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Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

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Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the standards of appearance for public figures are based on specific people from America of specific ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I mean if I video conferenced with you right now you'd probably speculate I've been coopted by Communist powers because simply because my background isn't up to your standards (it'd be of a water heater and radon pipes since I'm in the basement).

Ok, but I didn't say that because he's Chinese, rather because he's a person of power and a multi-billionaire, and I was comparing him to other such people (not specifically Americans).

It may be unintentional, but you ultimately did end up comparing his appearance to the standard of two other people that happened not to be Chinese, but also using this as the premise for a theory of foul play. What if his appearance ends up having nothing to do with it? Then it ends up just being insulting, especially if culturally his appearance is considered normal.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure there is a lack of interest in the financial issue in general; but why do you say it's strongly related, or relevant context? Why would regulatory/financial issues with Ant be related to Mas apparent disappearance?

Here are some possibilities based on my limited knowledge of the topic: * Because being involved with a "scandal" in such a way is an embarrassment to Jack Ma. He lost face and is ashamed to see people for a while. This is a much bigger cultural issue in China than in the west. He wants emotions around him to die down a bit. * The regulators were asleep. Or maybe there was corruption, and an IPO which should have bee…

If by "Trump got in trouble" you mean he went missing, that would be a separate issue, yes.

For a public CEO to choose to not reappear amid rumours that he is missing would be an issue in itself.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#323
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'd just have to respectfully disagree then. As someone who runs my own company, I know better than to pick a quarrel with my customers, even if I don't agree with those customers on a political or whatever level. It's not at all strange to have multiple factions in an organizations who are after multiple vendors, as tool for an internal power war. Maybe if I piss off the guy who chose me as vendor, then his ri…

>My point is, social relations are complex. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequence. In general it does mean freedom from legal consequences and government interference, with few exceptions.

Is that really good enough? Why is freedom from government interference all you care about?

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#324
post #253

Does anyone have any book recommendations for non-chinese people to understand CCP power structures? I'm completely lost in all of this Jack Ma stuff.

The Chinese government is highly structured and in general features most of the things one might expect in a modern nation-state (an executive, a legislature, a court system, etc.) The exception, and what makes it hard to understand for outsiders, is that one of the political parties (Chinese Communist Party) is also an extra, supervisory, branch of government and sits on-top of and permeates all the regular bureaucr…

> with subbranches of that force filling in for traditional military branches such as a Navy and an Air Force - which are all separate "forces" under the Army.

The Chinese Navy is called "People's Liberation Army Navy"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Liberation_Army_Navy

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#325
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't shy about posting their grievances. Having a dedicated thread for that would just breed more of them.

thanks for replying! If we were to have a seperate thread, then folks should absolutely not post these things in regular threads, thus leaving them cleaner and with a better tone. they are free to reference this incident on the grievance thread. There, different downvote rules should apply of course. There might be others who feel the same way, and therefore might upvote it. So, this way, you can get a sense of how m…

I understand the appeal, but users wouldn't abide by such a restriction on normal threads. The more one tried to force it, the more energy one would provoke to get around it or overcome it.

It would be a lost cause because it goes against human nature. People feel what they feel when they feel it; you can't stop them from expressing it, and trying to stop them would only multiply it.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#326
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all know that the word 'concentration camp' is used to conjure up images of Nazis killing jews en masse. There's a really important point here about holocaust denial. We need to make sure that people understand some of the camps were extermination camps, and that some of the camps were work camps. This is because anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists will point to the work camps and say "See? No evidence of people b…

But I also reject the notion that there are forced labor camps. As I said via my sources, the evidence for forced labor is very dodgy. Ajit Singh: "‘Forced labor’ stories on China brought to you by US gov, NATO, arms industry to drive Cold War PR blitz" https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/26/forced-labor-china-us-nat... Some people go to prison for being extremists. Some people go to mandatory reeducation for being extre…

[deleted]

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#327
post #278
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese government is highly structured and in general features most of the things one might expect in a modern nation-state (an executive, a legislature, a court system, etc.) The exception, and what makes it hard to understand for outsiders, is that one of the political parties (Chinese Communist Party) is also an extra, supervisory, branch of government and sits on-top of and permeates all the regular bureaucr…

Since you did not mention it specifically, I'll mention that term limits are suspected to be an important part of keeping a reasonable concentration of power and not having a democracy devolve into a dictatorship. On the one hand, term limits are deliberately eroded by long-running despots (primarily in some African countries so far, and increasingly elsewhere in the world lately.) On the other hand, Germany's chanse…

> On the other hand, Germany's chansellorship does not [...] habe term limits

In fact, there is a limit: A German citizen might hold the office of Chancellor ("Kanzler", or "Kanzlerin" for female form) four times, or sixteen years in total.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#328
post #253

Does anyone have any book recommendations for non-chinese people to understand CCP power structures? I'm completely lost in all of this Jack Ma stuff.

The Chinese government is highly structured and in general features most of the things one might expect in a modern nation-state (an executive, a legislature, a court system, etc.) The exception, and what makes it hard to understand for outsiders, is that one of the political parties (Chinese Communist Party) is also an extra, supervisory, branch of government and sits on-top of and permeates all the regular bureaucr…

How did this evolve? I can't think of too many places where a party, rather than an individual, is elevated over the state.

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#329

> In the 50-second video, Ma, dressed in a navy pullover, spoke directly to the camera from a room with grey marble walls and a striped carpet. It was not clear from the video or the Tianmu News article where he was speaking from. Uh, resurfacing from a fancy prison cell, perhaps? Can anyone find the video? EDIT: Here's the raw video: https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/13517514568277196... . If you watch his…

Yeah dude. The Chinese are so technologically advanced, that they built an AI robot that looks exactly like the real Jack Ma. The real Jack Ma is getting his kidneys harvested right now, because apparently, that’s what the CCP does to their own citizens (according to western media). /s

They literally do harvest organs from their own citizens. That's not up for dispute. See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-china-rights-idUS....

Re: Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet

#330
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese government is highly structured and in general features most of the things one might expect in a modern nation-state (an executive, a legislature, a court system, etc.) The exception, and what makes it hard to understand for outsiders, is that one of the political parties (Chinese Communist Party) is also an extra, supervisory, branch of government and sits on-top of and permeates all the regular bureaucr…

How did this evolve? I can't think of too many places where a party, rather than an individual, is elevated over the state.

I think this is more the rule than the exception. The idea that states exist to serve the individual would be laughed at for most of human history. Be it God or the state, man exists to serve. Conscripting and killing young men for the sake of the state/God/glory has been one of humanities favorite pastimes.
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