481–490 of 523 posts
I sometimes see people "celebrate" this, with the rationale that China is cracking down on white-collar crimes and handing out sentences unheard of in the west. But, are these sort of things just examples of selective prosecution? Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?
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> I dont care much about their acronyms or the organizational structure So I call bullshit on your argument. > dont doubt for a single moment, and I dont think you should, that you are right there in their database, with your identity, psychological profile, and all the rest. I do. Perhaps I am there. Perhaps I'm not. Perhaps my name is there, but the data is wrong and/or misleading. I'm not going to deny USA's alpha…
"That said, it is undeniable that USA would have more issues pulling that off domestically, and, arguably, even internationally." You think so? I spend a lot of time working with (actual) anarchists in the US, and most of us are far more worried about the US gov putting us in jail (or murdering us outright) for our signal chats, protests, and "actions" than literally anything that the PRC might consider doing to us.
It's true that the US may be more of a immediate threat to those in its territories, but to compare it to KGB is to either massively oversell US domestic forces abilities or undersell KGB's. Even in the closest cases of political executions, extrajudicial murders through abuses of force and qualified immunity, as seen in the recent ICE shootings, they still caused a lot of national instability, even within the right wing. Similar happenings in the USSR didn't come close in reactions.
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"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.
It's the opposite: If you post claims then others will absolutely cast doubt and it's up to you to verify them. No way other people should do it for you (that's also very inefficient - you already know how to verify them and also it's redundant for everyone else to do it). Even better, you'll see people cite their claims before anyone asks.
In any serious field, you don't make claims and then require others to verify them. Imagine a scientist or courtroom lawyer doing that. It's up to you and if you don't, then it's nonsense by default.
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> I dont care much about their acronyms or the organizational structure So I call bullshit on your argument. > dont doubt for a single moment, and I dont think you should, that you are right there in their database, with your identity, psychological profile, and all the rest. I do. Perhaps I am there. Perhaps I'm not. Perhaps my name is there, but the data is wrong and/or misleading. I'm not going to deny USA's alpha…
Just because i call them collectively KGB - since the essence is precisely that - you "call bullshit on my argument"? Though you are right I guess in what regards the legal apparatus of PRC. But look, here in the free west my speech is suppressed without any need for "legal apparatus".. and it is not because I was provocative (though this is eventually what you become when your mouth is being consistently shut with a…
Yes, because it means you don't have a good idea of the claims being presented. Perhaps there's a point in there, but you should think it through rather than just allowing it to remain nebulous as suggested in "I dont care much about their [...] organizational structure". Organizational structures matter, they make certain corporate actions easier and others more expensive.
> But look, here in the free west my speech is suppressed without any need for "legal apparatus".. and it is not because I was provocative
I appreciate the change in tone, but I have to ask whether that's really the case, as you're being ambiguous with the suppression methodology. There's quite a gap between "flagged into oblivion in a site" and "arrested for a year for posting anti-government opinions". Given the initial comments on your profile, you haven't done any favors in keeping downvotes and flags away. Not just provocations, but also gratuitous accusations. I try to avoid those because all they do is give ammo to the enemy.
> As regards to your efforts to ptotect privacy, your identity can be deduced without much difficulty just from the sites you visit.. and Tor's origin you should know, and here I would stop.
That's a oversimplified view about privacy. Every piece of information about a person, when enough is collected, can be used to identidy them. Collecting said information, specially when the infrastructure for that is not trivially available (as is the case in the USA in comparison to the PRC) is easier than done. When was the last time someone got identified by law enforcement in the US via their internet traffic? You are better off worrying about GDID in Windows.
A similar story goes for Tor. For starters, it was developed by US Navy, not the intelligence/law enforcement agencies. Second, the protocol is open and publicly being developed, so even if the NSA added a backdoor, it can be caught and removed. Finally, Tor is not the only option, see I2P for an example.
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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 improp…
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The first is true, the second is a lie. The motto of Trump's pardon office is "No MAGA left behind."
This is a lie. Joseph Biden pardoned Francis W. Biden, James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, John T. Owens and Valerie Biden Owens among many, many other dubious choices. The U.S.A. is the embodiment of crony capitalism. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-jos...
[0]: "Trump threatens to prosecute Bidens if he’s re-elected unless he gets immunity" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/30/trump-second...
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Whoever funded the laboratories in Wuhan.
According to Wikipedia, the lab leak theory is, uh... unproven to say the least. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory
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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…
So beeing unable to keep up, because your culture holds you back that is a genocide? Like somebody develops machines, that marginalize your existence until you fade away, that is a genocide?
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> intent to destroy Except there was no intent to destroy, literally all other points 2.X that follows is irrelevant. There's reason plurality of UN takes PRC position that they indented to deradicalize / reeducate, aka not genocide. Which is obvious except to useful idiots on Pompeo propaganda because reducing PRC minorities by 1 is bad for Xi's hagiography. Now the gets to bask in the glory of speed running histori…
So you say the Germans should just have reeducated the Jews to not being Jews anymore - and it wouldn't have been a genocide?
German jews btw overwhelmingly spoke German, were deeply assimilated, patriotic of course. XJ would be like if German Jews who spoke only Yiddish and stuck in their minority enclaves, carried out 100s of terrorist attacks, got reeducated to speak both German, and Yiddish, reform religion to be less extremist, and doing it in <10 years / single generation. Not only would it have not been genocide, it would have been exemplar model to emulate for domestic serenity. Which is broadly what XJ securitization was, the most successful deradicalization and integration program in human history. Not unique to human history... again integration = nation building 101 stuff, it was just technologic mediated speedrun, in that sense parallels Germans.
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It's like unlimited PTO. Take a reasonable amount of PTO and you're fine, but if you actually treat it as unlimited then you'll get fired.
I never understood why you can't just take any random European country where ones company also has a presence and stick to the (government mandated) vacation time there, usually 5-6 weeks p.a. - is this considered unacceptable in the U.S.A.?
In a competitive employment market, paid time off is just another part of the cash value of any compensation package. Employees compare the overall packages, so companies need to offer 'competitive' PTO. In the past decade, FAANG-ish valley companies have had to offer 4-6 (or more) weeks of PTO. I know people who took two weeks every year and 'banked' four weeks. They retired early after 12 years with an extra YEAR of cash salary paid in full the day they left. When 5-10% of a company's debt is owed to their own employees and could become immediately due at any moment - it can be a cash flow and accounting issue for companies.
By 'not counting' the PTO, any time off you don't take in the year you earn it doesn't go on the balance sheet as an unpaid debt from the prior year - meaning PTO becomes 'use it or lose it'. This isn't materially different than the EU where it's normal for most corporate employees always take every day of PTO anyway. In the U.S., where historical PTO trends were closer to 2-3 weeks and only recently grew to 4-6 weeks, the result was more employees took more PTO each year (which is net good), but one component of their overall comp package became a little less good because they could no longer 'bank' more than one year's PTO and cash it out. Earned PTO carry-over was capped at one year and any you didn't take disappeared, unless you made an agreement with your manager.
For example, I deferred a chunk of my vacation into the next calendar year because we were shipping a major product (I was happy to do so and suggested it myself as I was leading the product). Technically, I guess it wasn't 'counted' in any HR record-keeping so if I suddenly quit before I took the vacation, I might not have been paid for the extra two weeks I deferred from the prior year - but only if my boss and the company decided to be real jerks about it. Another reason not to work for jerks if you can avoid it. Also, it isn't smart for companies to not reasonably honor verbal agreements with employees because word gets around and no other employee would agree to defer any PTO and future big projects would suffer. This flexibility wasn't always only in the company's favor. There was also a time I deferred a week of PTO to the next year by verbal agreement which I lumped together with paternity leave when my kid was born. Note: I'm only familiar with the dynamics in the U.S. I believe they also apply in some other geos but regulations and financial reporting requirements differ per country.