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

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

#491

Post by OkayPhysicist »

lux-lux-lux wrote: post #227
mothballed wrote: post #2

Main difference between death penalty in US and China, is in US police officers easily sentence subjects to death and the courts do it with great difficulty. In China the inverse. For instance, high level executive Bryan Malinowski was executed by the ATF and barely anyone noticed, but if the courts had sentenced him in such way, there would be great outrage.

> executed He was shot after opening fire, unprovoked, on federal agents performing a search of his home under a lawfully obtained warrant.

If you violently bust into someone's home in the United States, you're liable to, and absolutely deserve to, get shot. I do not care if you have a badge. If you want to execute a lawful search warrant, the best time to do it is when nobodies home. The second best time is during the day, when you can clearly state your legal mandate to be there, and allow the homeowner to comply.

The ATF in this instance (and frankly most instances) chose the most violent option available to them, because good people don't join the ATF. Violent thugs who get off on shooting dogs join the ATF. And when they get tired of shooting dogs, they decide to manufacture a scenario where they get to kill a more dangerous game.

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

#492

Post by nixon_why69 »

saxonww wrote: post #473
nixon_why69 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well there are allegations of mass detentions, forced labor, destruction of religious sites, suppression of language, separation of children into Chinese-controlled boarding schools, coercive birth control, and sterilization. You agreed with me that genocide is more expansive than "we're directly killing people". For the sake of argument, let's assume the allegations are true: what would you call that?

But the allegations aren't true for the most part. Some are out-of-context true, like if you have too many kids they sterilize you, that was true across China for decades and going away now. But then the limit on kids for minorities was HIGHER than it was for Han Chinese until recently. So were they self genociding?

Taking an angle like "well, lets assume these things are true, THEN can we accuse China of genocide" is basically what the media did for 5 years on this topic.

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

#493

Post by nixon_why69 »

nkmnz wrote: post #472
nixon_why69 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying all of the people still exist and their lives were never in danger. There were some dozens executed for actual terror/separatism charges, maybe some of those cases were bad, but it was not a threat to "the people". The fact that the argument has to lean into technicalities and attributed unspoken intentions rather than actual horrors should say everything.

There are people saying all the Jews were still alive in Germany. For a matter of fact, I've recently been to a jewish restaurant. The owners seemed fine.

And those people are cranks because we have tons of evidence of the holocaust.

Conversely, in this case, Adrian Zenz is a crank because for a decade he's been unable to put up any. In an era where every single person carries a high def video camera in their pocket. It's a faith-based accusation.

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

#494

Post by rcbdev »

mrandish wrote: post #490
rcbdev wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.?

The key is understanding that accounting is driving the policy. 'Unlimited PTO' really means 'uncounted PTO' because for most public companies in the U.S., once PTO is counted, the salary value of each vacation day becomes another liability which must be reported and carried on the balance sheet. It's no different from a payable debt like a bank loan, except the debt becomes immediately due in cash the moment the emp…

> [...] 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.

Worker protection rights in the U.S.A. truly are seen as a joke.

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

#495

Post by nixon_why69 »

mmooss wrote: post #483
nixon_why69 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

It's a comment section, and those are common sense observations about the Chinese economy. Like I said, you don't need to be convinced, it will continue happening whether you agree or not.

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

#496

Post by refurb »

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…

So genocide ranges from “murder” to “discrimination, maybe”?

The only thing this does is cheapen the word. In the past genocide was something serious. But now it includes activities that are simply upsetting.

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

#497

Post by saxonww »

nixon_why69 wrote: post #492
saxonww wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there are allegations of mass detentions, forced labor, destruction of religious sites, suppression of language, separation of children into Chinese-controlled boarding schools, coercive birth control, and sterilization. You agreed with me that genocide is more expansive than "we're directly killing people". For the sake of argument, let's assume the allegations are true: what would you call that?

But the allegations aren't true for the most part. Some are out-of-context true, like if you have too many kids they sterilize you, that was true across China for decades and going away now. But then the limit on kids for minorities was HIGHER than it was for Han Chinese until recently. So were they self genociding? Taking an angle like "well, lets assume these things are true, THEN can we accuse China of genocide" i…

Was, yes. That policy ended in 2017 I think, which I don't know if I call that recent. Post-2017 some evidence pieced together by a journalist suggested that IUDs and forced sterilizations were higher in Xinjiang than the rest of the country, and went up when the rest of the country went down. But you're right, their population has not evaporated.

My point about the assumption was to get you to agree that if these things are happening, we know that it constitutes genocide. At this point I don't care if you agree or not.

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

#498

Post by nixon_why69 »

saxonww wrote: post #497
nixon_why69 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the allegations aren't true for the most part. Some are out-of-context true, like if you have too many kids they sterilize you, that was true across China for decades and going away now. But then the limit on kids for minorities was HIGHER than it was for Han Chinese until recently. So were they self genociding? Taking an angle like "well, lets assume these things are true, THEN can we accuse China of genocide" i…

Was, yes. That policy ended in 2017 I think, which I don't know if I call that recent. Post-2017 some evidence pieced together by a journalist suggested that IUDs and forced sterilizations were higher in Xinjiang than the rest of the country, and went up when the rest of the country went down. But you're right, their population has not evaporated. My point about the assumption was to get you to agree that if these th…

They stopped being higher because the limit was raised from 2-3 for Han, not because it went down for minorities. It happened in 2021.

And it's very easy for me to believe that rates of childbirth and hence violations are higher for subsistence farmer populations than urban workers, because that's true everywhere. Uyghur population grew a ton between 2010-2020, 3 kids per couple is net growth.

Lastly, no, there's no such thing as a "technical" genocide on a points system without some massive crimes against humanity that would drop anyone's jaw, and those things are hard to hide. It's not like you make a couple of technical errors and, oops, genocide even though the population is substantially fine and economic reforms are working.

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

#499

Post by reinitctxoffset »

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.

I didn't mean to call you lazy, I hadn't seen any evidence that you see Beijing and Moscow as undifferentiated other, which is the habit of thought I did call lazy.

You are awfully contrarian for someone whose response to an argument is "that's not proven to my satisfaction" and when asked what citations would satisfy you replies "it's not my job to define what citations I will and won't admit".

You do you king, but it's not exactly the incandescent childlike wonder of the perpetual student's mind.

I'll wager your mind was made up before we started having a conversation.

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

#500

Post by mrandish »

rcbdev wrote: post #494
mrandish wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is understanding that accounting is driving the policy. 'Unlimited PTO' really means 'uncounted PTO' because for most public companies in the U.S., once PTO is counted, the salary value of each vacation day becomes another liability which must be reported and carried on the balance sheet. It's no different from a payable debt like a bank loan, except the debt becomes immediately due in cash the moment the emp…

> [...] 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. Worker protection rights in the U.S.A. truly are seen as a joke.

I've spent a lot of time in the EU working with tech companies, have a lot of friends there in tech companies and am on the board of a Swiss company at the moment. While it's true the average corporate worker generally has more protected rights in the EU, in my experience that additional government regulation doesn't usually pay off in ways that really matter that much to most employees most of the time.

As a thought experiment, if offered a tech job in, say, downtown Zurich, how much extra money would be required for an avg EU tech worker to happily accept that same job under Bay Area employment law, protections and standards (at-will employment, non-banked PTO, etc) than under EU employment law, protections and standards? In other words, apples-to-apples what are those extra protections actually worth in cash value? I suspect the answer would be, at most, around $25K to $50K/year. But when you look at the total comp packages (salary, benefits, equity, 401k, etc) between Bay Area and Zurich tech workers, the delta is far greater than that. In effect, the bay area tech worker 'sold' that extra protection for a big chunk of cash and is using some of it to self-insure against the potentially increased volatility. I think a lot of EU tech workers would be delighted to make the same trade. Another way of looking at it is you've given up a lot of upside for a relatively small amount of guaranteed extra protection on the downside.

This might surprise you but the reality is, many of the potential employment abuses you may be concerned about are vanishingly unlikely to occur in practice. The point is, you can end up paying a lot for expensive 'tiger insurance' you probably won't ever use and don't really need. While you can feel good knowing you have extra protection from tigers, on a purely economic basis I averaged over $500k/yr over my multi-decade career in bay area tech. In good years, the equity could take it over a million. My own admin (with no college degree) averaged over $200k a year in total comp. The highest paid admin at the Zurich company I'm on the board of makes closer to 50k CHF (and living in downtown Zurich isn't much less than SF). So, the "US tech employment deal" may seem weird and perhaps less fair, but the extra half million dollars my admin earned over several years put a lot of 'social safety net' in the bank that she can spend whenever and however she wants - and she still works there for my old boss, still loves her job and has never had to use any protections or social safety net yet (she's probably over a million in extra total comp banked by now). In short, viewed objectively, it's a different deal but not necessarily a worse deal. In many cases, EU workers may be giving up far more value than they're actually receiving in return.

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