Viewing profile — astebbin

I'd love to know why the parent has been downvoted. Further evidence, if any is needed: "The use of lethal force on the Berlin Wall was an integral part of the East German state's …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Peter_Fechter Many similar cases.

“The first thing you notice is the quiet. Then the white strips of paper stretched diagonally across the front doors of stores that look like they were vacated in a hurry. Once you…

Local laws in East Berlin sanctioned the murder of Germans who sought to escape. Local laws in Vichy France required people to report hidden Jews to the police. Local laws in Ameri…

I don't know what America has to do with anything, but China's income inequality is also worse than America's, so there's that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_i…

The one-child policy also resulted in the worst gender imbalance in the world, which "could lead to instability as more men remain unmarried, raising the risks of anti-social and v…

If this were true, surely it would be in China's best interest to cease its many protectionist trade policies immediately. On the contrary, protectionism seems to work well when ot…

“At first, Bekali did not want the AP to publish his account for fear that his sister and mother in China would be detained and sent to re-education. But on March 10, back in China…

It denies them in kind, in intent, and in scope and scale. “Six million Jews have been relocated by the German government for the purpose of poverty reduction.”

The takeaway quote from your link: "Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China relocated 461,000 poverty-ridden residents to work in other parts of the…

There is relevance to state-of-the-art surveillance technologies deployed in Xinjiang: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/china-s-xinjiang-p...

Hypothetical: as the cost of mass storage continues to plunge, why wouldn’t less-scrupulous states gather as much dirt as possible on anyone of even the remotest national interest …

This gun-drone is real, however, and may have already been deployed in Israel: https://youtu.be/VaTW8uAo_6s It carries a stripped-down AR-style carbine, and makes shots at what loo…

I imagine a scaled-down version of the U.S. Army’s C-RAM, or Israel’s Trophy system, could work quite well for VIPs. Some drones can be VERY fast (think hobby-sized jet engine fast…

>The campaign against Jeong is some bs about old tweets where she mimicked the racism she gets back, recast as racism against white people. Having read all of Sarah Jeong’s tweets …

China's government of that same period was hardly innocent, committing numerous genocidal wars of territorial expansion [0][1]. Hardly useful to compare either side of that histori…

Yes, that’s also a good example of obfuscated racial preference in college admissions (assuming the case has merit, and looking at the numbers I’m under the strong impression that …

Yes, but not with modified test scores, as that is explicitly illegal. Instead, schools consider softer criteria which leave wiggle room for race to be de facto weighted as a facto…

As I understand it, an enormous percentage of global trade sails through the South China Sea. From a pragmatic standpoint, it behooves American interests to support the Vietnamese …

It’s also life-shortening to suddenly and unexpectedly lost your job, especially when you’re over 40 and “retraining” isn’t really an option, or when all the other jobs have been a…

>I think many Americans are hoping China tries to take a leadership role in Asia and near neighbors Could you elaborate on this? My impression was that China has recently been bull…

I’m struck by the apparent no-warning nature of the firing. Were internal expectations clearly set for how employees should behave when interacting with fans and customers? Do comp…

I can’t tell if this comment is sincere or sarcastic. Poe’s Law in full effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

Snowden has certainly paid a price for his leaks. However, the Washington Post, New York Times, and others were not punished for re-publishing or discussing the content of these le…