I wasn't expecting such a long answer, but thank you for it because it is a rather unique point of view in my filter bubble.

First, yes the difference between survey tools and communication tools is always confusing for me in the privacy debate. But ultimately, they are deeply linked [2] with many cases that fall in between. In particular, the surveillance of communication tools is incredibly pervasive.

> double so when I'm a guest

Yes, when I was in China, I was more careful to approach discussions with an open mind and cautiousness for the legal repercussions. However, I'm not talking about being a guest, I'm talking about either being a citizen or an outsider. In both cases I think it's very important to think critically and express the potentially resulting criticism. (More below)

> So you're judging WeChat but what gives you the right?

Certainly not the CCP, lol. But seriously, more than WeChat/Tencent, which is just another interesting tech company, I'm judging the state control over it. And more than judging (but which I'm also doing), I'm formulating criticism based on observations of harm to people (I consider it evident that shutting up would be immoral) and (but this is our main point of disagreement) mind control by the state.

> Assange, Snowden, went too far.

It seems your threshold might be the word of law, but in that case they exposed illicit state actions. In any case, they did go far. To say they were co-opted is only partly true if not outright false: thanks to them, a significant portion of the population is defending itself and pushing for more scrutiny and changes.

> And then other countries are a different set of sensitivities again. Being conscious of that is good for everyone i think.

States and governments do not have sensitivities. You can not hurt their feelings.

> these sort of one-sided culture v culture attacks open you up to a whole lot of interesting counter criticism such as: the credit score, "stasi files", and criminal history checks

I'm using the nazi culture as an experience that enables me to construct criticism of other cultures. Whenever I see something that looks like it, I'm indeed judging it very much.

And yes, credit scores and criminal problems have their own problems, thank you for helpful criticism/judging/insert the word you prefer. You absolutely have the "right" to say it thanks to the millions of people who fought for freedom against kings, tyrannies, authoritarian states and even normal governments. But beyond what the current laws say, the fact that you have functioning brain is enough to justify judging. How and when you express that judgement should reflect the potential negative and positive consequences of that. Here I think that in the long term, censorship has more negative effects than offending, and call me insensitive, but I think that people (including myself) should really get better at receiving criticism and society would be overall better for it.

> Did you mean deploying the communications tools? That's an interesting if Luddite take: We should fold back to isolation because we're not ready. In essence I agree, to a degree, but I think that siloing is already handled and taken care of by various state and regional level blocks to some extent.

Yes, these tools, and I did not say "fold back to isolation", but to be cautious when expanding the existing relative isolation, because we can not foresee all the consequences of doing that. See the increase in mental health problems linked to the use of social networks for example. This, other issues like [1] and higher-level thinking like this very good talk on surveillance capitalism [2] makes me think that no, this is not "already handled and taken care of".

> you really so sure that China is, or is becoming one, while being so sure the West is not?

Nope, absolutely not. We need to watch both and the West has its fair share of issues, see [2] for one of the many examples.
However, I do think that China is closer : more outright lies from the government, concentration camps for Uiguhrs and muslims, press controlled and manipulated by the state, systemic censorship, disappearing journalists and whistle-blowers, etc.
You can find examples of this in the US (except for concentration camps I guess), but they will be rarer and more subtle, mostly because the system was designed to distribute power more evenly and minimize potential for harm. Which beautifully comes back to my first point: giving more power/communication tools to individuals should not be taken lightly.

> For me, I admire the Chinese transparency about what it is and technological efficiency. I believe such openness makes it easier for people to deal with and is the way forward long term. Whereas the covert harassment and secret tracking and "free press" propaganda in the West, under the guise of a "free and open society" I believe tips the scales of power less in the individual's favor, engages in needless deception, and is a more abusive aspect of the state-individual relationship than I think works.

I really see that point and myself I can not help but admire some of these aspects of China. However, systematic censorship of alternative views is one of the many other things China is not open about. The reason tracking is "secret" in the west is precisely because the individuals have more power, so saying it tips the scale doesn't really make sense. And because we have more power, we can work towards abolishing it. So if we think it's bad, we should. You aren't explaining why surveillance is good (see [2] on why it's bad), but you are essentially saying we should embrace it and it's not a big deal if we impose it on everyone.

> In my relationship with states I get privacy by what I choose to only think or feel. [..] What might be scary for me is if the entire world has one standard of acceptable ideas and acceptable behavior. I might feel restricted in that case because there'd be no country I could go to that was more conducive... so I think that any world government has to be widely tolerant of many things.

I encourage you to watch the german movie The Lives of Others (2006) for a closer look at what privacy and surveillance mean in an authoritarian state. You can not "change countries": there was a wall in Berlin where people were shot on sight.
You start by arguing for more respect and consciousness towards different cultures and ended by saying that it's okay for states to choose what you think and discriminate for thinking differently, because that is what the sentence "In my relationship with states I get privacy by what I choose to only think or feel" means. Restricting speech restricts what you can hear which restricts what you can think.

[1] https://medium.com/@monteiro/designs-lost-generation-ac72895...
> "Bobbi Duncan was “accidentally” outed by Facebook when she was a college freshman. When Bobbi got to college she joined a queer organization with a Facebook group page. When the chorus director added her to the group, a notification that she’d joined The Queer Chorus at UT-Austin was added to her feed. Where her parents saw it. Bobbi had very meticulously made her way through Facebook’s byzantine privacy settings to make sure nothing about her sexuality was visible to her parents. But unbeknownst to her (and the vast majority of their users), Facebook, which moves fast, had made a decision that group privacy settings should override personal privacy settings. Bobbi was disowned by her parents and later attempted suicide. They broke things."
I recommend the entire article, it's completely opposite to your point of view and makes a good case in favor of individual discernment followed by actions.

[2] The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s4Y-uZG5zk

[3] Documentary on Uiguhrs "thought transformation camps" https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/087898-000-A/china-uyghurs-in-...