If you can't stop China from spying on you, how is "spying back" any more justified than ANY OTHER reaction? After all, it does not change anything.
What could change something, if one were to actually think freely, would be to have no secrets. Then suddenly what was stealing, is now just someone wasting their own time. BOOM. But of course, you can't have slavery and sitting fat on doing nothing without secrets, so that's not within the framework of allowed options.
I'd be very surprised if any government could survive without holding secrets. Lets take something innocuous--medical records. Surely you'd have to keep those secret. And surely a foreign power would want to access those secrets as well, for blackmail if nothing else.
But even if a government tried holding no secrets, it would be at an information disadvantage compared to more secretive rivals. For instance, most people are unsatisfied with the notion of abandoning their own privacy (which is a personal form of holding secrets) as a defense against government invasions of privacy, yet this is the same solution you propose that governments attempt against rival governments.
But even if a government tried holding no secrets, it would be at an information disadvantage compared to more secretive rivals. For instance, most people are unsatisfied with the notion of abandoning their own privacy (which is a personal form of holding secrets) as a defense against government invasions of privacy, yet this is the same solution you propose that governments attempt against rival governments.
There is a huge difference between organizations and people, I never proposed such a thing when it comes to people vs. nations.
As long as we live in a world where scarcity exists, we will compete for resources, or compete to provide them.
Spying on each other is a natural consequence of needing to have an edge on the competition. Therefore, it's actually harder to justify not doing so if you know that your competition, say China, will do so with little compunction.
Whilst we're waiting for this sunny amazing utopia with no walls, no ownership and no scarcity of commodities to happen, espionage and similar behaviours will continue.
As long as we live in a world where scarcity exists, we will compete for resources, or compete to provide them.
When it comes to ideas however, scarcity is artificial.
When it comes to the physical scarcity, we are awaiting the heat death of the universe (= competition doesn't lead anyone anywhere, except into a giant joke that's on them), whilst sitting next to a ball of gas which blasts more energy than we could even imagine into space ( = competing over the scraps falling from that table while polluting our planet is also a game only idiots can play with sincerity).
Spying on each other is a natural consequence of needing to have an edge on the competition.
What need to have an edge? What competition, what danger is man facing, but man? Peaceful progress may be slower than constant war, but so what? What good is progress that just amounts to the "need" for even more bullshit? This expedition isn't going anywhere.
So what are you willing to give up to see this peaceful progress?
You're on hacker news, so quite possibly work in the tech industry. Would you give up everything you knew, if it could be shown that technology by its nature encourages the kind of behaviour which feeds back into itself until we're screaming down the road into the future at breakneck speed, needing more and more to sate our desire for progress?
Are you prepared to give up the mass production line?
Are you prepared to give up cheap disposable items which make us devalue our commodities?
Are you prepared to have children by quota, so that we can control the ever increasing size of the human race and don't have to cut ever thinner the quotients of natural resources available to each?
You have something I want. It's my nature, I'm inclined to covet. I can either take it by force, by tact or by stealth. Unless you can change my intrinsic nature (me being any given human, anywhere), you cannot solve the issue of scarcity.
Only a few ideas put food in bellies, fire in the fireplace and water in the bath. This is a consequence of ideas being somewhat tortuously tied to meatspace, where the more prosaic rules. Nobility is a fine thing, but a poor provider.
I will always compete with you, because you are not me. Whether you're an individual or nation state, we are in competition. Either play and win, perhaps draw, or don't and be subsumed.
People are the way that they are. It doesn't mean they cannot be more. The constraints of physical scarcity make us less (good/kind/moral) than we otherwise might be.
My statement was a simple description of the behaviour of individuals and states, and how each acts as their own agent. Some are more kind and selfless, and will go with less so that those around them can be lifted up, many others aren't so thoughtful. What do we do when an overwhelming majority of people and nations act primarily in their own interests first, even to the overwhelming detriment of those around them?
That you'd rather retreat into invective rather than critique my statements is telling. That you decided to Darwin the exchange is just a bit sad. Certainly what I am saying is somewhat bleak, I am a pessimist, but whilst bleak I do not think it an unrealistic portrayal of human behaviour. If it is, then perhaps I am too easily given over to misanthropy.
There are those wonderful moments where we rise above self interest and insensibility, I love it when that happens. I whole-heartily encourage people to pursue these outcomes, but the reason that states spy on each other is a realistic expectation that you cannot expect others to behave in a way that will not be detrimental to you, or your peoples interests.
It should also be noted that spying is not a natural by-product of war, but perhaps a better alternative. Tact and guile over brute force is preferable, honesty and jolly co-operation is of course best.
ps. You haven't said what you're prepared to give up so that we can curtail the rate of progress to a more sensible pace, and therefore not to pursue our interests so aggressively.
It builds a second tower of poop on it, to reach the first tower of poop. Then the first tower of poop also increases in height, and that cycle never ends. At which point does a "level playing field" come in? Oh, that's right, not ever.
What could change something, if one were to actually think freely, would be to have no secrets. Then suddenly what was stealing, is now just someone wasting their own time. BOOM. But of course, you can't have slavery and sitting fat on doing nothing without secrets, so that's not within the framework of allowed options.