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Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

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Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#921

Post by theseadroid »

tsegratis wrote: post #902
theseadroid wrote: post #860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked some questions, rather than trying to convey some arguments, since I'm not expert in any way about Hong Kong situation. The only thing led me making this post is after watching the old lady video I felt it's important to introduce some other viewpoints to the discussion happening on HN, a website I visit daily and I appreciate the HN community. Other than that I don't have any stake in the game. You might wat…

It's good to ask those things. I can only answer for myself, which is maybe not a western view point, but anyway: I assume almost everybody thinks shining lasers on the old lady is bad. I don't think violence against civilians is ever justified. However wrong though, it is probably never fully one-sided The last video you linked ends with a 'civilian' having molotov cocktails thrown at him, and the author of the vide…

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me friend. I didn’t link any video with police. I know which video you were talking about but it’s not in my previous posts.

Regarding nonviolent, it’s great you read about umbrella revolution and occupy central. But again I think the precise reason those movements failed is because the working class didn’t strike. Many of our modern human rights, such as 40 hours working week, creation of unions, etc are created because workers bind together and strike and disrupted the production of goods. Without a committed working class’s support is exactly the reason previous Hong Kong peaceful movements didn’t work.

Again I’m ok with violence against any oppressive regime. For Hong Kong, I don’t think that alone with achieve freedom. Only when the working class stop paying taxes, stop providing services to the government and its allies, stop maintain the same old social structure, would the revolution has some hope of succeeding.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#922

Post by abawany »

mcny wrote: post #265
squarefoot wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a game publisher can (whether directly or not) nuke the job of a journalist for a review and get away with it, I'm not surprised at all when a government does something along these lines. https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/21/gaming-the-...

It happened with a journalist on a gun magazine as well. Lifelong second amendment supporter blacklisted for not spewing exactly the party line. This makes me wonder whether the whole right to bear arms things is AstroTurf at this point.

Businesses too: there has been massive hatred directed at Dick's Sporting Goods when it changed its arms sales mix in response to a large shooting last year [1]. Gun makers such as Springfield took heat for trying for stepping even a smidgen out of line [2] resulting in an abrupt volte-face.

[1] https://www.racked.com/2018/5/10/17339690/dicks-sporting-goo...

[2] https://gunstoday.com/why-is-everyone-boycotting-springfield...

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#923

Post by megous »

papreclip wrote: post #642
megous wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called trade. US americans send $ to China for cheap goods and manufacturing, Now, Chinese have $ to spend in the US. Not really scary. It's better for superpowers to have intertwined economies, rather than be isolated. Less incentives for conquest and war.

This is conquest. The chinese are gradually accumulating wealth and control in our country. Their laws prohibit foreigners from doing the same in their country. I can have a chinese landlord gouging me for west coast rent but can never be a landlord in china.

You can't really exploit cheap labor and buy huge amount of cheap stuff and then expect those people to not buy anything back from you. And yeah, they'll not be buying the same kind of crap from you that they're manufacturing and selling to you. So they buy land, companies, anything comparatively valuable to them that they can afford.

You can prevent foreigners from buying/owning land/property in US, but that will just lower the value of US dollars held by foreigners significantly and your currency will crash in value.

The foreigners already hold too much US dollars. The ship has sailed. You'll pay either way for enjoying the fruits of cheap foreign labor in the past. It's either devaulation of your currency, or accepting that foreigners will get a piece of US land.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#924

Post by tenebrisalietum »

Dove wrote: post #904

This is a very specific instance of a much more general problem. A lot of private companies control exclusive access to something with a value that dwarfs what you pay for it. I pay nothing for access to Twitter; if I build a business or a social life on the platform, it becomes something I would pay thousands of dollars to prevent losing. I pay nothing for access to Facebook; the memories they store at this point in…

Mostly playing devil's advocate here:

When the Constitution was written, free speech meant literally that, your ability to go to a public space and physically talk. No third party was involved as it is with any telecommunication technology. So the resources consumed in that speech were totally your own.

The only way to strictly have that equivalent in the telecommunications realm is for me to own every communication circuit between me and those who I want to communicate with.

So lets say I have 10 wires coming from my house to other houses, and someone I know has 10 other wires connected to a different set of houses, that I'm not directly connected to.

I can rely on my own self and build new wires (expensive) or I can work with this person to forward my communication (probably cheaper but he/she can view/hear my communication).

If I want to communicate with someone else beyond my network, then a third party is carrying my speech, and we're really no longer in realm of free speech. This third party has rights and should be able to refuse to carry my speech for the same rights and reasons as me, unless entered into a contract beforehand.

I think your real question is should corporations be treated as legal persons to the extent that they have the Constitutional right of speech.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#925

Post by andrepd »

monster2control wrote: post #837

Wow, when a government can ruin someone's professional career of choice simply because he or she has an opinion that goes against the People’s Republic, that’s when companies should decide to no longer do business in China. Sadly, however, the dollar is more powerful than the the moral high ground.

>Sadly, however, the dollar is more powerful than the the moral high ground.

That's an intrinsic feature of capitalism. There's no realistic hope of corporations acting morally (hurting their own bottom-lines), because the sole metric that is valued is maximisation of profit. If they ever do something moral it's merely by "accident".

One of Capitalism's many flaws.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#926

Post by taytus »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #913
taytus wrote: post #866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said I thought the rules were fair, I meant the banning. Their product, their rules, you break the rules, then you accept the consequences.

Except they are not. They are nebulous catch-all clauses applied on a whim.

Then do not accept them. Who is forcing people to become pro gamers or playing games of a company they don't agree with the TOS?

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#927

Post by avar »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #664
avar wrote: post #595

We're increasingly at the mercy of private companies for what used to be considered civil liberties. I'm sure I'll get someone arguing about private v.s. public oppression, but at the end of the day being a professional video game player in someone's walled garden is no less of a specialized or acquired skill than say being an expert cabinet maker. So we're increasingly ending up in situations where people's hobbies…

He’s not exiled from professional gaming.

Hence the analogy to cabinet making v.s. all of carpentry, he's been banned from something he's heavily specialized in.

But I think that misses the point, 20 years ago nobody would have been able to ban anyone from Quake III, because running the servers was distributed, today you have major game companies like Sony, Microsoft etc. that can ban you from entire game ecosystems.

In another 20 the whimsy of one company might be enough to ban you from all of gaming for all practical purposes.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#928

Post by 4thwaywastrel »

belltaco wrote: post #876
monster2control wrote: post #837

Wow, when a government can ruin someone's professional career of choice simply because he or she has an opinion that goes against the People’s Republic, that’s when companies should decide to no longer do business in China. Sadly, however, the dollar is more powerful than the the moral high ground.

>simply because he or she has an opinion that goes against the People’s Republic The issue was that it was expressed during an after game interview at one of Blizzard's gaming events, not that they had an opinion.

I agree, there's a difference between having an opinion and using a companies platform to express that opinion.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#929

Post by leppr »

minitech wrote: post #510
leppr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was never possible without "admin" intervention. That whole inccident was NPM's sole responsibility.

That’s… plainly wrong. `npm unpublish --force your-package` would really just unpublish your package.

Okay that's embarrassing thanks. Hard to believe it took so long before being the left-pad debacle happened.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#930

Post by leshow »

katzenjam wrote: post #640
leshow wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you saying that I am a hypocrite for liking the contents of some speech but not others Not OP, but I believe they are talking about objecting to censorship ostensibly because of freedom of speech, and then not objecting to other censorship. If you don't believe in freedom of speech then there is no issue, if you do, you can object to the content of someone's speech, but not their right to express it. That is, i…

You've created a false dichotomy between an absolute right to free speech and absolute disregard for free speech. There's a third possibility, which is to believe that freedom of speech is an important right, but not an absolute right that trumps all others. One version of this belief says that freedom of speech is useful to society because it allows dissenting views to be resolved through debate rather than violent…

There is no false dichotomy, just the definitions of words meaning things.

Look up the definition of freedom of speech:

"the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint."

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