The “ethnocentric” in the title is coded language¹. It was triggered by a paper² I just stumbled over but is the product of by now over two decades of observation (and, to be fair, festering resentment).
I bring attention to a key phrase in the conclusion of this otherwise meandering and unclear paper:
Thus, we suggest that policymakers in China consider emphasizing more on the reciprocity benefits and build a collaborative effort across the scientific community.
What. A. Coincidence.
A study published in the (western) journal³ Humanities and Social Sciences Communications comes to the conclusion that the Chinese government needs to emphasize the benefits of open data sharing.
Yet the very same culture that preaches loudly “open data sharing” and other such nigh-utopian ideals, in a stunning example of “do what I say, not what I do” also practices the precise opposite. For example the Chinese are specifically barred from cooperation in space ventures⁴ with anything that NASA is affiliated with (which is, essentially, all space ventures and most such conferences).
This is not, however, just the USA and just China. Canada (my nation of citizenship), for example, routinely issues thundering condemnation of any nation that treats indigenous peoples badly (unless that nation is aligned with Canada, in which case Japan’s treatment of the Ainu and Taiwan’s treatment of their assorted indigenous groups gets passed over with an embarrassed cough) while it treats its own indigenous peoples in ways that are positively shocking even to this day, despite the facade of rapprochement. (Keep in mind that the last of Canada’s horrific residential schools was closed in 1997—I was 31 years old at the time!—and that in Canada being a native means you are not a “visible minority”, a term fraught with its own weird baggage.)
And you’ll find similar ethnocentric, hypocritical bullshit all over the west, even down to all the (well-deserved!) official condemnation of Hamas over the October 2023 attacks while standing by in embarrassed silence as Israel commits open genocide both in and out of Gaza starting well before October 2023 and continuing to this day.
So… My current view is that western powers are a large collection of hypocritical twats whose views can and should be safely ignored by other peoples of the world as far as is possible when so many (chiefly) American guns and bombs are pointed at them threateningly.
Change my view.
¹ Decoding it: “white supremacist”.
² https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-03570-9
³ Yes the primary authors are Chinese in Chinese universities. There are reasons for this.
⁴ The fact that this has backfired, both directly and indirectly, on the USA multiple times is a never-ending source of amusement to me.
1·16 days ago- As someone who runs an IT firm, I’m in agreement that all of those country-based firewall policies are bad EXCEPT in the case of actual defence of the internet (things like DDOS attacks, active hack attempts, etc.). Some of the businesses we manage have users that travel abroad, so I feel China is raised more as a concern because it’s the most… overreaching in what they block and is in the top 3 for executing the most cyberattacks worldwide (along with Russia and, since the war, Ukraine). In the case of the Chinese great firewall, not only is the content blocked, but it’s one of the the only places where you can also be flagged as a user for trying to access some pretty common data which has some ramifications I really don’t care for. It’s similar to rules in place for North Korea, but they have more talented SysAdmins and better equipment in China by a long shot, so getting around things is harder.
- I’d agree that SOME of the people are responsible for their elected officials in democracies - namely the ones who voted for that leader. I’d also agree that people are responsible for not having better options by allowing two-party systems to continue (though I’m not sure how to get rid of those parties at this stage). In that same vein, I’d also hold the people responsible in dictatorships as they haven’t overthrown the government that claims to speak for them. In some cases, leaders can not roll back policy implementation from a past leader due to the way the political system functions or due to treaties as I said. In the US, they kinda ARE Israel’s bitch because Israel is theirs. It’s the only safe US foothold in the area and keeps Iran in check and allows for a base of operations. An overwhelming majority of the weapons being shipped to Israel aren’t even in use against Palestine; they had all they needed to do the horrible shit they’re doing at the outset. The weapons are being used for other purposes, be those future conflicts, or to have a cache of weapons should the US need them for future issues. Is it a bad look? Sure. Is the US still going to try to exert control? Also sure. That’s how geopolitics works at present. We don’t have to like it, but everyone does it to some extent. It’s not good, but again, I don’t know how to remove it, and there are certainly worse systems.
- I totally agree that it may be heavy-handed. It also only applies to US government-funded agencies. At present, these new samples seem to be a carrot to help relax the restrictions, and it may work as researchers are quite unhappy with Wolf since the US isn’t funding missions like they once did. Who knows if they’ll relax restrictions, but ODS data shared with other countries is freely accessible to China through those other countries, so it hasn’t been much of an issue beyond the initial grandstanding. For example, if the US shares ODS data with Canada, and Canada gives data to China, the data shared is the same. China simply can’t make requests for non-shared data (again, like ballistic schematics) or be a full partner in US projects without FBI approval. How much does that matter? I legitimately don’t know. Samples have never been affected by Wolf, however, and have been shared freely upon request to my knowledge.