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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

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Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#201

Post by option »

tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

exactly. A lot of engineers in SV are in a good enough position to be actually able to do this without much setback for them and their families financially since they’ll be hired elsewhere right away

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#202

Post by pjlegato »

diminoten wrote: post #116
duxup wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is petty. At the same time it's a good gauge for them to figure out what else they can do. Start with "hey man don't show that one pic" and the company figures "it's one pic, whatever we're not really compromising our values". A few more steps and then it seems less dramatic when it comes to "give us that information on that one user"... and so on. Personally I would expect an external social credit score…

This is a fallacy, stop with this kind of logic. At whatever point where the requests become unreasonable is the point at which to raise issue, not because of some arbitrary "precedent setting" bullshit. The frog, in reality, just jumps out of the pot when the water gets too hot.

If most people operated rationally, it would be correct to disregard slippery slope arguments as fallacies when analyzing the spread of ideas in society. However, most people do not operate rationally most of the time -- they use rough heuristics and perceived social signaling of others to arrive at (usually irrational) conclusions about most issues.

Empirically, slippery slopes have always been an extremely common way change is driven in mass social thinking. This has been formalized as the "Overton window": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#203

Post by vbezhenar »

tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

May be some people don't agree with your stance on that matter.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#204

Post by lostlogin »

jefftk wrote: post #45
lostlogin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> add a bunch of other "not real country" flags. I’d prefer that they altered the flags of despotic countries in some way that indicated their inferior ruling system.

I can't tell if you're serious, but if you are: which entity should be responsible for categorizing countries into "despotic" and "not despotic"?

I’m not being serious.

Apple is tying itself in knots trying to tread a line here, and it just makes them look pathetic. They seem to want to be seen as a shining light in terms of human progress and human rights, but that ends as soon as they hit their Chinese market.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#205

Post by marnett »

hangonhn wrote: post #155
thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the average American benefited as directly to the atrocites of the past. The U.S. simply cannot change course without a serious alteration of the the ethos of the country.

"I'm not sure the average American benefited as directly to the atrocites of the past. " We live on a continent taken from a people by violence, betrayal, and disease -- some of it intentionally spread through government policies. Sorry, the average American are direct beneficiaries of the atrocities of the past. Some of us don't know or chose to ignore it. Update: I didn't say this to justify terrible things people…

> Sorry, the average American are direct beneficiaries of the atrocities of the past

This is true for most humans alive in nearly all nation-states today. At some point in the linear chain of humanity that allows my existence today, atrocities were committed. Whether an ancient ancestor strangling a potential threat with their bare hands, or the nation-state I was born in acquiring land through militaristic expansion.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#206

Post by datagram »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #186
tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

You can easily build the feature that can be misused. Think of it as a general region filter or an emoji set to increase engagement. You want to ensure your design team and product matches the demographic you're trying to target so you can choose which ones are approved for that area. Completely reasonable, not a malicious feature to build either. Except when it prevents you from selling your device in China.

From what we know about how the emoji blocking was implemented for mainland China, I doubt it's a benign feature just being misused: https://objective-see.com/blog/blog_0x34.html

Notably, the code specifically looks for the "CN" locale, and calls "removeEmoji".

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#207

Post by oasisbob »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #75
maweki wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people on Hacker-News would know that Taiwan exists, even though a flag is missing on their phone. I think for the general population in the US or Europe that's not so clear. If one would never hear about Taiwan, would we really "know" it exists?

> I think most people on Hacker-News would know that Taiwan exists I frequently come across, in America, people who are genuinely surprised that Taiwan is a sovereign state.

Are you sure they don't just disagree with your use of the word sovereign? I find it a strange way to describe the ROC and Taiwan.

Without a clear territory under exclusive control, recognition from other governments, or independence from the mainland, what's so sovereign about it?

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#209

Post by Fnoord »

tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

> What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this?

According to the book "Bullshit Jobs" [1] there are quite some people around the world -especially in FIRE and IT- who (partly) perform useless or downright harmful jobs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#210

Post by yters »

chronic71819 wrote: post #65
yters wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What does it benefit to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?" - Jesus

> "What does it benefit to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?" - Jesus I'd gladly sell my soul for a couple of billion. Hell, I'd let it go for a discount at a few tens of millions.

In that framework you are giving up something of infinite value for something of finite value, which is irrational.
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