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

Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

671–680 of 694 posts

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#671

Post by eru »

ben_w wrote: post #625
eru wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real output of the manufacturing sector in the US looks pretty robust. See https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS You are right that Chinese manufacturing has grown a lot. But what's the evidence that this growth has anything to do with a hypothetical decline of the US? More than a century ago the US and German industrial output growing didn't diminish British output, either. > Naively, yes. In pratcite, this i…

> But at the ballot box they can hurt the rest of the country and the rest of the world. They can and they do. In the first instance, this is why candidates are not allowed to literally bribe the electorate, and why constitutional change is harder than simply passing a new law. In the second, it is why countries even bother trying to interfere in other countries’ elections. Democracy is still better than the alternat…

Sortition would be interesting to try. More for filling up a parliament than for selecting a president, though.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#672

Post by yomly »

peteretep wrote: post #666
yomly wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While as an island the UK means its borders have mostly been fixed, it has definitely had quite a fluid culture and language history. The romans came and left their mark. Then the Vikings and the normans. We've had a strange love hate relationship with the French forever, branding them frogs while learning French so we can seem sophisticated. So in my mind it does lack that continuity that China has: For instance the…

This is excessively cherry-picked, and I’m just going to steal a quote from Wikipedia to illustrate: > The Chinese have different languages in different provinces, to such an extent that they cannot understand each other.... [They] also have another language which is like a universal and common language; this is the official language of the mandarins and of the court; it is among them like Latin among ourselves.... T…

Dialects are overplayed outside of china. Most average people can speak 2-3 just as part of growing up. Learning a new dialect is considerably easier than a Spanish person learning Portuguese or the nordics learning the other languages from the region.

For starters the written language is essentially the same between the chinese dialects - so learning a new one is mostly an exercise of mapping sounds and then learning new idioms. Passing as a native speaker though will be harder as the canto/mando split highlights.

You're right - latin's influence is still amongst us. Indeed I believe it was common to teach Germans Latin in the hope it would make them have a stronger technical appreciation of German. And the UK legal system has its roots in the Roman legal system.

That said I assure you Latin the language is far more arcane than the standard Chinese. Meanwhile in China, suntzu bingfa will be learned and referenced in culture and people have statues of zhugeliang and guanyu in their homes displayed at chinese new year. I haven't met a friend yet you has an Aeneas or Caesar displayed in their house.

Maybe Hercules and Zeus as figures are more prominent examples of people we have remembered but they aren't really celebrated in that first hand nature. I don't think Brits identify with Hercules or even Boudica. But I would posit chinese people do identify with the ancient greats like kongzi.

EDIT I think the idea of identity is key. Interestingly the Chinese people in Singapore and Malaysia diverged from China ~150-200 years ago. But this sense of identity with the old chinese history has been preserved between both of them so you can't just write this off to CCP propaganda.

Perhaps culturally Chinese culture has always sought to unify/assimilate things into its monoculture whereas the history in Western europe has been a more fluid and accepting melting pot.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#673

Post by IgorPartola »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #617
IgorPartola wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Trump has done literally nothing but the things that benefit him personally his entire presidency? The fact that this is conveniently happening the week the US has posted record shatteringly low economic numbers and every time the stock market or the economy isn’t doing well he does something to distract the media and the public? The fact that we managed to elect a grifter? The fact that the man can’t r…

In your first paragraph, you're supporting your baseless accusation with even more baseless accusations (all speaking in absolutes, and posited as facts! And some of them are so comical I'm not sure how you can seriously make such claims - it's funny you should mention cults, do you realize how you yourself sound?) In your second paragraph, you're missing that no other Chinese app has 100 million American users. So y…

You keep using the word facts. It doesn’t seem like you know what it means.

As to your username, it’s not a PC issue. It’s just juvenile to the point where combined with your overall ignorance means there is no reason to take anything you say seriously. I hope some day you grow up.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#674

Post by read_if_gay_ »

IgorPartola wrote: post #673
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your first paragraph, you're supporting your baseless accusation with even more baseless accusations (all speaking in absolutes, and posited as facts! And some of them are so comical I'm not sure how you can seriously make such claims - it's funny you should mention cults, do you realize how you yourself sound?) In your second paragraph, you're missing that no other Chinese app has 100 million American users. So y…

You keep using the word facts. It doesn’t seem like you know what it means. As to your username, it’s not a PC issue. It’s just juvenile to the point where combined with your overall ignorance means there is no reason to take anything you say seriously. I hope some day you grow up.

No. I’ve said facts once. And dismissing my points based on my username is like the lowest of ad hominems. Rather makes you the juvenile one, even if I came up with this username at like 17.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#675

Post by jessaustin »

Kuinox wrote: post #648
tantalor wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> change your DNS config to something else Trivial

Oh yes, but most of the people doesn't know, so it's effective.

At some level, that's also how the "Great Firewall" works. Avoiding it is inconvenient enough that most users don't even know how to do it.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#676

Post by ethbro »

musha68k wrote: post #635
ethbro wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because neither are numerous enough so as to constitute a legitimate threat. If we started seeing local governments having openly KKK or neo-Nazi majorities, the freedom of speech balance would substantially alter. First amendment rights in the US are typically circumscribed only via a requirement to show actual, existential harm.

The problem is that historically this has been the case only when it was essentially too late. Death by a thousand cuts: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_normality

That feels like fuzzy, post-hoc rationalization.

What about when we consider the opposite? How many insignificant-in-the-moment-seeming changes never effect any sort of larger change?

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#677

Post by Kuinox »

jessaustin wrote: post #675
Kuinox wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, but most of the people doesn't know, so it's effective.

At some level, that's also how the "Great Firewall" works. Avoiding it is inconvenient enough that most users don't even know how to do it.

It's far more hard, and dangerous to avoid it.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#678

Post by throwaway189262 »

justinzollars wrote: post #236
throwaway189262 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dictatorships value stability above anything else. Because once you have absolute control, the only real danger to losing it is civil war. China has had tons of bloody wars just like the West. And people have been living in Europe for thousands of years too. The "4000 year history" is a CCP thing they sell to the populace to make their dictatorship seem more legitimate. It's pretty stupid, most cultures have been aro…

I'm sorry you feel offended by these ideas. I suggest you read any of the 3 books I referenced that explain this Chinese principal. The books are by Republican, Democratic and CCP authors. Differences between civilizations can feel offensive.

Sounds like you're the one offended. Great 4000 year history of China is CCP party line. Reading neutral sources you'll find it's more nuanced than that.

There's some evidence remaining that China was once a collection of societies. Notably language. The CCP insists that all of China speaks Mandarin, but thats only the case since the cultural revolution.

Chinese writing is indeed nearly universal. But spoken language once had many dialects, and still does to an extent. These dialects are sometimes mutually unintelligible. If it wasn't for CCP party line they would be considered different languages, as part of Chinese language family. Much like many of the southern Asian languages are different languages that cluster together.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#679

Post by diebeforei485 »

whoevercares wrote: post #649
diebeforei485 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with banning WeChat? China bans WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and a whole other bunch of apps. Zoom should be scrutinized very heavily and potentially banned as well. Keep in mind China bans Skype.

Zoom’s founder is of Chinese origin but it entirely US based from the beginning.

No, their engineers are mostly in China.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead...

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#680

Post by pttp »

tanilama wrote: post #182
euix wrote: post #48

Shows how far the balance of power has shifted in the last 20 years back when the Chinese government was banning western products to prevent "spiritual pollution" and "western influence". Now we got the reverse and it's also for ideological reasons (at least at face value). Wonder if WeChat is next. That would be fairly effective in prevent overseas Chinese from communicating with the mainland and a lot of mom and po…

No Westerners actually use Wechat. TikTok is getting mainstream in US. That is the difference

I use WeChat to keep in touch with Chinese friends. It takes up 1GB of space, which is more than any other app on my phone - wish could delete it but don't want to lose these contacts.
Post reply on HN