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The reason an entity chooses to behave in an ethical or moral fashion is because they believe it's the right or just way to behave, and not what happens to be t

The reason an entity chooses to behave in an ethical or moral fashion is because they believe it's the right or just way to behave, and not what happens to be the most expedient behavior in some arbitrary moment of time. And principles can cost you in the short-term, but tend to reap tremendous dividends in the long-run. One of those dividends is soft power. Hearing a relatively stoic adult Russian chess grandmaster start to choke up a bit when describing the joy he felt (as a grown man no less) when the USSR collapsed and 'Donald Duck came to Russia' was something quite unforgettable for me. As he described it, literally everybody was picking up Donald Duck stuff - as much as a symbol of the end of one era, as the beginning of another. But now? In my lifetime it feels like America's soft power has gone from the sort that could make grown men cry with joy, to basically nonexistent. And I think a big part of it is that we are no longer seen as behaving in a principled fashion. We just do whatever is convenient at the moment and then wrap it in some grandstanding and a whole lot of propaganda. Even with this silly event, I think there's an interesting nuance. The government was so concerned about the tremendous national security threat of TikTok that, just 2 months, ago Biden decided to start his very own TikTok account. [1] It went like you'd expect. But imagine it didn't. Imagine he actually managed to gain some traction. Would he, today, still be looking to sign off on a ban of it? [1] - https://www.wired.com/story/joe-biden-tiktok-campaign-comments/ https://www.wired.com/story/joe-biden-tiktok-campaign-commen...

blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
Love the insights. I agree the lack of principles and stability has taken away soft power.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
> The government was so concerned about the tremendous national security threat of TikTok that, just 2 months, ago Biden decided to start his very own TikTok account. CCTV (Chinese central TV) has a Twitter/X/Youtube accounts even though it is banned in China. Heck, Tiktok itself is banned in China but the Chinese government doesn't mind using it to push its messages abroad. This isn't really weird from a Chinese perspective anyways.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  No it definitely isn't weird from a Chinese perspective, because they are a dictatorship. It's literally the first article of their constitution [1] : "The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The socialist system is the basic system of the People’s Republic of China. Disruption of the socialist system by any organization or individual is prohibited." China bans whatever they feel like for whatever reason they want. Another example was banning social media imagery or references to Winnie the Pooh on social media because of it being used to mock Xi Jinping in a domain they couldn't directly control otherwise. [2] Of course they were happy to still allow it in domains where they could control the messaging and use, like in books or parks. And this is, of course, one of the many reasons Chinese society isn't particularly well regarded. And this is the exact route we're going down, with the exact same outcomes. [1] - http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/content_1372963.htm http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Pooh_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Pooh_...

blackeyeblitzar 3y ago

Love the insights. I agree the lack of principles and stability has taken away soft power.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

> The government was so concerned about the tremendous national security threat of TikTok that, just 2 months, ago Biden decided to start his very own TikTok account. CCTV (Chinese central TV) has a Twitter/X/Youtube accounts even though it is banned in China. Heck, Tiktok itself is banned in China but the Chinese government doesn't mind using it to push its messages abroad. This isn't really weird from a Chinese perspective anyways.

somenameforme 3y ago
No it definitely isn't weird from a Chinese perspective, because they are a dictatorship. It's literally the first article of their constitution [1] : "The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The socialist system is the basic system of the People’s Republic of China. Disruption of the socialist system by any organization or individual is prohibited." China bans whatever they feel like for whatever reason they want. Another example was banning social media imagery or references to Winnie the Pooh on social media because of it being used to mock Xi Jinping in a domain they couldn't directly control otherwise. [2] Of course they were happy to still allow it in domains where they could control the messaging and use, like in books or parks. And this is, of course, one of the many reasons Chinese society isn't particularly well regarded. And this is the exact route we're going down, with the exact same outcomes. [1] - http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/content_1372963.htm http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Pooh_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Pooh_...