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Actions that cost lives should always be front and center. Maybe we should be talking more about the Iraq war in the USA, considering our actions led to the de

Actions that cost lives should always be front and center. Maybe we should be talking more about the Iraq war in the USA, considering our actions led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. I contend the opposite: The only way to survive the next century is if we identify sources of death and misery, and (try) to hold leaders accountable to stamp them out.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
The Chinese government has overwhelmingly reduced death and misery within their borders. Half a billion people moved from third world to first world. Half. A. Billion. And their big foreign policy power play consists of building infrastructure for other third world countries. Turns out you can do that for 10 countries cheaper than invading one. Yet the popular opinion ever since dragonfly was proposed is that they're the worst country ever. How about some perspective?
- taneq 8y ago
  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, eh?
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    More like: Life is complicated and not black and white. The Chinese actions in Xinjiang are an overreaction, and wrong, but: 1) Every western country has an equivalently bad record regarding reaction to terror attacks and/or separatist movements. 2) Nobody in the tech community cared until the dragonfly thing came up and they all went on wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China. The way people talk about China these days reminds me of McCarthyism more than humanism. I have to wonder, if China were less successful, and the people were poorer, would they be less upset? They're fine with buying cheap goods, after all..
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      > Life is complicated and not black and white. vs. stuff like > yet the popular opinion ever since dragonfly was proposed is that they're the worst country ever. and > Nobody in the tech community cared until the dragonfly thing came up and they all went on wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China. Nobody cared? Went on Wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China? Is anyone allowed to guess about the causes of such sophistry, or does that just go one way?
      - yourbandsucks 8y ago
        Check the record. We didn't have 3 hate pieces a day on China hitting the front page of HN until dragonfly. Maybe you want to take a crack at why?
        PavlovsCat 8y ago
        I'm not up for games around something as important as this. Face what I wrote, or let your inability to do that be the answer.
        yourbandsucks 8y ago
        You wrote a couple of sentence fragments in between my quotes, it's not clear at all what you were trying to say. But you're right that it's important. We've got to keep building up cultural connections and avoid a cold war. Everyone loses from that. It would be a travesty to give up the amazing human gains of the last 30 years.
        PavlovsCat 8y ago
        I was trying to say that you are using a very black and white view yourself. E.g. you haven't witnessed even one person actually "hitting WP to find reasons to hate China for", but outright state that goes for everybody criticizing China. And I can't say much about "hate pieces" or whatnot just yet, I only just started to track the rank, score, and comment count of HN stories. So far it seems to go both ways, both things critical of China and positive articles can get penalized. I started doing it because I was suspicious, but then I continued doing it because it helps me find interesting things I would otherwise not have seen (at least not on HN). For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595215 https://i.imgur.com/inbQSJe.png https://i.imgur.com/inbQSJe.png That was never higher than page 6 (the colored bands are pages). And frankly, that's a more interesting and solid article than anything else I saw on HN about that "CRISPR baby", including comments. Oh by the way, did you know the doctor is now missing? If you do, it's not thanks to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18594814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18594814 https://i.imgur.com/0YTEwj4.png https://i.imgur.com/0YTEwj4.png This one had plenty traction, but wasn't allowed to run its course in peace either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18591521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18591521 https://i.imgur.com/jHZMjBf.png https://i.imgur.com/jHZMjBf.png (all graphs go from right to left, dots are in 5 minute intervals, rising line is number of comments, and there green dots mean < 10 comments, yellow < 100, orange < 1000 comments) To be fair, here's one example I spotted where something got flagged that was not critical of China, and while I can't judge the quality of the article compared to others on the subject, I would say it's a perfectly fine and interesting topic for HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18600499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18600499 https://i.imgur.com/GiduxhB.png https://i.imgur.com/GiduxhB.png It's too early to tell, ask me again in 3-6 months. Manipulation of public discourse, even if it's by said public itself, by groups flagging what they don't like, by definition has a public effect that can be measured. Drawing conclusions as to why something is happening is much harder than to find out whether it's happening, but even that will take time. Though the end result will probably be "it's a mess, all sorts of fuckery going on, impossible to tell where one sort of fuckery ends and the next one begins". I do not envy the moderators of this site, that's for sure. But it'll make pretty graphs so there's that.
- hueving 8y ago
  >And their big foreign policy power play consists of building infrastructure for other third world countries. We'll ignore the whole part about stealing everyone's intellectual property as a matter of business and that activity in the South China Sea. How about Taiwan? >Yet the popular opinion ever since dragonfly was proposed is that they're the worst country ever. People criticize their shitty actions because they are shitty. Nobody said they are the worst country at all. They just said that a company who cares about organizing the worlds information and not being evil shouldn't partake in oppressive censorship.

yourbandsucks 8y ago

The Chinese government has overwhelmingly reduced death and misery within their borders. Half a billion people moved from third world to first world. Half. A. Billion. And their big foreign policy power play consists of building infrastructure for other third world countries. Turns out you can do that for 10 countries cheaper than invading one. Yet the popular opinion ever since dragonfly was proposed is that they're the worst country ever. How about some perspective?

taneq 8y ago
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, eh?
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  More like: Life is complicated and not black and white. The Chinese actions in Xinjiang are an overreaction, and wrong, but: 1) Every western country has an equivalently bad record regarding reaction to terror attacks and/or separatist movements. 2) Nobody in the tech community cared until the dragonfly thing came up and they all went on wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China. The way people talk about China these days reminds me of McCarthyism more than humanism. I have to wonder, if China were less successful, and the people were poorer, would they be less upset? They're fine with buying cheap goods, after all..
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > Life is complicated and not black and white. vs. stuff like > yet the popular opinion ever since dragonfly was proposed is that they're the worst country ever. and > Nobody in the tech community cared until the dragonfly thing came up and they all went on wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China. Nobody cared? Went on Wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China? Is anyone allowed to guess about the causes of such sophistry, or does that just go one way?
    - yourbandsucks 8y ago
      Check the record. We didn't have 3 hate pieces a day on China hitting the front page of HN until dragonfly. Maybe you want to take a crack at why?
      - PavlovsCat 8y ago
        I'm not up for games around something as important as this. Face what I wrote, or let your inability to do that be the answer.
        yourbandsucks 8y ago
        You wrote a couple of sentence fragments in between my quotes, it's not clear at all what you were trying to say. But you're right that it's important. We've got to keep building up cultural connections and avoid a cold war. Everyone loses from that. It would be a travesty to give up the amazing human gains of the last 30 years.
        PavlovsCat 8y ago
        I was trying to say that you are using a very black and white view yourself. E.g. you haven't witnessed even one person actually "hitting WP to find reasons to hate China for", but outright state that goes for everybody criticizing China. And I can't say much about "hate pieces" or whatnot just yet, I only just started to track the rank, score, and comment count of HN stories. So far it seems to go both ways, both things critical of China and positive articles can get penalized. I started doing it because I was suspicious, but then I continued doing it because it helps me find interesting things I would otherwise not have seen (at least not on HN). For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595215 https://i.imgur.com/inbQSJe.png https://i.imgur.com/inbQSJe.png That was never higher than page 6 (the colored bands are pages). And frankly, that's a more interesting and solid article than anything else I saw on HN about that "CRISPR baby", including comments. Oh by the way, did you know the doctor is now missing? If you do, it's not thanks to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18594814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18594814 https://i.imgur.com/0YTEwj4.png https://i.imgur.com/0YTEwj4.png This one had plenty traction, but wasn't allowed to run its course in peace either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18591521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18591521 https://i.imgur.com/jHZMjBf.png https://i.imgur.com/jHZMjBf.png (all graphs go from right to left, dots are in 5 minute intervals, rising line is number of comments, and there green dots mean < 10 comments, yellow < 100, orange < 1000 comments) To be fair, here's one example I spotted where something got flagged that was not critical of China, and while I can't judge the quality of the article compared to others on the subject, I would say it's a perfectly fine and interesting topic for HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18600499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18600499 https://i.imgur.com/GiduxhB.png https://i.imgur.com/GiduxhB.png It's too early to tell, ask me again in 3-6 months. Manipulation of public discourse, even if it's by said public itself, by groups flagging what they don't like, by definition has a public effect that can be measured. Drawing conclusions as to why something is happening is much harder than to find out whether it's happening, but even that will take time. Though the end result will probably be "it's a mess, all sorts of fuckery going on, impossible to tell where one sort of fuckery ends and the next one begins". I do not envy the moderators of this site, that's for sure. But it'll make pretty graphs so there's that.
hueving 8y ago
>And their big foreign policy power play consists of building infrastructure for other third world countries. We'll ignore the whole part about stealing everyone's intellectual property as a matter of business and that activity in the South China Sea. How about Taiwan? >Yet the popular opinion ever since dragonfly was proposed is that they're the worst country ever. People criticize their shitty actions because they are shitty. Nobody said they are the worst country at all. They just said that a company who cares about organizing the worlds information and not being evil shouldn't partake in oppressive censorship.