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Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

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Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#21

Post by NeedMoreTea »

Tinfoilhat666 wrote: post #17
misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.

If Britain were putting their dissidents and muslims in concentration camps I would be very vocally criticising my own country - which I suppose means I'd be a dissident earmarked for a concentration camp. I already do criticise on lots of other topics, and some of our worse moments of empire in history, or the lives ruined by UK's austerity dogma. I criticise the US too, and don't want to be just like them either.

Why should I not do the same for China when they are destroying lives of people whose only crime is being an ethnic minority, or trying to bring repressive laws to Hong Kong?

It's good to have different systems when the basics of humanity are remembered.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#22

Post by fsloth »

Science.

The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground.

Materially, China could have come up with scientific progress for a thousand years, but they didn't, because they lacked the culture for open debate and expression of ideas.

No freedom of press, no cars.

That's the historical perspective.

Now, let's look into the future.

Do we want to stop the progress of science? If then, sure, there is no strong technocratic argument for freedom.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#23

Post by _lessthan0 »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #20
Tinfoilhat666 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.

I think the core problem is this: The people who run China believe in "freedom" for themselves. They think of ideas and implement things, they have a great degree of freedom and set up the systems to watch everyone, but they themselves have ways around it, connections, access to information about what's going on in the world, etc. They fundamentally believe they are better than the other Chinese they make decisions o…

The core problem is that you could put any country in there. USA think they have freedom to do what they please because of their economic and military power. Britain thinks they can leave and have a better time out of the EU etc. All countries are ruthless. Some do it a pleasant but deceiving way the others do it out in the open. At least with China you get to see what and how they are implementing it. US you don't. Who's more secretive?

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#24

Post by arugulum »

ur-whale wrote: post #9
misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Devil's advocate here, but to be fair, there's a pretty decent likelihood that we in the west have indeed been "brainwashed" into believing that freedom is actually more important than these other things he's listing (health care, housing, education, etc...). If you set aside freedom as a goal in itself for a second, then it's actually worth asking: is freedom actually the most important factor leading to those other…

> They phrased it this way: sure, we don't have a free press, and we have a benevolent tyrant running the place, but:

I think the bigger problem is people completely mischaracterizing what Singapore is.

Modern Singapore is nothing like a "benevolent tyranny". The best way to characterize it is probably to imagine a large, well-run city with strict laws, heavy bureaucracy, expansive regulation and government involvement in business, and whose politics are dominated by one political party. None of these are extremely rare traits for a city.

Yes, Singapore does have black spots in its record with respect to human rights. Most of this is in the past (primarily during the post-war period, where many other countries have similar black spots with regards to the treatment of communists), but I argue that this aspect has been incredibly exaggerated in the foreign perception of Singapore.

The reason why I raise this is that your comparison to Singapore is invalid: Singapore is already very much similar to a "Western democracy". It holds free and transparent elections (the fact that policies favor the incumbent party does not detract from the fact that the elections are fairly run, and next to no one questions this.) No one holds back criticism of the government in private or in public - they do hesitate for more official mediums (e.g. newspapers, television) because of legal repurcussions e.g. libel. I have never once encountered any instance of censorship with teeth (there have been instances where the government suspended the distribution license of a print magazine... in the age of the Internet).

Please stop using modern Singapore as an example of "benevolent tyranny".

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#25

Post by hyperdunc »

Tinfoilhat666 wrote: post #17
misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.

The best do not evolve. The strongest and most adaptable survive. That doesn't necessarily mean the people in those societies have quality lives.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#26

Post by pelario »

"When a reporter recently challenged Liu to answer the middle-school questions about the “meaning” and the “central themes” of his story, he didn’t get a single one right. “I’m a writer,” he told me, with a shrug. “I don’t begin with some conceit in mind. I’m just trying to tell a good story.”"

Does anybody have a link or know more about this ?

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#27

Post by hutattedonmyarm »

mido22 wrote: post #3
hurrdurr2 wrote: post #2

What a timely article on HN for me as I am reading through the Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy right now... certainly not the best sci-fi works I've ever read but some of the ideas are intriguing.

Imo, the second book was exceptional and as a standalone, one of the best sci-fi books of the past decade.

I just started listening to the audiobook a couple days ago!

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#28

Post by jcelerier »

anon46121 wrote: post #7
mido22 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo, the second book was exceptional and as a standalone, one of the best sci-fi books of the past decade.

Not bad. The series reminded me of 1940's-50's sci-fi from the US, for a couple of reasons: A large confidence in the industrial and scientific capacity of their country. Relatively uncritical acceptance that their country is the good guys. No consequential female characters.

> No consequential female characters.

ehhh, Ye Wenjie is fairly central in the first book (I'm halfway past the second one)

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#29

Post by unmole »

fsloth wrote: post #22

Science. The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground. Materially, China could have come up with scientific progress for a thousand years, but they didn't, because they lacked the culture for open debate and expression of ideas. No freedom of press, no cars. That's the historical perspec…

> The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground.

I'm sorry but this statement is extremely Eurocentric. Are you seriously suggesting that ancient India and China didn't have a tradition of science?

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#30

Post by brobdingnagians »

_lessthan0 wrote: post #23
brobdingnagians wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the core problem is this: The people who run China believe in "freedom" for themselves. They think of ideas and implement things, they have a great degree of freedom and set up the systems to watch everyone, but they themselves have ways around it, connections, access to information about what's going on in the world, etc. They fundamentally believe they are better than the other Chinese they make decisions o…

The core problem is that you could put any country in there. USA think they have freedom to do what they please because of their economic and military power. Britain thinks they can leave and have a better time out of the EU etc. All countries are ruthless. Some do it a pleasant but deceiving way the others do it out in the open. At least with China you get to see what and how they are implementing it. US you don't.…

I'm not holding any country up as a shining light. I don't think there is any country that even comes close to what I'm describing as an ideal. I wish there was. Some are more some are less, in different ways.
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