What a strange thing to say. Why would they? Do you have their interest at heart? Do you have the average persons interest at heart? Again: Why would you? That's by definition not how interests work. And that is roughly fine (albeit a kinder universe would be nice).
Even if I have no one's best interest but my own at heart, I can't do anywhere close to as much damage to society at large as a trillion dollar corporation. Also, corporations aren't people, and it's silly to compare individuals to massive organizations.
That is not the point though? I am not saying that there are no issues with big corps and their interests. Theirs not being yours is just not one of them.
"An entity with a larger pool of cash than many countries and mutual influence with the government, which everyone agrees should have our best interests" not having our best interest is definitely something I'd consider an interest.
Them not having your best interests at heart does not make them an adversary. Just like you not having the best interests of your grocer or work place or most other humans on the planet at heart does not make you an adversary.
The Golden Rule "do unto others" is an example of this concept, and it answers your question "why would you?"
> And that is roughly fine (albeit a kinder universe would be nice).
You're confusing the status quo with what must be. It's possible for people to have a sane interpretation of self-interest. We should do a better job of reeducating and/or removing from society the people who don't seem capable of that.
I'd argue that society ensures (or should ensure) that we, collectively, do have the average person's interest at heart. The problem is when billionaires like these effectively decide to opt out of society. Stop paying taxes, bend the political system to their will.
Even if you think of them as the most selfish people possible, billionaires ought to have the average person's interest at heart. Because once the country is full of average people who are unhappy with their lives it typically doesn't work out well for those with power.
There's definitely people who blindly praise and romanticize China and ignore how dystopian all the monitoring systems there are, there is essentially no privacy. Even chat apps are infiltrated or Chinese run in some way, shape, or form.
While that’s true, the Chinese government does also seem to be motivated to keep the cost of housing and food low for its citizens, and provide services and facilities for the public good.
Ha, you really believe that? You can't live in area without the permission of the Government. The current Chinese regime seems to be really going kinda crazy with their new leader. They've lost their more practical leadership since the new guy has consolidated power.
It’s not a matter of belief - cost of rent and food in Chinese cities are 50-70% lower than US cities. There are hundreds of sources that will confirm that.
You can't live in area without the permission of the Government.
This comes up every. single. time. It's so undifferentiated to be basically misinformation. Huji, household registration has existed in China for centuries. The modern form, hukou was designed to control mass migration and rapid urbanisation which is, with a population of 1B, understandable if you want to avoid clusters of slums with populations in the millions. Besides, they are lessing this more and more since 2012.
I am not endorsing what China is doing in terms of surveillance by any means, but their argument would be that every nation not subservient to the US got overthrown by CIA backed forces the moment they opened up.
The surveillance tech that is much more likely to be deployed in the US and that few are talking about is Israeli tech used to spy on and suppress the self determination of Palestinians. Especially given the recently proposed fusing of US/Israeli military tech.
> Especially given the recently proposed fusing of US/Israeli military tech.
This has been a thing for a while to be fair. Not sure if you're just mentioning of some new project instead? We've given and gotten back tech to and from Israel.
Signal genuinely isn't, or other end-to-end encryption chat apps. But yeah, WhatsApp and Discord and others are run by American companies that follow US law.
One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison?