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For all the criticism that the USA is receiving recently, I am sure the world would be a worse place if China was the most influential country in the world (whi

For all the criticism that the USA is receiving recently, I am sure the world would be a worse place if China was the most influential country in the world (which they are trying become) instead of the USA.

microcolonel 9y ago
It truly infuriates me when people insinuate that it would be A-Okay for the U.S. to cease to be the sole military superpower in the world. That change alone would trigger world war 3. I say this from Canada. P.S. Voting on Hacker News does not change minds, if you want to convince people to agree with you instead of me, you will need to reply.
vkou 9y ago
China kills people for speech. The US kills people for being poor and/or black. There's no shortage of cheerleaders for this in either country. I have to note that most people will find it easier to control what they say, than to change their skin colour.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  > The US kills people for being poor and/or black. The United States does not kill people for being poor and black. Poor black people kill poor black people for being poor and black. Overwhelmingly so; ask anyone who keeps or audits vital statistics. You can stand around saying that there is some historical basis for this cultural problem, but telling people that whitey is keeping them down is a sure way not to solve any problems. P.S. Voting on Hacker News does not change minds, if you want to convince people to agree with you instead of me, you will need to reply.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > Poor black people kill poor black people for being poor and black. White people mostly kill white people, for the same reasons - crimes tend to be committed in the perpetrators' own communities. This little dog whistle tidbit of "black-on-black crime" people trot out is mainly an indication of how segregated American society still is.
    - microcolonel 9y ago
      The thing is, White people kill white people in America at about the same rate as they do in Western Europe. As a white person, I am happy with the amount of attention paid to preventing other white people from killing me. I would like the overall statistic to come down to match, and I think that starts with eliminating variables and finding common threads in how these murders occur. One thread that seems high on the list of suspects is the war on drugs. Personally I would abolish it entirely. Not only should all drugs be legal to possess and use, they should be legal to produce and sell without tremendous additional tax (to prevent another de-facto black market, like illicit grain alcohol and native reservation cigarette smuggling).
- blackbagboys 9y ago
  A key difference, of course, being that political resistance to oppression in the U.S. is active, vigorous and protected by law, and does not require a violent, wholesale dismantling of the state apparatus.
  - vkou 9y ago
    And it may actually get there. It might not, though - it certainly didn't during the Civil Rights movement (Although enormous steps were taken during it). I'm speaking about the situation, as is, not what it might be. Also, many Americans are currently under the impression that the current state of civil rights protests is violent, and should be repressed. Government and police often share that viewpoint.
  - dbingham 9y ago
    But said political resistance has also been largely ineffective for the last 50 to 100 years at addressing the aforementioned problems.
    - vkou 9y ago
      It has made enormous progress in some areas, but less in others. An African American can now become a lawyer, or a doctor - but they still can't walk, or drive on some streets, or buy a used car without being harassed.
- 323454 9y ago
  You're being overly selective with the facts. In the US there are problems but there is hope for change through free discourse, independent courts and democratic decision making. In China there are problems but the power to change is invested in officials and bureaucrats with their own interests at heart, and hope for change is hope that such people can be persuaded or bought.
  - vkou 9y ago
    Independent courts that consistently side with the justice system, and have spent centuries enforcing racist laws, that have destroyed communities. Independent police oversight, done by the guy sharing an office with the person he is overseeing. Democratic decision making that makes progress at a generational pace. That same democratic process, independent court system, and free discourse also built a century of slavery, followed by another century of Jim Crow, followed by half-a-century of... What we have now. These are valuable political institutions, but they are not sufficient.
paradite 9y ago
I am sorry but I fail to see how China being influential (which is already true to a large extent) would cause the world to be a worse place than it already is. You could argue that what's going on in China is bad for Chinese people, but China's influence outside its border is much less significant. This is going off tangent, but I would just like to point out that until now, China has not been deploying troops around the world and over-throwing foreign governments.
- 86go 9y ago
  ...except threatening Taiwan with war? And ask the people in Tibet and (some) in Hongkong.
  - paradite 9y ago
    As far as I know, all the places you mentioned are either Chinese territory or disputed Chinese territory. All of them are recognized by most countries (most likely including yours) as part of China. Can you name a sovereign state recognized globally that is being threatened by China militarily?
    - EduardoBautista 9y ago
      Let's be honest. China has all the historical motivation to be hostile towards Japan. The only reason why they are not is because it's protected by the USA.
      - paradite 9y ago
        Let's not assume everyone likes war, especially Chinese people who lost so much despite winning WW2. China has no interest in starting a war with Japan, with or without USA. Yes there is historical resentment, but people in our generation are rational, peace-seeking and pragmatic.
      - wangii 9y ago
        yes, China invaded Japan in 1937 and killed at least 20m people, and US allied with Japan fought back Chinese and they happily live together thereafter.
gcb0 9y ago
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- paradite 9y ago
  "WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means." http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous...
dharmach 9y ago
If China achieves all the ambitions it feels to deserve in the sphere of global wealth/influence, it will start behaving more-or-less similar to USA, unless you think that various human races are inherently different.
yogenpro 9y ago
Wow China is now comparable to the US? Kudos to their progress! </sarcasm>
68c12c16 9y ago
I feel there is nothing wrong with China or its people in general, just like there is nothing wrong with any other country and their people in general... The problem is in their government, and their capability and method of controlling the social resources; and more often than not, the government is quite aggressive toward those who disagree with them.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  At some point you need to accept that a government does represent the people. Not everyone and not all the time but over a sufficiently large time frame it does. This doesn't mean that Chinese are inherently oppressive it just means that the current cultural construct does heavily lean that way. There is a reason why you cannot transform a dictatorship into a democracy overnight without heavy and and continous influence. A democracy lives not because of a piece of paper but because the cultural construct of the people supports it. And while it is a chicken and the egg problem at some point that argument becomes irrelevant. For China to change it will have to change its cultural constructs that allow it to sustain itself as it does today.
  - 68c12c16 9y ago
    Yes, I agree...And some people, from both inside and outside the country, consider that perhaps a period of Enlightenment would really transform the current culture there. But I feel that given the current style of the Chinese government, it does not seem that there is much space for its people to develop any democratic or Enlightenment culture -- and from a perspective of statistics, a true and just and honest democratic society is more stable, both internally and externally, than an autocratic one -- and more likely to benefit a wider range of people. Yet this is not the fault of any average Chinese...It is just that, at several critical moments in its history, some overly self-centered and overly biased leaders caused tremendous damages -- with all its ruinous and poisonous ramifications -- to the entire society. Had it been more democratic then, such damages would be unlikely to have ever happened...But the assumption of that necessity leads to the chicken or the egg dilemma... Or perhaps the history -- and its consequential reality -- is quite fortuitous in nature...

microcolonel 9y ago

It truly infuriates me when people insinuate that it would be A-Okay for the U.S. to cease to be the sole military superpower in the world. That change alone would trigger world war 3. I say this from Canada. P.S. Voting on Hacker News does not change minds, if you want to convince people to agree with you instead of me, you will need to reply.

vkou 9y ago

China kills people for speech. The US kills people for being poor and/or black. There's no shortage of cheerleaders for this in either country. I have to note that most people will find it easier to control what they say, than to change their skin colour.

microcolonel 9y ago
> The US kills people for being poor and/or black. The United States does not kill people for being poor and black. Poor black people kill poor black people for being poor and black. Overwhelmingly so; ask anyone who keeps or audits vital statistics. You can stand around saying that there is some historical basis for this cultural problem, but telling people that whitey is keeping them down is a sure way not to solve any problems. P.S. Voting on Hacker News does not change minds, if you want to convince people to agree with you instead of me, you will need to reply.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > Poor black people kill poor black people for being poor and black. White people mostly kill white people, for the same reasons - crimes tend to be committed in the perpetrators' own communities. This little dog whistle tidbit of "black-on-black crime" people trot out is mainly an indication of how segregated American society still is.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    The thing is, White people kill white people in America at about the same rate as they do in Western Europe. As a white person, I am happy with the amount of attention paid to preventing other white people from killing me. I would like the overall statistic to come down to match, and I think that starts with eliminating variables and finding common threads in how these murders occur. One thread that seems high on the list of suspects is the war on drugs. Personally I would abolish it entirely. Not only should all drugs be legal to possess and use, they should be legal to produce and sell without tremendous additional tax (to prevent another de-facto black market, like illicit grain alcohol and native reservation cigarette smuggling).
blackbagboys 9y ago
A key difference, of course, being that political resistance to oppression in the U.S. is active, vigorous and protected by law, and does not require a violent, wholesale dismantling of the state apparatus.
- vkou 9y ago
  And it may actually get there. It might not, though - it certainly didn't during the Civil Rights movement (Although enormous steps were taken during it). I'm speaking about the situation, as is, not what it might be. Also, many Americans are currently under the impression that the current state of civil rights protests is violent, and should be repressed. Government and police often share that viewpoint.
- dbingham 9y ago
  But said political resistance has also been largely ineffective for the last 50 to 100 years at addressing the aforementioned problems.
  - vkou 9y ago
    It has made enormous progress in some areas, but less in others. An African American can now become a lawyer, or a doctor - but they still can't walk, or drive on some streets, or buy a used car without being harassed.
323454 9y ago
You're being overly selective with the facts. In the US there are problems but there is hope for change through free discourse, independent courts and democratic decision making. In China there are problems but the power to change is invested in officials and bureaucrats with their own interests at heart, and hope for change is hope that such people can be persuaded or bought.
- vkou 9y ago
  Independent courts that consistently side with the justice system, and have spent centuries enforcing racist laws, that have destroyed communities. Independent police oversight, done by the guy sharing an office with the person he is overseeing. Democratic decision making that makes progress at a generational pace. That same democratic process, independent court system, and free discourse also built a century of slavery, followed by another century of Jim Crow, followed by half-a-century of... What we have now. These are valuable political institutions, but they are not sufficient.

paradite 9y ago

I am sorry but I fail to see how China being influential (which is already true to a large extent) would cause the world to be a worse place than it already is. You could argue that what's going on in China is bad for Chinese people, but China's influence outside its border is much less significant. This is going off tangent, but I would just like to point out that until now, China has not been deploying troops around the world and over-throwing foreign governments.

86go 9y ago
...except threatening Taiwan with war? And ask the people in Tibet and (some) in Hongkong.
- paradite 9y ago
  As far as I know, all the places you mentioned are either Chinese territory or disputed Chinese territory. All of them are recognized by most countries (most likely including yours) as part of China. Can you name a sovereign state recognized globally that is being threatened by China militarily?
  - EduardoBautista 9y ago
    Let's be honest. China has all the historical motivation to be hostile towards Japan. The only reason why they are not is because it's protected by the USA.
    - paradite 9y ago
      Let's not assume everyone likes war, especially Chinese people who lost so much despite winning WW2. China has no interest in starting a war with Japan, with or without USA. Yes there is historical resentment, but people in our generation are rational, peace-seeking and pragmatic.
    - wangii 9y ago
      yes, China invaded Japan in 1937 and killed at least 20m people, and US allied with Japan fought back Chinese and they happily live together thereafter.

gcb0 9y ago

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

paradite 9y ago
"WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means." http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous...

dharmach 9y ago

If China achieves all the ambitions it feels to deserve in the sphere of global wealth/influence, it will start behaving more-or-less similar to USA, unless you think that various human races are inherently different.

yogenpro 9y ago

Wow China is now comparable to the US? Kudos to their progress! </sarcasm>

68c12c16 9y ago

I feel there is nothing wrong with China or its people in general, just like there is nothing wrong with any other country and their people in general... The problem is in their government, and their capability and method of controlling the social resources; and more often than not, the government is quite aggressive toward those who disagree with them.

dogma1138 9y ago
At some point you need to accept that a government does represent the people. Not everyone and not all the time but over a sufficiently large time frame it does. This doesn't mean that Chinese are inherently oppressive it just means that the current cultural construct does heavily lean that way. There is a reason why you cannot transform a dictatorship into a democracy overnight without heavy and and continous influence. A democracy lives not because of a piece of paper but because the cultural construct of the people supports it. And while it is a chicken and the egg problem at some point that argument becomes irrelevant. For China to change it will have to change its cultural constructs that allow it to sustain itself as it does today.
- 68c12c16 9y ago
  Yes, I agree...And some people, from both inside and outside the country, consider that perhaps a period of Enlightenment would really transform the current culture there. But I feel that given the current style of the Chinese government, it does not seem that there is much space for its people to develop any democratic or Enlightenment culture -- and from a perspective of statistics, a true and just and honest democratic society is more stable, both internally and externally, than an autocratic one -- and more likely to benefit a wider range of people. Yet this is not the fault of any average Chinese...It is just that, at several critical moments in its history, some overly self-centered and overly biased leaders caused tremendous damages -- with all its ruinous and poisonous ramifications -- to the entire society. Had it been more democratic then, such damages would be unlikely to have ever happened...But the assumption of that necessity leads to the chicken or the egg dilemma... Or perhaps the history -- and its consequential reality -- is quite fortuitous in nature...