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Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

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Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#111

Post by delinka »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #28
ivuycggc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people seem plenty OK to aide and assist an entity which tortures and commits war crimes, mass murder, genocide, so they have more common with a member of ISIS than they do with any sane human.

Delinka very specifically said any person in any position of governmental authority, including ones who were merely hired to do a job. Saying that, I dunno, the office manager at the local agriculture bureau is an insane terrorist and complicit in war crimes and genocide and is kinda stupid.

I did not. I said "...with power." I doubt the office manager at the local agriculture bureau has any.

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#112

Post by x2398dh1 »

united893 wrote: post #44
tim333 wrote: post #18

It seems clear Cisco knew their systems were going to be used against Falun Gong. Leaked Cisco presentation: "Cisco Confidential 57 © 2002, Cisco Systems The Golden Shield Project: Public Network Information Security Monitor System • Stop the network-related crimes • Guarantee the security and services of public network • Combat “Falun Gong” evil religion and other hostiles [Note: Statement of Government goals from s…

Falun Gong is an evil litigious cult created in 1992 as a way to raise money for the founders and cult leaders. They're unscrupulous, including promising terminally ill cancer patients the possibility of healing if they just redirect their remaining wealth toward the cult. They're the Chinese equivalent to Scientology, but even worse. Their teachings are racing, homophobic, sexist and misogynistic. They preached that…

What's interesting to me about the Falun Gong is the relation I draw between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (THK) movement and the Falun Gong. In the 1800s, the THK lead the Taiping Rebellion, a massive civil war in which the THK took over Nanjing and large amounts of Chinese Territory. I believe that the Communist Party of China's arguably overly-egressive response against the Falun Gong, which yes is rightfully an unscrupulous cult, is indicative of their own insecurities about how they maintain power. There are many people in China that commit all manner of scams, being that it is a country with a wide variety of income classes - America, for one, is the same in that regard. There are many racist, homophobic, sexist and misogynistic, wild cults in other societies - but that is what comes with pluralistic societies, which China is not being that they are one-party ruled. The key question is - why does the Communist Party of China attack the Falun Gong so disproportionately aggressively over how it does to other organizations and forces within its own country who perpetrate similar ills? One is tempted to think that the answer lies within the size, strength and power of what the Falun Gong had attained in the 1990s, coupled with the historical allegory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. I believe that more than anything, the Communist Party is trying to protect its rule of the country, as well as the general order and progression of society, as is their philosophy as a vanguard socialist movement, rather than a pluralistic movement.

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#113

Post by x2398dh1 »

Nutmog wrote: post #9

While I do think human rights are a good idea, the focus seems to be carefully selected to as to make "bad" countries look bad and western countries look good. For the US, it's OK to kill people as long as you do it a bit randomly in a war instead of being too targeted, or as long as you do it to foreigners not your own citizens and you try to kill them quickly instead of using deliberate torture. If you do use tortu…

I think building a mental model of "bad," countries vs. "good," countries is over simplistic and not really useful when comparing China to the United States. The two entities are two of the largest countries in the world both by wealth, population and area. What troubles many Chinese about the Falun Gong and American society is the instability and inherent threats that it causes to Chinese society, by way of potential destabilization of the Chinese Communist Party's central authoritarian rule. What troubles Americans and more pluralistic societies is that they believe that only through a pluralistic, representative society can human rights abuses be brought to the forefront and eliminated. What the thought is, while America has many problems and human rights abuses, China is likely perpetrating far more serious problems under the surface, on a regular basis, due to a fundamental, "Who watches the watchers?" problem inherent in a vanguard movement as opposed to a pluralistic society in which titans can hypothetically point fingers at one another as they battle for power, leveraging the common folk's sensibilities to de-seat one another.

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#114

Post by bespoke_engnr »

iofj wrote: post #23

The problem there is not the US government. The problem there is religion - a specific religion to be extact. Once we start actually holding islam to the standard of modernity we may make progress here, but as long as we shy away from criticizing and shaming the religion publicly - it will keep doing this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... Meanwhile Saudi Arabia is the chair of the meeti…

That's right! Take that, Islam! Be shamed! iofj, you go girl! A religion that glorifies sexism and mass murder must be stopped!

Why can't these people recognize Islam for the digusting, violent religion it is? They'd be much better off with our favorite brand of Abrahamic montheism, Christianity, which is totally and completely different:

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. (1 Timothy 2:12)

This is what the Lord Almighty says... 'Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' (1 Samuel 15:3)

"So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go." (Judges 19:25) (obviously, the woman in question was later killed for this dishonor by her husband/owner, since that's the only humane treatment for a rape victim)

"Do not allow a sorceress to live." (Exodus 22:18) Christian witch killings are okay, but when those damned Muslims do it, it's just outrageous and disgusting, and totally Islam's fault, because how could a Muslim tell the difference between normal behavior and psychopathic murder.

etc. etc. etc.

Vote republican or democrat or intestinal-worm or whatever, and keep this horrible religion out of our great free nation!!11!!

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#115

Post by nitrogen »

acdha wrote: post #107
nitrogen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the commenter said. Don't confuse opposition to bad ideas with hatred of people who hold similar ideas. In some cases it is the idea that shapes the people, and those ideas must be contested.

It is in fact exactly what the commenter said: “a specific religion”, “holding Islam to the standard of modernity”, rejecting half of the Quran as trash, etc. are blanket references to an entire major world religion. I cannot say whether it was due to bigotry or gross ignorance but neither is helpful to anyone other than groups like ISIS or their fortunately less-successful Christian fundamentalist counterparts who a…

The comment said "Islam", but you said "Muslims". There's a difference in this case. I think the meta point behind that comment is that cultures, philosophies, and religions need to excise harmful ideologies from themselves for human rights to progress.

Some forms of Christianity need to remove their hatred of gays or other races.

Some forms of American culture need to value non-American life more highly.

Some forms of Islam need to discard their love of theocracy, male superiority, and jihad.

Though you've probably heard plenty of Muslim bashing and "Christians vs. Muslims" idiocy, that's far from what's going on here in this discussion. It needs to be possible for us to separate people and ideas in our minds, so we can elevate people while dismissing the harmful ideas that motivate harmful behavior.

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#116

Post by TranquilMarmot »

im2w1l wrote: post #86
tim333 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia doesn't make them sound so bad - "three central tenets of the belief are Truthfulness (真, Zhēn), Compassion (善, Shàn), and Forbearance" The troubles seem to stem from "April 1999, when over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered peacefully near the central government compound in Beijing to request legal recognition and freedom from state interference." I guess peaceful demonstrations against the state are…

I would not rely on wikipedia for politically controversial information.

Ah, yes, but cultnews.com is the bastion of truth

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#117

Post by acdha »

nitrogen wrote: post #115
acdha wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is in fact exactly what the commenter said: “a specific religion”, “holding Islam to the standard of modernity”, rejecting half of the Quran as trash, etc. are blanket references to an entire major world religion. I cannot say whether it was due to bigotry or gross ignorance but neither is helpful to anyone other than groups like ISIS or their fortunately less-successful Christian fundamentalist counterparts who a…

The comment said "Islam", but you said "Muslims". There's a difference in this case. I think the meta point behind that comment is that cultures, philosophies, and religions need to excise harmful ideologies from themselves for human rights to progress. Some forms of Christianity need to remove their hatred of gays or other races. Some forms of American culture need to value non-American life more highly. Some forms…

That's all fine and dandy but none of that nuance is in the comment you're defending so I'm not sure why you're trying to retcon it in now.

That's what made it so strikingly offensive: it's trying to portray 1.6 billion people in many countries around the world as a uniform group with a single belief.

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#118

Post by [deleted] »

bespoke_engnr wrote: post #114
iofj wrote: post #23

The problem there is not the US government. The problem there is religion - a specific religion to be extact. Once we start actually holding islam to the standard of modernity we may make progress here, but as long as we shy away from criticizing and shaming the religion publicly - it will keep doing this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... Meanwhile Saudi Arabia is the chair of the meeti…

That's right! Take that, Islam! Be shamed! iofj, you go girl! A religion that glorifies sexism and mass murder must be stopped! Why can't these people recognize Islam for the digusting, violent religion it is? They'd be much better off with our favorite brand of Abrahamic montheism, Christianity, which is totally and completely different: I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be s…

[deleted]

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#119

Post by dang »

iofj wrote: post #23

The problem there is not the US government. The problem there is religion - a specific religion to be extact. Once we start actually holding islam to the standard of modernity we may make progress here, but as long as we shy away from criticizing and shaming the religion publicly - it will keep doing this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... Meanwhile Saudi Arabia is the chair of the meeti…

Religious flamewars are not allowed on Hacker News. Please don't conduct them here.

In fact, your comment ("we need to shame islam", "toilet paper", etc.) is egregious enough to be a bannable offense. Please don't post any more like this.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10891505 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Cisco Must Be Held Accountable for Aiding China’s Human Rights Abuses

#120

Post by [deleted] »

iofj wrote: post #23

The problem there is not the US government. The problem there is religion - a specific religion to be extact. Once we start actually holding islam to the standard of modernity we may make progress here, but as long as we shy away from criticizing and shaming the religion publicly - it will keep doing this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... Meanwhile Saudi Arabia is the chair of the meeti…

[deleted]
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