• mommykink
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    298 months ago

    Almost all of those “gains” came from stolen western IPs and labor exploitation.

    • @Zorque
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      88 months ago

      Yeah, but that’s capitalism in general, which is what people mean when they say “free market”.

      • @dragontamer
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        8 months ago

        USA’s brand of capitalism has IP protections, such as patent, copyrights, and trademarks. None of which China actually follows.

        China is well known to conduct significant corporate espionage. (IE: hackers targeting corporations like Microsoft or Sony, not really people with “critical national secrets” but instead software they’d rather keep secret). China also hacks for national-security purposes too I’m sure.

        I mean, still better than the Russian hackers or North Korean ones that focus on randomware. China at least is trying to get economic benefits out of it, but… its clearly built up on a lot of stolen tech.

        • @Zorque
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          68 months ago

          Which are frequently abused by those in power.

          They protect the companies who have money, not the people who generally create those ideas and technologies.

          • @dragontamer
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            8 months ago

            Abuse or not, Chinese corporate espionage is well crossing the line.

            Say what you will about “Copyright”, but we all know that when China hacks Google and steals source code, that’s “unfair” and well crossing the line of the minor copyright violations we normally discuss here on Lemmy (or other internet). I’m not talking about simple piracy, I’m talking about fucking hacking and stealing years of hard work / programming source code from major US Companies here.

            This isn’t some performance artist or protester trying to “download a car”, so to speak through piracy. This is literally China’s MO of corporate espionage. Steal everything to launch their country into the future. Steal the hard work of honest programmers trying to give their systems an advantage over the competition.

            • @Zorque
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              38 months ago

              I’m not saying that what lots of Chinese companies (often with their governments backing or even insistence) isn’t terrible… what I’m saying is they’re not stealing from angels.

              They’re basically just doing what American (and other western companies) are doing, just without the “gentlemen’s agreement” that the west uses to keep the poors from getting uppity.

              You think those companies are giving the people who actually create the things they make billions (or trillions) off of a fair portion? No, they’re taking all that hard work and paying a pittance for it.

              There is no moral high ground here, just lower and lower levels as each tries to out scum each other.

              • @dragontamer
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                8 months ago

                They’re basically just doing what American (and other western companies) are doing

                No US company steals from each other at the level that China steals from us. Its not even close. Stolen source code and other such copyright issues would be resolved in our court system. You’d get your ass sued.

                There is no moral high ground here, just lower and lower levels as each tries to out scum each other.

                Ummmm… dude. No reasonable person can argue that source code kept private to a company (ex: Google) deserves to be stolen by China. Or are you seriously trying to make this out to be “not a big crime” or something?

                I’m not talking about the low-levels of copyright issues here in the USA (I’m not talking Bittorrent). I’m talking about well accepted parts that, I’ve literally never heard someone argue about against me in my many decades of online discussion. I’m talking about pretty basic levels of “Don’t fucking steal code from other programmers, especially when they’re trying to keep it private to themselves”.

                You think those companies are giving the people who actually create the things they make billions (or trillions) off of a fair portion? No, they’re taking all that hard work and paying a pittance for it.

                Programmers are the best paid profession in the USA right now dude. No programmer is complaining about their $300k salaries right now.

                • @Zorque
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                  18 months ago

                  No reasonable person can argue that source code kept private to a company (ex: Google) deserves to be stolen by China.

                  It’s a good thing I never implied that then.

                  You seem to be arguing against a strawman, not me. Let me know when you want to have a discussion instead of arguing against a bogeyman.

  • @dragontamer
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    8 months ago

    First two are communication platforms with direct spying concerns and the car industry always was a proxy for Tank production.

    Yeah. If China is a better country at manufacturing EVs than the USA, that means they can make more war material than us. That’s absolutely a national security threat.


    The 3rd case is more of honest competition. But it’s a huge concern to any warfighter. USA won WW2 by making more vehicles than the Nazis and Japanese. If China can out-manufacture us, we absolutely have to consider the new realities of the modern battlefield

    It’s a well known fact that Nazi tanks were a lot better than American tanks. We just outnumbered the shit out of the Nazis.

    I don’t think EV production will lead to tanks like how WW2 did. But EV production almost certainly is a modern drone / Li-ion battery.

    • @omzwo
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      188 months ago

      Actually EVs collect a huge amount of information including video and audio of the participants. It’s a huge privacy issue regardless of manufacturer country but you obviously should distinguish the difference between a foreign country collecting information on your citizens compared to your own. Neither is good but one clearly has more authoritarian tendencies and less scruples about finding and coercing compliance with any means at their disposal.

      • @[email protected]
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        48 months ago

        There isn’t anything inherent with an EV to necessitate video/audio recording capabilities.

        If you’re concerned about an EV having that ability, you should be equally concerned about traditional vehicles as well.

        • @[email protected]
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          28 months ago

          I literally read something this morning on how you can now get cybersecurity insurance for your car. For a fucking CAR. Why tf do the circumstances exist that that’s even a possible market?

    • @[email protected]
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      28 months ago

      Honestly why should I care if China has more military power than the U.S. It’s not like the USA is doing going things with our military power. We can’t even stop a genocide.

      • @Zorque
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        38 months ago

        That implies the US is trying to stop it.

        • @dragontamer
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          18 months ago

          No. This is a political meme.

          This is implying that a huge chunk of Americans are too stupid to recognize the obvious threats here, and are making incredibly dumb memes to proudly state how ignorant they are on this issue.

          • @Zorque
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            08 months ago

            I’m trying to figure out if you think I’m replying to you or not…

            What I’m responding to is the “We can’t even stop a genocide” part of the comment I’m replying to. Which is a political stance the US is taking, and not really directly related to the meme in question.

            Also, taking memes (of all things) as some kind of mass endorsement is… some kind of twisted logic.

            • @dragontamer
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              8 months ago

              Ehhh, sorry for messing up the reply chains. Your comment came after mine so I guess I thought you were replying to me. I see now I was mistaken.

              “We can’t even stop a genocide”

              Which one? The Ukrainian one? The Uyghurs? Or the Taiwan (Kuomintang/Chinese) ?? We’re trying to stop different genocides. Anyone saying “The Genocide” simply isn’t being specific enough.

              So yeah, everyone has political views on different genocides around the world. USA absolutely ignores major ones (ex: Uyghurs) though, because China is quite powerful and its not really worth it for us to work against it, even if we all agree that its a bad thing. Taiwan would be crossing a line though because we have substantial economic ties and geopolitical ties (they were our allies in WW2).

              • @Zorque
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                18 months ago

                Probably the one that’s been in the news for the last six months, the one you didn’t even mention. The one in Palestine.

                • @dragontamer
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                  8 months ago

                  Yeah that’s cool.

                  But the other ones are the ones the “anti-genocide” people seem to have forgotten about. We’re talking about China here, so the Uyghur genocide (still ongoing) is the one that’s topically relevant.

                  You don’t just switch the topic to Palestine every god damn topic. There’s other parts of the world and other issues that go on.

        • @[email protected]
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          08 months ago

          Well, I’m more implying that US is politically incapable of it more than militarily incapable. But yes, they’re not trying to stop it.

      • @dragontamer
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        8 months ago

        Because China is about to attack Taiwan, which has 60%+ of the world computer chips.

        That means no iPhones, no Snapdragon (Android phones), no XBox, no PS5, no AMD (Servers), no AMD/Xilinx (aka: F35), no NVidia GPUs if that attack goes off successfully. It’d be a major effect on the US technology sector, which is where I’m employed (and where many others are employed). This is a vital economic and technological issue.

        If we lose the upcoming China vs Taiwan fight, its not just like “Oh I feel bad” like the Ukrainian situation (trust me, I’m hugely supportive of the Ukrainians). But Ukraine doesn’t have a major economy / export tied to the USA’s economy like Taiwan does.


        China has made something like 400 nuclear weapons in the past 5 years or so. They’re preparing for something. The current bets are on a Taiwan invasion, which has been a sorespot for them for the past century.

        I don’t think China is going to use those nukes per se, they just want nuclear parity with “somebody”. So its clear they’re likely planning to attack USA (or some other major nuclear power), which would coincide with a Taiwan attack (USA would almost certainly rush to protect this vital economic center for us, leading into a China vs USA war). The nukes are the just-in-case option for China, its likely going to try to stay conventional.

        • @[email protected]
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          08 months ago

          Are you saying the United States is planning to conduct an imminent war, by ourselves, on China on behalf of Taiwan?

          Isn’t the UN supposed to help out with those issues, like Ukraine?

          • @dragontamer
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            8 months ago

            If China shoots first, it won’t be USA alone. Philippines, Japan, Korea, and Australia will rally because they’d be most concerned about an expansionist China fucking up their side of the world.

            But USA’s Navy and Marines would be expected to put in some degree of work for sure.

            Isn’t the UN supposed to help out with those issues, like Ukraine?

            UN isn’t a military alliance. So no. NATO is Atlantic-focused, so they’re not the right group either.

            • @[email protected]
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              08 months ago

              I guess I don’t see why the United States needs to be the world police with our military. We have tried this before and it’s not gone well.

              • @dragontamer
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                28 months ago

                This isn’t a world policeman be the good guy situation though. This is a simple ‘our economy won’t work without Taiwan so we probably want to protect them’.

                • @[email protected]
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                  08 months ago

                  Maybe a few tech companies would lose profits and people would have to pay more for phones, not that important to me.

    • @givesomefucks
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      8 months ago

      with direct spying concerns

      Bruh…

      A federal employee installing any social media app on a work phone is a big deal. With a foreign app it’s probably a bigger deal, but an American developer would still sell the same data to the highest bidder.

      Banning tiktok just means China has to pay an American company for the data.

      It wasn’t like tiktok has some super secret spy mode, it collects the same as all the others.

      Which is why we need real data protection laws regardless of where the home office is.

      The 3rd case is more of honest competition

      Have you looked at domestic automobile manufacturing in the last, I dunno, 3-5 decades?

      We don’t make shit anymore, but home offices are based here, so their profit is GDP.

      So every American gets shafted and can’t buy the insanely cheap EVs that are better than what’s sold in America.

      A cynic would say what also factors into that, is for the past 6 years we’ve had record breaking fossil fuels production. And those giant corporations don’t want cheap EVs, and also make up a large chunk of GDP

      • @dragontamer
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        8 months ago

        A federal employee installing any social media app on a work phone is a big deal

        Huawei makes phone servers. Its not a social media app. That 5G network is literally the thing that routes phone calls to each other. You’re grossly underestimating the threat at play in this meme.

        Whenever a cell phone makes a phone call, it goes to a cell-tower, and inside of a cell-tower is a “phone server” so to speak. I don’t know the full details, but 5G, 4G, (etc. etc.) are the different generations of phone servers available.

        That’s every phone call, every text message, every packet, everything that goes to your cell phone goes through that cell-phone tower / 5G network. And for “some reason”, China has dumped the prices of Huawei equipment and highly encouraged the USA to buy their phone equipment and servers. Uhhhhhh… yeah.


        If you’re looking at the “Tik Tok” ban whatever, that’s peanuts. Huawei was brought up by the meme. So lets talk Huawei. Dumbass meme doesn’t understand how telephones work. Its a serious national security concern for good reasons.

        Have you looked at domestic automobile manufacturing in the last, I dunno, 3-5 decades?

        Have you literally heard of the United Auto Workers?

        I think you’re bullshitting me. Last I heard, UAW pointed out huge productivity gains for their union and make a shit-ton of cars across hundreds of factories across the USA. Like, what the fuck man, do you even know America?

  • @HootinNHollerin
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    8 months ago

    China didn’t even let US apps and sites in in the first place though. Hell they don’t even have TikTok but a different app. They straight copied Google with Baidu, Amazon with Alibaba, and same for so many others. Never allowed Facebook nor Twitter. Then they complain when the US debate whether to limit theirs operating here a decade or more later. Meanwhile china has hacked and stolen an insane amount of IP including full on fighter jet designs. And are the highest source of hacking by far, as they have been for a decade. This is a weak argument based in ignorance. I guess that’s to be expected from a self proclaimed token boomer

    • @TokenBoomerOP
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      -118 months ago

      Ignorance, huh?

      Long before the United States began accusing other countries of stealing ideas, the U.S. government encouraged intellectual piracy to catch up with England’s technological advances. According to historian Doron Ben-Atar, in his bookTrade Secrets, “the United States emerged as the world’s industrial leader by illicitly appropriating mechanical and scientific innovations from Europe.” Source

      Maybe use facts and sources instead of personal attacks, they tend to hold up better over time.

      • @HootinNHollerin
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        8 months ago

        Yes. You just change to England now? Because you have no rebuttal on china and all those things I stated aren’t like new news that I gotta go pull up sources for you.

        • @TokenBoomerOP
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          8 months ago

          Hypocrisy (noun):

          **: **a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not **: **behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel

          America did it first; rebuttal?

          Nuh-uh…

          • @HootinNHollerin
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            go work or live in china maybe? I have. Fucking dystopian there. It’s about time the US stops letting them steal everything from US and steal everything from their neighbors. Or take a look at Vietnam, where I’ve also lived, who has like 200% import tax. Or what about china’s massive currency manipulation to undercut everyone. There’s some hypocrisy. Yes US does fucked up shit. But your post is more of the same ol murikuh bad china good bull

            • @TokenBoomerOP
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              -38 months ago

              Oh, so this isn’t actually about intellectual property, but the anecdotal evidence that you had some bad dim sum once?

              • @HootinNHollerin
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                Yea totally just once /s

                You can have a source war with someone else if you want

                • @TokenBoomerOP
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                  -28 months ago

                  You personally attacked my ignorance. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Or, is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

                  Attack the argument, not the person.

      • @Shadywack
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        58 months ago

        China’s a person? I thought it was a nation, and you said personal attacks. Sounds like you’re a little salty about China being a shitstained leech of a country.

  • @[email protected]
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    158 months ago

    Welcome to geopolitics 101. Is your main legitimate rival gaining a ton of power across the world due to aggressive gains in technology? Slow their access to the market until you have time to catch up.

    It’s not like anyone should feel sorry for China during all this, unless you just want to forget their active genocide and all the horrible things they’ve done to Tibet and Hong Kong.

  • @hperrin
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    108 months ago

    The USA has never had a free market and doesn’t really claim to, certainly not internationally. It’s the people who get a boner when looking at a snake on a yellow background that claim the USA has a free market.

  • @Hobbes_Dent
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    68 months ago

    It’s simply stunning to think that somewhere a vote will go to Trump because the government tried to protect American elections and privacy.

  • @j4k3
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    58 months ago

    This ad brought to you by US-MIC - the impasse of a 60’s shift to venture capital and the treason of offshoring. The mouth has found the asshole after eating its own tail and it doesn’t like the smell. Just you wait…

  • @vegantomato
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    8 months ago

    I wont go into the fact that China blocks foreign services or their theft of IP. Other commenters have covered these point already.

    China (or rather the CCP) is an adversarial and imperialistic state that seeks to gain influence over other nations through various means, including espionage and PSYOPs. I’m not saying other nations don’t do that, but it is what it is.

    It is in our best interest to mitigate the harm done by this adversary through any practical means. Of course this upsets the Chinese government, but that’s expected, and may be a sign that we are on the right track.