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An update on YC China

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: An update on YC China

#331

Post by aguyfromnb »

zlei wrote: post #129
harimau777 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US certainly has its problems, but I don't think it's fair to draw a moral equivalence with what's happening in China.

Chinese citizen here. I guess you're implying that certain bad things are happening in China. Do you really live in China and see those things happen, or just hear about them from the media? And is it possible that some of the media in US are inhonest? Just as there're inhonest media in China. I'm not fighting you on this topic; just don't understand why there's so much hatred towards our country.

>I guess you're implying that certain bad things are happening in China.

https://chinatribunal.com/who-we-are/

“The Tribunal’s members are certain - unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt - that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”

Brits, Americans, an Iranian, a Malaysian. Are these people making it up?

Re: An update on YC China

#332

Post by [deleted] »

addictedcs wrote: post #291
archibaldJ wrote: post #227

OP here (no affiliation with YC in anyway), posted the link because was surprised it wasn't already on HN. I first got to know about it on WeChat actually. There was an announcement from the official WeChat account of YC China in regard to the split-up (link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD-ddaw ), though the announcement took a much more positive and exciting tone than its English counterpart. The annou…

It's the same narrative all over again. When no strong arguments are present to defend a viewpoint, the topic suddenly becomes a "cultural" thing. Sounding smart and mysterious. In Russia, it's "the Russian way", in China it is "the Chinese way" etc. It's just BS.

[deleted]

Re: An update on YC China

#333

Post by addictedcs »

archibaldJ wrote: post #312
addictedcs wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same narrative all over again. When no strong arguments are present to defend a viewpoint, the topic suddenly becomes a "cultural" thing. Sounding smart and mysterious. In Russia, it's "the Russian way", in China it is "the Chinese way" etc. It's just BS.

What you have just said is very postmodern and the meta-narrative (or meta-sentiment) could be applied to virtually anything. I was merely trying to shift the focus of the heated discussion here as things were getting homogenous and reddit-like.

I was born in the USSR and it also had it's "own way". And it didn't resist even 70 years. The elephants in the room mentioned by others in the comments are all "meta" things at the highest level of human cognition: basic human rights, freedom of expression, religion, overall civil liberties are all above any " ways". Cultural differences are just irrelevant here.

Re: An update on YC China

#334

Post by tikkabhuna »

avocado4 wrote: post #286
throwaway423342 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true 5 years ago. Things have changed.

People keep saying that, but I don't really buy it. Scanning barcodes isn't really necessary when you have everybody with a credit card and every local merchant accepts NFC payment. Everybody using crappy unencrypted JS-based WeChat mini-programs instead of an app ecosystem is not an innovation but rather a way to lock and monitor the entire population with no privacy. Same goes for police-state facial recognition.

> Scanning barcodes isn't really necessary when you have everybody with a credit card and every local merchant accepts NFC payment.

The QR codes are quite cool in that anyone with a printer can print them out. I can't pay my friends with my contactless credit card in the same way I can pay a merchant.

Its a different approach with different pros and cons.

Re: An update on YC China

#335

Post by unityByFreedom »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #250
crystaln wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even YC is cowed into silence by the might of China. Understandably so, even if somewhat cowardly. Does YC want China to boycott or otherwise disable YC companies? Does YC want to threaten any future relationship with China? No. So they keep mum as to their real reasons.

Why disturb waters unnecessarily? YC's statement seems more like "let's wait for a better time" than self-censorship. If YC truly saw no chance for YC-China in the future, then I don't doubt they would come out and say so. However, that's a pretty strong statement, and I don't think anyone can make such a prediction. There is always a chance for a more serendipitous time in the future.

Please do me the courtesy of writing a reply if you're going to downvote. Thank you.

Re: An update on YC China

#336

Post by yorwba »

asdf9240 wrote: post #262
archibaldJ wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It dismisses, insults the argument that is pertaining to human rights, freedom of press, justice, freedom of speech, liberty, right to vote - some of the pillars of Democracy. The more fundamental question here is: What if the modernist's definition of democracy which you have just laid out is extremely one-sided and full of grey areas and, when implemented into a society accordingly, would be full of vulnerabiliti…

> The problem here is that "speaking out" doesn't change a damn thing. And it never will. Not in China. Not in the States. Aren't you doing exactly that right now? "speaking out" on Hacker News against people you disagree with? > Criticising is only useful when it actually influenced something. Of course. And countries with freedom of speech allows criticism to be influential.

> Aren't you doing exactly that right now? "speaking out" on Hacker News against people you disagree with?

>> If you want to improve the system you first understand how the system works, then work hard and do things that will improve the system.

>> Criticising is only useful when it actually influences something.

The trick is to achieve system understanding first. On Hacker News, the system is set up to reward intellectually stimulating arguments, e.g. taking a systemic view of social phenomena. Since there are at least some open-minded people here, that kind of criticism may actually influence something.

To effectively "speak out" on China, you need an entirely different skillset, including being able to reference a large corpus of shared knowledge that most people on HN are probably unaware of.

Since China does not yet allow criticism to be very influential, it is likely that the effort invested into criticism would be better spent, for now, on increasing the likelihood that future criticism will be influential. There are many possible ways to do that; it appears the person you're replying to has settled on a particular one I don't quite understand yet.

Re: An update on YC China

#337

Post by icu »

cameronbrown wrote: post #320
mac01021 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies don't cherish values unless their customers do. And most people don't know/understand/care what's going on in HK or Xinjiang.

Blizzard fans would disagree. A small amount of voices has lead to massive awareness in that community.

Also the Blizzard fanbase has put pressure on the company to uphold its own stated principles, which quite frankly Blizzard didn't, and arguably still hasn't upheld.

I'd be surprised if less than 80% of Blizzard's fan base isn't aware of the "Free HK" controversy and doesn't support the notion of freedom in HK to some degree.

Re: An update on YC China

#338

Post by Angostura »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #55
jessewmc wrote: post #11

Strange optics not to mention the elephant in the room. I could see them hitting some roadblocks and wanting to try again to get into China, but that would be a reasonable thing to come out and say. It also would be reasonable to come out and say they've changed their minds due to political climate or some other risks. Instead its... the new guy is busy?

Wouldn't it be an abandonment of their duty of care to portfolio companies for them to poke the bear, though? I get that if PG tweeted something like, "We're pulling out of China because they're violently repressing pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong and they run a re-education gulag archipelago for millions of Uighurs and they murder political prisoners so they can sell their organs through their state-administer…

> Actions speak louder than words.

Umm, your entire comment was pointing out how embarrassingly loud words can be, and therefore how it was better just to take a quiet action.

Re: An update on YC China

#339

Post by chj »

Not surprised. You can't even visit HN from China without using VPN. I guess there must be some pressure not revealed in the announcement.

Re: An update on YC China

#340

Post by harimau777 »

bigpumpkin wrote: post #123
harimau777 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how opposition to China's human rights violations are comparable to McCarthyism?

Oppositions to China's human rights violations does not equal to a blanket opposition to cooperation or involvement with all things Chinese. Doing so only highlights a biased view that is highly prevalent in our government today that is precisely reminiscent of McCarthyism. Indeed one does not need to look far for such sentiments: "The Chinese aren’t smarter than we are. They don’t work harder than we do. They CHEAT.…

I think that those who oppose companies doing business with China do not do so because they believe that the Chinese people themselves or Chinese culture (by which I mean their history, language, religion, art, etc. as divorced from the government) are bad.

Instead I think that they believe that doing business in China implicitly supports the Chinese government by failing to make a statement and by making the government more successful economically. That is basically the same idea behind a government implementing economic sanctions.

There is also the issue that in some cases doing business in China means actively supporting the actions of the Chinese government; e.g. by engaging in censorship.

Finally, I think that there is a perception that Chinese industry "cheats". This could include stealing intellectual property, requiring foreign corporations to partner with Chinese corporations, and asymmetry in the ability for foreigners to integrate into and be accepted by the culture. In the same way that working as a scab at a company with unfair labor practices could be good for the scab but bad for workers as a whole, a corporation doing business in China despite these issues could be viewed as prioritizing individual profit over the common good.

I'm not necessarily saying that I agree with all of these points in all situations. I'm just trying to show that people do have legitimate points that don't boil down to McCarthyism.

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