alt Hacker NewsI always feel amused at these takes from north american citizens.
From a latin american POV, it is same-ish as USA manufacturers, they're also tracking everything we do to sell us more unneeded stuff.
The difference is that chinese government is just trying to sell stuff, while USA government is trying to convert all the southern continent into a colony to impose governments and suck up minerals in the meantime. If you ask me if I trust more China or USA, at least China's intentions are clear and direct.
Of course, you people will always have the argument of "national interest" which for us (at least tech-literate people) that's no argument, but still you will find some bootlickers in the mobs.
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>chinese government is just trying to sell stuff, while USA government is trying to convert all the southern continent into a colony to impose governments and suck up minerals in the meantime.
Are you sure the Chinese government is choosing not to pursue these $evil_intentions[] you ascribe to the US, or are they simply yet unable to?
The problem with whataboutism is the same as it always has been, which is that the critique skips the step of checking whether the person who is concerned about Chinese privacy compromises hinges that position on the innocence of Western companies.
That part is assumed, and the whole argument unravels once its established that the assumption doesn't hold. And then either the tankies show up, or everyone forgets about it until the next thread where the process plays out again.
You’re not wrong about the US but let’s not pretend China is just “trying to sell stuff”. They’ve got their own genocide going on with the Uyghurs and are famous for espionage
> The difference is that chinese government is just trying to sell stuff, while USA government is trying to convert all the southern continent into a colony to impose governments and suck up minerals in the meantime.
Fascinating. The propaganda I've been fed is that China is the one hoovering up all the minerals so that they have control over the global supply chain for eg cobalt.