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The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

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Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#111

Post by [deleted] »

fao_ wrote: post #76
madeuptempacct wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who thinks you can go through BUDS/RASP/RIP/Q-Course/whatever injured and "fight through it" is a delusional fanboy. The reality is that it has very little to do with willpower and everything to do with your physical condition before the course and your genetic potential. If you get hurt, you are out, and you are checking gates for 12 hours a day or go regular infantry. Yes, there are second chances, but that'…

all of your stuff for at least the last month has been shadowbanned. idk why.

[deleted]

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#112

Post by stcredzero »

alistairSH wrote: post #107
stcredzero wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Particularly in the case of a minor, who has no say in the contract. Wasn't the contract entered into by his parents? The way I read it, he wasn't able to break free until his early-20s. Was he kept under lock and key by armed guards willing to main or kill him to keep him from escaping? Or did he primarily think of it as working through a contract his parents had signed him up for?

Are you actually arguing parents should be allowed to self their children into servitude? If so, there's no point debating with you - I find the practice morally reprehensible (and yes, the systems that make such an arrangement in any way palatable are also reprehensible).

Are you actually arguing parents should be allowed to self their children into servitude?

No one wants children to be sold into servitude. However, the state impinging into family affairs to the point where it can be 100% prevented is essentially making the state the full de-facto guardians of the children. This is the state of affairs where children are informing on their parents to the state.

It's in part up to the parents in a case like this, to determine if what they're doing is selling their children out. That should be a matter of relationships within the family. (Government should be supervising how such business treat and house children. It shouldn't be impinging itself on the relationship between parent and child for any but the most extreme circumstances.)

If so, there's no point debating with you - I find the practice morally reprehensible

Using such debate tactics is dishonest on a few levels. 1) The likelihood that you are talking to someone that reprehensible is rather small 2) The likelihood that you are not exercising the principle of charity and imposing unnecessary emotional toxicity in a nuanced discussion (to your own short-term rhetorical benefit) is rather much larger.

and yes, the systems that make such an arrangement in any way palatable are also reprehensible

There are and always will be a few horrible people who will do that to their own children. Giving over tremendous power to the state over the intimate affairs of absolutely everyone for the sake of preventing rare instances strikes me as hugely unwise. Imagine what the plight of gay teenagers in the past would have been like in an unfriendly regime of such power, where state power reached into family affairs. (Or the plight of such teenagers in totalitarian theocracies today.)

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#113

Post by throwaway12993 »

ethbro wrote: post #101
throwawaymath wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The greatest challenge to overcome is disbelief that you can do something. I'm deeply skeptical of this. I don't want to assume your background, so please don't take offense to this. But I can only imagine someone is able to seriously believe this if they've never had anything more challenging than their own self-actualization and ambition. You can (and should) believe in yourself as fiercely as you'd like! But the…

I would argue the opposite (that self-belief is the hardest challenge in those in objectively bad circumstances), precisely because of what you phrase as '[these things] will break you down unless you're astronomically lucky.' The manner in which they break most people down is by circumscribing ambition and self confidence. A large part of my family goes into the hills of dirt poor mining Appalachia, so I wouldn't sa…

Created an account just to reply here:

I think this is the crux of the difference in viewpoint between you and who you're responding to:

> I have yet to see someone succeed in something they never start

It's reasonable to say that the will/drive/impetus/etc. to succeed is _necessary_ for success.

And because it is necessary, it's good to have heroes — makes sense to me.

But the other fellow is saying that while it may be necessary, it is not _sufficient_.

If you never play the lotto, you'll never win, it's true. But just because you do play doesn't mean you'll win either. Playing is necessary, but not sufficient.

How much you think it's valuable to parade around the winners and say "this could be you!" is, I think, proportional to how much you think an individual has control over the game they're playing.

For the lottery, it's easy to show that you have zero control, so parading around the winners (or "heroes") is a bit silly. For other types of success, it's less clear. But there is certainly a decent argument to be made that liklihood of overcoming structural and institutional biases is luck-heavy. If you think it's mostly luck, then hero-worship is not so valuable.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#114

Post by kzzzznot »

goertzen wrote: post #91

The first paragraph does a great job of summarizing and contextualizing Jackie Chan's career. But the rest of the article seems to drunkenly wonder around bumping into rhetorical questions that don't lead anywhere other than the reporter believes that Jackie Chan didn't complain or rejoice enough in his hardships or successes. Ok, sure. I guess that's one opinion. But I'm kind of surprised that the reporter didn't ha…

Yes I thought the article was poorly written. Not really sure what angle the author was coming from

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#115

Post by the_af »

chaostheory wrote: post #103
the_af wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You echo the article's conclusion. You agree with its main idea. No. The article is very long, draws many conclusions and ponders many aspects of Jackie's life and autobiography, and I only mentioned one aspect (a question, not a conclusion by the way). I'm completely silent on other issues raised by the article, such as Jackie Chan's opinions of freedom, his injuries, his relationship with mainland China, etc. So…

> Then why do you ask me? Because from my perspective it seems like you had an opinion and then you backed away once I challenged it. You dance around it enough to pretend that the author didn't make a clear opinion. > I only mentioned one aspect (a question, not a conclusion by the way) It sounded rhetorical. Like with other religious wars, we can agree to disagree. From my perspective, I still feel that your origin…

> Because from my perspective it seems like you had an opinion and then you backed away once I challenged it.

From my perspective you made a mistake and now you're too proud to admit it.

What you "feel" I meant is wrong. I didn't even make a point. And I explicitly told you what I meant!

Interesting that you're now framing this as a "religious war". What I think is less interesting is that I have to defend myself against things you think I might have said according to what you "feel".

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#116

Post by chaostheory »

tunesmith wrote: post #105

"Chinese people need to be controlled, otherwise they will do whatever they want." Haha... wow, that circular reasoning is so tight it's almost not even a circle anymore. "Chinese people need to be controlled, otherwise they will not be controlled". I have a theory that all circular reasoning can be reduced down to a (probably faulty) axiom or assertion.

For the record, I strongly disagree with Jackie's opinion. It does need more context though. China is a low trust society that doesn't have a strong rule of law. What this translates into is fake medicine, fake food, newly built buildings and bridges that either fall apart or are falling apart, police and low level government officials who need bribes for mundane things and so on. Jackie mainly wants a stronger rule of law. (He's just wrong about accepting a government with unlimited power. eg he thinks protests are bad) Of course, you're not going to get all of this from someone who didn't receive a lot of formal education, speaking in the 3rd language that he learned, in a small sound bite.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#117

Post by stcredzero »

Pfhreak wrote: post #93
stcredzero wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Particularly in the case of a minor, who has no say in the contract. Wasn't the contract entered into by his parents? The way I read it, he wasn't able to break free until his early-20s. Was he kept under lock and key by armed guards willing to main or kill him to keep him from escaping? Or did he primarily think of it as working through a contract his parents had signed him up for?

Do the answers to your rhetorical questions matter? Is there any answer to your questions that makes indentured servitude of minors acceptable? I cannot conceive of any answers that would.

Do the answers to your rhetorical questions matter?

As someone who was a child who was sent away to school by his parents, let me tell you that they matter a great deal. (Particularly from the POV of an adult looking back vs. the experiences of a child.) They are precisely the questions that should be asked to distinguish manipulations of "Think of the children!" hysteria and genuine issues of the human rights of minors.

Is there any answer to your questions that makes indentured servitude of minors acceptable?

Of course not. But I can imagine the level of state power and impingement on private family life needed to prevent that 100%, and that would be quite horrible as well. Government should regulate the conditions under which children are kept and raised by schools. However, the degree to which someone else should decide for parents what to do also needs to take into account the rights of parents and families.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#118

Post by darkarmani »

geggam wrote: post #79
dbingham wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what the previous commenter was reacting to in your post was not your defense of Chan an his memoir as inspirational, per se, but rather the specific phrase "If he can do it anyone can" as ignoring the fact that Chan -- and celebrities like him -- are extreme outliers, and extremely lucky for their success. Yes, Chan worked his ass off. But to have the success he did, he also had to have an insane amount of l…

This word "luck" is used quite often yet every time I see it applied it there is always someone who "seizes opportunity when it comes and does what it takes to succeed" I suppose it is easier to write and also easier to dismiss other people doing something you simply don't want to put in the effort to do so or are too scared to do. of course this is just my observation

> This word "luck" is used quite often yet every time I see it applied it there is always someone who "seizes opportunity when it comes and does what it takes to succeed"

So your observation is that because they seized the opportunity and did what it takes to succeed means luck wasn't involved?

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#119

Post by stcredzero »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #109
stcredzero wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Particularly in the case of a minor, who has no say in the contract. Wasn't the contract entered into by his parents? The way I read it, he wasn't able to break free until his early-20s. Was he kept under lock and key by armed guards willing to main or kill him to keep him from escaping? Or did he primarily think of it as working through a contract his parents had signed him up for?

Countered question of my own: Do you understand the plight of being an exploited child?

Do you understand the plight of being an exploited child?

I understand what it's like to be sent away to school by one's parents to experience significant hardship. It's not a matter where one should cry out for more state intervention, lightly.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#120

Post by SolaceQuantum »

stcredzero wrote: post #119
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countered question of my own: Do you understand the plight of being an exploited child?

Do you understand the plight of being an exploited child? I understand what it's like to be sent away to school by one's parents to experience significant hardship. It's not a matter where one should cry out for more state intervention, lightly.

This does not answer the question.
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