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Remember though, it's only bad when the other guy does it. We don't want Chinese government involvement in TikTok, but we do want US government involvement. /s

by yibg 1y ago

groggler 1y ago
The "Be all you can be" slogan requires more than just a great firewall that China should pay for, it needs a constant vigil to protect it from German nihilists.
- gorgoiler 1y ago
  Build a [fire]wall and make China pay for it is an amusing — if bleak — joke. Thank you :) What do you mean though by protection from “German nihilists”? Is that a satirical name you imagine the US government might use for the EU?
  - groggler 1y ago
    The timing of the slogan change is not really ideal for blaming German nihilists but it's all a while ago around when the big Lebowski surfaced that very serious threat.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWIII_(album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWIII_(album)
  - mikestew 1y ago
    Perhaps a sideways reference to old movies? “Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.”[0] Or maybe just a direct reference to Strauss, I dunno. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/quotes?item=qt0464759&ref_=ext_shr_lnk https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/quotes?item=qt0464759&r...
glenstein 1y ago
I mean I do want the world's most influential social media app to be within the jurisdiction of a non-authoritarian state, yes.
- komali2 1y ago
  The USA is also an authoritarian State, it just has better marketing. I live in Taiwan. I'm no fan of the CPC. But if you zoom out a bit, it's kinda hard to distinguish the two beyond Americans winning global cultural victory (CPC propaganda is still goofy and obvious). Point at tiananmem square, an atrocious massacre of their own citizenry. The USA has done this - it has locked its citizens in concentration camps, supported their enslavement and recaptured the ones that managed to free themselves, bombed wealthy neighborhoods of the wrong race, had soldiers fire upon striking workers and peaceful protesters. America just has no Tank Man photo and much more subtle media relations - ostensibly free media but in reality controlled through the mutual interests of the billionaire owners of the media conglomerates and the multi millionaire politicians. The CPC did a genocide in Xinjiang. They were very good at information control here, it's almost impossible to find even an image from the inside of one of their concentration camps. The USA funded a genocide in Palestine, but it can maintain a sort of non culpability. At any point in time the USA can turn on its Israeli allies, and my cynical expectation is that when the government becomes flagrantly fascist enough they'll just blame the Jews and call it done. But, until now, they've maintained an extraordinarily effective marketing campaign propping up Israel as a bastion of freedom and democracy in a demonic environment,values it's managed to market across the entire world that isn't the PRC or cuba or Venezuela, to where people in other countries will say "I can do what I want, it's a free country" even in countries where that really isn't the case e.g. for speech in the UK for example. In actuality it's a more racialized pitch - the Israelis are more credibly white, the Muslims are, well, Muslims. Or Brown. Whichever. But they have this massive marketing apparatus (decades of film and TV) smoothing over these racialized concepts into "freedom and democracy vs savagery and chaos," whereas the CPC with their racialized version just had Han and Normal vs Muslim and Kinda Weird (maybe dangerous!). A much more despicable pitch on the surface which is why they didn't get away with a televised genocide the way America and Israel got away with decades of apartheid against Palestine. Anyway in summary if we take a look at all the bad the CPC vs the USA have done in their lifetimes, idk man at best the scales at balanced, worse case I think America has been worse for the world overall. I would be curious if people that disagree would be willing to do so with the context of American imperialism in mind - interfering in south America and the middle East for example. Is it still better than a country that has one imperialist action (Tibet) and a genocide under its belt?

Remember though, it's only bad when the other guy does it. We don't want Chinese government involvement in TikTok, but we do want US government involvement. /s

by yibg 1y ago

Remember though, it's only bad when the other guy does it. We don't want Chinese government involvement in TikTok, but we do want US government involvement. /s

groggler 1y ago

The "Be all you can be" slogan requires more than just a great firewall that China should pay for, it needs a constant vigil to protect it from German nihilists.

gorgoiler 1y ago
Build a [fire]wall and make China pay for it is an amusing — if bleak — joke. Thank you :) What do you mean though by protection from “German nihilists”? Is that a satirical name you imagine the US government might use for the EU?
- groggler 1y ago
  The timing of the slogan change is not really ideal for blaming German nihilists but it's all a while ago around when the big Lebowski surfaced that very serious threat.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWIII_(album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWIII_(album)
- mikestew 1y ago
  Perhaps a sideways reference to old movies? “Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.”[0] Or maybe just a direct reference to Strauss, I dunno. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/quotes?item=qt0464759&ref_=ext_shr_lnk https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/quotes?item=qt0464759&r...

glenstein 1y ago

I mean I do want the world's most influential social media app to be within the jurisdiction of a non-authoritarian state, yes.

komali2 1y ago
The USA is also an authoritarian State, it just has better marketing. I live in Taiwan. I'm no fan of the CPC. But if you zoom out a bit, it's kinda hard to distinguish the two beyond Americans winning global cultural victory (CPC propaganda is still goofy and obvious). Point at tiananmem square, an atrocious massacre of their own citizenry. The USA has done this - it has locked its citizens in concentration camps, supported their enslavement and recaptured the ones that managed to free themselves, bombed wealthy neighborhoods of the wrong race, had soldiers fire upon striking workers and peaceful protesters. America just has no Tank Man photo and much more subtle media relations - ostensibly free media but in reality controlled through the mutual interests of the billionaire owners of the media conglomerates and the multi millionaire politicians. The CPC did a genocide in Xinjiang. They were very good at information control here, it's almost impossible to find even an image from the inside of one of their concentration camps. The USA funded a genocide in Palestine, but it can maintain a sort of non culpability. At any point in time the USA can turn on its Israeli allies, and my cynical expectation is that when the government becomes flagrantly fascist enough they'll just blame the Jews and call it done. But, until now, they've maintained an extraordinarily effective marketing campaign propping up Israel as a bastion of freedom and democracy in a demonic environment,values it's managed to market across the entire world that isn't the PRC or cuba or Venezuela, to where people in other countries will say "I can do what I want, it's a free country" even in countries where that really isn't the case e.g. for speech in the UK for example. In actuality it's a more racialized pitch - the Israelis are more credibly white, the Muslims are, well, Muslims. Or Brown. Whichever. But they have this massive marketing apparatus (decades of film and TV) smoothing over these racialized concepts into "freedom and democracy vs savagery and chaos," whereas the CPC with their racialized version just had Han and Normal vs Muslim and Kinda Weird (maybe dangerous!). A much more despicable pitch on the surface which is why they didn't get away with a televised genocide the way America and Israel got away with decades of apartheid against Palestine. Anyway in summary if we take a look at all the bad the CPC vs the USA have done in their lifetimes, idk man at best the scales at balanced, worse case I think America has been worse for the world overall. I would be curious if people that disagree would be willing to do so with the context of American imperialism in mind - interfering in south America and the middle East for example. Is it still better than a country that has one imperialist action (Tibet) and a genocide under its belt?