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Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by jessedhillon on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @04:35AM (#4777194)
Two words of praise followed by a stream of acknowledged personal biases and admitted stereotypes, which are forwarded anyway. For what reason? To prove the author's own point that he/she doesn't understand the scale of a company which serves one billion people?

My humble suggestion is this: next time, if you don't have a good reason to recite publicly a litany of unfounded assumptions about an entire country and people, don't -- write something like this instead:

> Incredibly impressive. I know nothing about China.

Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by forrestthewoods on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @04:52AM (#4777238)
Why? Because those are common misconceptions that I am far from alone in holding. Bringing them up in the face of a monumental achievement is helpful for both myself and others who have had similar thoughts.
Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by Gigablah on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @06:13AM (#4777398)
In other words, you're trying to justify your own racism?

(If you have to preface your statements with "This may sound horrible and racist", they probably are.)

Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by chrischen on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @06:19AM (#4777408)
His statement was never racist, which is probably why he qualified racist with "may sound." China isn't a race.
Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by nsxwolf on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @11:32AM (#4778804)
He was being honest about his own perceptions, and willing to admit they may not be correct. By all means let's have less honesty and less self awareness.
Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by shadowmint on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @08:54AM (#4777944)
While I agree with what you have to say, it's hard to support you're point of view when you're saying like that.

Be civil.

It seems (to me, at least) that you're saying it so aggressively and childishly, your comments are likely to be discarded and ignored rather than considered.

Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by _jak on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @11:01AM (#4778632)
Unfortunately, you're right. I think it's a bit ridiculous that people are more offended by incivility than racism, though.
Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by gloob on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @11:08AM (#4778681)
To be fair, that's a reasonable position for a person who's "not really racist, but holds opinions that they concede certainly sound racist when said out loud".
Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by jessedhillon on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @12:18PM (#4779135)
Interesting, I thought I was being restrained. While certainly angry, I didn't mean to shut off conversation.

Re: reasonable position

If you have an epiphany that you've been operating on stereotypes (which in this case are racist, IMO), and you want to share the wonder of having your eyes opened to something you couldn't see before, the first thing to do is not to stream those now-understood-to-seem-racist misconceptions -- especially with no discussion of them. You could, instead, talk about what you learned, or why you believed those bad ideas.

And I don't mean why, as in, "because some friends had a bad outsourcing experience." I mean, why are you operating on stereotypes and unfair reductions, especially when you already admit they are wrong.

What would you think if someone said,

"Amazing job. I know it's racist, but I always thought blacks were too busy sitting on their porches drinking 40s that they bought with welfare money. I know too many friends who've had bad experiences with black people. It must be really hard to run for President."

Would you think such a person is having a genuine epiphany and sharing true insight into their own misguided worldview? I would think that the author of the comment is doing a bad job of it, at best. At worst, I would think that person learned nothing, but would like to say something anyway.

Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by gloob on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @02:50PM (#4780202)
I agree with you entirely and unreservedly. The scare quotes in my comment were to poke fun at the idea that a person who holds a set of racist opinions is somehow not a racist.

I do maintain that it is, in some sense, a "reasonable" position for a racist to be more offended by incivility than by racism. Not ideal, or even good, but certainly understandable.

Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by hnriot on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @08:28PM (#4781569)
but you're glossing over (conveniently) that the vast majority of crap is made in china. Not to mention the fact that China has no regard to intellectual property, is always the first to produce cheap knock-off products that blatantly ignore the inventor's IP.

And, this doesn't even mention human rights.

If you take off your politically correct hat for a moment you'll see that the comment "cheap, hacky, non-reliable, lawless, and poorly done" is warranted and quite generous in its phrasing.

It's not racist (since China isn't a race), and it's perfectly ok to make statements about a countries exports. Just as its ok to say that Swiss trains run on time, Swedish cars are built like tanks and french wine is good stuff. Not every french wine is great, and not every export from china is crap, but most french wines are good, and most chinese cheap plastic goods are crap too.

Re:Taobao.com breaks record for online sales in a day - $3.1... by BEIJINGSHOTS on Friday November 16, 2012 @02:20AM (#4792829)
actually, most of the people at the top of the bootlegging chain in China are not mainland Chinese, they are of Hong Kong, and Taiwan origin. They just use the mainland as their base of bootlegging, and exploitation of labor. bootlegging gucci hand bags and hollywood films did not start in the mainland. it started in hong kong, and taiwan. not much has changed. it's still the same guys doing it. theyve just relocated. no, you will never hear about this in the mainstream media because hong kong and taiwan are used as a staging area by western governments to destabilise China as a whole. and you cant make your lackeys look bad, because subversion must be rewarded. as far as quality goes, China has sent a few space ships up into space without one ever blowing up. on the other hand, the united states has had 2 of them blow up already. keep in mind that the u.s. hires the top scientists in the world to work on their space ships. while, China relies strictly on Chinese scientists because they are under sanctions from the rest of the world. Despite these odds, China still built their own space ship using their own technology. you should also know that if the u.s. did not bring foreign scientists in, would they be able to go as far as they do. google, and microsoft both hire foreign engineers heavily. take a walk around the silicon valley, and see how many Asians you see. i find it very hard to accept what the shills are pushing. and that includes you hnriot.