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Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by rayiner on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:20AM (#16186824)
Complaining about Silicon Valley political correctness while extolling the virtues of China is at best tone deaf. It’s pretty much impossible for anyone who has any experience with Asia to deny that racism is just more socially acceptable over there than in the US. And things like homosexuality are suppressed. For example, China recently banned depictions of homosexuality on TV.

So of course it’s easier to say certain things over there than it is over here. That’s the difference between a society where tensions are high because we’re actively trying to work through the challenges faced by our minority groups, and one where there are no tensions because the concerns of minority groups are completely suppressed.

It’s also myopic to mistake forced social harmony for principled open mindedness. My extended family is from a South Asian country, and let’s face it—people say things that could, among Americans, get them in trouble. That’s not out of open mindedness. Try bringing up a cousin possibly being gay and see how open minded everyone is.

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by evangelista on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:09AM (#16187241)
I don’t think political correctness is the correct description of what he is trying to complain about.

The word he is looking for is “entitlement caused by excessive privilege.”

The reason people in China work that hard is that there are many people in poverty who would also like to work very hard for those jobs and very little safety net.

I should also mention once again: The United States is nowhere near as racist or sexist as these countries as mentioned above.

However the common opinion is that the United States is extremely racist and sexist. To people who genuinely believe this: You have no idea what the rest of the world is like, please travel.

The things I have seen folks from China openly saying and doing in business make the United States look very fair.

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by liberte82 on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:14AM (#16187285)
I think that as liberals, we have a habit of fiercely criticizing problems within our own society, but will gloss over the same (or deeper) problems in other societies as 'cultural differences'. This can lead to a very rose-colored view of the situation in other countries.
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by java_script on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:51AM (#16187634)
It's not like we can control the racism levels in other countries, so why does it matter?

However when you look at countries we materially support (in their carrying out of racist actions) like Israel, liberals do care very much. So it does seem like there's some consistency there.

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by mindcrime on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:21AM (#16186843)
That’s the difference between a society where tensions are high because we’re actively trying to work through the challenges faced by our minority groups, and one where there are no tensions because the concerns of minority groups are completely suppressed.

Very well put!

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by scarmig on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:21AM (#16187353)
"We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive." -MLK
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by liberte82 on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:27AM (#16187426)
In America, there is a lot of tension near the surface. It might seem like that means we have deep, deep problems. But sometimes when an issue is closer to the surface, that can mean it can no longer be ignored and is closer to needing resolution.
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by tdb7893 on Friday January 19, 2018 @12:08PM (#16187787)
In my opinion the issues are close to the surface because the social enlightenment that much of the US experienced is a very recent thing. The best example is how the views on homosexuality has shifted in the last 20 years but it's also shown in views on race, poverty, and drugs
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by Sangermaine on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:53AM (#16187104)
Not to mention let him try to comment on the way the government or even his government-affiliated business partners there are run and see how "open minded" they are then.
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by FussyZeus on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:48AM (#16187068)
That’s the difference between a society where tensions are high because we’re actively trying to work through the challenges faced by our minority groups, and one where there are no tensions because the concerns of minority groups are completely suppressed.

This EXACTLY. Of course there is way less culture clash in China, cultures that aren't China explicitly get beat the hell down. That's not a solution, and I think China is going to be a lesson for the rest of humanity within the next 30 years or so as to why just telling everyone to shut up or they'll be killed isn't a sustainable long term solution to social harmony.

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by throwaway7312 on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:57AM (#16187145)
The simplest way of looking at this is that the more power you divide up among increasingly small segments of your population, the more you divide the house.

In China, there is the objective of China, where there is a singular focus on what is good for the people and the country. Groups that would take away from this to empower their own group are viewed as attacking the collective.

America until the middle of the 1960s or so was like this to a large extent. Various minorities (Italians, Irish, Eastern Europeans) entered the country, kept separate identities for a while, but eventually integrated into the whole. The death of John F. Kennedy signaled the end of a unified America and the birth of a far more divided house.

Today, America has fractured into a litany of squabbling sects. In China, you have the Chinese. In America, what used to be called "Americans" are now called whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Indians, Arabs, gays, straights, bisexuals, pansexuals, transexuals, liberals, conservatives, nationalists, globalists, Christians, atheists, Muslims, Jews. There are feminists and men's rights activists and Black Lives Matter and the Alt-Right. Each sect wants the spotlight; it wants advantages over other groups (masked with euphemisms like "equality" or "recognition" or "reparations"); and it views the overall identity of the country as an oppressive enemy that must be fought.

That is not to say one condition is better than the other. These seem to be natural cycles nations go through. John Glubb notes the Byzantines squabbling amongst themselves over their divisions as the Ottomans blew holes in the walls around their city in 1453. [1] Byzantium, like America, had been the world's greatest super power at one time too. It seems likely the slide into infighting and decadence is a natural state of every nation advanced in the cycles of civilizations.

But of course, a people that spends its time tip-toeing around and arguing about what labels to use to refer to this group and who can use that word and who can't use that word and how many of which group you have to hire to not get sued has very different priorities and will achieve very different outcomes than a people that is relentlessly focused on a more singular, unified objective, other things being equal.

In America's case, I suppose the question is: do the benefits of diversity (which has become a sort of national religion over the past two decades) outweigh the costs?

The test case of American "maximum diversity" vs. Chinese maximal industriousness may prove as close as we'll get to a controlled study on how these two very different national priorities stack up against one another head-to-head on the world stage over the coming decades.

Place your bets now folks....

[1] http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by logiclion on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:28AM (#16187431)
In my opinion 'maximum' diversity doesn't just mean diversity of identity, it also means diversity of thinking and opinions. I also think the division of power up to the individual level is called Democracy...
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by greglindahl on Friday January 19, 2018 @01:28PM (#16188481)
Your version of America isn't very historical. The last time we had a big backlash against immigrants was 1923. That was a backlash against swarthy people from Southern Europe, who were living together, still speaking their home language, mostly following an unusual religion (Catholicism), not assimilating, and so forth.

Basically, we're seeing the same complaint today.

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by liberte82 on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:18AM (#16187330)
Why do you view the death of JFK as the inflection point?
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by alexnewman on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:44AM (#16187032)
i’ve never found a country less racist than the us
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by tptacek on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:46AM (#16187054)
There's probably something to this. I doubt we're the best. But the rest of the world, including Western Europe, is surprisingly racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. The wrong lesson to take from that would be, "so we should all chill out about racism". It's just as likely (I think more likely) that the lesson is: "the freak-outs are working".
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by stephenhuey on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:55AM (#16187135)
I agree with this, at least with the caveat that places that might do better tend to be much smaller. Friends from other countries who have tried to question why the U.S. seems to have so much trouble with this don't seem to be factoring in challenges from our diversity, history, and even the high level of freedom that citizens have to express themselves.
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by jjeaff on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:03AM (#16187200)
So you're saying you've never spent anytime outside the US unless it was at a vacation resort...
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by alexnewman on Friday January 19, 2018 @05:46PM (#16190637)
I've actually lived multiple years, in over a dozen countries... Certainly no resort times? Maybe you can provide evidence or our a counterexample instead of being full of snark
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by kthejoker2 on Saturday January 20, 2018 @04:25AM (#16192732)
Please share which countries you think are less racist.

Brazil, Thailand, UK, France, Poland, Mexico, Canada, and Egypt are right out from my own experience.

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by alexnewman on Monday January 22, 2018 @12:30PM (#16206148)
You think Canadians aren't harsh on the natives when compared to america. I have never heard such open racism. Egyptians not racist, tell that to my buddy who was just beaten for being white. France, I mean, your kidding right?
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by kthejoker2 on Monday January 22, 2018 @06:36PM (#16209238)
Uhh... I agree those countries are not less racist than America. Please reread my post.
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by evangelista on Friday January 19, 2018 @10:58AM (#16187149)
The only way to think like this is to have never left the US. Unfortunately, too many American grow up not having the exposure of how people speak in the rest of the world. Ever seen an entire soccer stadium erupt into monkey calls when a black player kicks a goal? You don’t know what a climate of racism is.

Americans think they are surrounded by racism, they have no idea what that actually means.

Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by alexnewman on Friday January 19, 2018 @05:47PM (#16190650)
I agree with your example but am pretty sure you got me backwards
Re:Mike Moritz slams politically correct tech culture, prais... by liberte82 on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:16AM (#16187299)
I think you misread the parent comment..