with them. ------- Let me be clear, once again. Taiwan manufactures Xilinx FPGAs that are in direct support to the F35 project. There is a geopolitical reality here that cannot be ignored.
    - asdfk-12 4y ago
      The United States recognizes the People's Republic of China as the sole legal government of China and acknowledges the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China. This is known as the "One China policy". The United States needs China for industrial and consumer goods. Our economy is brittle and will quickly break without them. This is the logical result of US policy. China clamping down on Taiwan from the official US position is effectively China more tightly controlling thwir existing territory. Not even close to what happened in Russia vs. Ukraine situation.
      - RandomLensman 4y ago
        The US One China Policy does not at all say that Taiwan is part of the PRC, it rather states that both PRC and Taiwan view China as one.
    - yannis 4y ago
      > It also because Taiwan is our ally from WW2 days and we have a long history of friendship with them. Taiwan during World War II, was part of the Japanese Empire...
      - dragontamer 4y ago
        The Kuomintang were our allies in WW2, and were forced to retreat to Taiwan in 1949. When the famous WW2 Pilot Doolittle did his famous raid on Japan and crash-landed in China, it was the Kuomintang who saved those pilots and returned them safely to the USA, despite the Japanese atrocities that were occurring. (Well, Imperialist Japan did capture some of those pilots... but the Kuomintang did what they could) Communist China then took over most of China and forced Kuomintang to retreat to Taiwan by 1949. And we call those people "Taiwanese" today. Historically, they are the rightful owners of China, though they lost the civil war. Today, we're strategically ambiguous to try to not piss off China about our different viewpoints of history. But we're quickly coming to the point where ambiguity no longer helps. We're likely heading for war unfortunately.
    - InitialLastName 4y ago
- mindslight 4y ago
  > We aren't going to go to war vs the owners of Facebook any time soon Speak for yourself! From my perspective, entrenched business interests have very much been at war with the people of this country for a long time. A growing military competitor notwithstanding, the real issue we're facing here is that we've based our society around this fiction that wealth makes right - under an assumption that the wealthy will compete amongst themselves to grow their own wealth in a straightforward (short term) manner. This framework is utterly unprepared for dealing with large (extremely wealthy) actors that push in more structured and less immediately profitable directions, with the goal of reaping dividends decades in the future.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    I recognize that we use the word "war" with much hyperbole here in the USA. But when I'm using "War with China", I'm talking about true war, like the kind going on in Ukraine. I'm talking about vicious weapons designed to kill hundreds, or thousands, in the blink of an eye, and at risk of escalation into Nuclear Armageddon. In this context, I am not taking the word "war" with any amount of whimsy or hyperbole. This isn't a "class war", or "war on poverty" or "war on drugs". What we're unfortunately preparing for is a true war. --------- With any luck, China will back down and keep the tenuous peace and status quo.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > China's Navy is already more numerous than the USA's Navy By number of ships, most of which are close-to-shore patrol boats. By volume of ships, the US Navy is more than twice as large.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL33153.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL33153.pdf The USA's count of China's ships ignores the 224 close-to-shore coast guard ships. China has 351 surface combat ships, against the USA's 294. Yes, our Navy is still superior by capabilities, but China continues to mass produce ships, including large cruisers and carriers. They are not a threat to take lightly anymore. If we include the 224 coast guard ships, then China's fleet is well over 575 ships as of 2022. I'm talking only of the 351 combat ships that would likely play a role in a hypothetical Taiwan confrontation.
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      I mean, the US has 243 coast guard ships, if you want to be pedantic (ignoring the 1400+ boats less than 65' long). But yes, China keeps producing ships. I have no idea what will happen in a Taiwan Straight conflict where we've escalated to open conventional war looks like. I imagine that the air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missiles will be the determining factor. But there's also a major difference. The US has a blue-water navy that can project power globally - enough power that it's an open question if the largest country in the world with the second-highest GDP can stand up to it in their back yard. There's no symmetric threat to the US where the Chinese Navy can get close enough to the West Coast have a similar threat.
      - dragontamer 4y ago
        Taiwan is not a symmetric threat situation. US Navy will have to expose itself to Chinese missiles and Chinese Air Force, and those small Missile Patrol Boats, to defend Taiwan. China isn't thinking about attacking Hawaii or the West Coast. What China is trying to do in the near term is complete its takeover of ... well... what it believes to be part of China. And because various F35 chips are made in Taiwan, its a threat we cannot afford to ignore. (Along with all of our video game consoles, GPUs, AI Tensor processors, and other strategic level computer systems) Yes, the US Navy is unrivaled. But in a local, regional conflict... especially supported by the largest Airforce in the world (China has a lot of airplanes), and some of the largest ground-based missile forces in the world (China also has a lot of advanced missiles), the US Navy very well could lose the fight to defend Taiwan.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > it could turn hot over the next 10 years. It could, but it really looks to me like it's the US that is trying to make things turn hot, not China.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    China has built hundreds of Naval ships and is beginning to overtly threaten Taiwan with flyovers. We all see where this is going. We know Xi wants Taiwan. Selling weapons to Taiwan so that they can better defend themselves is the moral thing to do. Its the same thing as how the Russians blame USA for "extending" the war in Ukraine. Erm, yeah. That's the point. When we see evil and decide to do something to stop it, it makes it harder for evildoers to do what they want to do. And I think its a good thing to make Taiwan harder to get taken over. ------- All China has to do, to avoid the war... is to not start it. Its not like Taiwan is in any position to attack China right now or anytime in the foreseeable future.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      True, China's plans for Taiwan are hardly a secret. I was speaking about the larger situation, though, not just Taiwan.
      - dragontamer 4y ago
        Shooting down a spy balloon won't start a war. And similarly, sending a spy balloon over won't start a war either. Both sides (USA and China) are smarter than that. The only thing that really has a chance to start a war is this Taiwan situation. I don't see any room for diplomacy anymore.
        JohnFen 4y ago
        I never mentioned balloons. In any case, all of this is far above my pay grade.
    - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
mrguyorama 4y ago
Yes and if european countries are afraid the US is leaning on facebook to manipulate their views, they should ban facebook! But if some social media network starts in france, then even if it could manipulate users, france probably doesn't care because they can "control" it with force of law. This is no different than wanting a domestic steel and fertilizer industry. You want powerful entities to be under your control.
- epups 4y ago
  Ok, so you think the government should police every app and if they are developed in a country they consider to be adversarial, then they should ban it? Do you at least see the potential for abuse here?
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Don't put words in my mouth, I didn't say "every" app. There are lots of infrastructure you don't want to give away essentially. A flashlight app? Yeah that's probably fine. Gambling? Sure go ahead chinese companies and take people's money for your mobile game. What if splunk was a chinese company? For example, I think we should continue to discuss whether zoom is trustworthy, didn't they get caught routing (maybe accidentally) most stuff through china? Facebook once purposely manipulated depressed kids by adjusting what was shown to them in their feed. They should have been burned down the second that happened, and no country should allow that nonsense, even if you trust the american legal system to work. In much the same way, we should not trust tiktok, as chinese companies are incredibly opaque, so we would have a much harder time finding red flags to key us in to any nefarious activity. In the same way, we probably shouldn't let a secretive private company have a thumb on the scale of a significant amount of american life. If we only have the political capital to ban tiktok right now because "China bad" then oh well, sometimes doing the right thing for the wrong reason is okay, like when Trump pushed for transparency in medical pricing. I don't think a free market health system is a workable system, but that was still a beneficial step in our current system. Others say all this talk is cover because the actual law being discussed is much more draconian and gross. I would not be in favor of that.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

They can, as can everyone else, just in different quantities. But you have a very low opinion of people who aren't you in assuming that everyone but you is going to be brainwashed if you can't decide what they are and are not allowed to be exposed to.