China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media • Hacker News Board

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#161

Post by lvs » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

Veen wrote: post #105

spectramax wrote: post #20

Powerful ad. My gut feeling is that there will be a day in the future where everything in China is going to boil-over just like any other totalitarian regimes in the past. It could be 20 years from now when Xi dies or some type of student uprising again, or could be from the HK/Taiwan situation. The behavior of the Chinese government and as they call it "the hand of Beijing" has a self-propelling streisand effect, th…

The West is the outlier here. Most of the world has lived under dictatorships for most of history. China is a millenia-old civilization that has never been a democracy. The current regime may fall, but it is not written in the universe that it will progress towards anything resembling a Western democracy. If I were playing the odds, I'd put money on democracy failing in the west rather than it rising in China in the…

The West was never a democracy until it suddenly was one. Heads rolled.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#162

Post by jessedhillon » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:13 AM UTC

frostburg wrote: post #132

apo wrote: post #40

The Chinese are innovating totalitarianism faster than any other country. Take this, for example: > ... When undergraduate students at Peking University, which was at the center of the incident, were shown copies of the iconic photograph [of Tank Man] 16 years afterwards, they were "genuinely mystified." One of the students said that the image was "artwork." It is noted in the documentary Frontline: The Tank Man that…

Leica distancing itself from the ad isn't a good look. The company is not very relevant for actual "working" photographers today (I use one, but tellingly photography isn't a real job for me), but it once was and at the time they stood up to their own homegrown totalitarian regime by helping jews escape Germany disguised as transferring employees.

The ad itself is supposed to be a tribute to photo journalists, highlighting the risks they're prepared to take in pursuit of the truth. I can hardly capture in words how incongruent Leica's actions are with their message.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#163

Post by why_only_15 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:15 AM UTC

yongjik wrote: post #86

rossenberg79 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As westerners I feel this is natural to think, and makes sense to us, but having been in China several times I'm not so sure. The value systems in Asia are far different, and people are much more collective where as we are a more individualist society with different thoughts about individual freedom. I doubt China could have become as strong as it is today without it's long history of authoritarian regimes, and I fee…

As a Korean I absolutely disagree. Korea has embraced Chinese philosophy in the past, sometimes to such a degree that it was more Confucian than China itself. Yet South Koreans are as zealous about democracy as any western nation. In fact, there was a time when our own dictator and his followers used exactly the same argument, saying that "Western Democracy" does not fit Asia's unique culture, and we should instead i…

That's a fantastic quote. Thanks for sharing it.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#164

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:18 AM UTC

> “Do you even deserve to collaborate with our patriotic Huawei?” one Weibo user said about Leica, according to SCMP.

Is this an actual sentiment that Chinese citizens have?

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#165

Post by nercht12 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:20 AM UTC

ralph84 wrote: post #37

spectramax wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly why the rest of the world needs to speak up.

To what end? It was 30 years ago. The Eight Elders are all dead. You really think a bunch of westerners tutting at China about lowlights in their history will do anything other than galvanize Chinese nationalism?

It needs to be talked about anyways. For every 100 nationals who laugh or scorn, 1 person hears about it and starts thinking "Hm... maybe what I've been taught here isn't so true. Maybe things really are bad here."

We need information to make decisions. One side providing all the info leads to biased thoughts. It's exactly what's happening here in the US. People pick their news source (CNN, FOX, etc) and gradually become polarized to think one way.

The lesson here is: Learn about the counter argument. You should find it isn't as crazy as people tell you.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#166

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:25 AM UTC

gxwmg wrote: post #128

dx87 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of an interview with a Chinese esports team I saw at a tournament a few months ago. The interviewer was doing a light-hearted game where they showed twitch emotes to the Chinese team and asked what they thought the emotes meant. One of the emotes was a frog (the creator of the game goes by IceFrog), and the Chinese translator said that the players weren't allowed to say anything about the emote. We la…

Well, there's a frog in the west that can also get you in trouble...

Not for talking about it.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#167

Post by nercht12 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:28 AM UTC

JasonGenova25 wrote: post #138

techntoke wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, you have a great point. However, most of the content on Hacker News is controlled by a small group of people who have specific agendas. I wish they would be fair like you mention, but you have to be part of that small group.

could you elaborate? I have heard of these invite-only HN groups, but I have a hard time believing people would care so much about some online forum.

It's a POPULAR online forum, which is why people care. If tomorrow no one gave a crap about HN but HN mods still wanted people, they'd have to welcome more discussion like all the other nobody forums.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#168

Post by gxwmg » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:30 AM UTC

wahnfrieden wrote: post #159

gxwmg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's a frog in the west that can also get you in trouble...

As a symbol of racist misogynist hate of marginalized groups, not a statement against a totalitarian leader. What exactly are you comparing?

"racist misogynist hate of marginalized groups", that's got to be the winner of some bingo lol

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#169

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:31 AM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #153

CamperBob2 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you didn't get the point when Karl Popper explained it, I doubt I'll be any more effective at conveying it here.

I'm generally happy to write walls of text to debate ideas, but I'm not very inclined to do it for people who just drop links. I will however drop a link of my own: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... TL; DR: Everyone hates their outgroup, and everybody has one, including you and me. Isn't it rather convenient to convince yourself that everyone in your outgroup is intolerant totalitarians,…

> Isn't it rather convenient to convince yourself that everyone in your outgroup is intolerant totalitarians

That's a pretty extreme strawman. I disagree with lots of outgroups, and I only call a couple of them totalitarians.

If someone hates all of the outgroup, they are almost certainly hypocritical and lying to themselves about being tolerant.

If someone hates none of the outgroup, we can agree they're virtuous and special, sure.

If someone hates 15% of the outgroup for specific reasons, that's probably okay. It doesn't automatically imply that they are secretly intolerant. Most people that claim to prioritize tolerance are here, and most of them are telling the truth.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#170

Post by mirimir » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 12:32 AM UTC

AvocadoPanic wrote: post #152

mirimir wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, maybe they're "more collectively minded" because they've been living under totalitarian regimes for millennia. And even if we accept (which I do) that some Western-style society is better, getting there would be hugely nontrivial. In particular, getting there would arguably involve considerable chaos. And so it's not that hard for those in control to play on people's fears about that. After all, Westerners have…

South Africa really the best example of a 'successful' intervention?

Have there been any truly successful forceful interventions?