Comment by embedding-shape
8 hours ago
Which used to be seen as "Ew, China has their own version? Crazy censorship" but after some time it seems like the US is aiming for the very same thing. Classy.
8 hours ago
Which used to be seen as "Ew, China has their own version? Crazy censorship" but after some time it seems like the US is aiming for the very same thing. Classy.
It’s more sinister than simple censorship.
The point is brainwashing.
How do you know that conclusion is not the product of brainwashing? MKULTRA is just what we know about with certainty.
Hard to tell for sure, but one data point might be that most people outside of the US probably come to the same conclusion.
I am an open minded, well traveled man. I disagree with the powerful.
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Censorship is just a form of brainwashing.
I mean, they say it’s not censorship when it’s not the government doing it even when the government has embeds with “suggestions” ala facebook, twitter and reddit somewhere around 2020…
Case-in-point of why we shouldn't have approached China like we did over the last few decades. It normalized totalitarianism in some segments of Western society.
America: does the usual American thing Americanly
Commentators: What are we, some kind of Asians?
That's... not what I'm saying?
The US has traditionally had at least some counterweight to the state, in the form of a free press, free speech, opposition parties, checks and balances in branches of government, and an armed populace. The effectiveness of these measures has varied over time but there has never been a point when any single institution had control over the United States to the point that the CPC has control over mainland China.
People are concerned that the US is taking an authoritarian bent under Trump, and many of the tactics being used would lead to a state far more similar to the PRC than the historical US.
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I lived in China as an American a while back and had a similar take. Their ability to grow successfully and manage their populace definitely presented a new model to a lot of countries.
What does their treatment of the Uyghurs present to other countries?
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Oceania gets tech tips from Eastasia.
Oceania has always gotten tech tips from Eastasia.
I guess rest of the world should take notes and adjust the approach to China and those segments of Westerd society where totalitarianism got normalized.
Why blame China? This dire situation is not on foreign nations seeking to destroy US democracy, it's entirely on domestic robber barons capturing the State for their own gains. China has very little soft power among the general population, while Musk, Ellison and the other propagandists run the show.
Our domestic robber barons are building the capacity to monitor and control Americans in ways similar to those used by China to monitor and control their population.
China isn't to blame, but they are a frightening example of where things are headed and they're giving the robber barons screwing us a blueprint to follow.
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> Case-in-point of why we shouldn't have approached China like we did over the last few decades. It normalized totalitarianism in some segments of Western society.
An interesting thought I read a couple days ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/trump-carney-chin...:
> Finally, and most controversially, I suspect the same “if not America, then China” logic applies to political ordering as well. The United States under Trumpian conditions has allowed populism to come to power, bringing chaos and authoritarian behavior in its train. Recoil from that by all means — but recognize that it happened through democratic mechanisms, under freewheeling political conditions.
> Meanwhile, the modes through which Europe and Canada have sought to suppress populism involve harsh restrictions on speech, elite collusion and other expression of managerial illiberalism. And what is China’s dictatorship if not managerial illiberalism in full flower? When European elites talk about China as a potentially more stable partner than the whipsawing United States, when they talk admiringly about its environmental goals and technocratic capacity, they aren’t defending a liberal alternative to Trumpian populism. They are letting the magnet of Chinese power draw them away from their own democratic traditions.
China is not publicly espousing conquering Canada and Greenland (Europe). Who would you choose, the people threatening to invade you, or the other guys?!?!
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If a large outside power is intent on screwing with your populace I think the only way to really stop it is with diplomacy or a crackdown on free speech.
Authoritarianism has been starting to become normalized because China and Russia are increasingly able to mess with our society in the same way our leaders always messed with theirs.
True, true, so true. Actually when a large outside power is screwing with your populace you gotta crackdown on the whole constitution. Yep, that's the only solution i think, sign of the times, I guess!
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> Which used to be seen as "Ew, China has their own version? Crazy censorship"
It used to be marketed as that by "China evil" people. Western politicians have always seen this as an arms race. They claim infinite brutal censorship and suppression in China in order to claim that not having it here is a strategic disadvantage. Meanwhile, China's "social credit" is just like a US credit score, which in most countries is an illegal thing to do.
This is completely bipartisan, both US parties take turns shitting on their two greatest enemies: the Bill of Rights and (almost completely defeated at this point) antitrust law. Those are painted as China's advantages: that they don't have to respect anyone's rights and that their government directly runs companies. 1) Neither of those things are true, and 2) they just ignore that China manufactures things and invests in infrastructure (which US politicians as individuals have no idea how to do because they are lawyers and marketers), and pretend that everything can be reduced to gamified finance and propaganda tricks.
It's the "missile gap" again. The US pretended and marketed that Russia had an enormous amount of nuclear weapons in order to fool us into allowing US politicians to dedicate the economy to producing an enormous amount of nuclear weapons.
The result, the child of the Oracle guy owns half the media, and uses it for explicitly political purposes that align with the administration (whichever it may be.)
> This is completely bipartisan, both US parties take turns shitting on their two greatest enemies: the Bill of Rights
Ignoring the magnitude to draw a false equivalence is a great way to discredit your position. Neither party is perfect but only one of them is denying the full personhood of over half the population, having armed men threaten the public with lethal violence over constitutionally-protected activities, or saying that the executive should be able to direct private industries for profit. Debates about things like how much the government should ask private companies to enforce their terms of service are valid but it’s like arguing over a hangnail while you’re having a heart attack.
Police in all states systemically violate it. MAGA ramped it up to 11 though.
Most of the country is genuinely committed to the bill of rights. The Trump administration is determined to ignore every single amendment, but even a lot of the Republican party I don't really think wants this. People are genuinely worried about Chinese media control. But Trump obviously wants to control the media and censor things. I hope the right turns around. Assuming that everyone in politics is working in bad faith is how we become an authoritarian country like China. It is hard when the leadership is obviously working in bad faith and the entire Republican party deliberately chooses bad faith and lies over any reasonable alternatives.
> Most of the country is genuinely committed to the bill of rights.
I'd like to see evidence of that. A third of the country voted to burn the bill of rights, and another third voted they don't care but they'd be ok with it happening.