I know you’re pissed at me but that was kinda weak. I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable about saying our society is fucked up but a very different style of fucked up vs china.
Especially considering that china sorta looked at the most fucked up parts of the credit score system and deliberately said “I want that, but more invasive and with the government running it” something like half a century later.
From what I’ve seen Dogbert is really obsessed with the Chinese state to the point of ignoring the fundamental structural issues it has. Is the Chinese state better for the average citizen than the US, probably in a lot of metrics, but as everywhere it is heavily dependent on who you are and where you live.
I’ve done some reflashing of cellular modems and the best place for open source modem firmware I found was some Chinese language hacker communities and they didn’t seem jazzed about the hoops they had to jump through to get to the clear net just to collaborate with the rest of the world. When information is restricted to that extent it is symptomatic of an extremely adversarial relationship between the government and its citizens.
What authoritarians of any stripe don’t realize that by abdicating their autonomy to any state, no matter the color of the flag or what ideology it espouses, ends in one way repression and death. If there is an out group there is a high likely hood that even a true believer will find themselves in it at some point. There is a tendency for authoritarian structures like states and corps to justify their existence through a progress at any cost mentality. This is true for western capitalism as well as Soviet and Chinese implementations of socialism. Any cost may be Lake Karachay’s ecosystem or the cultural extinction and enslavement of native people who live on land rich in rare earth minerals, it also means any citizen who becomes inconvenient to the state.
I know you’re pissed at me but that was kinda weak. I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable about saying our society is fucked up but a very different style of fucked up vs china.
Especially considering that china sorta looked at the most fucked up parts of the credit score system and deliberately said “I want that, but more invasive and with the government running it” something like half a century later.
From what I’ve seen Dogbert is really obsessed with the Chinese state to the point of ignoring the fundamental structural issues it has. Is the Chinese state better for the average citizen than the US, probably in a lot of metrics, but as everywhere it is heavily dependent on who you are and where you live.
I’ve done some reflashing of cellular modems and the best place for open source modem firmware I found was some Chinese language hacker communities and they didn’t seem jazzed about the hoops they had to jump through to get to the clear net just to collaborate with the rest of the world. When information is restricted to that extent it is symptomatic of an extremely adversarial relationship between the government and its citizens.
What authoritarians of any stripe don’t realize that by abdicating their autonomy to any state, no matter the color of the flag or what ideology it espouses, ends in one way repression and death. If there is an out group there is a high likely hood that even a true believer will find themselves in it at some point. There is a tendency for authoritarian structures like states and corps to justify their existence through a progress at any cost mentality. This is true for western capitalism as well as Soviet and Chinese implementations of socialism. Any cost may be Lake Karachay’s ecosystem or the cultural extinction and enslavement of native people who live on land rich in rare earth minerals, it also means any citizen who becomes inconvenient to the state.
excellent write up! summarizes exactly how i feel and the issues i’ve had around here lately