71–80 of 198 posts
Let these students keep embarrassing themselves and their country. The more people can see how the CPC thinks of others, which is exactly what these kids are expressing, the better. Shame and losing face will be the only thing that'll make the CPC change.
I just graduated from Cornell, and I'm not surprised. Some student posters around campus which read "Hong Kong stands with Ukraine" had the "Hong Kong" scribbled out by someone else. [1] I saw students point and laugh at a similar poster. On multiple occasions, I saw scraps left behind where posters criticizing Xi Jinping or the CCP had hung. [1] https://i.postimg.cc/25LM9hZJ/7297-B1-DB-5-CB3-4019-BCF3-8-F...
I'm a current senior at Cornell and I'm conflicted. > On Friday, the administration told students in an emailed statement "we have an expectation and responsibility to engage with viewpoints that we disagree with," but that "we must also respect that walkouts are a legitimate form of protest and an appropriate expression of disapproval." I like free speech as much as the next Hacker News user, but many of the actions…
„The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.“
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I'm a current senior at Cornell and I'm conflicted. > On Friday, the administration told students in an emailed statement "we have an expectation and responsibility to engage with viewpoints that we disagree with," but that "we must also respect that walkouts are a legitimate form of protest and an appropriate expression of disapproval." I like free speech as much as the next Hacker News user, but many of the actions…
> absolutely should have rebuked those using their free speech in favor of human rights abuses I have no love for communists (having been born in the Eastern Bloc), but that's not how free speech works. Either you're for it (and all the icky stuff that comes with it) or you're against it. There's no "splitting the difference" here. We've debated and litigated this since the Enlightenment (from J.S. Mill to Skokie, IL…
Blackstone's ratio is:
> It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer
This is failure design. The legal system will fail. So when it does, do you want a guilty person to be set free or an innocent person to be imprisoned. We, of course, want to minimize the failure, but we have to ask which mode of failure is preferable.
The same is true for speech here. Who decides what to censor? The people in charge change frequently and with opposing views. What is the threshold? Explicit or implicit speech? There are limits on speech in America but the limits are low because that was the mode of failure that was planned.
I think one thing to recognize though is that there's ways to stop speech we don't like without banning it[1]. You just have to be creative.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/neo-nazis-tric...
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I'm a current senior at Cornell and I'm conflicted. > On Friday, the administration told students in an emailed statement "we have an expectation and responsibility to engage with viewpoints that we disagree with," but that "we must also respect that walkouts are a legitimate form of protest and an appropriate expression of disapproval." I like free speech as much as the next Hacker News user, but many of the actions…
> absolutely should have rebuked those using their free speech in favor of human rights abuses I have no love for communists (having been born in the Eastern Bloc), but that's not how free speech works. Either you're for it (and all the icky stuff that comes with it) or you're against it. There's no "splitting the difference" here. We've debated and litigated this since the Enlightenment (from J.S. Mill to Skokie, IL…
I just graduated from Cornell, and I'm not surprised. Some student posters around campus which read "Hong Kong stands with Ukraine" had the "Hong Kong" scribbled out by someone else. [1] I saw students point and laugh at a similar poster. On multiple occasions, I saw scraps left behind where posters criticizing Xi Jinping or the CCP had hung. [1] https://i.postimg.cc/25LM9hZJ/7297-B1-DB-5-CB3-4019-BCF3-8-F...
I'm a current senior at Cornell and I'm conflicted. > On Friday, the administration told students in an emailed statement "we have an expectation and responsibility to engage with viewpoints that we disagree with," but that "we must also respect that walkouts are a legitimate form of protest and an appropriate expression of disapproval." I like free speech as much as the next Hacker News user, but many of the actions…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. China is like this because Chinese are like this, and they want it to be like this (for all possible values of "like this"). Same with Russia (who is invading Ukraine because Russians want it), Saudi Arabia (who is beheading gay people because Saudis want it) and other places. I have even heard following argument: it takes surprisingly little people to overthrow a dictator, so counterintuitively dictators have m…
> it takes surprisingly little people to overthrow a dictator, so counterintuitively dictators have much higher support than democracies. That’s a very unique perspective I never thought of it that way. I wonder though if some or most of a dictator’s power come from having a tight control over means of suppression, from controlled media to the military. The latter 2 would seem to require a much smaller percentage of…
I think people can also be misled and don't always think rationally - there has been a lot of "glorious empires" where the people were more invested in their country being "glorious empire" than actual prosperity and development of their country.
I'm honestly not 100 % convinced of all this. But I don't have better answer for "why are there so many people who support their dictator and let them do all those things".
The cries of racism really ring hollow when they're talking about actions of a government, not a people or a culture.
They don't mean for crimes they personally did not commit, but alleged "genocide" that plurality of UN members who has formal position on the matter states PRC did not commit. When the dominant narrative is PRC government actions in XJ is counter-terrorism/deradicalization, the anti-China racism being complained about is "false" western propaganda, i.e. completely opposing foreign policy. And TBH some of the past alleged racism is pretty apt, like posters of Chinese curlers throwing a corona virus for the Winter Olympics. Rest is just Chinese idpol finding their place on Western campus culture, foreign students protest over diasphora shit all the time. So why wouldn't Chinese play the racism card.
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> absolutely should have rebuked those using their free speech in favor of human rights abuses I have no love for communists (having been born in the Eastern Bloc), but that's not how free speech works. Either you're for it (and all the icky stuff that comes with it) or you're against it. There's no "splitting the difference" here. We've debated and litigated this since the Enlightenment (from J.S. Mill to Skokie, IL…
If they are residents, I agree there is nothing you can do about it. But since they seem to be exchange students, you could say "We don't welcome people with such views here in our country", and just send them back to the country that is ruled by their beloved government. Just because you have free speech doesn't mean you can't select foreigners based on their beliefs and values.
Now I'm not saying being a foreign national you should have "the right" to open a US bank account, buy a house, or even get a job. But if we're talking about what we call "basic human rights," then that's a different story.
Of course, Universities are different, but I think the point still stands.
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The attacks were similar in scale to the Irish attacks in the 70s through 90s. Did the U.K. sterilise Irish people?
I never said what the Chinese did is justified.
My point is that emotions that launched the sterilization campaign is equivalent to the state of the US during 9/11. This doesn't justify genocide or actual war or does it? The US, on the other hand, thought sending soldiers to another country to kill more people was justified. China isnt doing that.
But that's besides the point. The point is how do you know you're brainwashed? When a person completely failed to even mention why china did what they did instead just said oh china sterilized a culture because of a "separatist movement." It shows bias, lack of understanding and over simplification of a complex situation.
White Americans dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima effectively massacring an entire city with white fire. Does that make Americans evil? No it absolutely does not. Does that make the bomb justified? Also no.
The point is to not place people into caricatures of right/wrong or good/evil when reality is by far much more complex.
Why did china suppress the uhgyrs? If you can understand china but at the same time disagree with their actions then you have my respect. But if you can't do that... Then how are you different from a white supremacist who hates black people using over simplified reasoning and logic?
Nobody here is understanding why the Chinese students did what they did.
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I'm a current senior at Cornell and I'm conflicted. > On Friday, the administration told students in an emailed statement "we have an expectation and responsibility to engage with viewpoints that we disagree with," but that "we must also respect that walkouts are a legitimate form of protest and an appropriate expression of disapproval." I like free speech as much as the next Hacker News user, but many of the actions…
> absolutely should have rebuked those using their free speech in favor of human rights abuses I have no love for communists (having been born in the Eastern Bloc), but that's not how free speech works. Either you're for it (and all the icky stuff that comes with it) or you're against it. There's no "splitting the difference" here. We've debated and litigated this since the Enlightenment (from J.S. Mill to Skokie, IL…
For instance, outright neo-Nazism is forbidden in most EU countries. Same goes for stoking racial or religious hatred, etc. Even in the US with their old constitution and "textualist" interpretations of it that really want to take it to the absolute, have restrictions on free speech (e.g. "obscenity", "speech that violates intellectual property law", etc.)
Absolute free speech is incompatible with a modern society of today. Maybe it isn't with somebody's utopia, but we're not there.
The paradox of tolerance, however, is real. You can see it in work the recent rise of mis and disinformation from far-right folks, Russia, etc. For instance in France there was a presidential candidate who was convicted of inciting racial hatred more than once, and wanted to deport all Muslims and migrants from France, of course with frightening stories about why that is necessary to save France from the Muslims/Blacks/Arabs/Jews/whatever.