5 ms·

It is the opinion of almost every other country in the world that these are international waters. China doesn't get to change the facts of international law ju

by jlebar 10y ago

It is the opinion of almost every other country in the world that these are international waters. China doesn't get to change the facts of international law just by claiming there's a "dispute". I looked back through your comment history. I don't mean to accuse you of anything, but if I were someone from the Chinese government whose job was to argue for the positions of the Chinese government on HN, I think I would sound...a lot like you.

xnull2guest 10y ago
That sounds a lot like an accusation. I have been accused of being a Clinton Supporter, a Trump Supporter, a Communist, a Fascist, a Liberal, an American, a Russian, a Chinaman, Greek (I was talking about Cyprus), and a number of other things. I have been accused of being paid or not. I have told everyone the same thing. I am an American. My opinions are not for sale and have never been bought.
- bad_user 10y ago
  Usually people identifying as Americans write good English on HN, but in the comments in this thread, I must say, your English isn't that good. And I'm not an American or an Englishman, I don't live in an English speaking country and English is only my second language, so me easily spotting your mistakes is saying something. Of course, you could be an immigrant, which is cool actually , but mentioning it when giving a disclaimer would be nice.
  - xnull2guest 10y ago
    I'm ashamed of my US college education and the US public school system, for it has failed at even the most simple task: endowing me with intelligible enough English so that random commentators on the internet are able to identify my first language. I had seen statistics that our school systems were bad. But it wasn't really palpable until I got accused of having the vocabulary and grammatical equivalent of a paid Chinese shill.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - hulahoof 10y ago
      You are ashamed of your own education? The only part of the education system you can control? .. endowing me with intelligible enough English so that random commentators on the internet are able to identify my first language. .. This reads like a terrible thesaurus auto correct.
  - dang 10y ago
    I realize you probably didn't mean it this way, but your comment reads like piling a personal attack on top of another personal attack, which is a seriously-not-ok thing to do here. If you're not certain that you're raising the subject civilly, please don't comment on someone else's English or their immigration status.
- dang 10y ago
  I've told you this elsewhere, but want users in this thread to see it too. You've been using HN exclusively for political arguments for a long time now. That's an abuse of this site, regardless of what you're arguing. We ban accounts that do this. Please don't do any more of it here. HN is for civil, substantive discussion about stories that gratify intellectual curiosity. Political and ideological is not merely the opposite of that, it's actively destructive to it. We can't have both. Users who want the latter need to realize that HN is not the kind of site they're looking for. The flamewars you've been provoking and fueling—such as this wretched thread—are pure poison for this place.
  - xnull2guest 10y ago
    I posted this elsewhere. I'm posting it here so people on this thread can see it. Thank you dang. This will happen. More and more, social media platforms have been telling me - or using their algorithms to tell me - that my opinions, as educated and well argued as they are, are not welcome on their sites. I did not expect to see this from Hacker News. Indeed, after the experiment banning political conversation, I had thought that the opposite decision had been made. And finally, to be clear, I use HN for far more than political chatter. I read the technical content, and use it as a general news feed (one of my many). I comment where I am inspired to. I did not realize how often that ends up being of a political nature. I care deeply about individual freedoms and the technology that enables and disables these. Can we find a mechanism whereby my nationality is confirmed? I would like to do this for the sake of my own vindication, as well as clarity to those who were/are suspicious. I would like to add that I have never intentionally fueled a flamewar, nor do I think it's healthy or a good idea. I insist that you reread some of this after some time has passed and try to see it from my perspective: I have dissenting opinions and am a strong advocate for them. I do not try to get emotional rises out of people, or to encourage them to argument. I do try to make the strongest possible fair case for how I understand what is going on in the world today. I want you to know that I feel victimized by this wretched thread (and others) and feel that you are blaming the victim for a widespread animosity you can't attribute to any single poster. I argue that if you take some time and then look at my comment history you will find that it is composed of civil substantive discussions, gratifying intellectual curiosity and more. In direct opposition to what you've said, I do not think that political topics are the opposite of civil or unsubstancial. Indeed, the very idea that politics is uncivil and must be unsubstantial is a plague on the very idea of democracy. I would ask you to square your comment here with the decision made at the end of the 'no politics week'.
dang 10y ago
That's a personal attack, albeit with a fig leaf of nasty insinuation. You can't comment like that here, and smearing other users as shills without evidence is also not ok. Please don't do these things again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13202981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13202981 and marked it off-topic.
- jlebar 10y ago
  Understood. I wonder if you could suggest a better way to phrase this point. Like, is it out of bounds to say that someone's comment here and comments in the past sound to me like Chinese propaganda? I guess that is what I was trying to say (and I grant that I didn't say it well). Sorry for causing a scene.
  - dang 10y ago
    I don't think there's a civil way to say that because it's fundamentally a personal slight for a political reason. In fact it's a kind of name calling, which the site rules don't allow. I do think it's ok for users to remind each other that HN isn't for pure politics. But not to score a political point. Thanks for replying so politely!
    - jlebar 10y ago
      While I have your attention, I'd like to register a concern about this bright line it sounds like you're trying to draw. A tactic currently being employed by Trump is to claim that questions of fact or science are actual political questions. For example, his surrogates have said that NASA is "politicizing" climate science [1]. I'm concerned about this expansion of the boundaries of what are considered political questions into things that aren't because it has a chilling effect: Once something is deemed political, there are certain places where we can't talk about it. But for my part, I think a world where a politician can prevent us from having a (civil) discussion about e.g. climate change, or net neutrality, or the implications of tax cuts for the rich, or whatever, on HN merely by declaring it to be "political" is a pretty bad world. Not just because I like talking to smart people about science and technology, but because it prevents us from organizing to become a force for good. The OP's point was, it seemed to me, about the facts of international law and a critique of the media. It certainly was inflamatory (as was my response), but if law and the media are off topic because they're political, well, doesn't it follow that net neutrality, Google/Facebook's responses to fake news, and so on, are also political? Do you want to cut off conversations about those topics too? Maybe there are certain topics you'd want to rule out from HN because they inevitably lead to flamewars. Moreover maybe most or all of those topics are things politicians also disagree about (and thus are "political"). But perhaps the thing that you are against isn't "political" discussions per se, but rather flamewars on touchy subjects. Or, something like that? I am afraid that over the next four years, things we used to think of as factual or scientific questions will be reframed as political questions, on which everyone is entitled to their opinion, and which we can't discuss in civilized places like HN. In fact I think we're already seeing this reframing. Anyway, running an online community is hard, I don't pretend to know how to do that. Good luck, and I'll try to follow the rules, whatever you all decide. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-earth-donald-trump-eliminate-climate-change-research https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-ear...

by jlebar 10y ago

xnull2guest 10y ago

That sounds a lot like an accusation. I have been accused of being a Clinton Supporter, a Trump Supporter, a Communist, a Fascist, a Liberal, an American, a Russian, a Chinaman, Greek (I was talking about Cyprus), and a number of other things. I have been accused of being paid or not. I have told everyone the same thing. I am an American. My opinions are not for sale and have never been bought.

bad_user 10y ago
Usually people identifying as Americans write good English on HN, but in the comments in this thread, I must say, your English isn't that good. And I'm not an American or an Englishman, I don't live in an English speaking country and English is only my second language, so me easily spotting your mistakes is saying something. Of course, you could be an immigrant, which is cool actually , but mentioning it when giving a disclaimer would be nice.
- xnull2guest 10y ago
  I'm ashamed of my US college education and the US public school system, for it has failed at even the most simple task: endowing me with intelligible enough English so that random commentators on the internet are able to identify my first language. I had seen statistics that our school systems were bad. But it wasn't really palpable until I got accused of having the vocabulary and grammatical equivalent of a paid Chinese shill.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - hulahoof 10y ago
    You are ashamed of your own education? The only part of the education system you can control? .. endowing me with intelligible enough English so that random commentators on the internet are able to identify my first language. .. This reads like a terrible thesaurus auto correct.
- dang 10y ago
  I realize you probably didn't mean it this way, but your comment reads like piling a personal attack on top of another personal attack, which is a seriously-not-ok thing to do here. If you're not certain that you're raising the subject civilly, please don't comment on someone else's English or their immigration status.
dang 10y ago
I've told you this elsewhere, but want users in this thread to see it too. You've been using HN exclusively for political arguments for a long time now. That's an abuse of this site, regardless of what you're arguing. We ban accounts that do this. Please don't do any more of it here. HN is for civil, substantive discussion about stories that gratify intellectual curiosity. Political and ideological is not merely the opposite of that, it's actively destructive to it. We can't have both. Users who want the latter need to realize that HN is not the kind of site they're looking for. The flamewars you've been provoking and fueling—such as this wretched thread—are pure poison for this place.
- xnull2guest 10y ago
  I posted this elsewhere. I'm posting it here so people on this thread can see it. Thank you dang. This will happen. More and more, social media platforms have been telling me - or using their algorithms to tell me - that my opinions, as educated and well argued as they are, are not welcome on their sites. I did not expect to see this from Hacker News. Indeed, after the experiment banning political conversation, I had thought that the opposite decision had been made. And finally, to be clear, I use HN for far more than political chatter. I read the technical content, and use it as a general news feed (one of my many). I comment where I am inspired to. I did not realize how often that ends up being of a political nature. I care deeply about individual freedoms and the technology that enables and disables these. Can we find a mechanism whereby my nationality is confirmed? I would like to do this for the sake of my own vindication, as well as clarity to those who were/are suspicious. I would like to add that I have never intentionally fueled a flamewar, nor do I think it's healthy or a good idea. I insist that you reread some of this after some time has passed and try to see it from my perspective: I have dissenting opinions and am a strong advocate for them. I do not try to get emotional rises out of people, or to encourage them to argument. I do try to make the strongest possible fair case for how I understand what is going on in the world today. I want you to know that I feel victimized by this wretched thread (and others) and feel that you are blaming the victim for a widespread animosity you can't attribute to any single poster. I argue that if you take some time and then look at my comment history you will find that it is composed of civil substantive discussions, gratifying intellectual curiosity and more. In direct opposition to what you've said, I do not think that political topics are the opposite of civil or unsubstancial. Indeed, the very idea that politics is uncivil and must be unsubstantial is a plague on the very idea of democracy. I would ask you to square your comment here with the decision made at the end of the 'no politics week'.

dang 10y ago

That's a personal attack, albeit with a fig leaf of nasty insinuation. You can't comment like that here, and smearing other users as shills without evidence is also not ok. Please don't do these things again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13202981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13202981 and marked it off-topic.

jlebar 10y ago
Understood. I wonder if you could suggest a better way to phrase this point. Like, is it out of bounds to say that someone's comment here and comments in the past sound to me like Chinese propaganda? I guess that is what I was trying to say (and I grant that I didn't say it well). Sorry for causing a scene.
- dang 10y ago
  I don't think there's a civil way to say that because it's fundamentally a personal slight for a political reason. In fact it's a kind of name calling, which the site rules don't allow. I do think it's ok for users to remind each other that HN isn't for pure politics. But not to score a political point. Thanks for replying so politely!
  - jlebar 10y ago
    While I have your attention, I'd like to register a concern about this bright line it sounds like you're trying to draw. A tactic currently being employed by Trump is to claim that questions of fact or science are actual political questions. For example, his surrogates have said that NASA is "politicizing" climate science [1]. I'm concerned about this expansion of the boundaries of what are considered political questions into things that aren't because it has a chilling effect: Once something is deemed political, there are certain places where we can't talk about it. But for my part, I think a world where a politician can prevent us from having a (civil) discussion about e.g. climate change, or net neutrality, or the implications of tax cuts for the rich, or whatever, on HN merely by declaring it to be "political" is a pretty bad world. Not just because I like talking to smart people about science and technology, but because it prevents us from organizing to become a force for good. The OP's point was, it seemed to me, about the facts of international law and a critique of the media. It certainly was inflamatory (as was my response), but if law and the media are off topic because they're political, well, doesn't it follow that net neutrality, Google/Facebook's responses to fake news, and so on, are also political? Do you want to cut off conversations about those topics too? Maybe there are certain topics you'd want to rule out from HN because they inevitably lead to flamewars. Moreover maybe most or all of those topics are things politicians also disagree about (and thus are "political"). But perhaps the thing that you are against isn't "political" discussions per se, but rather flamewars on touchy subjects. Or, something like that? I am afraid that over the next four years, things we used to think of as factual or scientific questions will be reframed as political questions, on which everyone is entitled to their opinion, and which we can't discuss in civilized places like HN. In fact I think we're already seeing this reframing. Anyway, running an online community is hard, I don't pretend to know how to do that. Good luck, and I'll try to follow the rules, whatever you all decide. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-earth-donald-trump-eliminate-climate-change-research https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-ear...