5 ms·

I say China is not starting any wars, you gesture at some vague "not behaving nicely" as if this is equivalent to a war or some damning proof that they will sta

I say China is not starting any wars, you gesture at some vague "not behaving nicely" as if this is equivalent to a war or some damning proof that they will start a war - these are nowhere near the same thing. China has killed maybe 50 people outside it's borders since 2000. The US has killed 100,000-250,000 in that time period. There is no amount of rationalization that can reverse the deaths of those people or the cities turned to rubble. The attitude towards Iran is also just arrogant. The US believes they have the unilateral authority to dictate who has nuclear weapons and who doesn't, and is morally in the right for bombing their cities and killing their citizens if they don't comply. Sovereignty be damned, we are gods, fuck you. Same thing with literally kidnapping the president of another country. Not to mention, the Iraq war was started on the exact same WMD excuse and it turned out they never had any real evidence of WMDs back then, they just said they did and it was really about oil. And the government now is 10x more corrupt and cruel and xenophobic than it was back then, and back to a huge focus on fossil fuels - don't you have to be a little naive to just trust them at face value now? I can tell you the prevalence of sports gambling and betting is exploding in Canada now that Kalshi is directly tying up with banks to put gambling inside fucking banking apps. I'm sure it was prevalent in many countries, I'm also sure it will scale up to huge levels and enter new countries with the amount of marketing and money and influence these US companies will bring, who also happen to have DJT's son on their board. Making them markets also frees them to manipulate and trade against their users covertly in ways that cannot be detected and that a traditional sportsbook could not do. People who actually visit China or talk to Chinese citizens are all quite optimistic about it. The tropes people keep throwing around about autocracy are very inaccurate to anyone who actually reads anything about day to day life there. I can't explain all of it here but you can try reading something from Arnaud Bertrand if you're interested [1]. There’s a comical level of propaganda against China since the west recognized them as rivals that does not match reality at all. Anyways, I always see incredible whataboutism these days when talking about the US' problems now. This is what I think your original post that I replied to does too - the parent was criticizing Meta, and you said but what about China? And the thing is, we're talking about Meta because we live in the West and the horrible shit they do impacts us much more directly than whatever China does! It's not really productive to say China Bad!! in that scenario, it's really just saying "yes we suck, but they suck more!" and that doesn't solve anything.. it channels what should be a focus about huge corruption and threats to democracy in western countries into a pissing match on some other country, and its very sad to see how many people are falling for that. [1] https://arnaudbertrand.substack.com/archive?sort=new https://arnaudbertrand.substack.com/archive?sort=new

ericmay 1mo ago
> I say China is not starting any wars, you gesture at some vague "not behaving nicely" as if this is equivalent to a war or some damning proof that they will start a war - these are nowhere near the same thing. Well I just pointed out that just because they haven't started any new wars, and obviously they haven't been in a position to start anything new in recent memory doesn't mean they can't or won't, and we also shouldn't excuse their belligerence toward their neighbors in the South China Sea. Nobody is forcing them to ram their boats into Filipino fishing vessels, for example. > The US has killed 100,000-250,000 in that time period. There is no amount of rationalization that can reverse the deaths of those people or the cities turned to rubble. Well if you want to play this kind of numbers game China in the last 100 years has killed tens of millions so really they're the bad guys. You just have a recency bias. But to engage with your point in a different way, China also has not been a factor on the world stage until recently (I mean over the last couple of hundred years or so) and they, like other nations, rely on the United States to maintain peace and order to the extent the US is able to. In other words, stop criticizing the man in the arena. > Same thing with literally kidnapping the president of another country. Well he's a criminal, drug trafficker, and his actions and the actions of his predecessor resulted in 1/3rd of Venezuelans fleeing the country, a drastic reduction in economic growth, and more. Also just because you're the president of some country doesn't mean you get immunity. Otherwise, nobody can go arrest Vladimir Putin can they? Second - the world doesn't exist in isolation. Just because some country isn't outright attacking you doesn't mean their policies can't cause you to take your own actions and at the end of the day, countries get to decide what they want to do because they are sovereign and then they live with the repercussions. Venezuelans aren't exactly upset about us removing their commie dictator guy either. > I can tell you the prevalence of sports gambling and betting is exploding in Canada Ok? Go ban the platforms. What does this have to do with anything? > in that scenario, it's really just saying "yes we suck, but they suck more!" and that doesn't solve anything.. Ok stop criticizing the United States and just say we suck all the time. It doesn't solve anything. Frankly the only real reason my post had anything to do with China is because they're the only other country that currently matters in the AI race - and I specifically have a problem with folks and their arguments about who is "doing better" or "winning" that race. I was criticizing the strategy and criticism of that strategy which seems to only apply to the United States when in fact it does not. In other words they can release open weight models and so can we. They can take the lead and we can just release open weight models like they supposedly do to us.

ericmay 1mo ago

> I say China is not starting any wars, you gesture at some vague "not behaving nicely" as if this is equivalent to a war or some damning proof that they will start a war - these are nowhere near the same thing. Well I just pointed out that just because they haven't started any new wars, and obviously they haven't been in a position to start anything new in recent memory doesn't mean they can't or won't, and we also shouldn't excuse their belligerence toward their neighbors in the South China Sea. Nobody is forcing them to ram their boats into Filipino fishing vessels, for example. > The US has killed 100,000-250,000 in that time period. There is no amount of rationalization that can reverse the deaths of those people or the cities turned to rubble. Well if you want to play this kind of numbers game China in the last 100 years has killed tens of millions so really they're the bad guys. You just have a recency bias. But to engage with your point in a different way, China also has not been a factor on the world stage until recently (I mean over the last couple of hundred years or so) and they, like other nations, rely on the United States to maintain peace and order to the extent the US is able to. In other words, stop criticizing the man in the arena. > Same thing with literally kidnapping the president of another country. Well he's a criminal, drug trafficker, and his actions and the actions of his predecessor resulted in 1/3rd of Venezuelans fleeing the country, a drastic reduction in economic growth, and more. Also just because you're the president of some country doesn't mean you get immunity. Otherwise, nobody can go arrest Vladimir Putin can they? Second - the world doesn't exist in isolation. Just because some country isn't outright attacking you doesn't mean their policies can't cause you to take your own actions and at the end of the day, countries get to decide what they want to do because they are sovereign and then they live with the repercussions. Venezuelans aren't exactly upset about us removing their commie dictator guy either. > I can tell you the prevalence of sports gambling and betting is exploding in Canada Ok? Go ban the platforms. What does this have to do with anything? > in that scenario, it's really just saying "yes we suck, but they suck more!" and that doesn't solve anything.. Ok stop criticizing the United States and just say we suck all the time. It doesn't solve anything. Frankly the only real reason my post had anything to do with China is because they're the only other country that currently matters in the AI race - and I specifically have a problem with folks and their arguments about who is "doing better" or "winning" that race. I was criticizing the strategy and criticism of that strategy which seems to only apply to the United States when in fact it does not. In other words they can release open weight models and so can we. They can take the lead and we can just release open weight models like they supposedly do to us.