Emotions are a useful learning signal, that abstracts a range of sense experiences into a coherent or gestalt impression, so this is not surprising. But it's nice to see people care about insects, or at least provide a basis for doing so.
This synthesis, the emotional synthesis of experience, then aids decisions. And is a key component probably of the biological OODA learning loop.
Emotions may be necessary for AGI. Or at least help us get there.
So if it is true that this is economics not security, what was offered or threatened to coordinate action across all the countries sending Huawei away?
Mass population is moved by fear, but is that how concordance is manufactured across the executives of a set of countries: a few terrifying top-secret presentations, and IC has successfully reputation-assassinated a foreign company? Why would these countries agree if there was no breach and a cheaper price? What offer or threat besides a more expensive but more secure infra? I suppose if you view telcoinfra as defense assets then it's a no-brainer, but was this the calculus? Blackmail/Mafioso-tactics would be a good one, maybe: You have to buy from us, or we will reveal/do such-and-such horrible thing.
But if it's true this is economic, not security, and also that Huawei has superior value for money, then is it not just these countries accelerating their already decaying infrastructure, for the sake of pride?
"The phones are down." "Yeah, whaddayagonnado? At least we're not paying the Chinese to make them work."
Replace phones with other critical things China makes better for a better price, and the future of these countries may look like the past of the former-Soviet ones: a whole bunch of weird anachronistic tech resulting from an (in this case self-imposed) embargo. But at least it will be 100% built by subjects of approved countries. I suppose that is one strategy to fight back against the dominance of Chinese industry: just outlaw it.
The hilarious thing is, probably all these "approved suppliers" will have to purchase significant inventory from what is essentially Huawei's supply chain anyway. Seems much more like the tail wagging the dog, with corporate dishonesty dictating so-called natsec policy. Could it really be so twisted?
Limited hangout disinformation whistleblower from FB counterintelligence would be a great way to weaponize the current "FB hatred" of the mass public to control the narrative to fit FB agenda. Would such a tactic be beyond their capacity or morality to achieve?
Just a sign that the Compliance people own too much of the org. It's just the overinflated self-important (just a factual description, easy mods, here be no flames, this flaw is peculiar to the profession, almost occupational requirement) compliance person ego, they love to lock everything down and scream if they don't get their way, they feel they need to falsely portray themselves as the last bastion between order and chaos/success and jail/life and death. They love secrecy, the illusion of immutable process, and opaque irrevocable decisions.
The "support" failure is actually just a symptom of a "compliance cancer". Almost a cost of doing business in the financial sector since 9/11.
Lots of money? If you can short cut mining, it's cleaner black money than dealing drugs or people, probably. And if you can steal from someone else's address, maybe that's even better... You can seize funds with no red tape. Or mete out that capability to allies etc. Why wouldn't the NSA want to support a parallel financial system that criminals flock to? Just like why wouldn't the NSA want to covertly support encrypted messaging apps or the FBI do that...
> many failures which have then backfired on the US
Sure they have mistakes, like the failures in this article and many others, but to claim they are in general harmful to US interests...I think it probably just appears that way.
Because I think they probably serve the capitalist and mercantilist interests of the US, which probably differ in appearance from the more symbolic or mythological appearances of what the US is. So on the outside, the idea of patriotism is quite sentimental, perhaps on the inside it's all about capital and mercantile power.
So things which seem to violate the more sentimental and mythological idea of the US and patriotism, perhaps are actually wins from a mercantile or capitalist perspective....or maybe they are just failing on that mission as well I don't know.
What if EcoHealth (originally Wildlife Preservation Trust International) was infiltrated by eco-terrorists who did the reasearch anyway then released a depopulation virus to punish humans and 'restore balance' to the ecosystem, in a sicko 'Army of the 12 Monkeys'-style act of terrorism? But either they weren't that successful (only 5 million deaths is not depopulation) or their goal was lockdowns and reduced air travel to give the environment a breather.