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To people debating whether China are the good guys or not - hundreds of thousands Falun Dafa practicioners are locked up in Chinese concentration camps. Thousan

To people debating whether China are the good guys or not - hundreds of thousands Falun Dafa practicioners are locked up in Chinese concentration camps. Thousands have died of torture. Many more are suffering it everyday. China is ruled by a cruel evil regime. No question about it. You won't hear people involved with China talk about it. You won't be allowed into China if you do.

eksemplar 9y ago
America has been making children afraid of blue skies with its murder drones for the past 15 years. If evil was an obstacle we wouldn’t be able to use American tech either. I’m not a fan of China and I’m certainly weary of their government spying through their tech, but I’m not really a fan of the NSA being able to read my emails either. Obviously America is the lesser evil, and it’s unfortunate that power is shifting to China, but maybe there will be some healthy lessons in American tech when you start to feel the abuse you’ve put your friends through. Probably not though.
- auganov 9y ago
  How exactly are uninteded civil casualties in military operations comparable to systemic and deliberate jailing and killing of innocent people? This is very low grade whataboutism.
  - typon 9y ago
    "uninteded civil casualties" This is how Americans justify destroying three countries (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) and millions of lives.
logicallee 9y ago
>You won't be allowed into China if you do. My understanding is that you have to just check your free speech at the door. For example my immpression is that specifically you, auganov, even if this profile is under your real name, would be allowed into China without any issue. (Despite what you've just written.) The standard I've heard said is that "you wouldn't be able to stand in Tiananman square with a 'Free Tibet' sign". To those of us in the free world, that's a ridiculously stifling standard. You can stand in Washington or Times Square with a sign reading whatever you want, 'it's a free country'. China, obviously, isn't. You can't use the standard "hey, it's a free country" because it's not. But this does not extend to your speech outside of China. Trying to bring your free speech into China seems (to me), on a practical level, like trying to bring your heroin, cocaine, and guns in your carry-on to America. Can't do that (and there would be serious consequences.) But that doesn't mean you can't have ever touched a gun, cocaine, or heroin in your life, it's not retroactive. To prove my case, let me say that Taiwan is an independent country, Tibet doesn't belong to China, and, hmmmm what else don't they like. Oh Xi is a dictator for wanting to be President for life. I wouldn't ever say any of those things if I'm in China, even in English, even on an international forum, because I would have checked my free speech at the border. On a practical level state oppression is a huge private business. When you're in China you're not free, even in your mundane online speech, such as in private messages in wechat. People pay attention to watching what they say, on an everyday level. But to return to my point, it doesn't mean you wouldn't be allowed in China if you expressed your thoughts previously in the free world. EDIT: I forgot to mention, I've heard an exception for journalists, in the sense that their previous speech is examined more closely, but I don't know if they're refused entry or just watched more closely once there.
- auganov 9y ago
  False. Examples: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42053790 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42053790 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/22/australian-critic-of-beijing-refused-entry-to-china-and-deported https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/22/australian-cri... Be notable or persistent enough and it'll get you banned.
  - logicallee 9y ago
    Both of the articles references say "You should know" The Katy Perry article says there was no official reason given or confirmation but: >But the Global Times, a state-run tabloid, chimed in, saying that if it was true "they had brought it on themselves". It further references that Katy Perry wore a flower dress, an Anti-China symbol, while giving a concert in Taiwan, and that she "draped Taiwan's flag at the concert. It caused a backlash in China, with many accusing her of supporting Taiwanese independence." This kind of counts as activist activity and most importantly it did not happen abroad, but in China or Taiwan. The second article says: >“I asked them, ‘What’s the reason?’,” Hugh said. “Their answer was pretty diplomatic, they said, ‘You should know’.” and it says: >Hugh is the head of the Australian Values Alliance, a loose coalition of Chinese-Australians who promote “democracy and freedom” and are critical of Beijing’s policies. Last week he was prominently involved in the Sydney book launch of Prof Clive Hamilton’s book Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia, which details covert, state-sponsored or co-ordinated operations to exert Chinese Communist party influence in Australia. You might have missed an edit I made to my reply to you within a couple of minutes of when I wrote it, in which I remembered that people engaged in public or journalistic type things are held to a different standard (more likely to be refused entry.) So as far as I personally am concerned, I think if I did something with a lot of visibility I would have to watch what I say and do, especially if I was literally doing something that would be considered activism. Do you think I should edit my original reply to you to remove the sentence "But that doesn't mean you can't have ever touched a gun, cocaine, or heroin in your life, it's not retroactive. To prove my case, let me say that Taiwan is an independent country, Tibet doesn't belong to China, and, hmmmm what else don't they like. Oh Xi is a dictator for wanting to be President for life."? Will this off-hand remark which has next to no audience, and made outside of China, cause me to be refused a visa in the future for no real reason? I am talking about a practical level here. I've gotten feedback from a lot of people since obviously this is a different standard than I'm used to living in the free world. I'd remove the part of my comment I just quoted if it'll get me banned from entering China. (I don't think it would.) What do you think?
dang 9y ago
Please don't take HN threads into national/political flamewar. Regardless of how correct your atrocity assessments are, this is off topic and violates the site guidelines. Others have been violating the guidelines in this thread too, but at least the other subthreads haven't gone completely out to the generic political sea. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- auganov 9y ago
  Dang, they're not "my assesments". They're cold, hard, well-known facts relevant to the discussion. Almost all the comments are political. The standard HN policy on threads that go too political is to just nix the whole thing. You know it and I know it.
  - dang 9y ago
    Even if that were true, the greater part of "assessment" is in selecting which "cold, hard, well-known facts" to mention, which not to mention, and what weighting to place on them. The facts don't tell you that. Humans make those choices, and there are infinitely many to choose from. Your description of how we moderate HN isn't really accurate. When a story is nothing but partisan politics, we may kill the thread—though more often users flag it first—but those are just the easy cases. The difficult cases are when a story is both on topic for HN, like this one, but also has overlap into intensely political areas, like this one. Then our job becomes more fine-grained, trying to support thoughtful, specific discussion and dampen generic flamewars.
    - auganov 9y ago
      Mention what? What facts may one omit that justify this ongoing atrocity? Perhaps you're just ignorant about it. In which case it only goes to show that it's an interesting, relevant fact people should be aware of. Yes, I imagine my comment might excite strong feelings more so than others - because such an atrocity does. For good reasons. The discussion has clearly settled on the moral aspects of YC doing business in China. Which seems okay with you - as long as you don't call out the actual atrocities.

eksemplar 9y ago

America has been making children afraid of blue skies with its murder drones for the past 15 years. If evil was an obstacle we wouldn’t be able to use American tech either. I’m not a fan of China and I’m certainly weary of their government spying through their tech, but I’m not really a fan of the NSA being able to read my emails either. Obviously America is the lesser evil, and it’s unfortunate that power is shifting to China, but maybe there will be some healthy lessons in American tech when you start to feel the abuse you’ve put your friends through. Probably not though.

auganov 9y ago
How exactly are uninteded civil casualties in military operations comparable to systemic and deliberate jailing and killing of innocent people? This is very low grade whataboutism.
- typon 9y ago
  "uninteded civil casualties" This is how Americans justify destroying three countries (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) and millions of lives.

logicallee 9y ago

>You won't be allowed into China if you do. My understanding is that you have to just check your free speech at the door. For example my immpression is that specifically you, auganov, even if this profile is under your real name, would be allowed into China without any issue. (Despite what you've just written.) The standard I've heard said is that "you wouldn't be able to stand in Tiananman square with a 'Free Tibet' sign". To those of us in the free world, that's a ridiculously stifling standard. You can stand in Washington or Times Square with a sign reading whatever you want, 'it's a free country'. China, obviously, isn't. You can't use the standard "hey, it's a free country" because it's not. But this does not extend to your speech outside of China. Trying to bring your free speech into China seems (to me), on a practical level, like trying to bring your heroin, cocaine, and guns in your carry-on to America. Can't do that (and there would be serious consequences.) But that doesn't mean you can't have ever touched a gun, cocaine, or heroin in your life, it's not retroactive. To prove my case, let me say that Taiwan is an independent country, Tibet doesn't belong to China, and, hmmmm what else don't they like. Oh Xi is a dictator for wanting to be President for life. I wouldn't ever say any of those things if I'm in China, even in English, even on an international forum, because I would have checked my free speech at the border. On a practical level state oppression is a huge private business. When you're in China you're not free, even in your mundane online speech, such as in private messages in wechat. People pay attention to watching what they say, on an everyday level. But to return to my point, it doesn't mean you wouldn't be allowed in China if you expressed your thoughts previously in the free world. EDIT: I forgot to mention, I've heard an exception for journalists, in the sense that their previous speech is examined more closely, but I don't know if they're refused entry or just watched more closely once there.

auganov 9y ago
False. Examples: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42053790 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42053790 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/22/australian-critic-of-beijing-refused-entry-to-china-and-deported https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/22/australian-cri... Be notable or persistent enough and it'll get you banned.
- logicallee 9y ago
  Both of the articles references say "You should know" The Katy Perry article says there was no official reason given or confirmation but: >But the Global Times, a state-run tabloid, chimed in, saying that if it was true "they had brought it on themselves". It further references that Katy Perry wore a flower dress, an Anti-China symbol, while giving a concert in Taiwan, and that she "draped Taiwan's flag at the concert. It caused a backlash in China, with many accusing her of supporting Taiwanese independence." This kind of counts as activist activity and most importantly it did not happen abroad, but in China or Taiwan. The second article says: >“I asked them, ‘What’s the reason?’,” Hugh said. “Their answer was pretty diplomatic, they said, ‘You should know’.” and it says: >Hugh is the head of the Australian Values Alliance, a loose coalition of Chinese-Australians who promote “democracy and freedom” and are critical of Beijing’s policies. Last week he was prominently involved in the Sydney book launch of Prof Clive Hamilton’s book Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia, which details covert, state-sponsored or co-ordinated operations to exert Chinese Communist party influence in Australia. You might have missed an edit I made to my reply to you within a couple of minutes of when I wrote it, in which I remembered that people engaged in public or journalistic type things are held to a different standard (more likely to be refused entry.) So as far as I personally am concerned, I think if I did something with a lot of visibility I would have to watch what I say and do, especially if I was literally doing something that would be considered activism. Do you think I should edit my original reply to you to remove the sentence "But that doesn't mean you can't have ever touched a gun, cocaine, or heroin in your life, it's not retroactive. To prove my case, let me say that Taiwan is an independent country, Tibet doesn't belong to China, and, hmmmm what else don't they like. Oh Xi is a dictator for wanting to be President for life."? Will this off-hand remark which has next to no audience, and made outside of China, cause me to be refused a visa in the future for no real reason? I am talking about a practical level here. I've gotten feedback from a lot of people since obviously this is a different standard than I'm used to living in the free world. I'd remove the part of my comment I just quoted if it'll get me banned from entering China. (I don't think it would.) What do you think?

dang 9y ago

Please don't take HN threads into national/political flamewar. Regardless of how correct your atrocity assessments are, this is off topic and violates the site guidelines. Others have been violating the guidelines in this thread too, but at least the other subthreads haven't gone completely out to the generic political sea. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

auganov 9y ago
Dang, they're not "my assesments". They're cold, hard, well-known facts relevant to the discussion. Almost all the comments are political. The standard HN policy on threads that go too political is to just nix the whole thing. You know it and I know it.
- dang 9y ago
  Even if that were true, the greater part of "assessment" is in selecting which "cold, hard, well-known facts" to mention, which not to mention, and what weighting to place on them. The facts don't tell you that. Humans make those choices, and there are infinitely many to choose from. Your description of how we moderate HN isn't really accurate. When a story is nothing but partisan politics, we may kill the thread—though more often users flag it first—but those are just the easy cases. The difficult cases are when a story is both on topic for HN, like this one, but also has overlap into intensely political areas, like this one. Then our job becomes more fine-grained, trying to support thoughtful, specific discussion and dampen generic flamewars.
  - auganov 9y ago
    Mention what? What facts may one omit that justify this ongoing atrocity? Perhaps you're just ignorant about it. In which case it only goes to show that it's an interesting, relevant fact people should be aware of. Yes, I imagine my comment might excite strong feelings more so than others - because such an atrocity does. For good reasons. The discussion has clearly settled on the moral aspects of YC doing business in China. Which seems okay with you - as long as you don't call out the actual atrocities.