[maxdo]

They are not vocal because any political activism is not encouraged in China . Check jack ma story .

But the message is extremely obvious. They already offer the technical capabilities for digital dictatorship.

They offer to counties like Russia tools for big firewall , surveillance with llm.

So yes , if you pay money to China you directly sponsor putting people in jail for online activities in China , Russia , North Korea , many countries of Africa , South America , Belarus etc

[dsubburam]

> They are not vocal because any political activism is not encouraged in China . Check jack ma story .

This is an under-rated comment. "Nice" seeming places in Asia might be so because the governments tightly control the narrative and brook no dissent. Citizens end up minding their own business and become apolitical. Society looks neat and organized; but if you don't conform, you get hammered down.

[Matl]

This is true, but of course ignores what happens historically when these societies open up more. They tend to get exploited.

Places like China, Vietnam etc. don't yet have institutions strong enough to withstand (Western) meddling. So they can either be stable and relatively prosperous, or (in their mind), poor and open.

If you go by example of India, China seems preferable.

The sad part is that in the West, instead of offering a good counterexample, we're increasingly 'inspired' i.e. Assange, Snowden, chat control etc. while lacking even the historical justification for doing so and having worse infrastructure.

[maxdo]

Yeah, that's what dictators explain, different cultural references . Guess what, there are several countries that revert their democratic processes, because of china tech and their success. This is a real path towards absolutely crazy people like putin with unlimited power due to ai.

[Matl]

For what is worth, I don't think Russia is on the same economic success path as China, so I don't think the argument there is remotely convincing. I am not saying it's the right argument, I am saying the argument might work on a large chunk of the population if their standard of living is better than it was in colonial times.

[bognition]

By the same logic if you pay money to United States based companies (FAANG) you're directly funding genocide, mass incarceration of people of color, the undermining of digital privacy, and a techo-fascist regime.

[signatoremo]

Yes, if that’s your belief. Do you practice what you preach? Do you use oil-based products? Do you transit via Dubai or Istanbul?

The issue with Musk related politics here is pretending higher moral positions. Even though I’m against China’s policies, I have absolutely no issues with Chinese products. Their achievements are phenomenal (look at that Europe and India). I’m against hypocrisy.

Again, do you practice what you preach?

[bognition]

I'm not preaching anything here just pointing out the hypocrisy of the "america good, china bad" line of reasoning that is pervasive.

[atwrk]

The Jack Ma story is that he tried to build a predatory peer to peer lending startup to profit off of working class people getting into high interest debt traps (because they aren't credit worthy for normal credit issued by regulated banks). Which is against the law in China. China is very strict in all things that resemble shadow banking, MLM schemes etc, they even have a .1 % tax on every transaction on the HKSE, to prevent a financialization of the economy like it happened in the West.

[corimaith]

This is wrong. Ma was put down because of a speech he made attacking the banking system as outdated and needing reform. It was the P2P lending given that the whole thing was the government's own initiative from the late Li Keqiang and they approved the IPO right till the speech.

[maxglute]

This not exactly wrong, but also not right / poor timeline & PRC domestics politics reading.

LKQ was pushing P2P lending / light regulatory on internet finance in ~2015.

Ant group exploited light guidance into basically shadow banking with systemic risk over next few years. PBOC had to step in to fix bad LKQ guidance.

PBOC issued rules regulating P2P lending loopholes one month before Ant Group IPO specifically calling out Ant Group. Anyone not retarded knew this means Ant Group must reform for smooth IPO, i.e. politically securities watchdog approval was going to be predicated on PBOC instructions being taken seriously. Then Jack Ma did a full retard and tried to challenge PBOC, so IPO blocked.

Well 50% retarded because ANT record breaking 300B IPO was predicated on Ant continuing to exploit low leverage shadow banking that socialized loss to state banks - hence PBOC mandated internet finance P2P to fund 30% of loans vs 2% ANT was getting away with, which would have tanked IPO.

[atwrk]

A bit late now, but thanks for this detailed breakdown!