[saltyoldman]

This shit's happening with every topic now. I really wish we'd just start cutting out massive blocks of internet and phones so our old people are not scammed, so our young are not radicalized and our leaders convinced something crazy is happening any more.

[bigyabai]

America already lost the battle. Multiple administrations on both sides of the aisle have reported China having access to America's lawful intercept wiretap system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Typhoon

No amount of authoritarian backpedaling will put the genie back in the bottle. They've got blackmail on our politicians, backdoors in our telecoms, and Chinese apps at #1 on the App Store. America is paying for "freedom" through the nose right now, the will to quit using social media and smartphones has to come from within.

[zb3]

By freedom you mean freedom to invade other countries? Then don't be surprised those other countries fight back.

[yellowapple]

Have we invaded China?

[selimthegrim]

You might want to read about before WWII

[leoprctmp]

Eight-Nation Alliance (1900)

[tancop]

> America is paying for "freedom" through the nose

if you ask people on the street i think more than half of them will say they dont care if china gets ahead. even with conservatives who dont like china its more about keeping the american way of life as in "i dont want them to bring communism here", not some global clash of civilizations thing. if they really hated china those apps would never get to #1. its obvious that american citizens want more friendly relations or at least keeping it at the current level instead of tariffs and war mongering.

the only ones who really want a cold war is the corrupt national security industrial complex, think palantir and anthropic and lockheed martin. theres a lot of money to be made from selling overpriced missiles to the air force and forcing americans to use bad quality more expensive ai providers after the chinese or eu based get banned for "security" reasons.

even the fact that "national security" exists as a concept separate from public security means theres a big misalignment in the system. the purpose of a state is to serve and protect its people, not secure its power or even its own existence. as long as the cia, nsa, ice, dea and all the other agencies are allowed to do influence ops on their own citizens america cant be a true democracy. and the same goes for the uk, china, india, germany, really any country thats big and powerful enough that this kind of corruption can start.