The Language of Democracy • Hacker News Board

Re: The Language of Democracy

#51

Post by cat_plus_plus » Mon, May 08, 2023, 1:56 PM UTC

webshit2 wrote: post #39

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will support feminism when feminists protest against male only military conscription in Ukraine. Until then it's just one of "we only care about our own kind of people" movement like white supremacy or black lives matter. If you believe in sending men literally to their death while staying safe yourself, you should be at least willing to do some house work in return. Personally I think nobody should be forced to fi…

Yes the real injustice is that women don't want to participate in the violence that has been perpetrated almost entirely by men since the dawn of time

So why should I be forced to participate if I didn't perpetuate any violence myself? Should immigrants from countries known for terrorism or drag cartels be banned because Americans want no part of these activities?

Re: The Language of Democracy

#52

Post by throwawaybutwhy » Mon, May 08, 2023, 8:30 PM UTC

pyuser583 wrote: post #36

peanut_merchant wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the examples here strikes a parallel with the US government's "Enhanced Interrogation" used as a euphemism for torture starting during the bush years. Straight from the Nazi playbook: "Verschärfte Vernehmung ("intensified interrogation"): torture"

We also use the phrase “concentration camp” (Konzentrationslager) to refer to death camps. Which is really weird as it’s not a common English phase, and seems to be a straight copy of Nazi propaganda.

Not entirely correct, I'm afraid. Concentration camps were inaugurated by the Spanish and popularized by the British. Co-location of killing facilities and camps was not a common occurrence even in Germany, so there were many more concentration camps than death camps.

Re: The Language of Democracy

#53

Post by ls612 » Mon, May 08, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

claytongulick wrote: post #32

bro_thebro wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy is a system of government, not an economic model. For the longest time, "Democracy" the political system was bandied about to be the primary precondition for economic progress. The thinking was, that when people (countries) have democracy this somehow "empowers" them to become economically successful. This reasoning was fairly prevalent, after all, the U.S., the showcase of democracy, was such an economic…

> For the longest time, "Democracy" the political system was bandied about to be the primary precondition for economic progress. I agree with you. I think that mindset has a fundamental misunderstanding of the root cause of economic prosperity. Economic prosperity comes from liberty. Democracy and liberty are two very different things. For a long time, they were treated as roughly equivalent. China figured out that e…

China can compete in this method because they have 4 times the population of the US. And even so in aggregate they are still clearly in 2nd in the global hard power race.

Scarily for china their demographics look horrific through the rest of the century while America will likely continue growing due to immigration. By 2100 it's projected they could have less than twice the population of the US. Will they still be competitive then? Will any of the asian tigers besides Japan & SK escape the middle income trap?