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Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

newyorker.com

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Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#61

Post by pjc50 »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #51
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.

The problem is that the PRC is going for an authoritarian ethnostate, and I think this a reasonable system to have in the global "marketplace of ideas", but at the same time they refuse to give up non-Han territories like Xinjiang that don't fit into this equation at all. Also, the CCP won't leave people alone who leave China for more attractive systems. They're hardly interested in a competition of systems.

> authoritarian ethnostate, and I think this a reasonable system to have in the global "marketplace of ideas"

It really isn't, as it's not achievable without mass murder or at the very least "ethnic cleansing".

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#62

Post by ngcc_hk »

basementcat wrote: post #40
UglycupRawky wrote: post #13

It's a truly fascinating piece, but wow, I didn't expect going in that I'd come out not liking him. On the other hand, I didn't really know anything about Liu Cixin or his work before now, so maybe this is all well-trodden ground for everyone else.

Perhaps he chose to be cautious with his remarks in case any authorities happen to read the New Yorker.

Sigh. And many chinese still support that authority.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#63

Post by gumby »

> The trilogy’s success has been credited with establishing sci-fi, once marginalized in China, as a mainstream taste.

I wish it were mainstream in the US. Back when people here believed in technical progress, science fiction was popular, if not always main stream.

Nowadays there is a category “science fiction” in every video app but the movies are always war movies or westerns, just set in space.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#64

Post by ngcc_hk »

King-Aaron wrote: post #31
pelario wrote: post #26

"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 ?

My mother is a semi-professional artist, and I've overheard a similar thing at one of her exhibitions once. Some journalists (or some such) were standing in front of one of her pieces, discussing the deeper meaning behind the work and what the artist must have been trying to express at the time. My Mum just laughed and said "the only thing behind this piece was three bottles of wine"

The author is dead. But what is written may reflect something the original author may not consciously aware or want to.

The red chamber is a good chinese example.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#65

Post by haasted »

wangii wrote: post #41
UglycupRawky wrote: post #13

It's a truly fascinating piece, but wow, I didn't expect going in that I'd come out not liking him. On the other hand, I didn't really know anything about Liu Cixin or his work before now, so maybe this is all well-trodden ground for everyone else.

you really don't have to like the author in order to have fun or appreciate his works.

Orson Scott Card being the prime example of this.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#66

Post by NeedMoreTea »

peisistratos wrote: post #58
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. W…

> If Britain were putting their dissidents and muslims in concentration camps I would be very vocally criticising my own country The UK did lock up dissidents in a mass internment during the 1970s - in the six counties of north Ireland. The Irish marched through the streets of Derry to protest and 14 (unarmed) men were shot. The queen then proceeded to pin medals on the parachute regiment who fired on the crowd. Chin…

After intense fighting between the catholics and loyalists in the 1969 riots, and the IRA petrol bombing and shooting at police - unprovoked. Nearly 2,000 casualties of the IRA campaign - nearly all unarmed.

Yet I don't condone the use of internment - even if I do understand how and why it happened. All it did was intensify the already high tensions.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#67

Post by pjc50 »

hungryhobo wrote: post #46
mamoswine wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this sort of reasoning is that it relies on the benevolence of a dictatorship (and I don't use the term dictatorship pejoratively). It's all fine and good to have a system where people's needs are provided for and in general the populace is taken care of (for example, the housing situation in Singapore is very good and much better than places where people have to pay through the nose for shacks, like…

An important factor that often gets left out when discussing different types of government is the level of development of a country. A centrally powerful government has some perks that makes rapid industrialization possible. Where as a democracy might be good if a country is wealthy and its citizens educated. South Korea and Singapore are the only countries that went from impoverished to developed, and both were unde…

> South Korea and Singapore are the only countries that went from impoverished to developed

The entire West went through this process at one time or another, along with some of the post-Communist countries.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#68

Post by ephemeralism »

UglycupRawky wrote: post #13

It's a truly fascinating piece, but wow, I didn't expect going in that I'd come out not liking him. On the other hand, I didn't really know anything about Liu Cixin or his work before now, so maybe this is all well-trodden ground for everyone else.

I think you have to look very hard to find anything positive written about China or Chinese people in western establishment media.

Especially anything that gets posted on HN.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#69

Post by gurkendoktor »

pjc50 wrote: post #61
gurkendoktor wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the PRC is going for an authoritarian ethnostate, and I think this a reasonable system to have in the global "marketplace of ideas", but at the same time they refuse to give up non-Han territories like Xinjiang that don't fit into this equation at all. Also, the CCP won't leave people alone who leave China for more attractive systems. They're hardly interested in a competition of systems.

> authoritarian ethnostate, and I think this a reasonable system to have in the global "marketplace of ideas" It really isn't, as it's not achievable without mass murder or at the very least "ethnic cleansing".

That's kind of my point. They wouldn't need to cleanse the Muslim regions (or Tibet for that matter) if they weren't part of the PRC to begin with. But of course China will never give up these territories -- in fact they're busy trying to annex other places where the CCP system is not welcome.

(Not trying to imply that everything that happens within the "core" of China is awesome.)

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#70

Post by echaozh »

L_226 wrote: post #10
ur-whale wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> try to step out of the cocoon of your culture for a second I like to think that the cocoon of my culture values all human lives equally. Obviously it doesn't really (I'm Australian), but it feels nice to pretend anyway.

What does living equally even mean? People having the same life standard? Or all people can live a life how they want it?

Does anyone have the right to remain poor? I think propably he does. Does anyone have the right to think that he has no chance but to stay poor and thus do nothing and stay poor? Well, is there even such a right?

Now, social benefit is a good thing, but it's also a very un-capitalistic thing. Do people have to work to earn their food and clothes and residence,etc, or can people wait for the government to give them food, or money to buy food? Or, if the government is not rich enought to provide said food or money, what should the poor people do?

If a person, for any random reason, say, without the resources or willpower to work, should he/she be given a chance, or should he be left alone? If the chance requires education and training, or some other involuntary effort, is it right to demand such effort from the person?

Now, some specific group of people in some certain country on this Earth, didn't know how they could get out of the poverty they're born to. They may feel insecure around other people that look different or even speak different languages. And there are other people who may look less different and want to exploit those poor people, to turn them into terrorists. You may even have evidence. Is waiting for them to get turned and then punish them really the right thing to do?

Mind you that country may not be China.

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