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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

#201

Post by danso »

HNthrow22 wrote: post #38

Why are discussions surrounding Chinese Politics permitted but no other political discussions? Seems like a double standard. Just quickly looking at the removals here's a 4 hour old Mueller report thread instantly removed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19712217 .

It’s not just Chinese politics, but the implementation of a social media ban. This article about Sri Lanka shutting down social media in the wake of the Easter bombings is also on the HN front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19713481

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

#202

Post by microsage »

EGreg wrote: post #178
duxup wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've even got totalitarian apps: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi... >Schools are shaming students with low app scores. Government offices are holding study sessions and forcing workers who fall behind to write reports criticizing themselves. Private companies, hoping to curry favor with party officials, are ranking employees based on their use of the app and awarding top performers the…

Soon, if you don't play a certain amount of time and don't swear loyalty to the party regularly enough, you won't be able to buy food. https://www.cnet.com/news/china-turns-to-tech-to-monitor-sha...

This is completely unfounded speculation not found in that article or in any other writing on the topic(s) (of social credit scores and the study the great nation app). Or possibly it's an attempt at some dark humor through hyperbole. Either way, I see a lot of these sort of extreme claims on HN whenever China comes up, and I think we'd all do better to discuss what's actually happening rather than our wildest fears. This type of speculation really muddies the waters and makes it hard to have a thoughtful discussion about anything China-related on here, and China is a big, complicated, important topic right now that deserves careful consideration. It also risks undermining legitimate criticisms of Chinese policy, or at least making them less believable, which I assume is the exact opposite of the intent of the poster here.

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

#203

Post by 07d046 »

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…

Technically, China was a democracy for a brief period after the Xinhai Revolution at the start of the 20th century.

Democracy was also one of the major themes of the May Fourth Movement of 1919. In these decades, China was busy importing Western ideas because they believed that was the key to rejuvenate China.

The Communist Party eventually won power in China, but it was only following the Korean War that all hope was lost that China could transition to a democracy.

Still, the spectre of democracy remains. The Chinese Communist Party still talks about democracy positively sometimes and the Chinese constitution describes China as a democracy. They do this partly by ignoring what democracy means (the constitution also guarantees "freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration"), and partly by redefining what democracy means. It's Western-style democracy that the CCP treats as an unambiguously bad and dangerous idea.

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

#204

Post by vl »

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.

"Never" is an overstatement, since both Rome and Greece had some forms of democracy.

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

#205

Post by Gpetrium »

mirimir wrote: post #170
AvocadoPanic wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Have there been any truly successful forceful interventions?

It depends on the definition of success for the involved parties. It doesn't always mean full captulation.

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

#206

Post by ardy42 »

Zuider wrote: post #177
yorwba wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China does claim to be a democracy in its constitution, though: Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China [...] the Chinese people of all nationalities will continue [...] to turn China into a socialist country that is prosperous, powerful, democratic and culturally advanced. http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/con... Of course the literal text of the constitution is completely ignored…

The word 'democracy' has been used in two incompatible senses. In the West, we see democracy as a means of limiting the excesses of power. As Karl Popper noted, 'democracy' is not so much the answer to the question "who should rule?", as to the question "how do we prevent bad rulers ruling absolutely?". When 'democracy' is taken to imply the first answer, it is seen as the grounds of total legitimacy for the ruler. I…

That's very insightful comment. I'd never thought about it that way. Thank you.

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

#207

Post by Buge »

Jonnax wrote: post #188
Buge wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wasn't referring to any specific person.

The closest person I was referring to is the player in the "Chinese esports team" that dx87 was talking about. Or possibly a hypothetical white player on who could have been put in a similar situation by an interviewer. I guess they have a little bit of power due to their position on a top team, but I don't consider that to be much power. I don't consider them victims either, just humans who have their own set of goals and fears, that I can try to analyze.

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

#208

Post by jtms »

Jonnax wrote: post #188
Buge wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe this person was referring to the esports team not neo nazis

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

#209

Post by jtms »

hopler wrote: post #179
duxup wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've even got totalitarian apps: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi... >Schools are shaming students with low app scores. Government offices are holding study sessions and forcing workers who fall behind to write reports criticizing themselves. Private companies, hoping to curry favor with party officials, are ranking employees based on their use of the app and awarding top performers the…

In the US we have diversity trainings, where employees are asked to write essays about what they learned, and fired if they voice an unapproved opinion of the latest trends in the company's view of psycho-sociology.

fall in line citizen or face the consequences of your deviation!

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

#210

Post by Gigablah »

walrus01 wrote: post #191
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…

What happens if you show them a photo of a Llama, and ask about the Grass Mud Horse?

That means you’re intentionally trying to get them in trouble?

This is as asinine as getting someone to say “bomb” at airport security.

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