Ask yourself, who seems to be the destabilizing force if you take a step back and look at the state of things objectively?

There is some blame on all sides for sure, not saying it's black and white...but come on.

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johnsmith1840 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Almost all current world events as of now are directly tied to the fact that the west is in active freakout mode over china building a army large enough to attack the entire world. Iran and venuzuela are a direct response to it.

1. China is actively genociding an entire ethnic people.

2. They are actively building a military larger and faster than any country on earth in all of history.

3. They are actively threatening ALL of their neighbors with war. Actively attacking their ships and building military bases in other countries territory.

4. China's open stated goals are to conquer and control its neighbors and every single step over the last 10 years is proof of that.

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GlickWick 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the major destabilizing force is the country that has been building the infrastructure for a hot war over Taiwan for the last decade while simultaneously blatantly funding the conquest of Ukraine.

The US stupidly withdrawing from the world stage is definitely making this worse, of course, but it is not the catalyst. It's unfortunately a very likely side effect of a social media campaign by the same actor to make said hot war easier to win.

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henry2023 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Hey, we started another war and are funding the most destabilizing force in the world but look at this theoretical war …

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4wsn 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's literally on their border and the history is akin to if The South established its own nation state in Cuba after the Civil War and China became its ally.

At least admit the double standard. I don't mind realpolitik but it's so tedious when it's not plainly stated and there's this veneer of civility.

Yes, the US is allowed to do whatever it wants to in South America. No, other nation states don't have a sphere of geographic influence if the US doesn't want them to.

	▲	stickfigure 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Taiwan has been self governing for longer than almost everyone that lives there has been alive. It's also a vibrant democracy. If you care about democracy and human rights, it's morally reprehensible NOT to support Taiwan. We can debate the ethics of intervening in strongman dictatorships like Venezuela, Cuba, or Iran, but Taiwan is clear.

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p-e-w 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In the decade during which you claim China has been preparing for a hot war, the United States invaded multiple countries and waged hot wars on three continents.

It’s ridiculous to compare China to the US when it comes to warmongering. They’re not even in the same ballpark.

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GlickWick 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, the US is not an incredible actor, but China is funding the most brutal war in modern history (the invasion of Ukraine) in order to provide a smokescreen for their own invasion.

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tsimionescu 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The Ukraine war is large and terrible, but its nowhere near comparable in brutality to the genocide in Gaza, that the US is funding, providing weapons for, and protecting diplomatically.

	▲	Swoerd 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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duplessitous 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Despite withdrawing from our role on the world stage, we have in no way adapted isolationist like policies. We kidnapped the leader of another country, we are bombing Iran with impunity and will begin striking civilian infrastructure as a response to terrorist within that country, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/22/trum...

China didn't make us do this any more than they made us bomb civilian fishing boats in South America. We are a major destabilizing force at the moment, China existing does not somehow negate the actions we take of our own free will.

Refusing to acknowledge our role in destabilizing the globe at the moment is a level of infantilization that I, and many others, find unacceptable. We are all adults, China is responsible for their role and the US is responsible for its role. A social media campaign is not forcing the folks in Washington to drop bombs on Iranian civilian infrastructure, the jack asses in Washington did all of this on their own

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GlickWick 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Nobody is refusing to acknowledge our role in destabilizing things. This is a thread about why the US might be afraid of an also bad-actor rival funding a huge proxy war against it controlling major technology.

	▲	duplessitous 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I mean if you want to get back on the topic of this thread, it has nothing to do with what you just said. The thread started by discussing AI distillation and this was your initial comment, just to get us back on track > Our biggest geopolitical rival that's been threatening a hot war also distilling the things we build is not a good thing They didn't distill Fable, it is impossible on any timeline. So where do we go next, the start of this thread is a complete dead-end as it is asserting a falsehood This was the comment i responded to so we can get back on track to that comment if you'd like > I think the major destabilizing force is the country that has been building the infrastructure for a hot war over Taiwan for the last decade while simultaneously blatantly funding the conquest of Ukraine. We are refusing to aid Ukraine and actively antagonize their leader. We are kidnapping leaders from other countries. We are bombing civilian infrastructure. We are the major destabilizing force, not the one planning a hypothetical invasion

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JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> who seems to be the destabilizing force if you take a step back and look at the state of things objectively?

All of them. Pretending there is a benevolent bully among Russia, China and America is baseless.

This is probably the strongest moral argument for open-weight models. It decouples AI, somewhat, from military-industrial might.

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barbazoo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

This is proof the US propaganda is working. How much damage has China done recently militarily?

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JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> This is proof the US propaganda is working

This is a thought-terminating cliche. (The folks telling you to stop being sheeple are unusually consistently claimed independent thinkers.)

> How much damage has China done recently militarily?

Exempting the Iran war, which has no justification, as much as America. We’re both backing proxies. (Though we’ve had a while since we shot at or annexed our neighbours.)

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advael 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It seems pretty silly to answer a question about military intervention by insisting that the major instance of military intervention by a world power that's happened in the last year shouldn't be counted

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JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> by insisting that the major instance of military intervention by a world power that's happened in the last year shouldn't be counted

I’m not. I’m saying exempting that, we have an even field of conflict mongering. Counting Iran, the field is biased, but we have significant sampling-timing issues for something like “is there war.”

China has violently annexed sovereign countries in the past decades. Its threats to do the same again are at least as serious as Trump’s Greenland nonsense. There can be more than one baddie.

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nixon_why69 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Iraq war? Venezuela raid? Libya? Syria? Afghanistan for 20 years? And that's just some of the higher visibility cases.

If China had special forces deployed and conducting ops in random African countries it would be a massive aggression. When we do it, it doesn't even make the headlines.

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JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> If China had special forces deployed and conducting ops in random African countries it would be a massive aggression

It’s literally doing this across its maritime and mountain boundaries! It does cause outrage, albeit less so in mass media.

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barbazoo an hour ago | parent [-]

What's a good example you would say?

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nixon_why69 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think they're referring to occasional fist fights between the Indian and Chinese deployments at the top of the Himalayas where there's a dumb territorial dispute. There were a couple of times decades ago where the forces shot at each other and the governments had to scramble to calm things down and deescalate, so somehow they've reached this gentleman's agreement to have fistfights instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute

We're talking about this kind of thing balancing out, say, Fallujah or shock and awe over Baghdad.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

> We're talking about this kind of thing balancing out, say, Fallujah or shock and awe over Baghdad

Nonsense. For that comparison you’d look to the invasion and annexation of Tibet. (And it’s not ancient history if it’s currently endorsed and un-apologized for.)

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nixon_why69 an hour ago | parent [-]

Ok, then we expand the US horizon back to the 50s as well. We've added Tibet, and the 1979 3 week Vietnam war to the Chinese column, plus them being involved in the Korean war and to a lesser degree the American Vietnam War. This comes with way, way more added to the American column. At least it's no longer a shutout.

Any fair look at both countries' records puts the US as doing 10-100x more military intervention, on a global rather than regional scale. It is actually a little bit "sheeple" to look at that scoreboard and start calling China aggressive. They're less aggressive than every other UNSC member without even going to a pound for pound basis.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

> Any fair look at both countries' records puts the US as doing 10-100x more military intervention

Sure. I never claimed otherwise. I’m saying it would be news to anyone in Asia-Pacific (or Eastern Europe) that America is or has been the destabilizing force. That was the original claim.

If the choice is 10x or 1x, go with the latter. But that is a false dichotomy. You can be anti-invasion and annexation broadly. There is no moral high ground in choosing Chinese models; no more than a person in China choosing Anthropic or OpenAI.

	▲	nixon_why69 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The Philippines definitely have a right to be aggrieved over the south china sea stuff, but one bias I'm cautious of is "the natural norm is American hegemony in every region, so any change from this is destabilizing". Other countries have their natural interests as well.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I’d say the South China Sea island building in violation of UNCLOS text and judgement comes pretty close to American CIA-style fuckery in South America and Africa.

To be clear, American fuckery is broader. But if we agree we’re discussing magnitudes and not kind, we agree on all I’m arguing.

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FpUser an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

>"China has violently annexed sovereign countries in the past decades."

An outright lie. The only possible candidate is Tibet but it's former sovereignty is very questionable and not clear cut

	▲	JumpCrisscross an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> it's former sovereignty is very questionable and not clear cut Same as Taliban-run Afghanistan, same as Iraq, same as Ukraine, same as Taiwan. If you’re Tibetan, the line is academic—you faced, by modern definitions, genocide all the same. Calling the territory you’re invading and/or annexing illegitimately independent, illegitimately governed is how these always go.