Can you imagine tencent standing up to PRC like that? Their entire board would have been replaced, imprisoned or worse.
Isn’t this exactly how democracy is supposed to work?
What we don’t understand is why someone would spend so much time on HN complaining about “westerners” and lobbing ad hominems at anyone critical of China.
There is criticism and then there is ignorant xenophobia. The latter must be called out. If you've read about "ad hominem" then you must also be aware that it has its valid use cases.
Also, "complaining about X" is a kind of an ironic choice of words for this thread.
If you have an idea how to argue about something on the other side of a cultural barier without exposing biases, I am actually all ears.
Also, please don't post flamewar comments. You went way over the line here, even apart from the personal attack. You're as welcome here as anyone else is, but we need you to follow the rules and post in the intended spirit. I realize that's harder when representing a minority view, but there's not much we can do about that—we have to apply the rules more or less evenly.
Who can? There are plenty of things people around the world hold against the US. It's not like anyone can actually do something about it and that's all that really matters.
In the long term they can, by using the US dollar less and less. Which is already happening. One day the US government will wake up unable to print money to pay for things from other countries, and the economy will collapse.
I don't like assuming that someone is an idiot, but besides "shitting where you eat" the only explanation I can think of is that someone is betting on WWIII and that it will end as profitability as WWI and WWII.
A lot of people in the US view the US as the heroic peace keeper, and that all actions the US takes against China are for "world security" rather then an attempt to keep the top spot as the #1 economic and military super power.
It's weird because while there is freedom of the press in the US, many US citizens are still strangely misinformed and irrationally patriotic.
I'm not even clear about the mechanism at work here but there is a sort of strange form of control of information at play here. You can sort of sense it in US news. It's genius really how the media can be controlled despite amendments in place ensuring freedom of the press.
Anyway, I am aware of the whole bubble thing, although I don't think its unique for the US, at least no entirely.
It's quite similar to countries with their own sovereign media. That's why people often think that those other guys hand out talking points to their journalists, when it's actually all about hiring people with good political sense, who feel "the flow" and know what is politically correct.
The difference is that people with 3 digit IQ typically know how dive into foreign media (or even passively exposed to it), while people in the US dominated part of the world just kinda don't even care.
I wonder if it was different when the Fairness Doctrine was in place - probably not, cross-cultural fairness seems like something too complicated to scale well.
It's well known that advertising dollars influence decisions, and it's also well known that western news media is owned by only a few huge companies that often are advertising subsidiary companies on the same platform.
Litigation and defamation is probably one aspect of the control.
How do you figure it's not empty propaganda and that it's actually more massive compared to the US "well that's just life" incidents?
Because it's definitely propaganda (even if not an empty one). It's no coincidence that it ramped up when China became an economic competitor to the US. Even the "Uyghurs camps" narrative surged in media just right along with ICE detention camps scandal. And given how muslims were treated by the US after 9/11, there is definitely zero moral high-ground.
Cracking down on dissidents? Capitol riots challenge was failed miserably and was hardly handled any differently than what gets so criticized in "authoritarian" countries.
> cannot hold a candle to what the U.S.A achieves on the world stage.
Jokes about participating in wars all over the planet aside, what did the US actually achieve on the WORLD stage? Not it's influence on European neighborhood and the small corner of North Atlantics, but the WORLD. Cuz IMO, the world is totally burning right now.
It's really hard to figure out what you're implying specifically when you talk in slogans and manifestos, instead of like a normal down to earth person. But I can't shake the feeling that you kinda treat the rest of the world as ochlos to American demos, with an inherent supremacism similar to how 20 century commies went about their global revolution that no one had asked them for.
For one, you can call literal propaganda for what it is, but propaganda isn't necessarily wrong on the facts. Pointing out that 'you didn't care about issue X until you did' is not going to get the self-reflection you hope for, because at the end of the day, the propaganda is pointing out a message that cannot be countered since what it points out is true.
Second, anything to do with 'one of your parties did a bad thing' is counterproductive and contrasting the legal ramifications of the riots is not even close to being on par -- the USA has a functioning (if sometimes overhanded and racist) justice system and the fact that the offending parties were prosecuted publicly and not taken to a secret camp and shot shows that even if the perps didn't get their just deserts, it was all above board and it was effective.
'The world' is, again, a dead end. You absolutely cannot win an argument that the USA was somehow not the stabilizing military factor in the west and didn't provide a large portion of the major world stage level achievements since the end of WWII. If it weren't for the $$$trillions/yr on patrolling oceans in carriers, flying sorties, launching sats, and just generally being the hall monitor and the bully, then a whole lot of things would be incredibly different. You can argue for better or worse, but hardly any American would argue that it is for worse, if they honestly accept that they like their modern lifestyle.
I suggest going the Socratic way next time.
It's not far off from what the US did in Guantanamo.
https://www.weather.gov/safety/fog-driving says:
“
• Use fog lights if you have them.
• Never use your high-beam lights. Using high beam lights causes
glare, making it more difficult for you to see what’s ahead of
you on the road.
”In your metaphor the town wants safe roads -- they don't care if someone is going 54 or 56, and the enforcement should reflect that. If you really think that anyone going over 55.1 should be pulled over no matter what, and that people driving with a blindfold on going 54.9 should not, then I don't know what to say .
I would fully support a speed limit system based on driving skill. However, since we have a purely speed based system those driving the limit should not get tickets.
If you really believe in only 'the letter of the law' then why do we have courts? It isn't just to determine guilt or innocence, since only some of the courts do that and only some of the time.