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President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

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Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#851

Post by lucb1e »

zymhan wrote: post #600
chernevik wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

Now that is an evergreen quote.

Feels the same to me, makes me wonder who'd ever disagree with it. Does the person this was written in response to really feel like it is false and that people should not be allowed to exist if they think certain things?

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#852

Post by chernevik »

chmod600 wrote: post #779
chernevik wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Jefferson said "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty". Which is probably one reason why we now have efforts to read him out of the discussion.

The drive to power and control seems to be part of human nature, and it is always finding new ways to organize and express itself. And because freedom is a matter of human choices, yeah, there is always the danger that people will choose to become unfree.

I think freedom has the enormous advantages of being more effective and more motivating. The free are better able to innovate, and to correct their mistakes. They have a better moral basis, which motivates stronger action over longer periods of time. The free can rely on the power of the individual, which mounts en masse to an enormous force, while the unfree are ultimately always awaiting direction.

The greatest risks to a free society are internal, the forces which erode freedom of speech and thought. Liberal democracies have a very strong track record against totalitarian societies. For the US, I think the decline in free speech and the growth of ideological thinking is a serious problem, and we may hit a point of lock-in where people cannot criticize the regime. Many corners of the country are already at this point, and have been for a while, and those zones are spreading. It doesn't help that resistance to this has coalesced under a cult of a crazed personality.

I think freedom will win out, but it won't be easy, and we'll have to work at it. Probably always.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#853

Post by coliveira »

gumby wrote: post #775
rackjack wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're right, from the point of view of Americans it is OK to influence every aspect of life in other countries, but if the reverse occurs it is the end of the world. Given that China is quickly becoming the richest country of the world, it is just normal they will have more and more influence in American society, just looking from the economic point of view. Consider for example how Japan started having a cultural influence around the world in the 80s. The same will happen with China.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#854

Post by lucb1e »

bllguo wrote: post #721
vaxman wrote: post #637

Quoted 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…

> this is exactly the white savior crap that much of the world hates from the US

I'm the kind of person that hates this kind of crap from the US, like, interfering with foreign governments to increase their freedom is the kind of doublespeak I'm not too thrilled about.

But this does seem a bit different. Here people from Taiwan are proposed to be given an evacuation route. Nobody said anything about invading and taking the whole population by force. An alternative proposal I saw mentioned is to keep Taiwan out of China's hands which seems way more invasive (and risky, like, world war type risky) by comparison.

I do agree that the specific "dump them in one of our deserts" idea would not be what first comes to my mind, but ignoring the specifics for now, I'm not sure that this is how GP meant it. (And leaving completely in the middle whether this is feasible or a good idea for all the other reasons. I'm just commenting on the "provide option to get away" -> "don't do savior crap" part.)

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#855

Post by civilized »

star-trek-fleet wrote: post #534
Icko wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richer country, better quality of life, more personal freedoms. Not bizarre assumption at all.

> Richer country Trust me most students in US nowadays are family financial support. They are already rich. And the US do not often give enough working position for them (outside of tech, which h1b is not particularly friendly) > better quality of life This definitely is wrong. Those kids enjoyed a far better life in China than US. > more personal freedoms. Well, for what they want to do, they'll have more freedom...

If China is such a paradise for the children of the Chinese elite, why do they overwhelmingly go to US universities? Why bother ever leaving China at all?

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#856

Post by bananabreakfast »

nneonneo wrote: post #824
fartcannon wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an individual level, it would appear that just being from Hong Kong and not China will get you death threats.

I feel compelled to clarify this: Hong Kong is part of China, and has been since 1997. Saying that Hong Kong is not part of China is like saying that Texas is not part of the United States because at one point they seceded. These days, Texas has no more right to secede from the US than Hong Kong from China, even if there are people in both territories who would prefer full independence. Consequently, to a Chinese per…

Ha, I mean, that's not weird at all. Texans say that all the time.

Six flags theme parks are quite literally named after the six different flags that have flown over Texas as a nod to it being an independent entity regardless of which larger nation currently lays claim to it.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#857

Post by tombh »

vmception wrote: post #840
tombh wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you have a point, but I just think that's a conveniently selective interpretation of the reality. I mean just take blackness for example, you don't even have to say anything for your life to be fundamentally undermined by the federal and municipal police. But what I think is more significant is Western foreign policy, freedom of self-determination exists in the weakest sense of freedom to adhere to Western…

I chose examples also available to black Americans. Of the example I chose, the biggest risk is just not being able to sleep with the American that person met abroad. The federal and municipal police are not going to track down their family stateside for harassment. I think you extrapolated waaaaay more than either of us were talking about beforehand. We're talking about the comparisons to what happened in the articl…

Like I say I think you have a point, which I agree with, I just think it's conveniently selective of its viewpoint

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#858

Post by kgc »

mgamache wrote: post #731
sparcpile wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't good. During his tenure, he had the university create a deal with Kaplan to brand Kaplan University as Purdue Global and get the Indiana legisture to pass a sweetheart law for it. The result is that Purdue's name as a very good engineering school is mud. https://tcf.org/content/commentary/purdue-global-got-irs-sta...

Really? Its programs are among the top in the nation. https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/AboutUs/FactsFigures/Ran... .

The previous comment is probably saying the online school students are diluting the overall quality of the Perdue student pool in engineering.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#859

Post by chernevik »

chmod600 wrote: post #835
imgabe wrote: post #819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom is never absolute. You can respect other people's freedom to disagree with you, but not their freedom to kill you. You can choose to only stop them from the latter, but not the former.

But should you respect someone's freedom to vote? What if they vote against freedom? And then what if that leads to the same result as them killing you?

You have no choice but to respect that freedom. The only alternative is to establish a tyranny of your own -- that's the only way you can tell people how to vote.

Democracies can suicide. The Weimar Republic did (though notice that Hitler never actually won a popular majority vote).

This problem was exactly what the American Founders had in mind as they shaped their Constitution. They wanted to identify the ways a government could be turned against its own people, and create barriers against those attacks. The US doesn't trust majoritarian government, which is why it isn't exactly a democracy. Items like the Bill of Rights, and features like the separation of powers, are intended both to secure liberties and hamstring oppression.

(The Federalist Papers are a fascinating discussion of all this.)

But at the end of the day, constitutional features can only slow down an oppressive majority. If a majority wants to dominate a minority, eventually they are going to find a way. The only real security for freedom, over long term, is to raise up a people that think and feel and act in those ways that are consistent with freedom.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#860

Post by dang »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #351
throwawaylinux wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a large number of bills in US state legislatures aimed at suppressing honest and uncensored discussion of the Tulsa race massacre. Which bills are those?

Let me google that for you https://duckduckgo.com/?q=legislature+bill+crt&t=h_&ia=web

Please don't be a jerk on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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