China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other • Hacker News Board

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#51

Post by duxup » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

oblong wrote: post #22

duxup wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But we at least must do something about it" Like oppress an entire region of people who aren't committing violence to get to the handful who are?

Gaza shows that handful can easily become most of the population if you let it get out of control. The left's deep love and devotion to a religion that oppresses their other favoured groups - gays and women - astonishes me.

Gaza is a good example of how constant control and oppression makes people desperate and you get large scale issues. If you haven't noticed, that problem has not been solved.... that should tell you something.

I don't know what you'r trying say with that second line. Your perspective is very strange, it seems like madlibs for identity politics.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#52

Post by dabbledash » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

volgo wrote: post #5

Whether you like China or not, Islamic fundamentalism is a huge problem to global peace today. Not just in the Middle East, Europe, but also parts of Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Philipphines) and China. The problem is people clinging to old time religious beliefs that women are inferior and must be veiled and that infidels are not worthy We've slowly dispelled Christian fervor (which used to be just as bad as Islamic f…

It seems like, on a civilization level, humans have a fixed number of really bad ideas, and we just keep trying them out.

“Religious fundamentalism seems really bad, guys. Maybe totalitarianism will help? I can’t remember if that has a downside.”

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#53

Post by whytaka » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

swedish_mafia wrote: post #32

The question is this: which is more meritocratic - a totalitarian system of governance that rewards merit or a caste system masquerading as an open society? Please answer a or b. Another question: system a: a developer with an idea and skills sitting in Montana believes (correctly) that the chances of getting funded are exponentially higher for people from Stanford university (or some other affiliation). System b : t…

But why make up such irrelevant questions that have no connection to reality?

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#54

Post by jrs95 » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

oblong wrote: post #22

duxup wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But we at least must do something about it" Like oppress an entire region of people who aren't committing violence to get to the handful who are?

Gaza shows that handful can easily become most of the population if you let it get out of control. The left's deep love and devotion to a religion that oppresses their other favoured groups - gays and women - astonishes me.

It really shouldn't be astonishing (although I disagree with your assessment of the situation in Gaza in particular -- Israel has been doing some seriously fucked up shit in the region for a long time). The most obvious long term response to Nixon's Southern Strategy is to do the opposite and wait for the GOP's embrace of being the conservative white party to screw them over. They've succeeded at that. Every demographic other than straight married white women and straight white men prefer the Democratic Party. Rhetoric painting that demographic as the enemy (often exaggerated IMO but based on at least partial truths most of the time) helps unify those groups despite their differences. Of course that's a big part of the polarization in our politics, but we're approaching a tipping point where the GOP's current position will become untenable and that might result in the polarization being dialed down as the GOP attempts to rebrand itself and expand it's constituency again.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#55

Post by 21 » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

kevingadd wrote: post #43

volgo wrote: post #5

Whether you like China or not, Islamic fundamentalism is a huge problem to global peace today. Not just in the Middle East, Europe, but also parts of Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Philipphines) and China. The problem is people clinging to old time religious beliefs that women are inferior and must be veiled and that infidels are not worthy We've slowly dispelled Christian fervor (which used to be just as bad as Islamic f…

"We've slowly dispelled Christian fervor" is an incredibly misinformed take. Christian fundamentalists are still well armed and causing trouble in the United States on a regular basis, even if the Crusades haven't happened in a while. The death toll is sizable. Big names in evangelical culture with TV air time or even visits to the White House also trumpet on a regular basis that the end times are near, blood will ne…

What is this death toll you speak of? Can you be more concrete?

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#56

Post by igivanov » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

surfanddurf wrote: post #31

I think we, as the world, need to counter this by 1.) Start moving factories out China, back into your local country. It could be an upgrade for companies to upgrade to more automated factories. Furthermore, it fights against China's agenda of 'Made in China in 2025', which they expect to make....everything in China. 2.) Shame companies that are investing further in China, destroying jobs in your local country. 3.) S…

In other news, the US, NATO and friends in this century alone destroyed Iraq, Libya, almost destroyed Syria and Yemen and did a few other nasty things that resulted in at least a million dead. Do you have a big enough item 5 for that?

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#57

Post by jrs95 » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #36

jrs95 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presence of the "nonviolent" but complacent and complicit minority in these countries is what enables things to be the way they are. Maybe not everyone participates, but if you poll them on whether or not they support honor killings, oppression of women, etc. a large number will agree. This is not some fringe set of beliefs. Now personally I don't think we need to "do something about it", but the U.S. has actuall…

You support mass oppression and claim to be concerned about opression of women? I doubt your sincerity about that and the rest of your arguments.

No, I don't think that going out of our way to "liberate" people who are just going to immediately vote for theocratic government is doing anything to reduce oppression. Democracy does not inherently reduce oppression, in this case it just enables oppression by a majority which is often even more aggressive than the system that preceded it.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#58

Post by tc » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

In the West we have a false sense of security that totalitarianism will inevitably fail. We've seen so many examples of fallen tyrannical states. But many ideas fail the first few times they're tried. China seems committed to making totalitarianism "work."

It's hard to think of any more dangerous invention. Even nuclear weapons aren't as dangerous as a sustainable model for modern tyrannical government.

This is an invention that would be exported and widely adopted.

The liberal democratic model of government spread around the world not just because the people saw it work in America and decided that's what they wanted, but also because the ruling aristocrats saw that it would be net better for them. The French Revolution probably helped convince them it compared favorably to the guillotine.

If another model is pioneered and proven that's better for the ruling class, it won't be difficult to find regimes eager to adopt it.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#59

Post by adventured » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

havemylife wrote: post #41

volgo wrote: post #5

Whether you like China or not, Islamic fundamentalism is a huge problem to global peace today. Not just in the Middle East, Europe, but also parts of Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Philipphines) and China. The problem is people clinging to old time religious beliefs that women are inferior and must be veiled and that infidels are not worthy We've slowly dispelled Christian fervor (which used to be just as bad as Islamic f…

> The problem is people clinging to old time religious beliefs that women are inferior and must be veiled and that infidels are not worthy Unfortunately if you compare Islamic societies in the late 19th/early 20th centuries to those from middle of the 20th to now it's seemingly become regressive and insular. Let's not forget that if you go back a few centuries further Islamic societies were progressing and preserving…

It's not a few centuries further historically. It's ~800-1258 AD.

You have to go back to the Abbasid Dynasty to reach the Islamic renaissance / golden age, prior to the Mongol destruction of that and the moving of the Caliphate to Egypt. By the time the Mongols sacked Baghdad, the Abbasid Dynasty and the renaissance had much eroded compared to its former glory. We're nearing a thousand years that you have to go back to reach the Islamic golden age.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#60

Post by rhn_mk1 » Sat, Jun 02, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

The lengths that China goes to control the minority (although it's about half of the region) is astounding. I can't imagine what little privacy they have, between constant physical checks, personal party spies and electronic surveillance.

I heard once that in a world where everyone agrees to being spied on by carrying a mobile, the mobile-less will be suspect. I never thought this would actually be the case, but there it is: people must install government spyware on their personal devices.

Reading this gave me a new appreciation of how human rights are broken in China. I sincerely hope that those people recover their freedom.

As recent history had shown, even Western countries, proud of their freedom and Enlightenment values, may realize that something bad is happening when it's too late. Seeing how surveillance is making comparatively small advances here, I'm slightly more worried that privacy might be completely extinguished from the world one day.