[andy_ppp]

We don’t actually know why anyone in power does anything. One thing I do know is we as the West need to figure out how to come together and defend democratic and liberal values, as without them we are seriously lost. We should start by not giving any more money and technology to a Chinese state that clearly do not have our best interests at heart. I think the west is in real danger of just falling apart over the next 50 years if we lose our reasons for existing and instead spend our time arguing about cultural issues. We spend so much time right now looking inward at our small differences we can’t see the reason why our nations became worthwhile in the first place.

[papito]

What I do notice is that the Chinese "rulers" seem to be more concerned about long-term well-being of its people, rather than trolling and performative assholery on Twitter.

You might describe it as a dictatorship, but it's more data-driven than you might suspect. The Chinese keep the pulse on decisions they make, and if it's unpopular - it's gone. Of course there is a line - you can't go head-on against the Party and call them out directly. Compare this situation here, where we are trying to patch up our infrastructure and instead have to deal with a collection of spectacular douches in Congress, propagandizing against science to such an extent that our top epidemiologist has to get a security detail.

Who would you bet on in this movie?

[andy_ppp]

Pithy response: Tell that to the Uyghur Muslims? Are they not Chinese people?

More serious response: I don’t want to live under a dictatorship where a generational change could lead to corruption and suffering on a much bigger scale. I think America as a project might also be lost and we should consider if this crazy idea (democracy, freedom of religion, free speech etc.) is worth fighting for. I think it is and I believe in the values that the US has, despite some very obvious mistakes America isn’t ethnic cleansing Muslims or having a press that can’t criticise the government. I will bet on America not because China won’t win but because I still believe the (relative) peace and prosperity of the post war period isn’t worth throwing away as easily as some want. We need someone focused on this in a clear way and to get Americans stop arguing amongst themselves and look at the bigger picture.

[papito]

I by no means suggest that the Chinese system is superior. It's a sort of system that can descend into runaway corruption pretty easily.

What I am saying is, given the decay of the western society, which is our fault entirely, our chances of staying ahead are slim.

The problem is, the Chinese have a team. They do not easily sell out. We, however, have an entire layer of high-level government that will readily go to the highest bidder. This is not sustainable. The only way to fix this is a crisis that unites us, but if a global pandemic did not do it, what will?

[andy_ppp]

Yes I completely agree, we will probably see this happen unfortunately. It makes me very worried about the future.

[trasz]

Yeah, I’m sure the Uyghurs would much prefer the US treatment, namely being murdered from safe distance, over the Chinese genocide, which is essentially a youth correction facility, but for adults.

[andy_ppp]

Oh right, apologists for the sterilisation of women and the destruction of a culture, nice.

[trasz]

The difference is while what you’ve mentioned is just state propaganda, US killing million people in Iraq alone is an easily verifiable fact.

[andy_ppp]

The actual reports discuss a range that’s unbelievably wide in terms of civilian casualties. Somewhere in the region of 100,000 to 1,000,000 which seems incredibly broad. The US did not deliberately engineer the situation in Iraq of course, and the insurgency, Sunni/Shea civil war that happened as well as Al Qaeda and other foreign fighters made the situation unmanageable.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

I think the testimony of so many Uyghur people about this and the huge “re-education” holiday camps you mentioned I’m not sure the West is fabricating such things. There’s simply too much evidence the other way.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide

[throwaway4good]

"We don’t actually know why anyone in power does anything."

This is a not true. Dictators do long speeches. Often quite explicitly stating why they do what they do.

Funnily sometimes in democracies there is a bigger space betweeen what is done and what is communicated.

[simiones]

Those speeches usually contain about as much actual information as a corporate PR statement: they, at best, tell you why the dictator wants others to think they are doing something.

The only logical way to interpret the intentions of political leaders is to look at their effects. Anything else, even personal diaries, are likely full of interested reasoning and outright lies.

[throwaway4good]

If we are talking about the stuff here (regulation of internet companies) there plenty of speeches, 5-year plans, writings in party newspapers that explains the thinking behind the actions.

[andy_ppp]

Okay so is the article right? It’s not about smashing innovation but saying popularity is the wrong metric and (CCP) power should be the driving force behind technology development? Do the powerful really always state there objectives obviously like some dastardly Bond villain?