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Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

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211–219 of 219 posts

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#211
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mass surveillance network Citation needed. Live traffic feeds are common here in the US[1] and other countries. [1] https://transportation.arlingtonva.us/live-traffic-cameras/

"> Mass surveillance network Citation needed." Are you kidding? China's mass surveillance and censorship network is pervasive, all-encompassing, widely publicized, and an intrinsic aspect of their state apparatus. It's not even remotely comparable to 'license plate monitoring' in scale, scope, politicization, repercussions. This level of relativistic rhetoric is anti-intellectual.

The comment was in reference to South Korea, not to China.

At least that is how I read it.

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#213
post #207
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No nationalistic flamebait on HN, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's okay to call Japanese stupid. It's not okay to call Chinese stupid. ??

Obviously it's not "okay to call Japanese stupid".

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#214
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could HN dwellers stop implying Japan is handling this dishonestly? They are. The incredible rate of test refusal here is keeping the numbers very low.

Really? What is the rate of test refusal Shane Reustle?

Please do not cross into personal attack.

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#215
post #214
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? What is the rate of test refusal Shane Reustle?

Please do not cross into personal attack.

Asking for the "incredible" rate of test refusal is not a personal attack. Calling Japanese stupid is not okay, but you don't warn the person who does it. You warn the person who takes the bait. You then retaliate by warning me only after I call you out on it.

Shouting fire in a crowded theater is not free speech. What you are doing here is not protected.

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#216
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokyo was mostly closed this weekend. IIRC by government request. TV shows showed all of Ginza closed. I walked down to Shibuya on Saturday, had one errand to run, it was mostly empty. Every chain store I passed was closed with a notice in the window. All the stores on the 4th floor of Mark City were closed. The basement food stores were open but the number of people were ~10th normal. I agree though that until recen…

Their salon is in Kichijoji which is not really central, as in well west along the Chuo line. I updated the original comment above. I'm interested if you know more about this absurd-sounding Aso/wagyu beef tokens story? It's not reported at all in the western media.

> I'm interested if you know more about this absurd-sounding Aso/wagyu beef tokens story? It's not reported at all in the western media.

This sounds strange enough for me to want to know more, and I tried looking it up, but only found weird porn when searching without quotes, and weird blockchain stuff from China when searching with quotes. Do you have any links I can run through a translator?

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#217
post #216
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their salon is in Kichijoji which is not really central, as in well west along the Chuo line. I updated the original comment above. I'm interested if you know more about this absurd-sounding Aso/wagyu beef tokens story? It's not reported at all in the western media.

> I'm interested if you know more about this absurd-sounding Aso/wagyu beef tokens story? It's not reported at all in the western media. This sounds strange enough for me to want to know more, and I tried looking it up, but only found weird porn when searching without quotes, and weird blockchain stuff from China when searching with quotes. Do you have any links I can run through a translator?

Basically, they claim to distribute a Wagyu beef discount coupon. Terrible idea because ... people would want to go out to buy one...

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#218
post #215
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not cross into personal attack.

Asking for the "incredible" rate of test refusal is not a personal attack. Calling Japanese stupid is not okay, but you don't warn the person who does it. You warn the person who takes the bait. You then retaliate by warning me only after I call you out on it. Shouting fire in a crowded theater is not free speech. What you are doing here is not protected.

Nobody called the Japanese stupid. You chose to interpret it that way. Actually, I understand how it could feel that way, and I empathize. But take a look again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22730110. It didn't say that. What it did do was repeat an internet cliché [1] in a lazy way. That made it an unsubstantive comment, and an unsubstantive comment on an inflammatory topic is basically always flamebait (as I pointed out to another user earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22739350).

You've unfortunately been posting to HN quite a bit in the flamewar style. Would you please stop doing that? I realize that these topics are sensitive and hit sore spots all too easily. That's one reason the site guidelines include: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." It isn't easy, but it's necessary that we all do it, because otherwise we just end up fighting with each other. Fighting each other feels urgent, but is not interesting, and the purpose of HN is to be an intellectually interesting place on the internet, if possible. This requires that we sort of resist the worst interpretations of each other's words, because they're so often vulnerable to misunderstanding.

By the way, in case you're not familiar with so-called Hanlon's Razor [1], it's not primarily about stupidity. It's really a way of saying that most human outcomes are not the result of malice. So in a way, that post was a (weak and unclear) defense of the Japanese institutions and reports that were being discussed above—a way of arguing that they weren't conscious bad action. The word 'stupidity' appears in that proverb partly out of ironic humor which is typical of the internet subculture that produced it, since it's ironic to defend someone against the charge of malice by making the charge of stupidity instead. It's not intended as the deep insult that the word 'stupidity' would imply in many cultural contexts. If you already know this, I apologize.

There is an additional level also. The word 'stupidity' in that proverb would not normally be a national or racial slur. It usually refers to the 'stupidity' of large institutions, which tend to produce inefficient or inadequate results even when the individuals who make up the institution are doing their best—or to the 'stupidity' of bureaucratic functionaries, who hacker-type people tend to feel superior to and smarter than. If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22556236, you'll see exactly the same argument applied to Spain's Covid-19 response. If anyone is being criticized as stupid in those comments, it's not peoples like the Spanish or the Japanese, it's mid-level government officials everywhere. Whether that's fair or not, we can leave as a separate question.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#219
post #196
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to make grand claims like that. Where are the links? It's not ok for anyone to start flamewars on HN, and lord knows I spend enough of my life telling people so. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.co…

Oh, I meant it half in jest. I definitely don't want your job ;) For e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22703219 Commenter labels a legitimate company as "skeezy", uses needlessly insulting language to polarize discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22703881 Commenter uses the usual government trope to polarize discussion.

Ah ok! Actually I mostly agree with you about those comments. They lead to predictably worse discussion. However, they're in a different category than the more egregious kind that we post moderation responses to.
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