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China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

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

#181

Post by hopler »

nercht12 wrote: post #160
0815test wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Collectively organize and resist"? That's really not what Chinese politics looks like, either today or in the foreseeable future. It's not just that the vast majority of Chinese are quite apathetic about politics (though they definitely are) - most of them nowadays think the government is actually doing a pretty good job, all things considered. And they're even less inclined to think that rocking the boat in any way…

> It's not just that the vast majority of Chinese are quite apathetic about politics (though they definitely are) What? You have a source on this? Last I checked, people were jumping out of buildings to commit suicide so the gov put nets around the bottom. Things may have gotten better, but they are far from the ideal anyone wants to live in. I think the "apathy" you're referring to is actually "resignation" to the f…

Many countries have suicide. What has that to do with suicide victims' opinions of the national government?

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

#182

Post by tomrod »

ufmace wrote: post #62
maehwasu wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analyzing widely differing cultures and peoples under the unitary framework of “totalitarianism” isn’t terribly compelling either. The Chinese government has shown remarkable staying power, and it’s important to analyze the ways/reasons it might continue to hold power, since that seems to be a quite likely outcome. The intuition that western liberal democracy is some sort of inevitable wave is very possibly just an a…

It seems like an ironic blind spot to me. Western liberals claim to be all about tolerance and diversity and multiculturalism, yet seem to have difficulty conceiving of the idea that maybe some other cultures genuinely don't want to turn into Western Liberal Democracies.

Maybe, maybe not. The starting philosophical base of Western Liberal Democracy is that individuals matter, and they have natural rights. That's a compelling narrative.

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

#183

Post by Zuider »

lvs wrote: post #161
Veen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Heads rolled in France, but that lead to the totalitarian Jacobin regime. Across the channel in Britain, democracy had been growing slowly since the signing of the Magna Carta began the process of subjecting power to the rule of law, divesting the monarch of the claim to absolute power and distributing that power among institutions such as parliament.

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

#184

Post by Symmetry »

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…

That's true but most of the people who have lived have been relatively poor and ignorant. Empirically, there seems to be a transition point in development where democracy goes from making a country less stable to making it more stable and I've actually forgotten exactly what the level was but China will be past it soon if it isn't already. I really have to re-read Wars, Guns, and Votes.

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

#186

Post by bitcurious »

true_religion wrote: post #157
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…

It's more collectively minded as many countries ended up with an figurehead emperor who acts as a symbol of the state, giving everyone something to bind themselves to even if they hate their local king.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II

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

#187

Post by aonsager »

saagarjha wrote: post #164

> “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?

This felt off to me too. I really dislike articles that cherry-pick anonymous SNS posts to prove a point.

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

#188

Post by Jonnax »

Buge wrote: post #175
Dylan16807 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always find someone willing to jump to conclusions. It's easy to have an in-depth discussion about the history, symbology, use, the way meaning and irony are twined together... and if someone lowers their opinion of you after that then oh well, either there's no pleasing them or you earned it from your opinions. It's a far cry from having something that can't even be brought up, ever.

Yeah, but this is about when an interviewer with a camera asks for a quick comment about the meme. There isn't time to have an in-depth discussion about it. And it's difficult to be put on the spot like that with a camera in your face, and you know that whatever you say, people can replay that clip over and over again and spread it about the internet to criticize you. To avoid the potential backlash, declining to tal…

The man you seem to be talking about was a proud white supremacist that got punched in the face.

It's interesting how on the internet those in positions of power get described as the real victims.

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

#189

Post by noonespecial »

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…

they were "genuinely mystified." One of the students said that the image was "artwork."

Thats just spooky close to the "It doesn't look like anything to me" from Westworld. How long until they really don't see the man and the tank at all?

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