Live data from Hacker News

One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

cnn.com

151–160 of 190 posts

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Additionally, they've redefined that a pandemic is (removing severity from the definition) Over a million Americans died, but OK, that's not a severe problem...

[flagged]

Why the downvotes but no argument? Aren't those reasonable questions? I didn't even mention the medical guidelines that came out during that period? All I wrote is verifiable (or was)

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#152

There are primary sources. There are archeological sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianling_Mausoleum There are also histories written just after the Tang Dynasty had fallen. It was considered good form for a new dynasty to write a historical review of the previous one, and there are two retrospectives on Tang, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Book_of_Tang And there is ironclad evidence from foreign sourc…

>So the theory is bait, and hard to take seriously. There are people who believe that Trump won in 2020, that vaccines cause autism, and that the Holocaust is a hoax. You cannot reason people out of an idea they didn't use reason to arrive at.

My favorite conspiracy of the moment is that Trump won in 2020 and lost in 2024, but they switched them because he needed more time. People truly are regrettable.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#153
I'm a bit surprised no one has yet mentioned the Chung Kuo series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chung_Kuo_%28novel_series%29

It is a series of science fiction novels in which a future China conquers the world and re-writes history as if the Tang dynasty never ended. The rulers present themselves as being the legitimate inheritors of a continuous Tang dynasty and all of western history from 900 CE onward is secret banned information.

Sort of the exact opposite of this conspiracy theory.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#154
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could it be healthy to not even agree on the most basic facts of history like whether hundreds of years actually happened or the shape of the earth?

Does this stuff really matter when you get down to it? How much does it being true or false change the average persons daily life?

Oh boy... I think you will find the answer in George Orwell's Animal Farm.

But to help you understand, rewriting the past to sustain power is the type of thing that degenerates into genocide for example.

In the short term it might look innocuous, but if corrupting truth and suspend basic moral and ethic values on something as basic as History, what other basic human values are you willing to suspend because you don't like how something feels?

This is the breeding ground for racial supremacists, ethnophobia, etc. Terrible stuff.

And you don't need to go into the past to see the consequences, Ukraine is fighting for their existence because a group of people in Russia don't want to acknowledge that a ethnic group they deem inferior can have better chances at thriving than them, to the point of denying Ukrainians existence all together.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#155
- What motivated the hoax and its spread is hard to pin down.

It’s not that hard to pin down. Nobody seriously doubts that the Tang dynasty existed; this was mostly a joke made to satirize the Western Pseudohistory Theory: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Pseudohistory_Theory

That said, plenty of Chinese people genuinely believe Chinese civilization has been the most advanced since antiquity, and that the sophistication of ancient Greek and Western civilization should be questioned.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why the downvotes but no argument? Aren't those reasonable questions? I didn't even mention the medical guidelines that came out during that period? All I wrote is verifiable (or was)

It’s well documented that the handling of dead bodies at the time was relegated to temporary facilities due to the increased volume.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spotted the same thing, and there's never a source given. Allegedly his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (or 15th great-grandfather for short) was totally Han, the son of the scourge of the Xiongnu - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Guang A timely reminder that, damn, China is olllldddd.

> A timely reminder that, damn, China is olllldddd. China proper starts about 1000 BC, so China is quite a bit younger than Europe. (Whatever "Europe" is.)

> quite a bit younger than

You have introduced a comparison, which thus begs the following questions:

1. What is the event that defines "China proper"? 2. What is the event that defines "Europe [proper]" to you?

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#160
post #21
post #11

Its a Chinese equivalent of the phantom time theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_conspiracy_theory Its just as silly as phantom time and covers almost exactly the same period. The motive is possibly racist which makes it more sinister.

Not to be confused with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko) which I thought was the same as this but actually compresses a whole lot more time into less than 1000 years and does word magic to imply that King Solomon = Suleiman the Magnificent.

I knew about the Tartarian Empire theory but not Fomenko's new chronology.

its amazing, and one of the most thorough and clever conspiracy theories and it has no lack of scope and ambition. Jesus was made up based on a 12th century Byzantine Emperor is almost as good as Suleiman being Solomon, and lots of otherwise reasonable seem very ready to believe conspiracy theories about Jesus (Dan Brown made a lot of money out of people who thought the Da Vinci Code theories were plausible).

Kasparov was a proponent!

Post reply on HN