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- American Tech Workers Need to Choose Between Helping Our Military vs. Enabling China’s Dystopia
American Tech Workers Need to Choose Between Helping Our Military vs. Enabling China’s Dystopia
I’ve been watching a slow-motion trainwreck within the young tech community.
There are also many protests related to equality in the workplace, but that’s a separate topic.
A significant number of young, woke tech workers have decided to start opposing the big corporations they work for based on moral grounds. There was the Google worker opposition to the Maven project, there have been numerous pushbacks against Amazon regarding facial recognition, and there are lots of other examples.
These are actually good things. Usually.
It’s heartening to know that our young people have a healthy moral immune system. And it’s good that big tech is being challenged to some degree by those that work for them. This is all healthy.
The problem is when protesters don’t understand the repercussions of their protests, or the alternatives that their success could make a reality.
We all know the dangers of big tech going Full Capitalist with weapon technology. And we can extend that to Surveillance Technology. Those are bad things, and like I said—it’s good that we are aware enough to oppose that.
The problem is that we’re not the only country in the world. If we were, I’d be protesting right along with everyone else. But China and Russia are also on the board with us, and they’re not listening to their woke constituents. They don’t even have any, becasue they put them in prison.
China, in particular, is a problem.
China is doing multiple things simultaneously that constitute a threat to the world as a whole.
They’re acquiring AI technology as quickly as possible to make them the leaders in weapons and surveillance. Source
They’re flagrantly stealing the world’s technology and research from wherever they can, and not just in the US. Source
They’re actively (and proudly) building a surveillance state tied to a population control mechanism, commonly referred to as their Social Credit system. Source
They’re building a comprehensive and strategic database of compromised systems and people in the US, for use in future conflicts. Source
They’re actively influencing the entire world, using both propaganda and direct political force, to legitimize and solidify their plan worldwide. Source
They’re basically colonizing Africa. Source
In short, China is becoming hyper-aggressive. And they’re playing an extremely long strategic game to build, buy, and steal whatever they need to win dominance in the world. That part seems clear from watching the situation closely for the last couple of decades, and reading a number of books on the country.
But I’m not a China expert, and the experts disagree on what their longterm goal is. Some say they just want to control the world so that they’re no longer at the whims of external forces. Which is understandable. We do have to remember that what they went through with Mao, and in WWII, was extraordinarily traumatic. And trauma can produce extremely driven people. People prone to overreact.
So I’m not coming from an anti-China perspective. They have a plan and they’re carrying it out. Anyone would do the same in their exact position.
The issue is that they’re playing extremely dirty in doing so. And the society they’re building within their country—and now basically trying to export out to the rest of the world—is not a society that anyone in the West wants.
Least of all the woke people protesting American tech companies that help the government. As a few examples, ask someone from mainland China how things are regarding:
The treatment of women compared to men
The treatment of Black people
The treatment of non-Chinese or non-White people in general
Their approach to freedom of speech
Their approach to privacy
It’s a complete dystopia.
But not like ours. The US is plenty messed up—as we all know.
The difference is that the US is messed up, and stupid, and disorganized, with tons of different groups pulling in different directions.
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But in China they don’t have a dystopia on accident. It’s engineered. It’s on purpose. It’s precisely what the government wants, and precisely what they’re building.
They’re proud of it. That’s the difference.
So, what we have is a rising superpower basically trying to build the world’s worst government, and the world’s worst society, in broad daylight. And based on their recent pushes into Africa, their attempts to use economic power to slience people around the world (including in Western countries) who speak poorly of the Chinese government—it’s all a very clear indicator of the world they’re trying to create.
The more influence they get around the world, the more of the effects of their government we’ll see there as well. Today they’re telling Sweden that they can’t can’t give a Chinese journalist an award. What will they do when they have real influence?
Then you have our government people. Our military people. People in DC. Older people in tech, like Jeff Bezos—who are saying that tech needs to help our goverment compete in the world.
Sure, you can assume that he’s just trying to make money, because he’s the anti-Christ. But maybe—just maybe—he already has enough money. And maybe—just maybe—he’s onto something.
Maybe the choice isn’t between our tech companies doing gross stuff vs. them not doing it.
Maybe it’s a choice between our tech companies helping our government do gross stuff, vs. China coming in and doing something far worse.
That’s a possibility that We of The Woke need to consider when we protest.