Startup School Beijing

>I must be missing something. YC is a really smart bunch of guys. Certainly they know what the hell they're getting into.

It seems so very much. From my impression, SV people in China are not to run a new business, rather than to secure connections. See, they did not pair with a university with a genuine tech cred, nor they hold this school anywhere close to a tech hub, but in Beijing, and a university that is second after the central committee party school. The list of invited people I've heard also suggest that.

You can make an exact comparison. Not too terribly long ago I saw protests holding up poster sized pictures of prisoner abuse from Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay, which is roughly like holding up a poster-sized picture from the 1989 massacre. Nothing happened to these people in spite of the fact that these pictures are deeply embarrassing to the US government and intensely inflammatory in regions of the world where we don't want to be inflammatory.

As much as I give Snowden credit for exposing what can be dangerous autocratic programs, I also must point out that Snowden was not just some random protester. Snowden violated a government secrecy oath that he signed, which is a crime and this fact is printed rather boldly on the contract. Nobody forces you to sign these oaths. You can always say "I'm sorry, I can't sign this, I quit" and walk out and get another job.

That's part of what "the rule of law" actually means. In a nation with the rule of law, the law applies objectively to everyone: crooks, politicians, and yes even do-gooders. If the law is wrong you can vote for representatives to change it, but until then what's written is the law. If the law says it's illegal to hop on a pogo stick, then anyone hopping on a pogo stick gets arrested even if they're on their way to feed starving orphans.

(Secret courts are another matter, and I think those are un-American and should be shut down. But they are used far less in America than in China, and when they are used and the fact becomes known there's generally quite an uproar.)

Also-- personally I find the NSA and CIA less alarming than Facebook and Google. Three-letter agencies operate with at least some democratic oversight and the intel they gather does tend to be used primarily for legitimate intelligence and national security purposes. Unfortunately we do not live on planet fluffy bunny hugs and we need an intelligence service and a military. Facebook and Google operate with zero oversight whatsoever and sell their surveillance services to the highest bidder. Private surveillance operations are completely lawless.

This is awesome. I’ve been wondering how hard it is to partner up, give trainings or consult in China. Without many english speakers there it seems that the Chinese language is a pre requisite but it might be getting better.

If anyone has experience to share I’d be interested. I’m guessing this kind of ventures might be easy sales to universities like Tsing Hua.

China and the US have different histories. World affairs are not simplistic binaries of good and bad. Political systems take time to evolve. Western Europe evolved from feudalism over 300 years.

China has 1.3 billion people to take care of. This is not a joke. Let them manage and make the transition their way without sanctimonious judgement from others.

The USA is effectively two party state with both parties propping up oligarchies and special interests with a media who have long ceased to function as a free and independent press and have reduced themselves to mouthpieces for entrenched interests.

The ability to stand on a street and criticize your leader is not the only sign of democracy, the ability to effect change and have a government responsive to peoples needs is. Studies have shown and people can see how the US political establishment are far more responsive to special interests and the rich than the general public. So what is democracy?

Perhaps things are not simplistic or black and white, and continuing to affect a moral high ground inspite of alarming deterioration betrays not only a lack of fundamental concern for any articulated values but also its abuse as a mere political tool to beat others with without any context of global history and world affairs.

How does this square with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16918480 ?