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CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

nytimes.com

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Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#141

Post by msla »

krapp wrote: post #115
msla wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialism is all about worker ownership of business, often mediated through the state. Morality doesn't enter into it.

You're confusing socialism with communism. Socialism is a political philosophy, whereas communism is one specific (but not the only possible) implementation of that philosophy. Socialism is also intended to be a criticism of and attempt to redress the immorality of capitalism, so morality does enter into it, at least in theory.

Socialism as it's understood now is a specific plan for replacing Capitalism, tied to a specific theory of history, not just a philosophy. At the level of implementation, it isn't morality, it's economics and politics. There might be morality behind it, but there's morality behind all actions, to some extent.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#142

Post by [deleted] »

krapp wrote: post #115
msla wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialism is all about worker ownership of business, often mediated through the state. Morality doesn't enter into it.

You're confusing socialism with communism. Socialism is a political philosophy, whereas communism is one specific (but not the only possible) implementation of that philosophy. Socialism is also intended to be a criticism of and attempt to redress the immorality of capitalism, so morality does enter into it, at least in theory.

[deleted]

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#143

Post by [deleted] »

kuzehanka wrote: post #133
vertline3 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thread derails from the topic of American CBS censorship, so it sort of did fall into a whataboutism type of distraction cycle. Theoretically capitalist companies that are censoring important content can be pressured with boycotts over censorship, though I'm not sure how feasible that is here.

> This whole thread derails from the topic of censorship Or highlights the relationship between capitalism and censorship when the capital is held by a totalitarian state? China has quietly sat and waited for the last 50 years while they accrued capital. Now they have it, and they're using it to take control of the same incentive systems that created the developed world. Ignoring the threat that's posed, or ignoring…

[deleted]

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#144

Post by TomMckenny »

scohesc wrote: post #18

It's a bit telling when a media giant like CBS can't strike a happy medium by you know - both not censoring it in the US and censoring it in china - instead, choosing to censor the whole thing outright on the entire platform. It's almost like all these American companies are moving en masse to do business in China with the sole purpose of increasing profits every single quarter, irrespective of (and arguably, now enc…

Absolutely. Most corporations have no more loyalty to one "side" or the other nor any more loyalty to an ideology than the Coke/Fanta hybrid-monstrosity of the 1940s. It took employees to force Google to reverse some of its policies, not its board of directors.

At the same time, as the US withdraws from the world, China fills in. They zealously sell the surveillance state and its equipment world wide just as the US exported its form of capital constrained democracy. So it's not remotely just CBS nor just in the US.

For those annoyed by the occasionally harmful American hegemony, just wait till you see what China is going to do.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#145

Post by zouhair »

kuzehanka wrote: post #122
zouhair wrote: post #62

I don't get why you are acting so surprised. In Capitalism the only point is to make money, that's all there is. If siding with human rights helps make money they will side with human rights, if genocide helps make even more money they will side with genocide. As long as Capitalism is the main economic system this will always be only about the profits.

This sounds like the kind of whataboutism you'd encounter on any thread negatively countering China, but it isn't. This is an uncontroversial fact about capitalism that Adam Smith covered before capitalism even emerged as a concept. The goal of capitalism is to maximize production output. Everything else is peripheral. Maybe it's a hard truth to come to grips with, but that is what we need to do in order to move forw…

No, Capitalism is about making profits. Raising production or lowering it can both be used to make profits.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#146

Post by firethief »

convivialdingo wrote: post #100
zouhair wrote: post #62

I don't get why you are acting so surprised. In Capitalism the only point is to make money, that's all there is. If siding with human rights helps make money they will side with human rights, if genocide helps make even more money they will side with genocide. As long as Capitalism is the main economic system this will always be only about the profits.

Capitalism doesn’t work without choice of consumption. If you have a bad or misleading product, eventually people won’t use it. I’m less worried about typical profit-mongering than I am about the corporate owned media however - media has a powerful ability to skew and censor truthful news.

That works well for bad products, which is why bad products are the least of our problems. But consumer choice is utterly ineffective at internalizing externalities, because consumers don't have the time to research the supply chains behind different options and don't feel like they have the money to make choices that don't lead to disaster in the long run.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#147

Post by zouhair »

convivialdingo wrote: post #100
zouhair wrote: post #62

I don't get why you are acting so surprised. In Capitalism the only point is to make money, that's all there is. If siding with human rights helps make money they will side with human rights, if genocide helps make even more money they will side with genocide. As long as Capitalism is the main economic system this will always be only about the profits.

Capitalism doesn’t work without choice of consumption. If you have a bad or misleading product, eventually people won’t use it. I’m less worried about typical profit-mongering than I am about the corporate owned media however - media has a powerful ability to skew and censor truthful news.

That's a myth of Capitalism, a lot of crappy products are used every day because of marketing, market flooding, patenting, copyright, corruption and so on and so forth.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#148

Post by taobility »

duxup wrote: post #84

If they're willing to censor news. I wonder how long until China extends its social credit system (or a form of it) to people outside China... and what companies play along?

are you saying US's credit score shouldn't apply to immigrant?

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#149

Post by taobility »

rhizome wrote: post #93

Next they should do an episode on Mohammed bin Salman and see what happens. Red-team US censorship standards.

They would never think about that. Otherwise, Muslim would burn their office, shoot their employee and the other medias would say, the burning is for justice :)

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#150

Post by chillacy »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #90
GalacticDomin8r wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's totally possible for a capitalist society to prioritize things like human rights, etc. over profits through political and social means. I believe that is what most people would call socialism. When taken at its root idea anyway.

> I believe that is what most people would call socialism. When taken at its root idea anyway. No, it could also be the society's moral system. For instance, take a hypothetical capitalist society where the shame and stigma of violating human rights is very strong. A business owner there would likely refuse to violate them even if it's very profitable, because doing so would make him a pariah, no "socialism" required…

It only takes one person desperate enough or psychopathic enough to do it.
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