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

China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 523 posts

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#461

Post by nixon_why69 »

mmooss wrote: post #453
nixon_why69 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comment threw no insults and made a bunch of easily verifiable claims.

"lazy Americans" > easily verifiable claims. I disagree that they are verifiable, not being factual statements. But if you think so, then verify them. I'm not going around HN verifying the claims in everyone else's comments.

If you can't be bothered to verify claims then don't cast doubt.

The EV claims are the most trivially verifiable, the rest go down from there. Some of them have more nuance but you did not engage with that. Don't worry, reality will catch up eventually, you being convinced is strictly optional.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#462

Post by nixon_why69 »

throw10920 wrote: post #459
nixon_why69 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the entire concept of "spy balloon over the continental US in the 21st century" could be considered a litmus test for critical thinking. A country with satellites is running a Wile E. Coyote tier balloon plot?

Yes, and if you think it's not feasible, you failed the critical thinking test. Balloons have the ability to observe signals that satellites do not. It's that simple.

While being incredibly obvious and easy (and justified) to shoot down, as we saw.

But enlighten me. What critical signals intelligence was that balloon getting?

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#463

Post by nixon_why69 »

saxonww wrote: post #451
refurb wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the “-cide” root of the word which means “kill” no longer means that?

It's never meant only that, but that's not the argument. We decided that a long time ago. Genocide refers to a People (race, kind, tribe, family, etc.), not individual people. The group is a concept, and 'killing' it doesn't have to involve the biological death of the group members. That's part of what the linked resolution is trying to say. For example, you could go sterilize every member of an ethnic group, without…

Ok but none of those things came even close to happening in this case. The arguments are all, like, it was in pursuit of genocide, because I say so, so if one guy died in detention then it's a genocide.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#464

Post by nixon_why69 »

jfyi wrote: post #460
nixon_why69 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I wouldn't consider him a top authority. It's an overly lawyerly approach to US treatment of groups that are clearly not actually being genocided (presently, native americans were). So I disagree on the same grounds as China, you need some mass casualties at minimum before getting into the legal nitty gritty. Maybe mass sterilization could also suffice. I actually restrained myself from pointing out that the…

I agree that scale is often overlooked in these discussions. The real value of current legal definitions isn't just in identifying the industrialized murder of a population, but in recognizing the warning behaviors that precede it. It's crucial to identify when a situation starts moving in that direction.

Ok but this case is over and moving in the other direction.

The middle east on the other hand.. there are a whole group of US establishment natsec people who hold that obviously China committed genocide to the tune of hundreds while obviously Israel did not to the tune of nearly 100,000 and millions displaced. Because we have all of these lawyerly definitions, you see.

As human beings we have got to have a sniff test here.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#465

Post by RajT88 »

illiac786 wrote: post #425
mempko wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the smartest ones just don't do crime.

You’ll have to define “smartest”. Crime and IQ don’t really correlate (negatively or positively) as far as I know.

Among the criminals embezzling public funds in China, arguably the ones who get away with it are the "smarter" ones.

They may not have a higher IQ, but in fact it may be more like the ones who have more self control and discipline. It probably has not been studied.

"Why have criminals who have not been caught not been studied?" is an exercise for the reader.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#466

Post by nekusar »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #293
trhway wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t you? You’re from a Western country, right? >White collar criminals often get caught later in their "careers" precisely because they do it for years and years and years without being caught. You’ve definitely never seen the castles and fleets of exotic cars that government officials in those countries manage to get on their meager government salaries. Yet you post…

If you have evidence as to any of the wild conjecture you're posting, you're more than free to provide it instead of just lobbing out accusations as though they change anything substantive about the arguments being made.

Yep, this is the usual common response from Americans. Its just Sinophobic whataboutism.

China has laws especially regarding significant financial crimes like embezzlement, theft, money laundering. And most governments also have rules against breaching public trust, corruption by favoritism, bribery, and more.

This guy was in multiple public servant roles, and exfiltrated $325M. This isn't a 'possible smell of impropriety ' in taking a supper with a potential vendor. This is basically highly illegal anywhere in the world.

But the Americans go back to their 'but communist China!' howls. The punishment's harsh, sure. But I think its a great standard to hold leaders and public servants to.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#467

Post by jfyi »

nixon_why69 wrote: post #464
jfyi wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that scale is often overlooked in these discussions. The real value of current legal definitions isn't just in identifying the industrialized murder of a population, but in recognizing the warning behaviors that precede it. It's crucial to identify when a situation starts moving in that direction.

Ok but this case is over and moving in the other direction. The middle east on the other hand.. there are a whole group of US establishment natsec people who hold that obviously China committed genocide to the tune of hundreds while obviously Israel did not to the tune of nearly 100,000 and millions displaced. Because we have all of these lawyerly definitions, you see. As human beings we have got to have a sniff test…

The middle east is a mess and I can't disagree. The warning signs were there, and they were ignored, mostly.

You don't like my choice in appeal to authority, sure I get that. That doesn't preclude from there being authoritative views on the topic though.

We probably should have something to stand on other than vibes. Maybe we can come to consensus on who is an authority. How about the IAGS? https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Fina...

Now, if it has moved in the other direction since 2022, I don't see anything countering that either and I certainly can't speak to the current state of things and will believe you (mostly because I have no intention of looking deeper currently). I will say that's a strong indicator that the process of being called out on the international stage worked though.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#468

Post by mikewarot »

I feel like crimes over a certain threshold should include accessories in the punishment, like the Death Penalty here in Indiana does.

It certainly helps motivate them to testify in court.

Strong minority opinion: If someone steals more than the average total lifetime earnings of 10 people, I think the death penalty should apply. That's about 25 million USD

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#469

Post by [deleted] »

illiac786 wrote: post #439
throw2827274 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how they could simultaneously wipe some things completely off the Internet and other things are completely leaked out.

If it leaks into independent medias, they probably will have a hard time erasing it. If they erase it before it makes it to any independent media, they have a good chance it will never surface again. At least that’s how I imagine it.

[deleted]

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#470

Post by nixon_why69 »

jfyi wrote: post #467
nixon_why69 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but this case is over and moving in the other direction. The middle east on the other hand.. there are a whole group of US establishment natsec people who hold that obviously China committed genocide to the tune of hundreds while obviously Israel did not to the tune of nearly 100,000 and millions displaced. Because we have all of these lawyerly definitions, you see. As human beings we have got to have a sniff test…

The middle east is a mess and I can't disagree. The warning signs were there, and they were ignored, mostly. You don't like my choice in appeal to authority, sure I get that. That doesn't preclude from there being authoritative views on the topic though. We probably should have something to stand on other than vibes. Maybe we can come to consensus on who is an authority. How about the IAGS? https://genocidescholars.o…

I'll definitely grant that international pressure helped. Even if there were never any possible chance of genocide, internment camps are still bad! It's good that they are over.

I feel like genocide legal debates skip over the human harm into some binary "is it genocide" thing, like detention or the first 90k deaths were ok but now you're really a bad guy.

Post reply on HN