Well I just pointed out that just because they haven't started any new wars, and obviously they haven't been in a position to start anything new in recent memory doesn't mean they can't or won't, and we also shouldn't excuse their belligerence toward their neighbors in the South China Sea. Nobody is forcing them to ram their boats into Filipino fishing vessels, for example.
> The US has killed 100,000-250,000 in that time period. There is no amount of rationalization that can reverse the deaths of those people or the cities turned to rubble.
Well if you want to play this kind of numbers game China in the last 100 years has killed tens of millions so really they're the bad guys. You just have a recency bias.
But to engage with your point in a different way, China also has not been a factor on the world stage until recently (I mean over the last couple of hundred years or so) and they, like other nations, rely on the United States to maintain peace and order to the extent the US is able to. In other words, stop criticizing the man in the arena.
> Same thing with literally kidnapping the president of another country.
Well he's a criminal, drug trafficker, and his actions and the actions of his predecessor resulted in 1/3rd of Venezuelans fleeing the country, a drastic reduction in economic growth, and more. Also just because you're the president of some country doesn't mean you get immunity. Otherwise, nobody can go arrest Vladimir Putin can they?
Second - the world doesn't exist in isolation. Just because some country isn't outright attacking you doesn't mean their policies can't cause you to take your own actions and at the end of the day, countries get to decide what they want to do because they are sovereign and then they live with the repercussions. Venezuelans aren't exactly upset about us removing their commie dictator guy either.
> I can tell you the prevalence of sports gambling and betting is exploding in Canada
Ok? Go ban the platforms. What does this have to do with anything?
> in that scenario, it's really just saying "yes we suck, but they suck more!" and that doesn't solve anything..
Ok stop criticizing the United States and just say we suck all the time. It doesn't solve anything. Frankly the only real reason my post had anything to do with China is because they're the only other country that currently matters in the AI race - and I specifically have a problem with folks and their arguments about who is "doing better" or "winning" that race. I was criticizing the strategy and criticism of that strategy which seems to only apply to the United States when in fact it does not. In other words they can release open weight models and so can we. They can take the lead and we can just release open weight models like they supposedly do to us.