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by duda10 764 days ago
I'm Brazilian and I couldn't care less. Do not see the same advocacy in IT against American imperialism and financeirization of the whole world or against the cartels of american companies products preventing me of having a job due to no significant industry in Brazil.
6 comments

As someone living in the Eastern Europe I don't care if something is manufactured in US or China. I would rather have things manufactured locally so our economy grows and there are more jobs.
Know plenty of eastern european manufacturers who went bankrupt because they couldn’t compete with cheap chinese workforce. At this point it’s fait accomplished and past tense. But this trend continues to erode local indistries
Brazilians don't care because they largely live in poverty, and China is promising the country and its people economic salvation. It's an easy choice for Brazil against America, whom they see as an economic oppressor.
do not see anti Big Tech advocacy? where are you looking? every week there's at least one submission about EU vs Big Tech; every time there's any post on US law enforcement, healthcare, other cost(s) of living, compensation, etc. about US startup and software/hardware development culture or industry people rightfully say the words, fuck Google/Meta/Amazon/etc.
The main thing is that i do not see practical efforts by the workforce (us, as yes, i worked for an american company before going jobless) to sabotage these efforts. Everyone is happy getting their bucks and doing the dream of their lives in amazing projects while other people with enough talent who could at least contribute but were born outside of the spectrum watch with even their life being on the line due to having acquired the skills in the wrong place.
Same in France, I fear China quite as much as Russia or the USA.
I agree it’s bad for a few companies in the west coast of America to have the power they do. However, America is a lot more trustworthy and less dangerous than the CCP, who are currently committing a genocide against some of their own citizens, jailing political opponents, suppressing democracy in Hong Kong, bullying other countries in South China Sea, threatening invasion of Taiwan, attacking other countries with cyber warfare, stealing through industrial espionage, and more. They’re powerful and hostile, and should be shunned by the free world until there is political change.
not to mention Xi's unconditional free blowjobs card to Putin, and no embargo enforcement against North Korea.
If this was the case nowhere outside the US would have significant industry. Australia, UK and EU would be wastelands with no opportunity.

This is a drastic oversimplication, and blame game. There are plenty of internal problems with Brazil preventing industry. Taking just one -- Corruption is a significant damper on economic opportunity.

The book "Why Nations Fail" has some amazing insights into why corruption amongst other things has a massive impact on dampening opporunities. The TLDR is that you need confidence of a level playing field, that your hard work won't be taken away from you.

Brazil rates very badly on the global corruption perception index[0], 36/100 compared to say Australia at 75/100 and Germany at 78/100.

It is the OECD[1] view that corruption is one of the significant limiting factors on Economic growth and opportunity within Brazil.

This[2] gov.uk page has some fantastic reading about the problems with doing business with Brazil. You need look no further than this for the things that will need to be solved if you want Brazil to be competitive on the world stage.

This is just one factor amongst many.

  - [0]: https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/brazil
  - [1]: https://www.oecd.org/policy-briefs/brazil-strengthening-integrity-for-sustainable-growth.pdf
  - [2]: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/overseas-business-risk-brazil/overseas-business-risk-brazil
Always the accusation we are doing something wrong. Industrial espionage, outright "selective" prosecution of corruption cases against national companies while sidelining foreign companies who did the same things, forced assimilation/buyout of our rare startups are always ignored. Suspicious cases where governments are simply "removed" in impeachments due to not having favourable foreign policy to the US or economic policies which are developmentalist and not of the non-interventionist kind not considered in the analysis. This is exactly what our local media says, which gives us two options

1- You are right and reality is simply reproduced in distinct social stratums around the world

2- Something doesn`t adds up.

Don't get me wrong the US absolutely misbehaves. China misbehaves. Russia misbehaves. Europe is suffering from Russian and Chinese industrial espionage, Australia has definitely been the target of Chinese espionage. (Leaving the Ukraine war to the side for the purposes of this discussion)

Brexit is almost certainly linked to Russian influence. The difference is Australia, UK and Australia have strong institutions and firm anti-corruption mechanisms.

Brazil can't succeed until it deals with it's internal problems. Media that blames everyone but internal problems is just serving interests that would prefer the people to look elsewhere.