My guess is that local (Chinese) companies have gotten good enough that China feels that with a bit of a boost they can do all that is needed, so they don't need the US companies anymore.

I don't have any evidence, so I could well be wrong, but nobody else has been presenting much in the way of evidence either. And this lets them cut off imports from the US in a way palatable to the world community. (Even if they aren't believed, it's a damn good excuse.)

But I'm not living in China. I'm living in the US. So I'll blame the NSA (which is breaking the law, by the way) rather than China (which probably isn't breaking their laws).

Mind you, it's not that they're breaking the law that I mind, it's that they're snooping on me, but if the laws were actually enforced against the powerful I'd have much less objection. Since they aren't, I don't consider them binding on anyone. You obey the law, when it is unjust, only to avoid danger of punishment, but given the current government, that's no guarantee you won't be punished anyway.

It's even simpler than that. Usually the computers are already running, and you don't need to tell anyone what you are searching for. and the next user will cover your browsing history just like you covered the history of the prior user. And there's no sign-up log. (The librarians are too busy to bother with such things.)

The only problem is you need to use a computer with MSWind installed. And usually an old browser.

Is the US the only place where this happened? (OK, so *this* case is in the US, that doesn't mean there won't be others.)

Yeah, but most people would use "password" as their password.

It's betrayal alright, but it doesn't fit the definition of treason. It does fit "malfeasance in office", and several other crimes. A million consecutive sentences for malfeasance should be sufficient punishment. Unfortunately, I see no chance of that happening.

Yeah, but voting for another party doesn't do any good either. I've done that rather consistently for decades, though altering which other party occasionally. And most people don't like to vote for someone who doesn't have a chance. (Besides, generally the people who will run for election without any chance of winning aren't any better than the incumbents, though their defects are different...and that's assuming that they're telling the truth.)

How do you propose that they hold the politicians responsible, when both parties that have a measurable chance of being elected support the same policies?

Sounds like the right advice for most kids. Doesn't sound like it would protect against scammers. ... Possibly a refillable credit card? That could let them learn with limited repercussions.

OTOH, some children are "less able". I don't know how one can protect them. I have an autistic neice, and while I don't approve of the way she is being raised, I have to admit that I wouldn't know how to deal with the situation. (But Pavlov proved that the way being used is wrong. You don't positively reinforce temper tantrums.)

If judges are only going to behave as mindless automatons, they should be replaced by cheaper ones that don't take time off and work 24/7.

If this were a single data point, I would agree with you. Unfortunately, it's merely the most recent.

That's clearly not true. We could certainly be ahead of them at, say, DNA manipulation. They may not even use DNA, but even if they do it's not guaranteed that they would have advanced in that direction. (I don't see any need to master DNA editing to build, e.g., a space elevator.)

OTOH, they'd need to have mastered most of what we have developed. They'd need a recirculating air environment, e.g. And they would probably need to have mastered maintaining a closed eco-system far beyond our abilities.

Well, fungi are often infectious across species boundaries. They do, however, tend to start off as external parasites.

I understand why you choose to be anonymous.

You misunderstand Game Theory. Game Theory is, AFAICT, always correct. Unfortunately it's usually too difficult to calculate outside of simplified toy examples. Which is why it's used in capitalist economics, and artificially over-simplified description of how people interact. When Game Theory makes a prediction about what action will happen in capitalist economics, it's not a prescription. It merely says that if this doesn't happen, then the model you are using isn't a correct description of reality. It doesn't say it *should* be a description of reality. Unfortunately, some people, often for selfish reasons, take it as a prescription, often because taking it that way is to their benefit.