Steam has been banned in China • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#391

Post by codeddesign » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

foverzar wrote: post #36

meibo wrote: post #2

Note: this refers to the global Steam service/community - Valve still offers Steam China with a very limited/censored selection of mostly-Valve games, adhering to local child protection laws. Most Chinese Steam users have historically been using the global service instead, as this Chinese version of Steam has only been available since February 2021.

I really love how we all have an impression of China as a country without access to global internet, but then there are things like "Most Chinese Steam users have historically been using the global service instead". Really makes you want to visit and see how this actually works for yourself. The more I read about China, the more unbelievably contradictive it gets.

Who would think that China doesn’t have internet?? They aren’t North Korea. Even Cuba where it’s literally banned has internet.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#392

Post by musingsole » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

Levitz wrote: post #370

imbnwa wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a lower frequency, this similar to why I'm not interested in tourism as "self-discovery", "new experience", or some shit, like the rest of the world is just stage and props for my existential theatre. I'm not gonna change as a human unless I actually move there to live permanently. Even worse, the middle-class trend to make the number of distinct places you've visited some form of social currency ("how many stamps…

> I'm not gonna change as a human unless I actually move there to live permanently. This, in my experience, is simply not true. There is a value in going to different places, changing every variable there is to your life except yourself. When you are somewhere you've never been to, where you know nobody, where the food, language and customs are all different, then you can find out which parts of yourself stay, who yo…

Maybe, but too many think that visiting a resort town in a far flung country has given them a meaningful experience of "otherness" as if those same resorts weren't purpose built to coddle to foreigners being out of their element.

And even if you do fall through the tourism system and find yourself elbow to elbow with a native, the thought that you as a foreigner will unlock their culture in handful of days when most natural born members of a group will be learning their own eccentricities to the day they die is one of the more disgusting flavors of arrogance.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#393

Post by itsagavin » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #385

legofr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see, like VICE did in Xinjiang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ That being said, if you go then please try to walk into a random h…

I’m ethnically Chinese. While I speak a little I am still mistaken for a foreigner since I often hire a translator and I traveled extensively through China throughout the last 2 decades to many places both remote and urban on a US passport. Never had a problem with hotels (though mostly booked online) nor staying at relatives/friends houses, nor anything blatantly authoritarian besides my internet bring blocked (whic…

The reality is every step you took was observed and I would assume even where you slept both video and audio were recorded.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#394

Post by emptysongglass » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

lmz wrote: post #345

emptysongglass wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one missed this because Americans are educated in these atrocities from their early years in school. On the other hand, such a record of atrocities committed by the CCP is not taught in Chinese schools. The Hundred Flowers Campaign, the reconstitution of Tibet and the sending of its natives to work camps by the half million have been erased from the record.

Will there be reparations or is the US going to keep the lands? Is it OK if the Chinese do it now and teach their schoolchildren about it 100 years later? Looking from the outside this just looks like pulling up the ladder. "Oh we did kill them off but that was years ago. These other countries, though..."

I don't know what you expect to be done that hasn't been done already. Navajo Nation exists and it's 17,544,500 acres of land for the Navajo people. Native Americans qualify for college benefits that others with citizenship to the States do not qualify for. Compounding the dilemma of how a nation makes reparations for the sins of their mother's mother's mother's there just aren't many Native peoples left to make reparations to.

Your argument, at face value, offers little in the way of solutions. On the contrary, you make an enemy of my argument. Do you seek to apologize for the new makers of genocide today? Or what is the purpose of your comment?

Much as the Buddha focused on present action as a tool for change, that is what we must do now, collectively, so we do not repeat the atrocities of yesterday today.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#395

Post by andrewxdiamond » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

gavinray wrote: post #355

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encourage you to apply occam's razor here. I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN.

Here is the post that has vanished: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29684814 > I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN. I wish I could pull a cached view of the comment up (I tried), there wasn't anything I would interpret as being inflammatory in there. The comment boiled down to: "VICE isn't what I'd call the most reputable/unbiased so…

As for the flagging, I believe HN auto-flags comments from new accounts that receive a large number of downvotes as an anti-spam feature.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#396

Post by andrewxdiamond » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #395

gavinray wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the post that has vanished: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29684814 > I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN. I wish I could pull a cached view of the comment up (I tried), there wasn't anything I would interpret as being inflammatory in there. The comment boiled down to: "VICE isn't what I'd call the most reputable/unbiased so…

As for the flagging, I believe HN auto-flags comments from new accounts that receive a large number of downvotes as an anti-spam feature.

If you enable showdead on your profile, you’ll see that this comment is denying the well documented genocide that is occurring in these regions. That will rightfully annoy many people here, hence the downvotes.

So using the razor, I think we can conclude what happened.

User makes a new throwaway account to spread easily disproved information

Other users downvote the misinformation

HN autoflags the comment to protect against preceived-spam.

Although you are right to question what you see. It is never wrong to take a second to ask “what’s going on here?”

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#397

Post by emptysongglass » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

_-david-_ wrote: post #361

lmz wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will there be reparations or is the US going to keep the lands? Is it OK if the Chinese do it now and teach their schoolchildren about it 100 years later? Looking from the outside this just looks like pulling up the ladder. "Oh we did kill them off but that was years ago. These other countries, though..."

The US gave land and money to tribes. They held fair trials and often lost. Just recently half of Oklahoma became tribal land because of a lawsuit.

For others as interested in this ruling as I was here is a link to a story that covers this verdict [1]

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/07/09/889562040/supreme-court-rules...

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#398

Post by sobkas » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

jkhdigital wrote: post #173

saba2008 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less than 'final nail', but rather sign that government has no better topics, than crude mix of chauvinism an and emotional manipulation. Cf. Russian progression from 'ignore politics, look at economic growth' -> 'ignore politics for economical stability sake' -> 'ignore politics or homos will diddle your kids'

You know the end is near when ideas of proper morality flow from a government to its citizens, rather than the reverse.

> You know the end is near when ideas of proper morality flow from a government to its citizens, rather than the reverse.

You have no idea how many of social liberties you take for granted were strongarmed by governments/judiciary. Also how many liberties were taken from you by majority of citizens. So be careful what you wish for.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#399

Post by hulitu » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

gavinray wrote: post #340

legofr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see, like VICE did in Xinjiang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ That being said, if you go then please try to walk into a random h…

Hey what sort of bullshit is this HN? I was reading a reply by a guy who counter-commented on this, a bunch of links of people on YouTube walking around this same area and not seeing anything like this. Then went to comment, and it says "flagged" and was deleted, in under 10 minutes. I don't really care about politics or China at all, but that is some spooky-tier censorship here on HN. Wtf is going on here? Here's on…

There are a lot of people "with an agenda" here, to say the least. And unlike Slashdot you cannot reply to flagged or dead comments which benefits those people.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#400

Post by ganzuul » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

atomicity wrote: post #313

emptysongglass wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not discussing the US, we're discussing the latest abuse of power by the CCP. That's where the link goes. Would you like to next make a false equivalence of US prison labor to slave labor in China? Because that's where this goes, every thread. Submit a link of the US' latest atrocity to HN. A world of tolerance allows and accepts the stories of violence perpetrated by all actors. The reason you are seeing so ma…

The commenter you replied to seemed to be comparing 2 situations. That seems normal to me. Comparing things seems to be great way to understand complex issues. What makes the comment a wrong way to discuss? Is it a bad form of comparison for some reason?

Providing common knowledge on the topic rehashes things everybody knows so it is seen as noise and not signal.

If you have uncovered stuff few people know, please share. Then finding comparisons is more insightful.