President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment • Hacker News Board

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#291

Post by vmception » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #272

sschueller wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would compare Tiananmen Square with the Tulsa race massacre. How many Americans don't know about it? The time I spend in the US I had the feeling that you have more of a pseudo freedom than actual freedom. Everyone keeps saying how free they are and how great their country is yet you can't even drink an alcoholic beverage on the street without getting arrested. You go to a town festival and the people who want to d…

The Tulsa race massacre which has been featured in pop culture and all over the press in the last few years because a lot of Americans didn’t know about it. Vs The Tiananmen Square massacre which is censored to even mention digitally in China, and state agents intimidate citizens outside China just for mentioning it. Also note that Tulsa was 100 years ago. Around the time of the birth of the CCP, which has killed ten…

Okay so a more apt comparison would be 30 years after the Tulsa race massacre in America to see if was easier to talk about it

Or 100 years after the Tianamen Square massacre in China to see if its easier to talk about it then

great. very productive.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#292

Post by hdjjhhvvhga » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #235

vesinisa wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't help seeing the irony that the censored document is a declaration by the publisher about how strongly they are committed to freedom of expression in international context.. CORRECTION: As other have pointed out, the publisher is actually the student newspaper, which is independent from Purdue University itself.

The letter is from the president of Purdue, while the web site is a news site that is independent of the university. Also, it’s not really censorship — they have to deal with the GDPR headache, one way or the other, just like everyone else. Simply blocking the EU is a blunt but simple and effective way of doing so, and makes decent sense for a site where the interest is 99% local.

> they have to deal with the GDPR headache

What headache? A sensible solution: when EU visitor is detected, don't set cookies. Purdue solution: when EU visitor is detected, block them.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#293

Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

luciusdomitius wrote: post #67

pasabagi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be kinda interesting if somebody actually implemented a law like this: all citizens without free speech get automatic asylum. You'd have half of the world turning up on your doorstep within a month. More seriously, it's also interesting when you think back to how asylum worked during the cold war. Migrants, even explicit economic migrants, were encouraged to emigrate from communist countries (cuba, east germ…

This is a very shallow statement. Probably 99.99% of people fleeing the above-mentioned communist countries were detained at border and sent to camps with tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands being literally murdered while attempting to do so. Obviously the big difference in this case is the numbers of potential asylum seekers, not the origin.

"Probably 99.99% of people fleeing the above-mentioned communist countries"

As far as Czechoslovakia goes, the success rate was WAY beyond 1:10000, that is why people still tried.

About 400 people were killed on our militarized border with West Germany and Austria. The # of people who succeeded was actually over 10 thousand, especially in the earliest phase (1948-51), when the security of the border was far from perfect.

You could also escape in less dramatic fashion, for example by going to Yugoslavia (a non-aligned country) for a vacation and defecting.

Of course, whoever was caught and their families would face serious repercussions. In the Stalinist era, Gulag, after it, less pronounced bullying (loss of jobs, forbidden from higher education, forcibly moved to rural regions).

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#294

Post by Aunche » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #123

thesuitonym wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the same problem in the US. Certain "Freedom loving" sects applaud military intervention, increased police presence, spying on citizens, and the death of any protester, peaceful or otherwise.

US embarrassments, however, have movies made about them, as opposed to burying them as deeply as possible whilst simultaneously threatening every single citizen with, essentially, removal from society, if they speak against the chosen narrative. No country is innocent, some are, however, free (moreso, at least, enough to matter, enough to choose if the need arises).

One "feature" of democracy is that it doesn't matter whether people speak out against something. You just need 51% of people to agree with you, which can come from manufactured consent, and you can accomplish all the evil deeds you want all the same. If you try to do anything thar actually threatens the government's operations, you're treasonous and can be punished accordingly.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#295

Post by zepto » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #277

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would compare Tiananmen Square with the Tulsa race massacre. How many Americans don't know about it? This is a legitimate comparison between the CCP and the government of Oklahoma. It is a bad comparison in terms of responses. China fears and represses discussion of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In America, we discuss and debate and try to incrementally learn from our experience.

There are a large number of bills in US state legislatures aimed at suppressing honest and uncensored discussion of the Tulsa race massacre. In America, we should discuss and debate and try to incrementally learn from our experiences. And we do, a lot of the time. But not always.

> There are a large number of bills in US state legislatures aimed at suppressing honest and uncensored discussion of the Tulsa race massacre.

Bullshit. There is not one.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#296

Post by tshaddox » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

Bayesian_bro wrote: post #215

This is just an example of the different ethics between China and America. America is very deontological in terms of FREEDOM. We love freedom above everything else. China is very consequentialist, they care about prosperity and success over everything else. I'm a pretty red blooded American (I drive a black smoke diesel truck and have enough firearms and ammo to make it pretty far in the apocalypse). I wonder what et…

A very similar thing happens with “democracy.” In America it’s basically just anything that calls itself democracy and vaguely follows some notion of Western democracy is just accepted as the obvious best way to organize society.

You’ll get a lot of head scratching if you ask questions like “What if it turns out that the correlation between government policies and the policy preferences of the population is stronger in some supposedly ‘undemocratic’ countries than in major Western democracies?” After the head-scratching you’ll usually get some kind of argument that strips the former population of agency, like “oh well they’re just brainwashed.” Kinda ironic for supposed proponents of democracy to strip people of their agency.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#297

Post by JabavuAdams » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

sschueller wrote: post #248

Bayesian_bro wrote: post #215

This is just an example of the different ethics between China and America. America is very deontological in terms of FREEDOM. We love freedom above everything else. China is very consequentialist, they care about prosperity and success over everything else. I'm a pretty red blooded American (I drive a black smoke diesel truck and have enough firearms and ammo to make it pretty far in the apocalypse). I wonder what et…

I would compare Tiananmen Square with the Tulsa race massacre. How many Americans don't know about it? The time I spend in the US I had the feeling that you have more of a pseudo freedom than actual freedom. Everyone keeps saying how free they are and how great their country is yet you can't even drink an alcoholic beverage on the street without getting arrested. You go to a town festival and the people who want to d…

This struck me as I was visiting Munich, momentarily agog at the guy in front of me walking down the street drinking beer like it was no thing. Meanwhile Americans were protesting that mask mandates were an infringement on their freedom (Germans too).

Many, many things are an infringement on our individual freedom, but it's revealing what people actually choose to rally around, and when. It points to how certain issues have become politicized and have organized, well-funded opposition.

To all the people up in arms about masks -- why now? Why this easy thing? Why weren't you protesting restrictions on voting age, driving age, drinking age, restrictions on gay marriage rights? Those are all very consequential restrictions, as opposed to wearing a bit of fabric on your face. Something that snow-sports enthusiasts routinely do without complaint or consequence.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#298

Post by _-david-_ » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

sschueller wrote: post #248

Bayesian_bro wrote: post #215

This is just an example of the different ethics between China and America. America is very deontological in terms of FREEDOM. We love freedom above everything else. China is very consequentialist, they care about prosperity and success over everything else. I'm a pretty red blooded American (I drive a black smoke diesel truck and have enough firearms and ammo to make it pretty far in the apocalypse). I wonder what et…

I would compare Tiananmen Square with the Tulsa race massacre. How many Americans don't know about it? The time I spend in the US I had the feeling that you have more of a pseudo freedom than actual freedom. Everyone keeps saying how free they are and how great their country is yet you can't even drink an alcoholic beverage on the street without getting arrested. You go to a town festival and the people who want to d…

>I would compare Tiananmen Square with the Tulsa race massacre.

The issue with that comparison is Americans can easily search about Tulsa and find a bunch of information about it. People in China are restricted from getting information about Tienanmen Square.

While a lot of people in China know bad stuff happened in Tienanmen Square, they can't so easily confirm their suspicions. They can't hear people's take on it and fully understand what happened.

>How many Americans don't know about it?

Just because Americans don't know about a topic doesn't really matter. Americans don't know about a lot of historical events, especially ones that happened 100 years ago.

I would guess a lot of Americans don't know Harding was President during Tulsa. Does that mean Harding is like Tienanmen Square?

I would go as far as saying people don't even know about Tulsa shows people aren't really moving on, but just forgot about it. On the other hand, everybody knows slavery occurred.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#299

Post by tshaddox » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #262

sschueller wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would compare Tiananmen Square with the Tulsa race massacre. How many Americans don't know about it? The time I spend in the US I had the feeling that you have more of a pseudo freedom than actual freedom. Everyone keeps saying how free they are and how great their country is yet you can't even drink an alcoholic beverage on the street without getting arrested. You go to a town festival and the people who want to d…

> I would compare Tiananmen Square with the Tulsa race massacre. How many Americans don't know about it? This is a legitimate comparison between the CCP and the government of Oklahoma. It is a bad comparison in terms of responses. China fears and represses discussion of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In America, we discuss and debate and try to incrementally learn from our experience.

Is it somehow better that the government of the United States doesn’t even need to try to suppress the information?

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#300

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

yholio wrote: post #198

It's a very weak response from Purdue. Zhihao Kong was bullied and followed around on campus for commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen masacre. He was called a CIA agent by fellow Purdue students and was reported to the Chinese state, who attempted to silence him by forcefully leaning on his family in Hong Kong. The identities of the bullies is well known and the extent of abuse is borderline criminal. There sho…

> should be only one remedy: imediate expulsion of any agent of repression of the Chinese state

There should be the same remedy that is provided to any other bully. These are still kids. There is a learning opportunity. If they refuse to learn, yes, expulsion should be in the cards.