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So nobody should ever vacation in or visit China? Even if you were to avoid explicitly giving money to Chinese businesses, it's probably impossible to buy any

So nobody should ever vacation in or visit China? Even if you were to avoid explicitly giving money to Chinese businesses, it's probably impossible to buy any moderately complicated manufactured good without indirectly supporting China's economy. Why do new accounts pop up to shittalk China every single time someone writes a piece like this. Paid Taiwanese shills?

suitelife 9y ago
we are techies, if we can program artificial intelligence, we can figure out ways to avoid giving money to an evil entity that produces concentration camps that today houses China's minorities, tomorrow maybe your children.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  You can’t program AI, just some mindless feedback models that have the name “AI” slapped on them. You also can’t sway a group of skeptics with corny lines such as, “tomorrow your children...” Get real. I don’t want to live in China right now, but evil? I live in a country that has destabilized country after country after country in the name of ideology, fear, and greed. This country kills civilians on a regular basis, and calls it acceptable. We’re all evil, if you want to be hyperbolic about it, or human I’d you want to be realistic. Pointing fingers at external “devils” is just a non-starter to anyone with a rational bone in them.
  - suitelife 9y ago
    you seem to be a young jewish man who lives in US. I hope you will look up reeducation camps for Uighurs in China, and look up concentration camps that maybe your relatives have been in. And have some empathy. The world is shades of gray. Some are good but had to do evil, and some are true evil.
  - suitelife 9y ago
    The world is shades of gray. Some are good but had to do evil, and some are true evil. you seem to be a young jewish man who lives in US. I hope you will look up reeducation camps for Uighurs in China, and look up concentration camps that maybe your relatives have been in. And have some empathy.
    - dang 9y ago
      We've banned this account for using HN for political and nationalistic battle, which is not allowed here. Stooping to personal details (real or imagined) in a political argument is also not allowed. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        Imagined tragically; I miss being young.
  - platinumrad 9y ago
    >we are techies, if we can program artificial intelligence... "How do you do, Fellow Kids?" I don't think a single regular poster here unironically refers to themself as a "techie."
jmknoll 9y ago
Not taking either side here, but a boycott doesn't have to be 100%. I can choose to ride my bike to work when its convenient. Oil companies will lose a little bit of money. I can choose not to eat meat 3 days per week. A few more animals will live (or not be born), and slightly fewer greenhouse gasses will be emitted. Likewise, I can choose not to purchase something made in China when a meaningful alternative exists, and I will be ever so slightly hurting China's export industry, and thus the tax receipts and influence of the Chinese government. Most things like this work on a sliding scale.
- platinumrad 9y ago
  Of course a boycott doesn't have to be 100%. I think the only person in this entire thread that has suggested as such is the poster that I originally responded to. I'm definitely not part of the China Internet Defense Force that seems to troll many parts of the web but I find it interesting that whenever China comes up on HN some green username usually shows up to chastise everyone for not participating in a boycott that is 100%.

suitelife 9y ago

we are techies, if we can program artificial intelligence, we can figure out ways to avoid giving money to an evil entity that produces concentration camps that today houses China's minorities, tomorrow maybe your children.

IntronExon 9y ago
You can’t program AI, just some mindless feedback models that have the name “AI” slapped on them. You also can’t sway a group of skeptics with corny lines such as, “tomorrow your children...” Get real. I don’t want to live in China right now, but evil? I live in a country that has destabilized country after country after country in the name of ideology, fear, and greed. This country kills civilians on a regular basis, and calls it acceptable. We’re all evil, if you want to be hyperbolic about it, or human I’d you want to be realistic. Pointing fingers at external “devils” is just a non-starter to anyone with a rational bone in them.
- suitelife 9y ago
  you seem to be a young jewish man who lives in US. I hope you will look up reeducation camps for Uighurs in China, and look up concentration camps that maybe your relatives have been in. And have some empathy. The world is shades of gray. Some are good but had to do evil, and some are true evil.
- suitelife 9y ago
  The world is shades of gray. Some are good but had to do evil, and some are true evil. you seem to be a young jewish man who lives in US. I hope you will look up reeducation camps for Uighurs in China, and look up concentration camps that maybe your relatives have been in. And have some empathy.
  - dang 9y ago
    We've banned this account for using HN for political and nationalistic battle, which is not allowed here. Stooping to personal details (real or imagined) in a political argument is also not allowed. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      Imagined tragically; I miss being young.
- platinumrad 9y ago
  >we are techies, if we can program artificial intelligence... "How do you do, Fellow Kids?" I don't think a single regular poster here unironically refers to themself as a "techie."

jmknoll 9y ago

Not taking either side here, but a boycott doesn't have to be 100%. I can choose to ride my bike to work when its convenient. Oil companies will lose a little bit of money. I can choose not to eat meat 3 days per week. A few more animals will live (or not be born), and slightly fewer greenhouse gasses will be emitted. Likewise, I can choose not to purchase something made in China when a meaningful alternative exists, and I will be ever so slightly hurting China's export industry, and thus the tax receipts and influence of the Chinese government. Most things like this work on a sliding scale.

platinumrad 9y ago
Of course a boycott doesn't have to be 100%. I think the only person in this entire thread that has suggested as such is the poster that I originally responded to. I'm definitely not part of the China Internet Defense Force that seems to troll many parts of the web but I find it interesting that whenever China comes up on HN some green username usually shows up to chastise everyone for not participating in a boycott that is 100%.