211–220 of 311 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect that Reddit intentionally keeps the moderators of core subs a group of "normal users" (who will follow any requests by the admins) as a level of obfuscation for any corporate-driven censorship or vote-tampering.
And I suspect there's a secret cabal of mole-men (and -women) who are selecting presidential candidates for the Democratic primaries. Are either of these claims falsifiable?
Writer of the article here. Totally get the frustrations with paywalls. Bottom line is feature stories like this take weeks, months, sometimes a year or more to produce. Sites without paywalls have to go for clicks (which are worth close to zero now that Google/Facebook gobble up most online ad budgets). If low value clicks are all you have, you end up like dailymail.co.uk. If you want high value news, you have to pa…
“If you’re not a 10 in the U.S., you’re not a 10 in China,” officials say they’ve told the executives. Not true. If you're a 5 in the US, you're not a 10 in China. However, being Asian might well cost you a point or two in the US, depending on whom you ask. There are some weird cultural things going on in the US, in particular, manifesting as biases. I was raised in a place where we literally had to drive almost 50 m…
I know for a fact my white female friends (at least in high school and college) had large biases against Asian dudes.
What's worse, it seems that many American-Asian women go for white guys instead of Asian men, though I have no idea why.
On the flip side, I believe I do get an extra few points with the ladies when I travel to Asian countries. I don't know if it's because they assume I'm wealthy (which I am compared to most in low wage Asian countries) or if it is just the foreign novelty.
And it's kind of a stereotype now where the unattractive American or British gent goes over to East / SE Asia to teach English (and pick up a girlfriend or bride).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't all Reddit subs driven by their own moderators? Or are there core subs that are Reddit-moderated? I had a lawyer friend who liked to post in a legal advice sub, moderated by someone in law enforcement, who banned him for posting information about your rights if you're arrested.
I suspect that Reddit intentionally keeps the moderators of core subs a group of "normal users" (who will follow any requests by the admins) as a level of obfuscation for any corporate-driven censorship or vote-tampering.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think you're eliding the fact that technology development and specifically startup growth are current strategic priorities for the PRC, and making a straw man by framing my argument as "China will change course because of a PG blogpost". It's not a strawman when that is exactly what you wrote: >> Meh...PG writing a blog post entitled "Why YC Is Quitting China" would cause plenty of tsoris in Beijing, and the Chin…
Tsoris means stress or suffering. A front-page article in a major American newspaper saying that the world's pre-eminent tech incubator was pulling out of the Chinese market due to political pressure would constitute a major loss of face and, yes, cause stress within the CPC leadership. I didn't say that this would drive a policy change after the fact. Quite the opposite, it would likely result in some kind of drama…
It's interesting: Chinese cash is welcome in real estate and the US treasury market. What is it about startups that makes the government concerned?
As someone who has been waiting on the sidelines to buy a home for years now, I'd love to see the Chinese begin pulling cash out of our real estate market. It's said that most of this cash has pushed up prices mostly on the West coast, but I have this belief that a lot of money has trickled into almost all metro areas of the US. I can't see any other reason for home prices to be so out of whack in medium-sized US cit…
Prices have dropped where I live (although could easily be due to other causes). Mortgage rates have also dropped recently.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“If you’re not a 10 in the U.S., you’re not a 10 in China,” officials say they’ve told the executives. Not true. If you're a 5 in the US, you're not a 10 in China. However, being Asian might well cost you a point or two in the US, depending on whom you ask. There are some weird cultural things going on in the US, in particular, manifesting as biases. I was raised in a place where we literally had to drive almost 50 m…
I agree as a white guy. Asian guys have never been particularly well placed in most US media, movies, etc. and there is a stigma when white women date them - you rarely ever see it outside of places like SF and NYC. I know for a fact my white female friends (at least in high school and college) had large biases against Asian dudes. What's worse, it seems that many American-Asian women go for white guys instead of Asi…
Thanks for this! I dislike identity politics when used as a bludgeon for the sake of power. However, many of the phenomena talked about are indeed real.
There's one Brazillian rom com, where the Chinese boyfriend was something of the "bad guy" or at least the punching bag. There's nothing about the character that's actually characterization. It's all about his being an Asian guy, who furnishes his apartment in a stereotypical "Asian" fashion, teaches martial arts, only ever wears his martial arts uniform, and makes gross noises in the bathroom. Wish I could remember the name of that movie.
And it's kind of a stereotype now where the unattractive American or British gent goes over to East / SE Asia to teach English (and pick up a girlfriend or bride).
It also works like this for Irish and Scottish guys with that "cute accent."
I'd be more concerned about Chinese financing of Hollywood. Nearly every big-budget production these days has Chinese co-producers. This leads to farcical episodes like the remake of Red Dawn featuring feeble North Korea as the villain rather than China as originally envisioned.
All film and media is propagandistic in some way. Just because you swing the needle in a different direction doesn't change that fact.
Chinese investment means increased pressure on tech oligopolies* to increase censorship of media critical of China. They've been branching out to increase soft influence, keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation. Then there's what is currently going on in Hong Kong. Chinese investor cash is effectively Chinese government investment. It's not a good thing. *edit
Not that this isn't a valid concern, but is there really any evidence that this is happening in Silicon Valley? Hong Kong's a different matter because of just how comparatively dominating and close by the mainland Chinese market is compared to the tiny city state. But in the US tech sector, the Chinese market is at best an after-thought. We're also living through probably the strongest seller's market in history when…
I don't think it's so easy, because the issue wouldn't come up during funding, it'd happen later.
Also - the vast majoriy of companies do not 'waltz into VC to raise money'. Consider that if they are taking Chinese money, it might be a sign they had difficulty with American firms, because why would you take money from a super foreign investor if some entity in the Valley would fund you? 'Better terms'? Well, those terms might have 'strings attached'.
But I think it's right to point out the possibility that this mightn't be rampant.
Maybe it's more common, possibly on a case to case basis, but I don't think startups are acting in the 'strategic interest of Donald Trumps trade war' plan, so to speak.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And I suspect there's a secret cabal of mole-men (and -women) who are selecting presidential candidates for the Democratic primaries. Are either of these claims falsifiable?
Yes, their claim can be easily falsified by a full investigation.
Hey, Chinese money is bad. But Saudi money is more than welcome. 50% of Softbank's vision fund is from Middle East sovereign funds, who have even more brutal censorship laws and commits more brazen human rights policies. US policy is completely incoherent and probably explained by who pays the bribes to Whitehouse vs. any legitimate principles.
I generally sympathize with the position of rejecting Saudi money where possible, but it's inaccurate to frame US policy towards China in purely moral terms. In the case of China, there's a lot of ideological self-interest at stake for the US.