Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 192 posts

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#171

Post by vernon99 »

woodandsteel wrote: post #46

I think the Chinese government is making a huge mistake in the way it is oppressing freedom of speech at home and broad. China is now on its fourth political and economic system in the last century and a half. The present system is an accidental conglomeration of three quite contradictory philosophies: Confucianism, Marxism, and liberalism. It seems quite likely at some point it is going to prove unworkable. At that…

It sounds a bit arrogant. US systems are in a much worse shape than Chinese now (lack of innovation, constant bipartisan struggle, inability to make critical decisions and move forward fast, ridiculous expences) and a lot of that can be attributed to the current political system that supports individualism and freedom to express radically opposing opinions (creating turbulence and distracting from solvig the real problems). To me, after spending some time in both US and China, it seems that the optimal system is authoritarian meritocracy - you need a strong monolythic leadership, the question is how to avoid thyrany. China thus far balances it pretty well. Also, intelligent thinking doesn't really correlate with freedom of speach, btw.

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#172

Post by chvid »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #129

I'm going to take the contrarian position, just so people understand why this is so. For the uninitiated, read up the history of Tibet. They haven't always been peaceful monks. Most notably, the Tibetans sacked the capital of the Tang dynasty — one of China's most brilliant in terms of cultural accomplishments — in that dynasty's twilight years. For the Chinese, unity is a matter of culture and national security. Sur…

I would be amazed to be at a graduation with Dalai Lama.

But I understand the anger of the Chinese students; it is a bit of "yeah you paid a lot money and you are good at math but here is what we think of you and your country, now fuck off".

When we say "Free Tibet", "Free Xinjiang" or even "Free Hong Kong". What exactly does that mean?

For the millions of (mainland han) Chinese who live there; it means ethnic clensing, forcibly removing Chinese from these areas, Chinese who have been there for a half a century now.

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#173

Post by bhouston »

blackguardx wrote: post #107
maverick_iceman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try inviting pro-Israel supporters and see what a stink BDS and the general leftist students make. [1] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/students-are-shoutin...

Pro-Israel in what sense? Believing that Israel shouldn't exist is an extreme opinion that isn't widely shared in the western world. The debate is about a homeland for Palestinians.

The term "anti-Israel" is used extremely often in North America to refer to things that are not "pro-Israel". For example John Kerry's speech about the occupation and why it is in Israel's best interests to end it.

Large segments of media here branded that as an "anti-Israel" speech even though it wasn't questioning existence of Israel:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=John+Kerry+anti-israel&q=John...

Anti-Israel is misused in many of its uses these days, not always but a lot of the time.

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#174

Post by bhouston »

blackguardx wrote: post #138
nol13 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believing that Palestinians shouldn't have a homeland with safety and rights is an extreme opinion not widely shared in Pro-Israel world, they just aren't delusional about the security implications.

I'm serious. What does Pro-Israel mean in this context? Most of the western world is Pro-Israel as in pro Israel's existence. An Anti-Israel speaker would be extremely controversial. Look at what happened when Ahmadinejad came to Columbia University.

Also Obama was considered "anti-Israel" because well, I guess he said something that wasn't pro-Israel enough:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=Obama+"anti-Israel"&sourceid=...

It is sort of ridiculous what some segments will call anti-Israel.

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#175

Post by nol13 »

blackguardx wrote: post #138
nol13 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believing that Palestinians shouldn't have a homeland with safety and rights is an extreme opinion not widely shared in Pro-Israel world, they just aren't delusional about the security implications.

I'm serious. What does Pro-Israel mean in this context? Most of the western world is Pro-Israel as in pro Israel's existence. An Anti-Israel speaker would be extremely controversial. Look at what happened when Ahmadinejad came to Columbia University.

I guess in this context, as referenced in the parent article, anyone who isn't anti-normalization/ doesn't support BDS.

Guess it's a point of view thing. They say "lift the evil Gaza blockade," Israelis/Many Jews hear, "We don't give a flying fuck if you and your families get killed by terrorists."

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#176

Post by Paradigma11 »

rubatuga wrote: post #85
it_learnses wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how am I being racist? We have rich chinese immigrants from mainland literally buying their permanent residency and driving up the price of housing here. We have the chinese government pushing us around and our weak government isn't standing up for Canadians. I think it's a valid concern.

Proof for the last point would be great.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-economic-fugitive-fox-...

The acceptance of undeclared foreign agents that threaten and blackmail local residents support his claim.

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#177

Post by HarryHirsch »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #176
rubatuga wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof for the last point would be great.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-economic-fugitive-fox-... The acceptance of undeclared foreign agents that threaten and blackmail local residents support his claim.

These people are part of a global, often criminal elite yet at the same time want the protections of a strong nation state and discover they can't have both at the same time. That's funny in a dark way.

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#178

Post by mistermann »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #164
mistermann wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our legal system allows you to challenge that. If a campus prevented your conservative group's speaker from speaking, you can sue and win. Sure, might as well sue mother nature for the temperature rise. What we're seeing is a force of nature, the legal profession cannot stop it, overall society has to choose to stop it, which means they have to choose to allow conservative voices.

> Sure, might as well sue mother nature for the temperature rise. Plenty of court cases have set precedent for how individuals and businesses operate in the future. When a court makes a ruling, people know they can be held similarly accountable, according to the written law, in the future. > What we're seeing is a force of nature, the legal profession cannot stop it, overall society has to choose to stop it, which me…

Oh it's not impossible to legislate, but very unlikely. Someone they trust has to tell these kids that listening to ideas is a good thing, but good luck finding someone influential with integrity these days.

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#179

Post by mistermann »

hyperdunc wrote: post #132
rtpg wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most of it is wrong? Most of the speech is around ideas that have been proven wrong over and over again. It's the same as when people come in and talk about a database that "solves" CAP. Perhaps a better example is climate denial. Why do I have to listen to decades old debunked discussions over and over again? EDIT: I also disagree with the premise. Loads of polite company will happily discuss immigration res…

Practically speaking, it's a two-way street. Speakers also redefine the speech that society accepts. But I disagree that it's not society's job to have all speech be acceptable. All speech should be allowed, and all counter-speech should be allowed. Only violence is not tolerated (and speech is not violence). We also shouldn't treat all other cultures as equally valid sources of immigration because some cultures hold…

> In Europe, many people who arrive from those areas create no-go zones, and their children don't assimilate but instead foster a resentment for the dominant culture.

To be fair, I think a lot of the fault for non-integration lies with the host country, although if the migrants weren't invited, or weren't actually wanted by the population (fake democracy), then it's pretty tough to solve that. It's a group effort ideally.

Re: On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye

#180

Post by mistermann »

rtpg wrote: post #158
mistermann wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the speech is around ideas that have been proven wrong over and over again I doubt it, most likely you are thinking of some set of straw man arguments of the left having been disproven.

There's definitely a lot of strawmen being kicked back and forth in image macros ("You will pay for the illegal immigrant to go to school but not for the sick vet" meme was reposted a lot during the VA scandals) But we do live in a world where a congressman said that nobody dies from a lack of health insurance. There is still a lot of "solved" debate that gets rehashed over and over again (see also things like the au…

> we do live in a world where a congressman said that nobody dies from a lack of health insurance

There's straw men, and then there's the idiocy of "far right", or whatever you'd call that. Opposing Obamacare is one thing, comments like that are something else entirely.

Post reply on HN