Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident • Hacker News Board

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#151

Post by bilbo0s » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #127

bilbo0s wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, China has done nothing here though. This is the NBA and Blizzard acting to prevent what I like to call the "Weibo Outrage Machine" from revving too high. (Not that it worked, because in the NBA's case, the machine was red lining. In Blizzard's case, there was nary a peep though, so that one is a bit puzzling?) For any who were unaware, the "Weibo Outrage Machine" is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, thin…

How does this "outrage machine" affect the actions of the Chinese government? If people get outraged enough, will they vote against the communist party?

No, because the government generally puts on a big show to satisfy the outrage machines if the machines red line on a given subject for too long. Nothing and no one is safe. The outrage machines demand blood, then just like in the US, those in power will give the outrage machines blood. They will jail, and have even been known to execute, any political or business leader if an "outrage machine" revs about the guy for too long.

In this case, the volume of messages I was reading made clear mainlander disdain for the NBA's perceived position on Hong Kong. (The great irony being that the NBA actually has no position on HK, but just like in the US, that fact does little to stop the outrage machines.) In cases like this, the government tends to sit back, do nothing, and let American entities be embarrassed.

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#152

Post by seattle_spring » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #143

It's almost as though we need a president interested in some kind of trade...conflict with China. If only we had one of those.

If only having a trade conflict with China were literally the only problem in the world we cared about.

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#153

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #143

It's almost as though we need a president interested in some kind of trade...conflict with China. If only we had one of those.

If only we had a president that was interested in uniting the entire Western World to actually make something happen... Instead, we're fighting it by ourselves, and fighting all of our allies at the same time (for no reason). Our Western allies are too busy fighting a trade war with us to try to force China to start meaningfully liberalizing its economy.

A broken clock is right twice a day.

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#154

Post by dekhn » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #90

dekhn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now the leadership in China is terrified! They've been able to get away with a lot, basically using their economic power to get other countries to look the other way with regards to their behavior (suppressing their people, stealing IP, bullying smaller nations). but the moment they got called on it and people started moving their operations to other countries (previously considered "impossible"), they saw the…

Their economy is also massively indebted, they got hooked on debt to a degree many here would consider reckless. They've wasted a tremendous amount of money on useless construction, which may be one downfall of a planned economy.

Agreed. I had a bunch of friends who visited ~5 years ago and were claiming US was so far behind in building that China was going to take over the world. Several went back recently and said "so many ghost towns, what happened?"

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#155

Post by vernie » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #113

intopieces wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>are being much more effective Absolutely. They’re beating us at our own game and revealing that American values were never freedom and democracy - those are just ways we think are good to make money. If a better system comes along we’re the first to jump on it.

> revealing that American values were never freedom and democracy Dunno about you, but I draw the opposite conclusion. The reaction so far has made it clear that a lot of Americans value freedom and democracy, and that they see these corporate actions as unacceptable.

I'm going to give it another week before drawing any conclusions. Chances are people will just move on to the next outrage of the moment.

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#156

Post by gwd » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

99_00 wrote: post #25

Xi Jinping Thinks China Is World's Only Sovereign State https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13497/china-sovereign-sta...

Thanks for this -- I was trying to put into words the concept of tianxia and how that affected China's attitudes towards Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#157

Post by dekhn » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #136

dekhn wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A collection of mainstream news sources, various government reports, and speculation.

Sorry, I mean, "I am interested in also reading your sources. Do you have any links that come to mind?"

Mostly Google News, NY Times, I never read Huffington (progressive propaganda) and I read Breitbart to see what the people voting for Trump are rambling about.

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#158

Post by Rebelgecko » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

f-securus wrote: post #49

Analemma_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NBA at least seems to be walking back their initial condemnation of Morey's comments, China be damned: [0]. We should give them credit for that. Conversely, there's been radio silence from Blizzard so far. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/sports/adam-silver-nba-ch...

But they ejected fans that had HK posters?

It'll be interesting to see what happens at the next Laker home game. Someone raised like $40k on GoFundMe to hand out pro-HK shirts

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#159

Post by AcerbicZero » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

So, Twitter et al. have been training corporations to pay attention to various levels of public outrage, and the public outrage has been training corporations on how to mitigate that outrage without impacting the bottom line too dramatically, and now we're surprised these pliable flexible money gumbys' are bending to the whim of someone with (potentially) more money?

As a bonus, "we" (The West) have recently demonstrated hundreds upon hundreds of examples of free speech being relegated to a distant second to certain "special" feelings our society holds, and now "we" are trying to tell China that their certain special feelings aren't worthy of this level of protection?

If our values mean nothing to us, then there is no reason to be surprised that those values mean just as little to others.

Re: Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

#160

Post by shultays » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #71

Schnitz wrote: post #55

Blizzard has shown their true colors: make money at all costs.

This is almost every company ever to be fair.

I am sure some companies stops at some point.

At least I want to believe I am working for one