181–190 of 481 posts
This kind of thing is going to play out a lot over the next few years. It's a tough question: how to marry globalisation with the political realities. When China was very poor, it didn't really matter, or perhaps the assumption was that China would liberalise more quickly than it has. But China, while increasingly mature economically, has not developed proper civil society, human rights, freedom of expression, democr…
It's not like the UK is a paragon of freedom of expression.
Honest question. Can someone explain why the comment below was flagged? I can see why some might disagree but I fail to see any problematic about any of the statements made. I think of HN as one of the few places were people can have open discussions where everyone is free to state their opinion and have it up for debate/rebuttal. "I disagree. Reports about China from many western media tend to exaggerate things abou…
- Yes, the US has a police brutality problem. (Though not near as bad)
- Yes, the US has a government corruption problem. (Though not near as bad)
That acknowledged:
* At no point will you disappear in the US for criticizing the government.
* At no point will you be placed into a concentration camp and tortured.
* At no point will you be barred from participating in society because you lost points on a "social score" calculated on things such as following the wrong religion or criticizing the government.
* At no point will you be subject to ethnic cleansing.
* This list could be many times longer.
The US is not a totalitarian police state and it is fundamentally dishonest, to the point of mendacity and/or trolling, to equate the two. There are no countries on this planet with entirely clean hands. All have committed abuses, all have fallen short. With the binary 1 and 0 off the table, that leaves us with a matter of degrees, and some countries objectively have worse human rights records than others.
On top of all that, most of the posts like the one you quoted amount to whataboutism, or the tu quoque fallacy. This is an ancient trope. Soviet-era Russia tried it[1] too. The response to "China puts people that disagree with them into concentration camps" is not "But the US..", or "that's not fair because.. (it's not as if these accusations are unsubstantiated by fact)", the answer is "that is wrong and should be condemned".
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
Total crap;either it is a security risk and it has to be removed yesterday or it is not. 2027 is meaningless.
And we already know China has been backdooring other equipment: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h... So yes, this is a small victory in a massive war.
You aren't helping your case by citing the Supermicro article, which was denied by both Amazon and Apple, led to widespread criticism of Bloomberg, and no source came forward.
And we already know China has been backdooring other equipment: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h... So yes, this is a small victory in a massive war.
The cost of that victory, according to the BBC, is a 1 year delay in the rollout of 5G tech. That's a pretty large economic cost. Bob can't watch his medical lectures on the train, so ends up behind in class, Mary's company looses a contract to a foreign competitor because she got frustrated with her bad VPN and didn't read over the bid one last time, Fred couldn't afford the cost of the new 5G contracts so didn't ge…
Honest question. Can someone explain why the comment below was flagged? I can see why some might disagree but I fail to see any problematic about any of the statements made. I think of HN as one of the few places were people can have open discussions where everyone is free to state their opinion and have it up for debate/rebuttal. "I disagree. Reports about China from many western media tend to exaggerate things abou…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Proper civil society and human rights" - like the ones afforded to Julian Assange? Or the treatment of the Grenfell tower victims' families? Glass houses etc.
Now imagine after you posted your comment some men bust down your door take you in, torture you. Not some sleep depravation, but hammer to your knees and electrodes to your testicles. See difference? Oh and yeah nobody will ever see you again, cause well you are just gone.
And we already know China has been backdooring other equipment: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h... So yes, this is a small victory in a massive war.
The cost of that victory, according to the BBC, is a 1 year delay in the rollout of 5G tech. That's a pretty large economic cost. Bob can't watch his medical lectures on the train, so ends up behind in class, Mary's company looses a contract to a foreign competitor because she got frustrated with her bad VPN and didn't read over the bid one last time, Fred couldn't afford the cost of the new 5G contracts so didn't ge…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
It is a bit weird that there are whole movements like BDS setup against Isreal, a wholly democratic and liberal country where people of all religions enjoy the same rights and nobody is placed in concentration camps, while every time someone mentions that China is a bad actor we get asked why does BDS not exists. BDS does exist, and China is a bad actor and should be opposed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like the UK is a paragon of freedom of expression.
This reminds me of a joke: During Soviet times, a Russian man was arguing with a British man over whether their respective countries had freedom of speech. The British man said "I can go to the Houses of Parliament and call Margaret Thatcher an idiot". To which the Soviet man said "It's the same for us. I can go to Red Square and call Margaret Thatcher an idiot".