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Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

thehill.com

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Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#71

Post by meritt »

netsharc wrote: post #38
meritt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget that retailers are making their parking lots available, Google has deployed 1,700 engineers to build a flowchart website, and the US is buying up oil reserves. I think this epidemic is pretty much solved, don't you?

I tried googling some keywords to see if Google would show me that site straight away, but didn't get anything in my 30 seconds of attempts. Is it because I'm in Europe? Got to love the oil reserves idea to help Saudi Arabia in its price war against Russia. Ah fuck, that's why he declared national emergency: so he can get 40 billion dollars to bail out the Saudis. That lady was so proud of her 6 node flow chart too.…

Nothing exists yet [1]. Verily (an Alphabet subsidiary but essentially "Google" for all intents and purposes) is working on a triage website with a limited focus on the Bay Area.

Ultimately it's going to be a slightly more complex variant of "Do you have a fever?" with a map showing nearby testing locations when someone clicks yes.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/google-coronavirus-screening...

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#72

Post by spectramax »

knzhou wrote: post #48
guardiangod wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should see what some of my Chinese relatives/friends are forwarding in WeChat- 1. CIA created the virus and released the virus in China as a test. 2. (In Chinese there's no word for 'flu', only 'cold', or 'transmissible cold'.) The 'cold' virus originated in US last year and killed more than 10k Americans before US sent special force to Wuhan to infect us Chinese! Even the head of CDC admitted it (see article). 3…

Sigh. Each dumb conspiracy theory in Chinese social media has an equal and opposite dumb conspiracy theory in American social media.

Why does every criticism of China have to have a corollary accompanying US criticism? Can we not just talk about one issue at a time instead of muddling up the waters?

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#73

Post by _bxg1 »

tmotwu wrote: post #23
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis. I'm not even sure it's incorrect.

Because thats what matters to you? Were europeans sending aid to China a power move? It’s acceptable to send aid to each other, no matter who you appear to represent.

There is no "appear". China's capitalist leaders are in the pocket of the CCP, whether they want to be or not.

I'm not saying it's unacceptable, I'm saying that China and the U.S. are direct rivals in a way that China and Europe are not, and that it will appear a certain way to the world, and that the way it appears will be advantageous to the CCP.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#74

Post by jchw »

soneil wrote: post #61
maest wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how much impact leaving this information out has.

Indeed. On it's own, it looks like .. I'm not sure "willy-waving" translates into American well. But once you realise they're sending them everywhere, it makes it look more like they've ramped production up to stupifying numbers (which is China's speciality afterall), and have realised their value in goodwill is far beyond their dollar value. (or, yes, propaganda - there's not a lot of real difference between PR, pro…

Translates fairy well i think - though Americans will usually say “dick waving” instead. When two are competing it is a pissing contest.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#75

Post by justicezyx »

sandov wrote: post #45

The guy is either a complete idiot [1] or pretends to be one. I wouldn't over-analyze his actions too much. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHGd6LqAVzw

Well you are not his audience.

Jack Ma knows very well what is AI and all such things. You can look at Alibaba Group's hiring frenzy for AI talents as a signal.

In the end, Jack wants to be an approachable power figure to common (Chinese) people. He shows up in Alibaba's annual corp party wearing weird dresses and sing in front of 100k+ live audience. People call him the "Daddy Ma" in reference to his influence on their buying activities online.

He behaves in this fashion, which the so-called philosophy (or Daoism/Zen-like thinking) trumps the hard reasoning. That gives him an aura of an elevated figure above scientists, engineers, and alike.

The point is, powerful people listen to each other because of the power they wield. Must has to listen to Jack, because Jack can influence the Chinese government in a much more effective way than himself. If it was an actual AI expert on that stage, Must probably wont show much interests in that discussion anyway...

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#76

Post by zrobotics »

tmotwu wrote: post #23
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis. I'm not even sure it's incorrect.

Because thats what matters to you? Were europeans sending aid to China a power move? It’s acceptable to send aid to each other, no matter who you appear to represent.

The EU sending aid is definitely a political flex. It is still a good gesture, but sending aid is a sign that a country is in a 'superior' position.

Jack Ma doing this is also a political move. I'm sure that part of the motivation is just to help, but it seems clear to me that this is also intended to show that China is in a position to help the US, and the optics of that are that the countries are on equal footing. Remember, China as a country does have a bit of a complex about their status, which is completely understandable considering the rapid changes they have been through. This aid shows that, rather than being a 2nd-class citizen, the country is in a position to help America with something.

That being said, this is a great thing, these are much needed supplies for which there isn't a large domestic manufacturing capacity (as it was offshore). However charitable acts can also have additional political motivations, and that does seem to be a factor here.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#77

Post by wolco »

tmotwu wrote: post #23
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis. I'm not even sure it's incorrect.

Because thats what matters to you? Were europeans sending aid to China a power move? It’s acceptable to send aid to each other, no matter who you appear to represent.

I agree, allow people to show there kindness. Things aren't always so black and white.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#78

Post by takeda »

hawk_ wrote: post #25
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis. I'm not even sure it's incorrect.

It's concerted effort by Chinese establishment to whitewash their handling of the whole thing. They even want to pretend that the virus didn't even originate in China! https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/13/asia/china-coronavirus-us...

If there was any country that did it maliciously, it would be Russia.

The government never had any ethical qualms (and is known of doing many horrible things), the things they way they are is benefiting the most to them, they don't have many cases surprisingly even though they declared 2 cases early on, when many countries didn't have any.

Yes, a conspiracy theory, but there's no denying that current state benefits them the most.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#79

Post by mnm1 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #8

Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis. I'm not even sure it's incorrect.

Painting? That's the reality, The US response is a disaster that will likely surpass Italy. We have done close to nothing. Maybe he's trying to help because we are too fucking incompetent to test on our own. The question is, will the US take the help or be the too proud asshole it's always been and ignore it like they did with the WHO test?

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#80

Post by guardiangod »

knzhou wrote: post #48
guardiangod wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should see what some of my Chinese relatives/friends are forwarding in WeChat- 1. CIA created the virus and released the virus in China as a test. 2. (In Chinese there's no word for 'flu', only 'cold', or 'transmissible cold'.) The 'cold' virus originated in US last year and killed more than 10k Americans before US sent special force to Wuhan to infect us Chinese! Even the head of CDC admitted it (see article). 3…

Sigh. Each dumb conspiracy theory in Chinese social media has an equal and opposite dumb conspiracy theory in American social media.

Look I know this is dumb and all. Other Chinese relatives/friends (usually oversea) are trying to combat all these fake news. But 2 things-

1. WeChat is heavily patrolled and monitored by the PRC censors. If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour (or seconds. It's very enlightening to see the sensitive terms get filtered in real time.)

In fact, in the last week or so, I've been getting more conspiracy forwards. The spread of rumors on this topic on WeChat is speeding up.

2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.

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