Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think 2019 China is that similar to 1930s Germany you should just come right out and say it, in my opinion. Let that argument stand on its merits. If you didn't intend a parallel between 1930s Germany and 2019 China, there is, again in my opinion only, probably a better way of making your point.
Agreed I think it’s a little over blown to compare. That said, the social credit system is oddly reminiscent as well.
Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
551–560 of 730 posts
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#552Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think 2019 China is that similar to 1930s Germany you should just come right out and say it, in my opinion. Let that argument stand on its merits. If you didn't intend a parallel between 1930s Germany and 2019 China, there is, again in my opinion only, probably a better way of making your point.
Agreed I think it’s a little over blown to compare. That said, the social credit system is oddly reminiscent as well.
It's not like Nazi germany only had followers because they were being mind-controlled. They were slow-boiling the frog back then as well and those who didn't want to notice could easily justify everything.
Well, sure, nazi germany ran concentration camps, keeping hundreds of thousands prisoner based on ethnicity and religion. It's not like China is doing that after all…
… right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps
(Asking again: What's overblown about GP's comparison?)
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
The appeasement policy was the right thing to do. The UK couldn't win a war in 1938 (no allies, no money, no air defence etc) and the bad taste of WW1 was still in peoples mouths. The policy did fail because Hitler was going to go to war no matter what but that is only with 20/20 hindsight. Appeasement wasn't the right policy, it was literally the only policy available to the UK at the time. I agree that we need to t…
Thank you for the downvote. Much easier try to silence an opinion you don't like than leave a meaningful response. Why bother downvoting if you don't like what I said? This isn't reddit... or high school. I just watched two history professors debate this very topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmyecSXOla8 A very interesting watch because unlike hit and run downvoters, I am interested in learning. side note:…
And it's plausible that anything short of Churchillian intransigence would have lost that war. Even a "smarter" craftiness could have failed.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#554Between this and the NBA's capitulation to making the Rockets' GM retract his statements on Hong Kong, at what point does appeasement just become acceptance of China's behavior? Sure, from the individual business' perspective they don't want to risk alienating the Chinese government and losing the Chinese market, but if China sees that they can get their way by simply threatening foreign companies then it will just e…
If you think 2019 China is that similar to 1930s Germany you should just come right out and say it, in my opinion. Let that argument stand on its merits. If you didn't intend a parallel between 1930s Germany and 2019 China, there is, again in my opinion only, probably a better way of making your point.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for the downvote. Much easier try to silence an opinion you don't like than leave a meaningful response. Why bother downvoting if you don't like what I said? This isn't reddit... or high school. I just watched two history professors debate this very topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmyecSXOla8 A very interesting watch because unlike hit and run downvoters, I am interested in learning. side note:…
it's considered bad form to discuss votes. the link itself would have been enough
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#556Between this and the NBA's capitulation to making the Rockets' GM retract his statements on Hong Kong, at what point does appeasement just become acceptance of China's behavior? Sure, from the individual business' perspective they don't want to risk alienating the Chinese government and losing the Chinese market, but if China sees that they can get their way by simply threatening foreign companies then it will just e…
If you think 2019 China is that similar to 1930s Germany you should just come right out and say it, in my opinion. Let that argument stand on its merits. If you didn't intend a parallel between 1930s Germany and 2019 China, there is, again in my opinion only, probably a better way of making your point.
I think 2019 China is pretty damn close to 1939 Germany, the only thing required to push it over the edge is a looming economic collapse.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#557I feel the need to inject some perspective here. Every country imposes requirements on manufacturers of devices or service providers that some person(s) might object to. If you choose to do business in that country, you play ball, or you leave. How you pick which ones that are tolerable enough to live with is the question -- and don't imagine that it's moral principles that define it. It's how much a company wants to…
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure but there is obviously a difference in the effect. Hiding an emoji is tiny, turning over all of someone’s files is much more intrusive, killing someone would be far worse again. To say they are the same seems deeply illogical.
> Hiding an emoji is tiny, turning over all of someone’s files is much more intrusive, killing someone would be far worse again. I think you need to distinguish between actions against society and actions against an individual. Censorship is almost always an action against society; turning over files is sometimes against society but often just against an individual.
If Apple turns over the files of one individual to the government, then whole society is vulnerable to that, and this is incomparably more oppressive than removing a one of the UI buttons that displays a particular flag.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for the downvote. Much easier try to silence an opinion you don't like than leave a meaningful response. Why bother downvoting if you don't like what I said? This isn't reddit... or high school. I just watched two history professors debate this very topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmyecSXOla8 A very interesting watch because unlike hit and run downvoters, I am interested in learning. side note:…
I didn't downvote, but "peace in our time" isn't the same as "let's buy a few years and then get some Nazis". It's also extreme Monday morning quarterbacking. And it's plausible that anything short of Churchillian intransigence would have lost that war. Even a "smarter" craftiness could have failed.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
-ISIS. At their peak they had a sizeable chunk of land, a flag, a capital, civic functions like a court system, an oil industry, handed out passports, were fighting a conventional land war using conventional (not terrorist/guerilla) tactics, had a uniformed army, and the word "state" was right there in the name. But don't you dare call them a state lest someone mistake you for a terrorist sympathizer. That's playing…
> That's playing a bit fast and loose with the facts there. ISIS conducted public executions, crucifixions, desecration of cultural sites and enslaved people for a labor force. That's textbook asymmetric warfare/terrorism. To me that just sounds like textbook nationhood. The defining feature of the state is having the monopoly on violence within its borders.
The things ISIS members did to subpopulations people within that territory were almost universally condemned across the world as large-scale serious human abuse, and the territories were obtained through quite recent violence from other nations whose administrative borders had not stopped being recognised internationally.
So I think it was widely regarded that ISIS should not be granted the international respect and autonomy of legal recognition, nor should it keep any power it had of a monopoly on violence within its borders (or any borders).
That's not to say there aren't widely condemned things going on in other countries. But there is a kind of collective, sometimes grudging, but systematised respect for the autonomy of countries as nations, which I think was widely regarded as not something that would be right to grant to ISIS (or take away from the nations that ISIS had taken territory from).