Yup, better to dodge a bullet on the first date than to catch it when you’re emotionally invested.

Yeah, OP dodged a bullet here.

Source?

The problem with the Uyghurs in China is less about deaths and more about cultural genocide. They’ve been rounded up and jailed en-masse (estimates are upwards of a million people), threatened, surveilled, etc, all to force them to submit and abandon their cultural heritage. It’s pretty similar in scope to the Japanese Internment in the US, but much larger in scope and with a much more nefarious goal.

I obviously don’t have hard figures on the actual death toll (not sure anyone does, as China doesn’t seem interested in disclosing it), but again, regardless of whether it’s higher or lower than whatever you’ll attribute to the US, the worst part here is forced cultural assimilation, or in other words, psychological violence (i.e. punishing “wrong thing”).

The US has very little reason to target Palestinians, and most of the violence from Palestinian groups have targeted Israelis. The US is far more concerned about other groups in the region, like ISIS, the Taliban, and the Houthis. The main reason the US seems to care is because they successfully carried out an attack on our ally.

vassal state

The US has repeatedly told Israel to scale back their operations in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid in, yet they completely ignore it. There’s absolutely no way Israel is anywhere close to a “vassal state,” they do pretty much whatever they want.

But yeah, Israel is certainly emboldened by having such a powerful ally. That doesn’t make the US responsible for Israeli actions though.

I’m guessing you’re talking about the first point, so I looked into it and it seems China only owns a “golden share” (1%?), which doesn’t seem big enough to really cause problems. That said, I don’t know much about Chinese business, so maybe there’s still something there. But that’s just speculation, not evidence.

That said, that doesn’t change my opinion of it being terrible, because the last two points still stand. They also apply to domestic social media apps as well.

I’ll repeat it again, I don’t think it should be banned, but I also don’t think anyone should use it.

That seems like a bit of a stretch since it’s US based company. I guess some of its investors could be based in China though.

I feel the same about my Steam Deck. I love handheld gaming.

I think the root is that change is scary and hard. As a dev, I feel that too, but I also think people are overreacting a bit.

Just like how COBOL still exists, traditional software jobs will continue to exist, it’ll just be harder and harder to find those roles as companies find more and more use cases for AI. But it’ll also take several years for companies to get on board. So I’m not too worried, though I can’t recommend my field to college students unless they’re really interested, because it could be a bumpy ride.

True, and many people have lost jobs because something else automated it away, like toll booth workers, grocery clerks, and telephone switchers, and computers (i.e. people who would compute things by hand).

Jobs disappearing because technology advances is natural. It sucks for those impacted, but it’s natural, and IMO it’s only a problem of new jobs aren’t created fast enough, or whole industries disappear. Fighting to keep jobs in spite of automation runs the risk of having an entire industry disappear, such as if dock workers win the fight to prevent automation on the docks, they’ll just all lose their jobs at the same time once automation can replace them all at once.

The better plan is to adjust and adapt as technology changes. If you’re entering CS or a recent grad, make sure you understand concepts and focus less on syntax. If you’re a mid level, learn to incorporate AI into your workflow to improve productivity. If you’re a senior, work toward becoming an architect and understand how to mitigate risks with poor quality code.

Fighting AI will at best delay things.

Yeah, I agree that’s the more likely scenario. People seem to worry way too much about AI, when it’s really only going to replace junior devs, and only for short-sighted companies.

I meant the user on TikTok, I used “you” in a general sense. I apologize that wasn’t clear.

And after a quick review of the links you posted (<5 min), it looks like he’s more a software design and ethics enthusiast than a privacy advocate. The fact that he has no privacy-friendly platforms on their website and the only ones listed are perhaps the worst for personal privacy (LinkedIn and TikTok) makes me more confident that my assessment is correct.

It’s certainly not conclusive though, since other privacy advocates also tend to have accounts at those places (e.g. Naomi Brockwell has IG and Twitter (hasn’t updated to X lol) in addition to TikTok, LinkedIn, and YT, but she also has Odyssey, which is a step in the right direction. She’s looking for maximum reach, and her content is almost exclusively about privacy. I would prefer that she also have PeerTube, Matrix, etc, but she’s targeting a specific demographic here.

So yeah, idk, but it definitely seems that privacy isn’t nearly as important to him as software ethics, and those are very different (though related) things.

hallow

Odd, because I didn’t get it blessed by a priest. :)

Seriously though, there’s a pretty big difference between doing the genocide yourself and supplying weapons to an ally, who uses those weapons for genocide.

Where do I begin:

1. China has more-or-less direct control over the app, and China is an enemy of the US
2. extensive tracking
3. it’s designed specifically to be addictive instead of beneficial

Other SM apps do 2 and 3, but that doesn’t mean TikTok is okay, it means those other apps are also terrible.

Recent, extensive, and active. The US doesn’t have a direct part in Gaza, China has a direct part in the issues w/ the Uyghurs.

I’m not saying the US is innocent here, just that they’re very different situations.

More like they just learned about politics from some very biased sources.

Or better yet, contribute to something that opposes mainstream social media. If you have development skills, help build something viable. If you don’t, encourage others to use something viable.

That’s not a point in either’s favor. That’s a moral wash.

Ok, you’re either trolling or been fed a lot of misinformation. The problem is about recency and extensiveness, and China is worse on both.

Not clicking that link, but the mere fact of having an account there means you don’t care about your privacy IMO.

You just need to be careful of which part of gov you give the finger to, and where you are when you give it.

Snowden did it the right way, he gave the middle finger on foreign soil and made it to an enemy of the state’s soil before the gov caught up.

It goes both ways, users are giving the middle finger to the US gov, the US gov is giving the middle finger to the Chinese gov. Lots of middle fingers flying around.