HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Yeah, I don't doubt it. It could very well have been edited to look like that, either for views or sensationalism. Here is the video if you want to see: https://youtu.be/CLo3e1Pak-Y

While I don't condone President Trump's behavior and his approach towards China, and with US losing its place in the world; I find it equally amusing that we in democratic society are willing to kowtow to an authoritarian regime, despite of its overwhelming [1] state of surveillance, Han-supremacy motifs and funding it with more asymmetrical trade policies. Democracy is eroding in front of our eyes and no one seems to care. Hey, at least we can even protest in the west (while getting tear gassed, but not tanks and bullets causing a massacre like 1989).

"Take that, America!!!" seems to get people entertained. Not defending America, there are plenty of Americans wanting to say "Take that, China!!!".

EU folks are bashing US, US folks are speechless at what their nation is going through, India and China are at arms, Australia has Chinese infestation, Japan is the most Sinophobic country in the world, Taiwan is nervous, Hong Kong is decimated, Eastern EU is going authoritarian, UK is spiraling into isolation, etc.

This is not going to be fun to watch.

[1] Vice, How China Tracks Everyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y

⬐ fatjokes

> willing to kowtow to an authoritarian regime

It's not about kowtowing. It's about sticking to principles of free trade and the rule of law. It use to be the good guys vs. the bad guys, now it's the bad guys vs. the at-least-we're-not-that-bad guys. What is the point if we show that, if push comes to shove, we're willing to be just as authoritarian?

⬐ menybuvico

We're mostly willing to keep enjoying the fruits of Chinese labour because the lifestyle that has emerged in most Western Countries the last 20-25 years depend on the availability of cheaply manufactured goods. Outsourcing of production, import, distribution and selling of those goods is still cheaper than producing them locally, and this allowed a small number of people to skim money off the top and get quite rich, while consumers still get more for their money compared to the old ways.

We would be able to cut China off if we wanted to, but prices on electronics, clothing, and many other goods would soar, and I suspect it would piss the younger generations off even more, possibly increasing the risk of civil unrest. In the West, Generations X and XY still remember what life was like before the availability of goods reached current levels, but I can't imagine that the younger generations even realise what it would mean to go back.

Besides, you'd probably have to get rid of the post-war generations first in order to get them to agree to it.

Thus, we'll just have to grab some popcorn, watch the show and keep trying to put out the fires, hoping the entire house doesn't burn down. As you say, it's not going to be fun.

⬐ fermienrico

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

This is far better than having facial recognition data in the hands of CCP. I am not a fan of US gov, but if I had the choice, I wouldn't side with CCP. The genie is already out and we've failed to put laws in place to stop all this data collection way back in 2004. Surprisingly, I feel comfortable with Microsoft having this data. What a world we've created.

For those who are skeptical, just watch the Vice doc on how China tracks people, it's on a whole another level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y

⬐ yorwba

Anyone who wants TikTok's facial recognition data can just scrape their videos and process them with their own models. If ByteDance can afford the storage and bandwidth, so can any interested surveillance agency.

⬐ ogre_codes

I'm just against it getting gobbled up by one of the existing internet giants. Getting it out of China is fine by me.

For those who are unaware, India banned Tiktok recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/world/asia/tik-tok-banned...

I support this move - in addition to censorship, there are serious consequences of collecting facial features en-masse with no checks/balances, especially by the CCP who probably already has a massive database of non-Chinese nationals. This also applies to any company (Facebook/Apple/etc) but I am significantly more concerned about CCP having this data than any other government in the world.

People who are about to present with a counter US whataboutism, they need to first watch the Vice clip on how China tracks people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y

I believe that Palantir is behind China in surveillence software (especially gathering data about people from public cameras, but of course using GPS data is much easier.

Of course the funniest thing is that the name of the surveillence software is SkyNet, because the CEO of the company loves Terminator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y

I would even say - the general public needs to boycott Zoom and shift to something else that's open. Large scale (never this large in the history of mankind) data collection of facial features across the globe along with other meta data such as name and email address, perhaps a phone number - this is unprecedented amount of data that any government agency would kill to have. Just in a couple of months, the world has given up privacy in a snap. I would say the same thing about Facebook.

Look at what we've created: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y