Earlier quoted context omitted.
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and also China invaded Vietnam after the US did. Everyone is a piece of shit.
Which was my point.
President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
771–780 of 1001 posts
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#772> 451: Unavailable due to legal reasons A touch over dramatic, verging on smug given that it’s a nerd in-joke. (If you didn’t know, this HTTP status code is a tongue in cheek reference to the dystopian sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451 where information is outlawed.) I could elaborate but unfortunately due to our safety and security policies I am unable to comment further. Your wellbeing is my number one priority.
> A touch over dramatic, verging on smug given that it’s a nerd in-joke. I don't see how it's dramatic or smug at all. 451 is an improvement on the vague 403 forbidden status code, and is specified in RFC 7725, a standards track document: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7725 This isn't an inside joke that someone just made up, other than someone (Timothy Bray?) choosing this particular constant out of the re…
For me, the spirit of 451 was as a form protest, not some sort of blanket arse-covering.
In other news, a friend of a friend's mom's tennis partner's cat sitter knew someone whose website was taken down by socialist European lawyers, so what harm is there from banning them from the village? It's not like we want them here anyway!
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#773Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did not say that you were arguing. I just pointed out that you were starting a conversation that could lead nowhere pleasant for anyone so your guests probably wisely stirred away from it.
Or, you’re making a ton of conjecture without knowing the situation, the people involved, their relationship, what was actually said, the emotional context, and are forming all of these opinions stated as fact from a few lines of text on an HN comment. I wish people were more charitable on HN, on the internet, and in life.
I think what's uncharitable is assuming that someone is 'afraid to speak out' just because they don't want to wade into politics.
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#774Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like some of the students not only threatened to report him to the Chinese authorities, but told him that they had done so, and he has proof who made these threats and claims. They didn’t try to hide it.
If they have a right to do that, is that harassment? I doubt Purdue (up to now) has any policy saying it’s illegal to report someone to authorities for something they did. Even if those authorities are not popular right now and the thing they did is ok at Perdue but not at home. Is it a ‘dick move’ and offend our sensibilities? Sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were a…
> If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?
You can harass someone with legal activity, making it illegal. If I show up outside your house everyday and stand on the sidewalk with a concealed weapon that is obviously illegal harassment. Standing on the sidewalk might be legal, carrying a concealed weapon may be legal, harassing someone with either is not.
> But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.
You're right. This is something we will all need to worry about in the event that we time Travel to the 50's. When that happens, I'll criticize the US government, and encourage the French university to expel the American students. I guess we will need to settle for dealing with today's problems until time travel is possible :(
> If it’s true, then of course the FBI is going to look into it. If true, it’s also unlikely to count as harassment. It’s also pretty terrible from 5 different angles.
Why? I think your false assumption here is that everything the university should care about, the FBI should care about to, which is simply not true. You can outright break the law and the FBI not care depending on the law. I don't know that this falls into the category of things the FBI would deal with.
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#775In 2019, Frances Hui, a student at Emerson College in Boston, wrote an opinion piece for the student newspaper titled "I am from Hong Kong, not China” (1) and she was subjected to doxxing and death threats: The most jarring comment came from a Chinese student at Emerson, who made Hui’s personal Facebook posts public. In one post, he wrote a comment that translates to: “Whomever opposes my greatest China, no matter ho…
The Chinese government has seeped its way into nearly every facet of American life. This is most visible in Disney movies (see: the Mulan and Lion King remakes) but it is happening to many companies and universities where they use our own greed against us. I hope America will wake up and realize we have fighting a hidden war, but we are so divided I doubt we'll notice until we've lost, if we notice at all.
This has been the policy of the USA for decades (e.g. pentagon script approval, military subsidies for professional sports (in exchange for an antitrust exemption) etc. Is this really any different?
This comment is not intended to praise or support the CCP, but just to provide some context. I think the US government should be staying out of content as well.
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#776This same phenomenon has been a problem in Australia since the HK protests began a couple of years ago.
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#777Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If by 'undemocratic' you mean autocratic, it isn't proponents of democracy that are stripping them of agency. It is their form of government. But you would need to show that they are actually being stripped of their agency. You can't just say "I declare that their government doesn't represent their preferences, and when they say that the government actually does represent their preferences, that's because they can'…
If a government severely punishes debate about its behavior or views it wants accepted and unchallenged, or has a system in place to eliminate information in the public sphere that it does not want you to encounter, through technology and overwhelming pressure on organizations and individuals, ... ... that's all you need to know. That is a situation designed precisely to stay in power despite not responding to a free…
We’re talking about the form of government though, not specific acts of censorship about specific government actions. Those are definitely bad! But I don’t think there are secrets about the form of government of, say, China, and how it is similar and different than, say, the United States.
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#778Quoted post unavailable.
this is exactly the white savior crap that much of the world hates from the US. the sheer arrogance to think that even a significant fraction of Taiwanese would be interested in moving to America, let alone the entire populace. And then the gall to suggest _Ohio, the Mojave, and Alaska_. Bit on the nose, don't you think? I don't understand how you think this rhetoric helps anyone. I guess it lets Americans puff out t…
Calling someone you disagree with a racist is unhelpful.
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#779Response from the student: https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/ri95tp/in_response_...
Well said: "In my world there's always a place for you; you can disagree with me; you can even insult me; I will not fire back because that is your freedom of expression, however In your world there's no place for me; you want to eliminate me and even my family from the world just because I disagree with your government or your ideology; this is puzzling isn't it?"
Does that mean freedom is self-defeating?
It comes down to a simple formula: are people learning and appreciating freedom faster than it's being diluted by people who are ignorant or disdainful of freedom?
There's no fundamental reason one rate must remain above the other. Education, immigration trends, business, and culture all play a part.
But once the anti-freedom are greater in number than the pro-freedom, then freedom democratically self-destructs.
Non-free governments don't have this problem, because they aren't democracies.
In other words, losing freedom can be peaceful and even consistent with the principles of freedom (you're free to give up your freedom). But getting freedom requires some non-free (or at least non-democratic) things to happen.
Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment
#780Getting the actual opinion of anyone in China (or Hong Kong if you’re a worker and well integrated) is very difficult. There is a lot of reading between the lines necessary because of the network of reporting from other Chinese that’s worldwide. Note: those actual opinions are not necessarily “life is baaaad what a niiightmare”, they can be quite nuanced just like anywhere else. Something as simple as “I kind of like…
> Getting the actual opinion of anyone in China ... is very difficult.
Is it really that different in America (or the "west" in general)? Most of us have become very guarded in what opinions we share in the past few years.