The discussion is a bit all over the place. The main points are that EU failed vaccination, and US failed covid testing (Statista disagrees https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104645/covid19-testing-...) , as well as having a decline of innovation and movement (disagrees here, people moved everywhere during covid, and US came up with tons of effective vaccines)
It's pretty hilarious both ignored discussing the current failing government: China.
- Came up with a 50% effective vaccine sinovac, and forces its citizens to take it
- Wolf warrior politics has infuriated almost every democratic countries on Earth, and alienated China. When Merkel steps down in Sept, the Green party candidate is most likely to succeed. And the newcomer will act tough against China and Russia
- Ballooning debt (they don't own global currency, unlike US), declining marriage/birth rate, middle income trap, unrest in many provinces
- The CCP is so insecure that they banned broadcast of oscars because of Chloe Zhao, because she mentioned CCP as failing one time in 2013
People have been predicting China's government to fail since 1948. If Mao couldn't do it with his disastrous communist nonsense it's going to take a lot. The CCP has cleverly pivoted to Chinese nationalism (the wolf warrior diplomacy is for internal consumption).
I think it would be best to have a backup plan for what happens if China doesn't implode.
> Came up with a 50% effective vaccine sinovac, and forces its citizens to take it
is this worse than not having your own capacity to manufacture vaccine and having to beg other countries for vaccines? 50% efficacy is for transmission prevention, however when you consider effectiveness against deaths and hospitalization, it's >90%
> Wolf warrior politics has infuriated almost every democratic countries on Earth, and alienated China. When Merkel steps down in Sept, the Green party candidate is most likely to succeed. And the newcomer will act tough against China and Russia
oh god forbid a country standing up for its own interest.
> Ballooning debt (they don't own global currency, unlike US), declining marriage/birth rate, middle income trap, unrest in many provinces
something that's been touted for the past 30+ years. can we just wait until it happens?
> The CCP is so insecure that they banned broadcast of oscars because of Chloe Zhao, because she mentioned CCP as failing one time in 2013
funny that indian government asked twitter to remove anything critical of its handling over COVID, with 350k daily cases, but they are democratic so they get a pass. no this isn't whataboutism, this is pointing out the double standard.
The Indian government hasn't gotten a pass, they are being widely criticized in international news and social media. But there are significant difference in degree. China clearly is far worse on censorship and punishes dissent more harshly.
> funny that indian government asked twitter to remove anything critical of its handling over COVID, with 350k daily cases, but they are democratic so they get a pass. no this isn't whataboutism, this is pointing out the double standard.
a. as the other comment pointed out - they aren't getting a pass on this.
b. Multiple news agencies reporting on failures of the government's response to the second wave of COVID (and as usual the government is reacting by clamping down on the louder voices - as they did with the farmer protests)
c. the religious nationalism that embodies the current right-wing government of India has been a subject of op-eds for the past couple of years (not criticised loudly enough IMO)
Actually no, this marks the beginning the decline of power for Alibaba and the rest of the Chinese megatech companies like tencent and baidu.
The chinese government goal for the next 5-10 years is stability, control and state companies, not innovation nor private sector growth. They fear the end of CCP. That's why the recently 5 year plan stresses stability, and doesn't set a growth goal
That's why they cracked down on Hong Kong and basically gave up a conduit of western capital/talents as well as letting Hong Kong citizen's wealth escape abroad.
That's why they are becoming alarmingly nationalistic and lashes out on US/EU politicians and encourages its citizens to boycott foreign brands like H&M.
That's why they are building artificial islands in the south asia sea despite Vietnam/Phillipine's angry protests, to shore up their maritime power.
I think it’s more likely the companies will thrive, but that the CCP will keep them on a tight leash. Jack Ma will be marginalized and replaced with a CCP insider. The company will continue to be a monopoly with de facto support from the CCP. I think the only reason they’re even in the current predicament is that Ma publicly insulted other well-connected financial firms, and Xi started to believe that Ma was stepping out of line, and wanted to make an example of him. Alibaba itself is too important to China, but Ma is mostly expendable.
>Jack Ma will be marginalized and replaced with a CCP insider.
Jack Ma is an CCP insider. I think it would be better described as "trusted" CCP insider.
Alibaba ( And Tencent ) already has those CCP insider within the company. ANT less so before, but will now surely get it if that is not already the case.
Jack Ma had already stepped away from Alibaba. Which is also why the crackdown isn't that harsh on Alibaba itself but is rather focused on ANT which Ma is much more actively involved with. Additionally ANT is the point of contention as the CCP finds anything that muddles with credit or deposits to drastically undermine the iron fist on monetary policy.
I agree in broad strokes that tech firms will thrive now. This fine shows both the intent and the level of severity of policy now which were both previously unknowns. Market hates unknowns and often very pessimistically prices in risk.
How can small corps survive when Alibaba and Tencent bullying people around?
Why stability is conflicting with innovation? Are you saying that somehow the innovation has to be destabilizing the society? That's never the case in the human history. Any innovation make human more united and more understand and easier get across each other.
It is always the case that any kind of change or growth is destabilizing. The most stable state is not to grow, after all.
Usually the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, but there's no point pretending that there are never any individuals or groups who lose out as a result of an innovation.
This is not true. Plenty of innovations have destabilized the world. Look at all of WW1’s weaponry. Look at Facebook allowing mass brainwashing to rip the United States apart.
But more to the point, even if it were true, the CCP isn’t interested in the stability of humanity. They’re interested in the stability of their own power.
FB is only hated in US ( and in UK ). Especially in the Tech sector and media. Most part of planet earth actually enjoys Facebook. ( Despite all of its flaws )
It is a contrarian view, but an objective truth. Especially with Small Business. So Mark Zuckerberg do have a point with its ads, although I think he should have kept his mouth shut during that time when he is clearing in the wrong doing in tracking.
Yes I should have given more context. In English speaking sphere you see attack on Facebook. While places in SEA and many parts of the world enjoy what it brings to them. And of course there are many using Facebook without complaining in "Western World".( Sorry for the lack of better Term, NZ and AUS aren't in the west and most EUR aren't really English Speaking but you get the idea )
So it is not all bad and all evil. While I agree with Facebook "deepens" the division between US or in general any politics, I dont believe it is the cause of division. I am still unsure what causes the divide in the first place.
Actually it's not. For instance cleptocracy of Russia was ever trying to sell "stability" to the masses while creating conflicts in foreign policy. Apparently it's essier to sell this BS of being protectors of stability by creating image that world is full of enemies whose only goal is to destoy your homeland.
CCP regime is different, but I guess it's the same playbook. 1984 in action.
- attacked US in the high-level Alaska talks, saying "black Americans are being slaughtered" while adding 'We will always stand up for our principles for our people' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56452471
My take: a dictatorship running scared on a declining economy, with enemies surrouding it and around the world, needs to bark loud and ramp up its military. it will either fade away into isolation, or it will do something stupid like attack Taiwan, whose missile capabilities can hit Beijing and three gorges and basically collapse China, and get sanctioned by countries worldwide, and fade away into oblivion
Sounds like the typical westernized narrow view of China.
Whenever there's a rising power that threatens the current number #1, you'll see such events happening. It has happened time and again and the only difference now is that there is far less blood being spilled.
On the flip side, the rest of the world remembers what dirty things the US did during it's hold on global power. WMDs in iraq, double ethical standards in conflicts around the world. In this case many chinese think this whole debacle is a based off lies fabricated by dubious western sources (which has some basis behind it) and they're reacting accordingly.
As was shown when China helped the US during the UN security meeting to not declare the iraq war illegal, big powers will abuse whatever they have and can get in their own interests. The problem is whether you western folks will be played by your institutions into doing things that destroy your own credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world.
> In this case many Chinese think this whole debacle is a based off lies fabricated by dubious western sources
This is very true, our media lies to us, and it lies to you, but isn't there something to be said about not having the freedom to think what you want in your own country, nor being able to read what information you want?
No matter who commits a condemn-able act it should be condemned, most of all if it's your own group. The most scary thing to me about China or a Chinese hegemony is not the shift of power, but that Chinese citizens are unable to be informed nor are they able to condemn their own government. There is no public veto for CPC behavior. China has assumed the role of the victim (century of humiliation), but acts as the abuser (destruction of Tibetan/Uigher/Hong Kong culture and a desire to destroy Taiwan), and then justifies the abuse it doles out by the abuses it has received.
The second most scary thing to me about Chinese hegemony is that dialogue is primarily based around power. Who has the power to do what, not what is morally right, not the rules that should apply to all countries and people, but most of all itself. So what is China's moral basis and ethics system founded upon? Might makes right. That is terrifying to me.
> The problem is whether you western folks will be played by your institutions into doing things that destroy your own credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world.
> This is very true, our media lies to us, and it lies to you, but isn't there something to be said about not having the freedom to think what you want in your own country, nor being able to read what information you want?
Sure, but priorities need to be in order. The average chinese asian person prefers food, water, medicine, competence, before a moderate amount of freedom within reason. Their 'overton windows' are not as wide as america where you have NRA blocking gun law reviews despite mass shootings. You'd also never have someone of Trump-like competence in charge; there's a certain degree of vetting within the chinese political system.
> The second most scary thing to me about Chinese hegemony is that dialogue is primarily based around power. Who has the power to do what, not what is morally right, not the rules that should apply to all countries and people, but most of all itself. So what is China's moral basis and ethics system founded upon? Might makes right. That is terrifying to me.
'Might makes right' is omnipresent in negotiations of every geopolitical sphere of influence. Yes, the chinese have been increasingly aggressive as of recent, but still I can pluck some facts to ally your fears:
- China hasn't invaded any other country since 1979 Vietnam. That's 30+ years.
- It's more interested in growing it's soft power.
- Chinese have had their children being sent to US varsities. When they return to China they'll have a certain degree of ethical standards and impact over the long term. China's government does still listen to its citizens despite what you think.
> Does China's own credibility not matter?
Yes it matters. It's trying to setup global institutions like the Belt Road Initiative, and other Asian lending bank which I can't remember the name of (which the US dislikes). Time will tell if it makes the same mistakes as the western ones have. As I said, watch them.
>The average chinese citizen prefers food, water, medicine, competence, before a moderate amount of freedom within reason...
Do you think fox news viewers see themselves as manipulated? Do you think these people are born fearing their guns will be taken away and democrats want to murder babies? Do you think they see these things you say as bad? Fox news viewers perceive themselves to be informed, they are adamant that they are and that what they are told is right. They believe their politicians are competent despite all evidence to the contrary.
You say the overton window is more wide in America, but ignore the idea that the overton window is controlled in both china and republican controlled media. The system is the flaw, not the instantiated output of the system.
Do you think with controlled information you could influence Chinese citizen preferences? Do you think an average person would be able to discover incompetence if all whistleblowers were arrested? Do you think the media would report criminal incompetence? If there is incompetence, but the state run media protects it, how do you know if your perception of competence is even remotely correct?
If your government was performing genocide, but reporting on it in a completely different framing, and limiting all direct evidence of the topic, do you think its possible you could be misinformed? Let's assume China is doing truly evil things in Xinjiang. If that was a fact, how would that make you feel?
> Trump-like competence in charge;
Yeah. I am happy Trump was not able to execute any kind of great leap forward.
> China hasn't invaded any other country since 1979 Vietnam. That's 30+ years.
China doesn't invade countries. It declares its territory and then says stay out of internal matters. Otherwise, it might make me feel better, but it's very curious to me, that while I (an American) was in Vietnam, Vietnamese seemed to not have much of a problem with me, but they were very open about their dislike of China.
> Chinese have had their children being sent to US universities.
One can hope, but the idea that investment into china will lead to democratization or a boost to human rights seems pretty bleak. China's action's in Hong Kong made it's heart very clear.
My fears are not allayed and won't be until China gives up on any form of military conquest of Taiwan and Chinese people can speak freely.
Nothing that the US or any other country has done justifies China’s actions. This isn’t a contest to see who’s worse. Your entire argument here is tangential to the fact that China’s actions have been ridiculously abusive.
Has my own country done some despicable things? Yes. Is it still doing despicable things? Yes. That doesn’t mean I have no right to point out abuse elsewhere. Abuse is abuse; to the victim, it makes very little difference whether it’s one government or another. If abusive actions come to my attention, the absolute least I can do is condemn them.
Sure you can point it out, echo it, but your words mean very little if it's based off dubious sources like Adrian Zenz. To China you westerners look like the guy on the higher moral ground, yelling slogan after slogan together with other like minded people but when approached with facts continue to repeat the same slogans.
Why trust an institution that lies? What happened to the truth? Or do westerners value their version of freedom over the truth? If you want relations to move forward consider that.
> your words mean very little if it's based off dubious sources like Adrian Zenz
My words? I don’t think I’ve ever quoted anyone by that name, let alone stated an opinion based on such a source.
> To China you westerners look like the guy on the higher moral ground
“You Westerners?” I’m me. I have opinions of my own. I act as an individual. I neither support nor condone many of the actions taken by my government or other people in my country—I’m frequently disgusted by their actions. We are not a single entity; we are a loose collection of individuals who disagree more often than we agree. I do not represent “the West,” nor does “the West” represent me. I’m strongly opposed to arbitrary groupings of people based on factors they cannot reasonably control.
> yelling slogan after slogan together with other like minded people but when approached with facts continue to repeat the same slogans.
What slogans? I’m not part of some hivemind; I develop my own opinions based on a wide array of sources, and those opinions are in constant flux. I do not subscribe to a single philosophy or political ideal.
> Why trust an institution that lies?
Which institution? I don’t trust any media outlet or governmental institution to provide objective, unbiased information. I question everything. I question my government, I question China’s government. What have any of them done to deserve my trust? Nothing. Nothing at all.
It's funny that you mention the WMDs in Iraq. This is an episode of US foreign policy that many people and countries (rightfully) criticized. Yet when it happened, the US didn't start boycotting everyone who criticized it; the worst that happened was US Congress deciding to change the name of "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries" in its cafeteria [1].
In contrast, China right now seems to be responding right now to anyone who dares to criticize it with immediate sanctions and reprisals. I'm not immediately aware of any time in the history of hegemon replacement cycles where either the old or the new hegemon acted in such a manner.
[1] Amusingly, the dish isn't even French, it's Belgian.
A liar always covers their lies with more lies. In the case of totalitarian states such as the PRC, it's called propaganda, changing the narrative and rewriting history books with alternative history, aka fiction.
The Nixon administration took another approach in the US: they started the war on drugs to discredit and silence the anti war hippie movement. This worked fine for those in power, but had and still has a lot of victims. Chairman Xi would have probably pulled a Tiananmen.
The US does all kinds of terrible things but, importantly, we are all mostly[1] free to call these things out and make it clear that bullshit is happening.
The CCP is different. Their censorship is overt and draconian. Even the most wealthy and powerful citizens of China risk being taken in for questioning for speaking the truth about power.
[1] Manning, Snowden, Assange et al notwithstanding.
I’m from a country which US did its dirty things in it but don’t even compare China to US. China is another league, a big threat to the rest of the world and China has a lot less credibility than US.
Britain fell due to the necessity of containing a neighbouring state which have bigger population, better productivity, and the advantage of not having an empire abroad of a continent.
At the end, the Brits fell after pummeling Germany two times.
Both haven't recovered fully today.
So this historical analogue doesn't really speak well to both US and China in the next, say, 3 generations. Wonder who would be the US in this situation though.
Did you know that the GDP of Africa is two trillion dollars (PPP)? So Africa has surpassed Canada, right?
What matters is GDP/capita, not total output in a nation of 1.4 Billion people. You can easily get "first place" by redrawing boundaries around a bunch of poor and middle income nations. That redraw doesn't make anyone better off.
The United States is sailing the 7th fleet off of the Chinese coast and has China surrounded by military bases, some very close to the Chinese mainland.
The Shanghai Communiqué - Joint Communique of the United States of America and the People's Republic of China, settled the Taiwan question in the 1970's:
> The U.S. side declared: The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves
If you put yourself in China's shoes, and consider China's history. How would you feel if a Chinese fleet was sailing off of the coast of California and stoking internal tensions?
> If you put yourself in China's shoes, and consider China's history. How would you feel if a Chinese fleet was sailing off of the coast of California and stoking internal tensions?
The question is phrased awkwardly and with a forgone conclusion. The world "internal" is key. Does a Taiwanese see that as an internal issue? Did a Hong Kong person see that as an internal issue?
In an oppressor/opressee relationship I would probably feel much closer to the party being oppressed, and I would respect the "policing force" for protecting the more vulnerable party.
So in your own scenario, say Trump won through an obviously fraudulent election, and Hawaii no longer wanted to be a part of America (rightfully so!), and the Chinese military was protecting Hawaii from being ruled without public consent, I would very much be happy about this Chinese fleet. If America was actively trying to extinguish a "pacific islander cancer" or a "native american cancer" via slow genocide and culturally destructive tacitcs, I would say that is an incredibly morally just cause for this theoretical Chinese fleet. How would you feel about the theoretical chinese fleet if you were hawaiian?
Is America perfect (mexican border situation), no. But at least we can talk about our imperfections openly. We can have a discussion about this "evil" of "seperatism" if we wish.
How would you feel if you were Taiwanese? How would you feel if you were a native Hong Konger? How would you feel if you were a Uigher? Do Chinese citizens not have any empathy?
No need to make it personal. Yes I have been to Taiwan, Yes I have been to mainland China.
Considering your hypothetical scenario, it is hypothetical. The reality of the situation is, in 1970 the United States already conceded that Taiwan is part of China in exchange for a Chinese guarantee that the matter would be resolved peacefully. In Exchange we gained access to Chinese markets for which we all benefit tremendously today. China's UN representation and vote, was transferred from Taipei to Beijing.
The real question, is a difficult one. How far are we willing to go to enforce the wests concept of universalism? A loss of an aircraft carrier and 5,000 lives? All out war? The point was already conceded 40 years ago. Seems like stoking fires isn't in my personal interest, especially considering that is a war we would certainly lose. Whats the point of playing games you can't win?
Up until 2000 election, Kuomintang still hold majority power, with brief resurgence during 2008 election after DPP tried to separate Taiwan identity from China proper. The party position is generally unchanged: that they consider themselves the true government of China.
DPP's position to ignore one-China conundrum historically met with skepticism from industrialist and labor population, since a clear separation between two entities would mean a substantial damage in economy. DPP only regained their votes in 2016 after softening their stance on independence. And they're [slowly losing trust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Taiwanese_presidential_el...) from swing voters, again.
So, yeah. Until Taiwan could make up its mind about their national identity and cross-strait relationship with Mainland China, it's still an internal issue.
> say Trump won through an obviously fraudulent election, and Hawaii no longer wanted to be a part of America (rightfully so!), and the Chinese military was protecting Hawaii from being ruled without public consent, I would very much be happy about this Chinese fleet.
That's a wildly different analogy. Imagine instead, that while the last election result is contested, a mob successfully storm the Capitol and reinstate Trump in his second term. Biden flee to Hawaii and declare the state as US government in exile.
Fast forward 30 years and nothing really settled between Republican in US and Democrats in Hawaii because diplomacy is hard and both refused to negotiate (one had the power while the other had the legitimacy).
And then China started to put their fleet because Blacks, Native American, and "Hawaiian" is oppressed.
How would you think that would affect those people's future?
Clearly if China was not being coercive/threatening they would declare themselves as an independent country. They operate as an independent country. They have their own military. The leader does not answer to China. They make effort away from china rather than closer. They are de facto independent. Do you think that position is held because of the consequences of messing with the status quo, or do you think it's there because it's truly believed? Do you think any Taiwanese citizens are sitting there plotting the running of Continental Taiwan?
>So, yeah. Until Taiwan could make up its mind about their national identity and cross-strait relationship with Mainland China, it's still an internal issue.
This statement isn't at all good faith. Clearly it's much more complex than that. You are saying the party line while ignoring any possibility of good faith argument otherwise. There is no invocation of the idea of what is morally right. There is no contemplation of what the Taiwanese people see as best for themselves.
What do you think would happen in Taiwan today if they rescinded their "right" to rule China?
If you were Taiwanese, what would you want to happen?
If you were Non Han Taiwanese, what would you want to happen?
How do you think Taiwanese children grow up learning about the China Taiwan situation?
What kind of culture do you think young Taiwanese are indoctrinated with?
How do you think a society that has freedom of speech considers its loss?
How do you think a society that has rule of law considers its loss?
What was the Taiwanese reaction to Hong Kong?
Why do Taiwanese keep buying weapons?
Is all Chinese trade to Taiwan a "gift"?
What types of punitive things would China do for being embarrassed by Taiwan's rejection?
Is the KMT/DPP of today, the same ruling "party" with the same "mindset" of yesteryear?
Did the KMT have to step back on their pro China stance to become viable?
Are the children of these "rebels" supposed to pay for the crimes of their parents?
Do you not see the slightest problem with the situation of holding a gun to someones head and then shouting "ARE YOU INDEPENDENT?!"
"Look, they said they're not independent, this is obviously an internal issue."
> How would you think that would affect those people's future?
That scenario makes no sense and there is insufficient information to judge it. It doesn't resonate with me. I wold probably be on one of the Islands.
> Clearly if China was not being coercive/threatening they would declare themselves as an independent country.
You argued about "good faith" but your entire argument is based on one side being bad actor while ignoring the contemporary issue inside Taiwan itself. Taiwan already repeatedly stated that they don't need to "declare independence" since PRC is the rogue one. Unlike Tibet, it never got conquered. Unlike Hong Kong, it never handed over by previous custodian (Japan "acknowledge" whoever control Taiwan as its government, but establish diplomatic relationship with PRC later).
What matters is how they identify themselves as sovereign state. Separation of identity only started to formally considered after DPP won their first presidency in 2000. Meaning that majority of the adult population was raised with pan-China identity rather than separate Taiwanese identity. Which shows in 2004 referendum, where it failed due to low turnout. Since then, their strategy is to gradually push for identity shift while empowering indigenous population as counterbalance against KMT's popularity.
Subsequent position by KMT politician also soften the stance to acknowledge a stalemate (that PRC is not a rebel but de facto ruler of Mainland China) but refused to cede the position of de jure claimant.
> There is no invocation of the idea of what is morally right. There is no contemplation of what the Taiwanese people see as best for themselves.
Who are we to be a moral arbiter and decide what's best for others using warships? To call it a settled issue while Taiwanese still in the process of identity transition is, quite frankly, authoritarian decision.
Which is the point of my argument: they're currently sorting it out. And so far PRC is unwilling to use force to settle the dispute, which is a good sign. Any provocation by third party only put the Taiwanese in difficult position, since they are only treated as a proxy to pressure and "contain" China.
> Do you not see the slightest problem with the situation of holding a gun to someones head and then shouting "ARE YOU INDEPENDENT?!"
I don't, because that's not what happened. Taiwan is not the one China point the gun at, the rest of the world is. Don't you think its funny that for all the noise the West make, none of them formally acknowledge Taiwan sovereignty and dare to establish diplomatic relationship?
Compare the situation with state breakups in Caucasus and Balkan region, and you'll see that as long as PRC is "useful" and not as powerful, they'll be happy playing two legged approach.
> "Look, they said they're not independent, this is obviously an internal issue."
It's not due to lack of independence claim (see above), but because its pertained to the national identity, regardless of what current politician in power said. You don't "label" people as Taiwanese, Han, Hakka, Hokkien, etc. They have all the right to think, decide, and act upon their identity on their own volition. Whether pan-China identity or Taiwanese identity prevails is up to the Taiwanese citizen, hence it's an internal issue.
The problem with externally-triggered aggressiveness is that they also provide opportunity for pro-unification side within Taiwan to push their narrative and hold back the transition to "maintain the peace" by pushing pan-China identity.
> That scenario makes no sense
But that's exactly what happened with Taiwan-China situation. One is the exiled successor government, while the others is communist rebel that maintain control of the territory.
This breaks the site guidelines badly. Unfortunately you've done that more than once before. We ban accounts that do this, so please read the rules and stick to them when posting here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
1) Yes, but that's slowing by all external measures
2) Yes, but as with the agreements with my state (Victoria), those are fleeting and mostly gesture - the tide is turning against China since these wheels were set in motion several years ago
3) President for life? How isn't it a dictatorship? How is the leader replaced if the populace does not like him - and how do they make that known, when you can't even use an open communication platform like Clubhouse in China?
> Dictators have broad powers -- the tenure is orthogonal. You could have a dictator who's in for a year
Technically you're right, but typically the highest priority for a dictator is to extend their tenure, indefinitely if at all possible, by exercising those broad powers.
Making a foundational set of laws dictator-proof is actually a hard problem. It is kind of like designing a programming language that is deliberately Turing-incomplete. You're trying to make abusing the system impossible, without crippling the desired functionality.
The population can't but other high level party officials could perhaps. The CPP also has had much internal drama over centralization, the Xi pro-centralization faction could also loose out more broadly if there was a power struggle.
IMO dictatorship / monarchy is a funny thing because after a certain scale the person at the top simply cannot be an absolutely power in the same way because there's too much going on. I think there more reasonable things to look at are:
- How many extra luxuries does then nominal ruler get, and do they "distract" from their power/responsibilities. (Perhaps there is even a strict luxery power trade off? not sure.)
- How is centralized is the bureaucracy, e.g. how many people outside the capital have power greater than those in the capital.
Being President for life is not automatically a dictatorship. The Republic of Venice elected its Doge for life, as does the modern day state of Vatican City. Certainly it would be easier for the Pope to steer the barque of St. Peter if it were. And yet if you pay attention to the church there’s plenty of infighting and politics, enough that the Pope has to take years to gather enough political capital to act. Both of these countries are functionally oligarchies, I’d say.
That said the way in which Pooh Bear uses the anticorruption law to silence and jail political rivals is definitely evidence of dictatorship.
> Hasn’t China’s economy been growing steadily for decades?
Not steadily - but geometrically (if not near-exponentially). Rapid expansion is not sustainable. I compare China's growth from the 1970s through to the early-2000s to the US's postwar boom years: eventually things settle-down. I suspect the people at the top (whether in the CCP, private business interests, whereever) are
uncomfortably having to acclimatize to this slower world of theirs they now find themselves in.
> Hasn’t China formed new trading partnerships with many countries in Europe?
News to me. Link?
> China is not a dictatorship
You're technically correct - but consider that China is simply too big to be run as a dictatorship, and the CCP do not act in the interests of their citizens' human rights and individual freedoms.
I don't understand what China's leadership is afraid of such that they have their internet filter and suppress independent journalism. And I don't believe you can have economic freedom without also having individual freedom.
China setup a new trade deal in the beginning of the new year however it’s been pretty contentious due to the alleged human rights violations (I say alleged as China denies them). Prior to this China did trade with specific countries.
> You're technically correct - but consider that China is simply too big to be run as a dictatorship, and the CCP do not act in the interests of their citizens' human rights and individual freedoms.
I don't understand what China's leadership is afraid of such that they have their internet filter and suppress independent journalism. You can't have economic freedom without individual freedom.
I’m not really here to defend or attack China - it just annoys me that such blatant misinformation is being spread.
> You're technically correct - but consider that China is simply too big to be run as a dictatorship, and the CCP do not act in the interests of their citizens' human rights and individual freedoms.
Ya, it’s more like a family dictatorship where economic and political power is concentrated in the hand of a few “red” families. That they made that obvious with Xi is interesting.
What's the practical difference? You get disappeared if you say anything bad about the government. There are no term limits for the head of state. While "dictatorship" is the wrong word, I think people are right to evoke the comparison.
Are you saying an authoritarian government and a dictatorship are the same type of government?
I mean they’re literally different things. You wouldn’t call China a monarchy even though a monarch can do similar things to a dictator, right? If the goal is to say China is bad let’s just say that - let’s not misrepresent their form of government.
I don’t understand the relevance of the lack of term limits. Does not having term limits make a dictatorship?
A dictatorship is a country that is ruled by a single individual (or perhaps a very small clique of people, as in a military junta) where no one else has any effective power to countermand a decree. Monarchies can be dictatorships: there's no effective difference between an absolute monarchy and a dictatorship. In somewhat more informal terms, dictatorships are a form of government where suppression of dissension is a key goal of the regime, in addition to the emphasis on autocratic rule.
Xi Jinping's centralization efforts during his term do strengthen the case for China becoming a dictatorship. The ending of term limits (as it does elsewhere) also likely signals a desire to vest power in the personal authority of the leader and not in a broader political party.
Don't you find the pedantry a bit tiresome? I was curious to see where you were going with your earlier positions, but it now seems that you were just being a contrarian for the sake of some intellectual jousting and that you're now attempting to play on technicalities, but I can't see to what end.
Nobody cares what you call it whether dictatorship, authoritarian or most democratic country ever.
Parent says “you get dissappeared if you say anything about government”. When that is true, we call it dictatorship. Terminology does not matter. We are talking about practical results of it.
In practice, usually yes. I suppose there are a few counterexamples like Aristotle, though he was disliked for anti-democratic views. But even in the feudal era, kings couldn’t just go murder lords who opposed them. Not without an army.
> Hasn’t China’s economy been growing steadily for decades?
Fake GDP #s, especially since 2010. CCP does NOT have a growth goal in the recent five year plan, meaning they can't fake increasing defaults and can't increase construction spendings anymore due to ballooning debt.
> Hasn’t China formed new trading partnerships with many countries in Europe?
First time in 30 years EU has sanctioned China. The CAI deal (Europe-China trade deal) is now being put on hold since various members of EU being sanctioned. Potentially a dead trade deal going forward.
> China is not a dictatorship.
It is. Please read up on Xi Jing Ping's personality, his success on removing most of his enemies and secure his power, and changing the law for unlimited terms
If you think China’s growth is fake then I don’t know what to tell you. I invite you to talk to people who lived in China in the early 2000s and live there now.
> It is. Please read up on Xi Jing Ping's personality, his success on removing most of his enemies and secure his power, and changing the law for unlimited terms
How much do you know about Chinese politics? Xi Jing Pings power isn’t as absolute as the American media would like you to believe. In fact he’s in a very vulnerable position.
I lived in Beijing in 2002 (for 6 months), first visited in 1999 (when north west 4th ring was just a ditch), and then lived in Beijing from 2007 to 2016.
Growth was extraordinary, but there are definitely problems with empty apartments and shopping malls (at least in Beijing). It is difficult to pick out what is real growth and what is simply government driven.
> How much do you know about Chinese politics? Xi Jing Pings power isn’t as absolute as the American media would like you to believe. In fact he’s in a very vulnerable position.
Chinese politics are famously opaque (the national congress is obviously rubber stamp), but I think it’s pretty obvious now that a few red families are calling the shots, and Xi’s power as a princeling is far from illusory as it was with Hu (before I would have said party elders)
Some argue china has been underreporting it's GDP. It kinda aligns with my own experience, when I visited countries of similar per capita GDP like Mexico and Brazil, I definitely find that china has a much higher standard if living. I'm not just talking about first tier chinese cities, but tier 2-4 compared to places like Cancun and Sao Paolo
The heritage foundation at the very least is a conservative think tank, and American conservatives are every bit as ambitious and bad faith as the CPC when it comes to power.
I very intentionally did not specify a number - I said very generally that the Chinese economy has been growing steadily. This is pretty much indisputable. Your links do not dispute that China has grown in this century, more the extent to which the growth has occurred.
China is likely exaggerating their growth but regardless it has been growing.
Not if most of us keep claiming laziness and buy stuff that clearly say "made in China", when there are alternatives readily available either online or next to it in the aisle.
> Not if most of us keep claiming laziness and buy stuff that clearly say "made in China", when there are alternatives readily available either online or next to it in the aisle.
Somewhat US centric, but you may not know that the top trading partner of the US is no longer China. Also labor costs in china have gone up so "made in china" no longer carries a price premium for "lazy" consumers.
Agreed. I made a personal decision years ago, never to buy any Made in China products. There’s always better alternatives, of higher quality and also by supporting local manufacturers.
US riot - citizens who enjoy democratic freedom protested against republic/democratic government. protest got violent, government handled it.
Hong Kong riot - citizens who enjoy(ed) democratic freedom protested against encroaching dictatorship. protest was peaceful, but then turned violent when police faking as protestors started violence. protest got violent, government handled it (openly and in secret). The dictatorship increased its power at the end.
I think the main difference is that the chinese would not dare to dock their aircraft carrier in new york, while the US did so to provoke the chinese communust party in hong kong.
This is all about american interests and destabilizing china ir other countries.
I wonder what will happen in q few years. Will americans accept that another super power will dictate them what to do like the US currently does to their allies: europe cant build a pipeline to russia, in order to protect american interests in ukraine and poland. Europe cant use chinese hardware, while its proven that just a few years ago the americans listened to all communication of angela merkel, europe cant do business with the russians because they are sanctioned, nor with iran, etc...
> I think the main difference is that the chinese would not dare to dock their aircraft carrier in new york, while the US did so to provoke the chinese communust party in hong kong.
This is a tiring argument. China has only 1 ally - North Korea. The rest of the countries in the proximity of China are adversarial and aligned with US - Japan, SK particularly. If Canada and Mexico were close allies of China, you betchya there would be a lot more going on along the east and west coast of US.
In fact, Japan and SK are counting on US to defend them. Does Canada and Mexico have such relationship with China? No. Instead, the US+Canada have NORAD.
> I think the main difference is that the chinese would not dare to dock their aircraft carrier in new york, while the US did so to provoke the chinese communust party in hong kong.
So it's the US's fault that China tried to impose an extradition law in HK? Because the USN ... had a port visit in Hong Kong? You know China approved that port visit, right?
At many different times in 2019, 1.7M-2M Hong Kong citizens, or 25% of the population, proudly protested in the streets and requested for their freedom. If only something good had came out of it.
Imagine if you were a proud free parisian, and all of a sudden, you now live under nazi regime with concentration camps. That's probably what it feels like.
Regarding arrest for accessing online information, I have become fascinated lately with the concept of legal warfare. It is the use of legal constructions to align other governments or subordinate bureaucracies to your strategic goals. For example, when Russia invaded Ukraine, they used the pretext that only volunteers from Russia were traveling to Ukraine to support a legal separatist movement.
Now none of these claims withstand any sort of legal scrutiny, but that's not the point. In the year or so it takes the Hague to spell out the obvious, that the Russian military in coordination with the Russian presidency created a bogus legal argument that aligns with their strategic goal of annexing as much of Eastern Europe as possible, the invasion is already completed and Donetsk is effectively a Russian vassal in the middle of Ukranian territory.
Just like in the time of the American Revolution guerilla tactics were innovations to the stodgy preconceptions of war that the British had, where they believed a gentleman's war should be fought by squares of men taken broadsides at regular intervals, we must recognize that armed conflicts today are always accompanied by legal warfare, the legal activities that support broader strategic objectives.
The current difference is that now it's happenning during a live broadcast, and the actions are being tried to be justified (as "justice") through existing legal frameworks.
That's one of the ways Empires grow their periphery regions. Another way is when an Empire spreads its culture and abundance to orbiting regions, so that inhabitants of the periphery get a personal interest in becoming the part of the Empire and bringing a change to their governing bodies to align with the metropolis.
Just as a point of comparison (not justifying russia or the US), the region of donetsk (and crimea) was supermajority ethnically russian, and by the time the US overthrew the hawaiian kingdom, ethnic hawaiians were a minority within the (mostly imported) population, so in the case of both russia and the US's actions the majority of local populace gained political power in the aftermath of the takeovers:
fair point, my reference to "the current difference" was more about the ongoing Crimea situation rather than the HK situation, I should have been more clear in that regard. I still believe that in the HK case there's a vested interest of certain political elite (rather than economic) strata to be aligned with Beijing.
Seems to me that everyone wants to cast their war as a just war [0]. If that means deniable approaches or false flag operations [1] then so be it. In particular I found this excerpt from [1] ironic in the context of your comment:
> Russo-Swedish War
In 1788, the head tailor at the Royal Swedish Opera received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms. These were then used by the Swedes to stage an attack on Puumala, a Swedish outpost on the Russo-Swedish border, on 27 June 1788. This caused an outrage in Stockholm and impressed the Riksdag of the Estates, the Swedish national assembly, who until then had refused to agree to an offensive war against Russia. The Puumala incident allowed King Gustav III of Sweden, who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates' consent, to launch the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790).
We can define propaganda in contrast to psychological warfare. Whereas psychological warfare is the dissemination of cultural products by a military to the population of a foreign adversary in pursuit of a strategic objective, propaganda is the dissemination of cultural products by a government to their own people in the pursuit of strategic objectives. This definition serves the discussion of propaganda in the broader context of warfare well.
That would be considered propaganda. I was too strict by claiming propaganda can only be done to a government's own citizens.
In contrast a good example of psychological warfare would be when Russia organized a protest and an attendant counter-protest in Texas that were made to appear "organic."[0] So the difference between the two is that one proudly has an official "Russia" label on it and the other is clandestine.
So you might consider acts such as arresting journalists for accessing public databases as a form of legal warfare, where the strategic goal is to incapacitate any sort of democratic activity in Hong Kong, and abusing the legal system to criminalize the behavior of democracy activists ex post facto can then be considered a sort of "weapon" in an extremely broad sense of the word.
IMO the political posturing is paramount. Ultimate goal is to provide an sufficient truth calibrated to deter bluff calling. Fundamentally most countries don't want to or have capability to intervene, so the purpose is to give competing parties a credible "out" with manageable political cost, i.e. reduce bluff calling to angry letters / sanctions versus hard military retaliation. Gain objective while deter / mitigate the most unwanted responses.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a scholar's opinion on the application of the law, not the law. What courts make of it, and how they develop the law over time, cannot be concluded at this point.
And it goes on to say, a few lines below what you quoted:
If someone refused to use a preferred pronoun — and it was determined to constitute discrimination or harassment — could that potentially result in jail time?
It is possible, Brown says, through a process that would start with a complaint and progress to a proceeding before a human rights tribunal. If the tribunal rules that harassment or discrimination took place, there would typically be an order for monetary and non-monetary remedies. A non-monetary remedy may include sensitivity training, issuing an apology, or even a publication ban, he says.
If the person refused to comply with the tribunal's order, this would result in a contempt proceeding being sent to the Divisional or Federal Court, Brown says. The court could then potentially send a person to jail “until they purge the contempt,” he says.
“The path to prison is not straightforward. It’s not easy. But, it’s there. It’s been used before in breach of tribunal orders.”
Time will tell... For the moment an arrestation over a trivial matter like this is a very big deal. Also the red guards are actively brigading here, elsewhere on the net and irl to impose their cultural revolution, in addition of hijacking the legal system, so the comparison with communist China is very apt.
Contempt of court is anything but minor. Violating a court order, in particular a gag order regarding an ongoing case, is a very serious offense. Casting it as a law banning speech in any way similar to what Beijing is doing in Hong Kong is dishonest.
This modern red gaurd you worry about is built on top of what social media enables, amplifies and rewards.
Two points worth making about "revolutions" built on top of social media -
1. They dont generate outcomes.
We now have 15 years of data on social medias bullshit revolutions that prove it. Best example would be what has happened in Tunisia or what outcomes that Hope and Change guy produced beyond getting himself a job at Netflix.
2. The clueless buffoon class behind social media algos of the last 15 years have finally woken up to their own cluelessness, so the algos are changing. Reward mechanisms are changing. What gets amplified is changing. Who gets thrown off the network is evolving. And even though all these changes are still in the realm of half baked shit, one thing they ensure is the type of "revolutions" and "revolutionaries" propped up over the last 15 year wont resemble what gets propped up in the next 15.
So I wouldnt loose too much sleep. Especially in Canada.
"The orders instruct him to not make public any information that would identify A.B., or the medical professionals involved, to call A.B. by the child’s preferred name and gender pronoun, and to not share his opinions of the case publicly."
"In June 2020, C.D. gave an interview to a YouTube channel, where he’s alleged to have identified health-care providers, revealed information about A.B.’s mental health, medical status or treatments, and gave out information that could reveal C.D., A.B. and the mother’s identity."
"“This order should not restrict C.D.’s right to express his opinion in his private communications with family, close friends and close advisors, provided none of these individuals is part of or connected with the media or any public forum, and provided C.D. obtain assurances from those with whom he shares information or views that they will not share that information with others,” the court said."
It sounds like his arrest is more due to him repeatedly discussing the case in public rather than the pronouns he used.
That's a specific court order involving a specific parent and a specific child. There are all sorts of idiosyncratic orders like that, not just in Canada but in the US.
From online source: "Bill C-16 does not allow for Canadian citizens to be jailed or fined simply for using the wrong gender pronoun when addressing a person.
Bill C-16 could lead to an organization having to pay damages to a person, but only if proof of a wider pattern of discrimination can be established."
The irony is that HK is being used as a model to get rid of peaceful protest in the U.K. - 10 years in jail for peacefully walking up the road with a sign that annoys an MP.
It is not an exaggeration. I was there, joining several protests including the CHRF 2M protest. In addition, the police estimates is always wrong (of course they want the numbers to be as low as possible). One example was a protest around Victoria Park. According to “official police figures” it was 180k attending - but they only counted the people in the limited Victoria Park square, it was completely PACKED. They didn’t count the hundreds of thousands of people outside the square who couldn’t fit in, they also didn’t count the people stuck in the MTR next to the park, who couldn’t even fit on the streets. The “official police statistics” is always off by a magnitude of x.
I was also there, but in my opinion 1.7M was an exaggeration. Don’t get me wrong, there were A LOT of people, the whole area from Victoria Park to Tamar Park was packed with people. There was also a constant flow of people coming in from North Point, a good 20 minute walk to the starting point.
Police estimates were definitely wrong, but the estimates from organisers are also always exaggerated, for the same reasons you mentioned the police estimates are wrong.
What is your estimate, and how did you measure it?
I live in Paris where most of French demonstrations take place (including the yellow vest movement) but I can't pretend to have better estimates than all local and global media sources and public observers.
Historically, HK protestors grossly over exaggerate for optics, but MSM usually endorses organizer headcount uncritically. Reality consistently closer to police (under)estimates. Professionals at crowd control are better at estimating crowd sizes. Study from HKU of pre 2019 protests:
And another, estimates protesters had to occupy 18 miles of streets to pack 1M protestors, actual protests occupied 1 mile. Acknowledges not exact science, but leans towards conservative estimate of 250k... incidentally close to police estimates.
The articles you are referring to doesn’t show the full picture. In all protests only a part of the crowd is visible on the streets, the majority of the day is spent trying to get up to the streets from the MTR.
HKU has 15 years of data points on HK protests. There is reliable pattern of protestor organizers significantly overestimating and police mildly underestimating. Overall HKU and Police estimates are much more aligned. These two parties are actual subject matter experts vs protest organizers, ergo based on historic data and expertise, organizer estimates should be presumed to be less reliable / credible. Doesn't mean 2019 protests weren't massive. They're just likely half as massive as what makes for good headlines.
> Aimee Challenor, who currently works at reddit, is, at best, sympathetic to pedophilia. She has hired her father after he raped and tortured a 10 year old girl, a fact I find it hard to believe that she wasn't aware of, due to her living with him at the time of the crime, which happened in their house over several days. Her boyfriend also posted clearly pedophilic tweets, and he is now her husband.
Wow, there's Richard Stallman level Epstein/pedo comments, then there's this. I don't know why she has a job right now. I get that some people have rough childhood, go through things that a normal person can't comprehend and we shouldn't hold that against them, but why in the world would you take someone who is either that stunted or a pedo and put them in a position of power?
Please don't compare RMS and Epstein. RMS made a comment re consent, which I believe he said he had reconsidered.
Epstein was not just a pedo but a pimp for all sorts of rich and powerful people, complete with a pedo-jet, private-pedo-island and shitloads of money nobody seems to know from whence it came.
It is common for sexual abusers to have been abused as children themselves. Her father was a pedophile. There is a decent chance she was abused, which would explain the weird behaviour.
> Wow, there's Richard Stallman level Epstein/pedo comments, then there's this.
But on one hand you have an old, white male. On the other, a clearly oppressed minority who happened to make a little mistake. In the current climate, where do you think this is going?
Wow, that sounds a lot like what happened with Ghislaine Maxwell and theories how she's the owner of one of the most influential powermod accounts on Reddit [0]
The actual content of that submission has by now been removed, linking to it on frontpage subs used to get people banned, with mods arguing how linking to that thread is equal to accusing Reddit moderators of being pedophiles/child traffickers.
Which is a bit of a weird reasoning considering afaik Ghislaine Maxwell wasn't yet convicted of anything.
Graham Linehan is one of the most doctrinaire anti-transgender individuals, anything he writes on the subject should be taken with a very large pinch of salt.
> Graham Linehan is one of the most doctrinaire anti-transgender individuals, anything he writes on the subject should be taken with a very large pinch of salt.
Aimee Challenor advised an LGBT rights charity called Stonewall from 2015. Stonewall advises Girlguiding (UK’s equivalent of girl scouts)[0]. If one accepts that accusations made against her are legitimate, one has to take Stonewall’s recommendations—and hence trans-related Girlguiding policies—with a large pinch of salt, too.
(Hint: those policies made headlines in 2017, when Girlguiding started to admit males who identify as females but choose to remain biologically male. Weigh that together with Challenor’s and her husband’s background, and the evidence of her father working together with her and influencing her political agenda.)
Challenor remained on Stonewall’s advisory board, even though she left the Green Party over her “serious errors of judgement”, until 2019.
I can’t help thinking that perhaps trans community is doing itself a disservice by not being picky as to whom it lets to represent itself, which in some cases may give ammunition to anti-trans sentiment.
[0] Stonewall has downplayed the involvement Challenor has had with their policies, but they’d be bound to do this regardless.
Yes, he went off the deep end on twitter over the last decade, culminating with getting banned about a year ago for continued harassment of specific transgender individuals.
How am I supposed to feel about this? Someone has sexual fantasies about clearly immoral and horrible acts, but has apparently (I only skimmed the article) never acted on them. I am supposed to, what, think this person is vile? That anyone who associates with them is vile? Why is it any of our business what this guy is into?
I guess the outrage is more that someone associated with both him and with her father (who was convicted of acting on those fantasies) was put into a moderation position at Reddit. And people were being banned for calling this out.
Sure, fair, I just don't think anyone dredging up this guy's sexual fantasies up and associating them with actual child molestation is taking the moral high ground. There is a difference between watching John Wick murder people and doing actual murders, and it is the same difference between harboring immoral sexual fantasies and actually committing them.
I don't think the John Wick movie is useful analogy. People are "dredging" these up to raise real questions about the judgement of someone who was hired to use that judgement to moderate their social networks.
Does the same standard apply to crime writers? Movie makers? Why fantasy about gruesome killing is just fine, but fantasy about perversion suddenly is not?
If you have sexual fantasies about the opposite sex, you're straight. If you have sexual fantasies about the same sex, you are gay. Even if you never had sex with another person, it would still make you gay. If you have sexual fantasies about both, you are bi. If you have sexual fantasies about young kids, you are a pedophile. If you have sexual fantasies about sex with corpses, you are a necrophiliac.
The same doesn't go for acts of violence. You can quickly think "I'm gonna kill this person", but it doesn't make it so. Most people have such a quick thought, which basically makes all of us killers. This is considered normal, because most of us are that way. Most of us do not fantasize about sex with kids or corpses, which makes it abnormal.
> If you have sexual fantasies about young kids, you are a pedophile. If you have sexual fantasies about sex with corpses, you are a necrophiliac.
Yes, but simply being those things isn't something they chose any more than gay or trans people chose to be what they are. Unlike gay or trans people, acting on those fantasies would be wrong, but there's nothing wrong with just having them. There is a difference between being a pedophile and being a child molester.
Do you have any idea how many people have rape fantasies? The vast majority of them never rape anyone or want to be raped for real, it's just something that excites them sexually. Are we to condemn them as well? How about those who harbor fantasies about slavery like the aforementioned Larry Garfield?
> You can quickly think "I'm gonna kill this person", but it doesn't make it so. Most people have such a quick thought, which basically makes all of us killers.
To you maybe, but to those of us who realize there is a difference between fantasy and reality it doesn't mean much of anything. Also, perfectly normal people often play games about murdering people for hours on end.
> This is considered normal, because most of us are that way.
Is your problem that it is amoral or that it is abnormal? Or are the two the same to you?
> but there's nothing wrong with just having them.
It is indeed not a crime to have them. But I would strongly suggest that those people do not work in places where they have power over kids. (teachers, tutors, youth clubs, etc)
We have a saying "putting the cat next to the milk". And that is exactly what is going on here. If you hire a teacher, and you know this person has sexual feelings towards kids, you are really some dumb fuck. You should also be punished for negligence when shit hits the fan.
Would you let a woman you cared about work on a project with Larry Garfield?
I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people. Fantasy and reality are not the same thing. Millions (if not billions) of people occasionally have fantasies about strangling their boss, or murdering people they don't like, and they never actually do those things because they're abhorrent. Add some "think of the children!" into the mix and otherwise rational people are suddenly very much in favor of lynching.
In a word, yes. This is how society polices itself. Just like dogs. When a dog does something that isn't beneficial for the group, it gets a nip. The entire pack sees and learns from this. And the entire pack also helps in enforcing this behaviour.
However these days Twitter is the pack and "cancelling" is the nip. What's missing is a pack leader or at least a sense of what is truly "right" or "wrong" at this point in humankind's development.
So it might seem heavy-handed or a knee-jerk reaction, but I'm on board with this simply because it aligns with my moral views. It's a choice.
> And to make it obvious: yes, yes you should find this and the notion that someone would fantasize about it utterly gut wrenching.
I don't. Theft is obviously immoral, should I condemn people who enjoy heist fiction? People who enjoy roleplaying soldiers in a Civil War re-enactment? People who murder people in video games?
There is a difference between fantasy and reality.
The implication is that they have an extreme agenda and bias, so everything they say should be scrutinised extra carefully and examined for twisted or distorted truths.
Remember when censorship was supposedly about protecting the children? This woman had publicly shown herself to be more accepting of pedophilia and child rape than 99.99% of the population, and Reddit hired her as a censor. It really makes me wonder, what exactly were her qualifications?
It appears she is pretty good at rallying troops for her cause, even despite this controversy. It’s not that far fetched she could have seemed a good community manager.
What's the end game here? If she is a free person - is the end goal that she never works again, anywhere, ever? Or is the goal that Reddit allow their employees be targeted and bullied by users?
There’s a bit of a difference between “working” and “being given the power to moderate teenage-oriented communities and censor/silence all criticism on a mainstream website”.
It’s very humane to forgive, but also incredibly stupid and irresponsible to forget.
Just a job that doesn't involve interacting with and moderating a community seems reasonable. Nobody would be upset if she was, say, a software engineer quietly fixing bugs in application logic for tax software.
Honestly I'm not sure anyone has an end game here. Someone on UKpolitics posted a basic link to a recent news article and got banned. People are getting banned for mentioning her. This is what most of the controversy is about. They're stifling any discussion of what are quite serious issues, because they hired her. Posting a link to a public newspaper shouldn't be ban worthy. However now that Reddit has been grossly overstepping in their reaction, people are getting very upset about censorship and the perceived conflicts of interest.
Amongst other issues (judgement, personal connections, etc.) she was (is?) a moderator of subreddits tailored towards young, vulnerable people. It's a big safeguarding issue and one that any form of background check should have highlighted.
I've wondered this, too. When someone who isn't rich gets cancelled, did something legal, but egregious enough that they can't find a job, or had to "resign" because they oversaw an organization where something bad happens, how does this play out? Can they never find work again? Do they find work and are massively underpaid? In the US, relying on government support isn't really an option.
And that was for people who did something sort of bad. What about people like this woman who allegedly have very controversial opinions? What happens to cops who are fired after shooting someone? That, and what's the right thing to do? Are they unemployable? Does the government provide some sort of domestic political asylum payment?
I think she ought to have zero power over other people and possibly even animals. Given her life record so far, she is not to be trusted with having power over others, no matter how minuscule.
There are plenty of jobs that fit this description.
This is a big general unanswered question in our society when it comes to "disreputable" people whether they be criminals or involved in some serious scandal. The goto answer is to ban them from everywhere. They should not ever get a job, house, or have any associates. This seems dark to me, but most people seem to just accept it.
I've heard over the last 12 hours that just saying their name on reddit gets you banned. I've seen some posts with the name on them on reddit, so I'm not sure if that happened beforehand. They spun it as doxing, but this person was a politician and the subreddit that got targetted by them was political in nature. They also then blamed it on auto bots but their name was in an article in an instance, I doubt reddit bots are that thorough as to scrape through linked articles.
> I doubt reddit bots are that thorough as to scrape through linked articles.
I'll bet they are. The tactic of getting someone to make a coordinated blog post and then spamming it everywhere on reddit under the cover of "its public information now" is obvious. I'm reasonably certain that has happened to some other reddit employee in the past. That part is entirely believable.
What are the tweets which her boyfriend posted? If it's just about his fantasies, I'm not really concerned about that, so long as he isn't committing crimes himself, or encouraging others to do so. It can be an outlet for such predilections. Shaming someone for them doesn't make them magically go away. And I can imagine him being the only one willing to marry her with her association with her father.
Do you mean literal torture? Ouch, sadistic ones are scary.
I'm not surprised she hired her own father. People will do a lot of things, when their own family is involved. This isn't to defend the decision, but it isn't inherently irrational.
Is there anywhere where it would be appropriate for her father to work? A lack of stable employment could contribute towards him committing further crimes. Preferably, somewhere away from children?
You should have googled the situation before you made that assertion. Her father is in jail for 22 years due to the atrocity of the crimes he committed in his attic against that 10 year old girl. Per news coverage of the matter in the Guardian the role Aimee gave him after he had been charged with child abuse and rape(1) quote 'may have allowed him to interact with vulnerable people.'(2)
It is also of note that the claims the 10-year old girl made about the abuse conducted in the attic of the family home aligned with what the police found in the attic on the day of the arrest.
I presume we're talking about the time he worked as her campaign manager?
If he was placed into a role which brought him into direct contact with vulnerable individuals, that would be very reckless, as sadistic offenders are commonly referred to as high risk in the scientific literature.
I'd like to imagine someone wouldn't risk doing that while on bail (the alternative is very terrifying), and perhaps, he would not, but it would still be very reckless.
Thank you for your post, I got a bit confused as some comments are insinuating the father was the moderator, and others insinuated the husband was.
I'll stand by my points about the husband (as it feels like people are trying to punish him by association + trying to shame him for his personal interests), although I wish Reddit had E2EE or some feature, so that no employee (no matter whether it's publicly known they're dodgy or not) can read someone's private messages. And if there isn't a strong audit trail, there should be one. There shouldn't be one super role with access to everything either.
A stable job can help to keep someone out of trouble. Someone who feels completely hopeless, and that everyone is against them, might just decide to take the step to committing a terrible crime.
The risk of any particular person with such interests committing a crime is very low, and it usually takes additional factors to push that up. I don't see enough things to give me reason to believe he would, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here.
If it does turn out she turned a blind eye to her father's abuses, then as far as I'm concerned, she is complicit, and shouldn't have the role at all.
US has started to, with sanctions on xinjiang related companies, with sanctions on chinese officials over hong kong.
It's just a matter of time before more sanctions arrive. Because dictatorships are short-sighted and incapable of change. So let's say China tries to prod Taiwan with some military approach and fails. Or escalation of border war with India or Vietnam or Japan. Or increasing purchases or Iranian goods.
When there's a mini-war started by China in Asia, you will see a full worldwide sanction on China.
I'm not sure if you've been paying attention, but supply chains have been moving to Vietnam/Malaysia/Indonesia/India/Mexico for the last few years, and the trend is only increasing.
There's literally a growing military alliance (US, India, Australia, Japan) against China right now. Also not to mention other countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, US) actively incentivizing their companies to onshore or move out of China. And because South China Sea is crucial to the growth of SE Asian economies, now France/UK/Germany along with Japan/US have warships sailing there to stop China's expansion.
Agreed - I suspect Apple (and others) are doing this as fast as they can to de-risk.
They can't blow up their existing relationships in the mean time, but they can blow them up once they have another option in place. At the very least, they'll have more leverage in negotiation.
It's pretty hilarious both ignored discussing the current failing government: China.
- Came up with a 50% effective vaccine sinovac, and forces its citizens to take it
- Wolf warrior politics has infuriated almost every democratic countries on Earth, and alienated China. When Merkel steps down in Sept, the Green party candidate is most likely to succeed. And the newcomer will act tough against China and Russia
- Ballooning debt (they don't own global currency, unlike US), declining marriage/birth rate, middle income trap, unrest in many provinces
- The CCP is so insecure that they banned broadcast of oscars because of Chloe Zhao, because she mentioned CCP as failing one time in 2013