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Projection is a funny thing. It causes people to misread situations all the time. Southern slaveowners feared violent retribution from freed slaves, for example

by jmyeet 4mo ago

Projection is a funny thing. It causes people to misread situations all the time. Southern slaveowners feared violent retribution from freed slaves, for example [1]. It was pure projection and said more about the South than it did the slaves. The reality was there was no violent retribution. It was the opposite where the former slaveowners continued to inflict violence on the formerly enslaved. I say this because we see the same thing used as an argument against China. "If they overtake us, they'll do imperialism (like us)." Again, it says more about us than them. A better reading (IMHO) Of the situation is that China believes that AI shouldn't be used simply to mint a few more trillionaires but the benefits should be shared with society. Why do I say this? Because we now have 70+ years of China doing exactly that. The transformation in China all the way from rural villages to Tier 1 cities has been utterly astounding. China has lifted ~800M people out of extreme poverty. In some ways we're at a similar point to the late 1990s and 2000s when Microsoft execs complained that Linux, being free, destroyed intellectual property value. Linux should be a perfect example of how people can and do act altruistically, or at least not in a way to bait-and-switch to enrich themselves. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/1d26grm/in_the_led_up_to_the_us_civil_war_slave_owners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/1d26grm/in_the_...

FooBarWidget 4mo ago
It's even worse than that. China publishes stacks upon stacks of policy documents in which they explain clearly what they will do and why. This includes why they do poverty alleviation and why they believe big monopolies that own everything are bad. But almost no western observers care to read those documents. Instead, western observers, including HN, speculate endlessly about China's intentions, and "it would be naive to believe they would not do X" or drawing equivalences to Soviet Union or whatever. And the "journalists" sell this notion that Chinese state intentions are "untransparent" and "unknowable" while pretending the policy documents don't exist. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping has published his 5th book on how governance in China works and what they're after. These are not books written for a western audience: they're compilations of speeches that he already gave to the Chinese party and state apparatus, so the contents are not sanitized for foreign audiences. But there are no English reviews of summaries of this 5th book at all by the usual China experts that distribute what western audience know about China. This extends to beyond the government. Even though "for the people but only against the government" is an often-heard mantra, nobody seems to listen to what Chinese AI companies themselves say about why they publish open models. DeepSeek and GLM have said multiple times publicly what their motivations are, yet people on HN still speculate like they usually do. Truly mind-boggling. I get that a lot of people don't like China. But setting aside the question of whether their dislike is justified, it would at least be rational to properly understand China, even if it's to defeat it. And listening to what China says themselves is absolutely essential for proper understanding. But people don't bother to? And they seem mostly happy with sticking to speculations that match preconceived notions, even if that hurts their chances of defeating China.
- jmyeet 4mo ago
  I 100% agree with you and want to add something. If you simply take what the Chinese government says at face value, you will be correct way more often than 95% of Western policy wonks, media talking heads, "analysts" and so forth. Because, like you say, they tell you everything they're doing. In the recent US-China summit, Xi Jinping just came out and used the Thucydides Trap metaphor, which tells you everything about where China thinks it is and where it sees the US going, which is to become increasingly belligerent as their power declines. Now whether or not you agree with that assessment (I do agree), it still tells you China wants to avoid open hostilities, it sees itself as continuing to rise and it fears what a declining US might do.
  - FooBarWidget 4mo ago
    The Thucydides Trap mention is different from what you describe. Xi has dismissed the Thucydides Trap multiple times in the past as being hearsay and self-imposed bias (https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/944179.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/944179.shtml). "We should strictly base our judgment on facts, lest we become victims to hearsay, paranoid or self-imposed bias. There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves." But western politicians keep raising this metaphor. So at some point they're like "okay we'll speak your language". They then used this metaphor to make the point "our rise isn't the threat, your fear of it is. If you resist it you're walking right into the trap Thucydides warned about". So your conclusion is still right, they don't want open hostilities, a stable world is in their interest. Then western media ran away with this and were like "OMG Xi mentioned the Thucydides Trap", completely ignoring his point.
- isoprophlex 4mo ago
  Extremely interesting comment, thank you. Got some links where I can download this source material? I don't read or speak the language, but will try interrogating it with an LLM
  - FooBarWidget 4mo ago
parineum 4mo ago
> I say this because we see the same thing used as an argument against China. "If they overtake us, they'll do imperialism (like us)." Again, it says more about us than them. Or because they're human and that's what humans have always done. If the US is no longer a check on China, what will happen to Taiwan? Frankly, you seem to be arguing that the US is somehow uniquely bad when, in actuality, The US has been hegemonic during a time of incredible peace and minimal imperialism.
- cauefcr 4mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
- r14c 4mo ago
  Peace for who? Like just look at the last 50-70 years of US intervention in LatAm. Backing a series of coups and extremely violent right wing dictatorships. The issue is one of incentives. The US needs cheap foreign labor because of deindustrialization policies in the 60s and 70s. These were arguably passed as a check on labor power since socialism was still looking potentially ascendant at the time. Whatever the reason though, the contemporary US is reliant on keeping foreign wages down and domination of the oil trade. Imperialism grows out of this need for external resources to maintain economic growth. It would be less relevant to us if we had better fundamentals, but we traded those away to avoid letting certain demos get wealthy and powerful. China's play is more mercantile. They benefit most from stable trade conditions. They get richer the more customers they have. They benefitted massively from becoming an industrial trade partner with the US in the 60s and 70s. Because of this, they have completely different foreign policy objectives. All they need to do to win is normalize relations and build trade infrastructure. Its way cheaper than imperialism.
  - parineum 4mo ago
    > Peace for who? Like just look at the last 50-70 years of US intervention in LatAm. Backing a series of coups and extremely violent right wing dictatorships. For the world. Compare the those 70 years to the previous 70 years. Regime change and intervention is significantly better than full scale invasion, total war and colonization of other people. > China's play is more mercantile. Because they are held in check by US power. Remove the US and China is taking what it wants.
CMay 4mo ago
This is a really bad, poorly thought out take, and historically inaccurate. Also, we're not afraid China will somehow be like us. If they were like us, that would be great. The problem is that China is already behaving like it is ready to abuse the power it has on a scale that the US never has. Russia, China and Iran all make public statements as if they abide by international law and everyone else are the law breakers, while their measurable actions are shockingly contradictory. It is their actions that have caused the US reactions, but many people present them as if they occur in a vacuum. The AI race sits within this context, with a constellation of concerns that most people do not think about. Of course the AI engineers have their own motivation, the companies will share some of that motivation combined with their business trajectory and governments will get involved with it for the justifications they see.

by jmyeet 4mo ago

FooBarWidget 4mo ago

It's even worse than that. China publishes stacks upon stacks of policy documents in which they explain clearly what they will do and why. This includes why they do poverty alleviation and why they believe big monopolies that own everything are bad. But almost no western observers care to read those documents. Instead, western observers, including HN, speculate endlessly about China's intentions, and "it would be naive to believe they would not do X" or drawing equivalences to Soviet Union or whatever. And the "journalists" sell this notion that Chinese state intentions are "untransparent" and "unknowable" while pretending the policy documents don't exist. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping has published his 5th book on how governance in China works and what they're after. These are not books written for a western audience: they're compilations of speeches that he already gave to the Chinese party and state apparatus, so the contents are not sanitized for foreign audiences. But there are no English reviews of summaries of this 5th book at all by the usual China experts that distribute what western audience know about China. This extends to beyond the government. Even though "for the people but only against the government" is an often-heard mantra, nobody seems to listen to what Chinese AI companies themselves say about why they publish open models. DeepSeek and GLM have said multiple times publicly what their motivations are, yet people on HN still speculate like they usually do. Truly mind-boggling. I get that a lot of people don't like China. But setting aside the question of whether their dislike is justified, it would at least be rational to properly understand China, even if it's to defeat it. And listening to what China says themselves is absolutely essential for proper understanding. But people don't bother to? And they seem mostly happy with sticking to speculations that match preconceived notions, even if that hurts their chances of defeating China.

jmyeet 4mo ago
I 100% agree with you and want to add something. If you simply take what the Chinese government says at face value, you will be correct way more often than 95% of Western policy wonks, media talking heads, "analysts" and so forth. Because, like you say, they tell you everything they're doing. In the recent US-China summit, Xi Jinping just came out and used the Thucydides Trap metaphor, which tells you everything about where China thinks it is and where it sees the US going, which is to become increasingly belligerent as their power declines. Now whether or not you agree with that assessment (I do agree), it still tells you China wants to avoid open hostilities, it sees itself as continuing to rise and it fears what a declining US might do.
- FooBarWidget 4mo ago
  The Thucydides Trap mention is different from what you describe. Xi has dismissed the Thucydides Trap multiple times in the past as being hearsay and self-imposed bias (https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/944179.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/944179.shtml). "We should strictly base our judgment on facts, lest we become victims to hearsay, paranoid or self-imposed bias. There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves." But western politicians keep raising this metaphor. So at some point they're like "okay we'll speak your language". They then used this metaphor to make the point "our rise isn't the threat, your fear of it is. If you resist it you're walking right into the trap Thucydides warned about". So your conclusion is still right, they don't want open hostilities, a stable world is in their interest. Then western media ran away with this and were like "OMG Xi mentioned the Thucydides Trap", completely ignoring his point.
isoprophlex 4mo ago
Extremely interesting comment, thank you. Got some links where I can download this source material? I don't read or speak the language, but will try interrogating it with an LLM
- FooBarWidget 4mo ago

parineum 4mo ago

> I say this because we see the same thing used as an argument against China. "If they overtake us, they'll do imperialism (like us)." Again, it says more about us than them. Or because they're human and that's what humans have always done. If the US is no longer a check on China, what will happen to Taiwan? Frankly, you seem to be arguing that the US is somehow uniquely bad when, in actuality, The US has been hegemonic during a time of incredible peace and minimal imperialism.

cauefcr 4mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
r14c 4mo ago
Peace for who? Like just look at the last 50-70 years of US intervention in LatAm. Backing a series of coups and extremely violent right wing dictatorships. The issue is one of incentives. The US needs cheap foreign labor because of deindustrialization policies in the 60s and 70s. These were arguably passed as a check on labor power since socialism was still looking potentially ascendant at the time. Whatever the reason though, the contemporary US is reliant on keeping foreign wages down and domination of the oil trade. Imperialism grows out of this need for external resources to maintain economic growth. It would be less relevant to us if we had better fundamentals, but we traded those away to avoid letting certain demos get wealthy and powerful. China's play is more mercantile. They benefit most from stable trade conditions. They get richer the more customers they have. They benefitted massively from becoming an industrial trade partner with the US in the 60s and 70s. Because of this, they have completely different foreign policy objectives. All they need to do to win is normalize relations and build trade infrastructure. Its way cheaper than imperialism.
- parineum 4mo ago
  > Peace for who? Like just look at the last 50-70 years of US intervention in LatAm. Backing a series of coups and extremely violent right wing dictatorships. For the world. Compare the those 70 years to the previous 70 years. Regime change and intervention is significantly better than full scale invasion, total war and colonization of other people. > China's play is more mercantile. Because they are held in check by US power. Remove the US and China is taking what it wants.

CMay 4mo ago

This is a really bad, poorly thought out take, and historically inaccurate. Also, we're not afraid China will somehow be like us. If they were like us, that would be great. The problem is that China is already behaving like it is ready to abuse the power it has on a scale that the US never has. Russia, China and Iran all make public statements as if they abide by international law and everyone else are the law breakers, while their measurable actions are shockingly contradictory. It is their actions that have caused the US reactions, but many people present them as if they occur in a vacuum. The AI race sits within this context, with a constellation of concerns that most people do not think about. Of course the AI engineers have their own motivation, the companies will share some of that motivation combined with their business trajectory and governments will get involved with it for the justifications they see.