This is classic western/European entitlement. How absolutely annoying.
Is it "entitlement" to say your opinion publicly?
And ignore context? Absolutely.
Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
351–360 of 374 posts
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look, I get it. Cancel culture isn’t healthy for our society, but can we be realistic about our examples? JKR is doing just fine after posting her transphobic screed last year. The various lawmakers across the US that sponsored anti-trans legislation this year haven’t been forcibly removed from office. Leading up to the presidential debates last year, speakers at the RNC made explicitly transphobic comments. Trump hi…
First of all , these are rich people whose removal would be largely inconsequential to their livelihood. Under them you 'll find a sea of people who are self-censoring because their positions are much more precarious, and they see the whims of the mob. > haven’t been forcibly removed from office Second i find this insinuation that a mob should be able to remove elected people from office problematic
A much better criticism of that line would be that it was attacking a strawman. It was a hyperbolic representation of the fears I was trying to quell. Saying that I was implying those politicians should be forcibly removed from office requires ignoring a LOT of context. It wouldn’t make very much sense for me to signal that I supported using violence against detractors while arguing that the backlash to transphobia is massively overstated.
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think cancel culture is much worse for people who are close to the community tgat cancels them than people far removed. This is sorta obvious if you consider how much effect a community can have on someone by cancelling them. Sometimes cancel culture affects people outside the community. And then everyone is on the barricades. But I think the real damage is being done inside these communities. Essentially the commu…
Are you inside the trans rights movement and have seen this happen first hand, or can you cite an advocate for trans rights that was shunned by the community? What you describe is an interesting hypothetical problem. In my experience as a trans person participating in the trans community, it is completely divorced from the reality of the situation. People aren’t “canceled” because they aren’t ideologically pure. It’s…
I am adjacent to the trans community. Pretty knowledgable with sime friends in their. My main source for these ideas was contrapoints. Though notably, I wrote my comment to be much more widely applicable. I think it equally applies to wider queer communities, femisim, and maybe the wider woke anti racism movement. Heck, it probably applies to a lot of people left of the democrats.
I hypothesise this because I am trying to understand why the general left is so ineffective. Why it engenders so much actual hatred when the message is quite positive. I think a large part of this is some apparent logical gaps in our arguments that are taboo to discuss. Those can be quite infuriating, and also make for very easy strawmaning. (e.g. "all trans people say biology is meaningless")
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be very unnatural. States make war for their interests. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_realism
Fighting in the Middle East is literally the exact opposite of what Neorealists believe. John Mearsheimer opposed to these idiotic middle east wars and has been for a long time.
You're confounding descriptive and persctiptive theory. Such conflicts are an obvious consequence of the setup despite deeper strategic analysis advising against it.
In his book, Mearsheimer
> readily acknowledges the inherent pessimism of offensive realism and its predictions because his world is one in which conflict between great powers will never see an end. [1]
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tragedy_of_Great_Power_P...
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#355There is a cultural subcontext that may be missing here:
The swiss are fiercely independent people that shun cultural misfits and people that don't respect tradition.
They certainly hold in contempt outsiders that go against established groups/ norms / traditions. This is evident in their rules for granting citizenship, which is at the discretion of each canton.
Some cantons are particularly fickle and will reject granting citizenship to foreigners living in Switzerland for decades...if the foreigner is "annoying" [1]. This means: a serial complainer, a bad neighbor that does not respect customs.
My thinking:
PHD student forgot they were part of the local academia community. This group was sensitive to china criticism. Whether this was subtle or not, we wont know. What we know is he went ahead and criticised china, thus becoming a bad neighbor. He was therefore cast out.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/sw...
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the complaints came "from China" And that's the whole point of this piece of misinformation. "Came from China" doesn't mean that the country of China was involved, but that people in China involved didn't want this or that. It could similarly be a problem with news that "came from Switzerland", or that "came from USA", but of course the media wants to play the game of China (the country) as a bad actor.
It's not the people of China, who should be free to criticize their government and talk about any topic. It's the CCP that stops them and others worldwide.
The CCP only has this power because citizenry world wide keeps electing governments who's stance is "business relations with China at any cost!"
And this is the entirely predictable result.
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another reading of this is: "freedom of speech is protected in this country". And that is true, not the fairytale you suggest it to be.
I didn't suggest anything, generally I avoid suggestion. It's pusillanimous. Switzerland has a lot of freedom, certainly compared to China and other European countries. It's without a doubt my favorite country, one I'd want to live in. But, as we're finding out, the "free speech protections" that we drone on about are only as good as we are willing to insist on. "freedom of speech is protected in this country" is mea…
Neither of these codes (which, by the way, I certainly object to) is anywhere near the scope of China's blanket ban on any activity (speech included) covered under the Article 51 quoted in a comment elsewhere here. Basically that's any activity any government official says it is.
Suggesting these are on the same level is, at best, to show misunderstanding of what the words mean and how the government applies them.
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's usually to point out commonalities to get people to emote when having a conversation I find. Yes comparing the scales of the Chinese sensorship to googles deplatforming of uncomfortable topics is not nice. But explaining how one can lead to the other also explains to people in the west why something is bad. Especially when people would readily sleep walk into enabling technologies that would enable state sensors…
But I'm not comparing Switzerland to China! I'm just pointing out that this kid had a really naive attitude of where our rights currently stand in the West. And I think the story is the proof - the kid got canned.
The form of censorship in the west here I'd argue its financial oppression. Granted in his case he's been lucky enough that his support went the press so he might get something for his efforts, but financial oppression by bullies isn't new or unique to any culture I fear.
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not the people of China, who should be free to criticize their government and talk about any topic. It's the CCP that stops them and others worldwide.
The CCP only has this power because citizenry world wide keeps electing governments who's stance is "business relations with China at any cost!" And this is the entirely predictable result.
Trump campaigned on doing the opposite, didn't make much of a difference though.
Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not familiar with universities outside the ETH rules (ETHZ/EPFL only) but students are paid a salary at these universities and hold dual status as employees and students. I'm not sure if their tuition is waived. Even if they pay the same tuition as masters or bachelors students this is usually around 800-900 CHF per semester, the cost of 2-3 months health insurance. Not money you want to pay if you don't have to,…
> students are paid a salary at these universities and hold dual status as employees and students OT: How much? Undergraduates too?
Only PhDs are paid. I think the salary scale starts at around 51,000 CHF. That's a lot for other countries but it isn't for Switzerland. The exact amount is public knowledge and you can find it if you look. It is slightly higher for ETHZ, but not much.
Bachelors and masters pay fees according to: https://www.epfl.ch/education/studies/en/rules-and-procedure... or https://ethz.ch/en/studies/financial/tuition-fees.html
Tuition is definitely not free, but also not extortionate.