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I think the point of coldtea's comment is that: - We're being inconsistent with our criticism, unwilling to apply it as a universal standard - We're talking a

I think the point of coldtea's comment is that: - We're being inconsistent with our criticism, unwilling to apply it as a universal standard - We're talking about others (Chinese) needing to rebel, blaming this on brainwashing, without adknowledging our own inability and unwillingness to act, without being willing to label this brainwashing - We're building over the course of increasingly ignorant veiled-criticism posts of foreign cultures a dog-whistle for Chinese racism within our tech culture - We're narrowly conceptualizing the issues fundamental to these technologies, spending our energy on exasperation that contributes to nationalistic sentiment, rather than addressing the global systemic abuse - Our "blindspot" of admitting our own state the abuse of information fundamentally carves out, via the course of international law and sovereignty, the justification for other countries to do the exact same In essence: fixing this kind of thing starts at home in the United States. Sunday morning HN comment anguish over the Uighurs of China is navel gazing.

coldtea 8y ago
That. To add: 1) The complaints are often either hypocritical or naive, mirroring whatever target the official US policy (and thus media) have at that year. People oblivious to 99% of the goings-on around the world merely parrot opinions they read in the media about 1-2 select places, in tandem with official national "interests" against those places. At the same time when you see tons of blog posts, and media stories and so on (and movies and TV series) against country/situation X, you don't see any about country Y which is similarly or much worse, but an ally (or indifferent). E.g. complaining about the treatment of gay/women in place X but always forgetting Saudi Arabia unless it happens to coincide with some beef their country has with it. 2) Opinions used to sell state action and interventions, with blatant disregard for nuance and for the people in the area they're supposed to help. E.g. whenever there was an intervention to "bring democracy" etc, it created worse power vacuums and civil war hellholes in the places it touched (e.g. Iraq, Libya, Syria, jut in the last 15 years) -- but of course it also sold trillions of war merchandise.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > People oblivious to 99% of the goings-on around the world merely parrot opinions they read in the media about 1-2 select places If you had been about to respond to that commenter "You are oblivious to 99% of the going on's around the world [0] and merely parrot opinions you read in the media", that probably would have given you pause. Being more indirect isn't being more polite, in my books. [0] that could be parsed as either "to 99% of the stuff of which I am aware of, so I am aware of 100 times more things than you", or as "to 99% of all the stuff that actually goes on the world, which would mean you are aware of 1% of everything going on right now, which would make you something between Q and God", both of which are silly. > At the same time when you see tons of blog posts, and media stories and so on (and movies and TV series) against country/situation X, you don't see any about country Y which is similarly or much worse, but an ally (or indifferent). Another way to look at it is that 99.999% (exactly) of the stories here are basically fluff that can disappear quicker than you say "whoops" if the serious stuff isn't dealt with. How come that the precious few cases when something serious, whether it's in the US or elsewhere, gets some attention, are played off against each other? What does this achieve? What does this create room for? It's not a zero-sum game, where making assumptions about a commenter who made a very short comment stating a simple fact, without a hint of any of the stuff you conjure up, somehow improves discussion taking place elsewhere or in the future.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >[0] that could be parsed as either "to 99% of the stuff of which I am aware of, so I am aware of 100 times more things than you", or as "to 99% of all the stuff that actually goes on the world, which would mean you are aware of 1% of everything going on right now, which would make you something between Q and God", both of which are silly. Both of which are accurate (which is almost as good as polite). The average American can't pinpoint Belgium on the map, much less understand global inter-state politics. The people who do (and who don't just have an opinion based on reading NYT or Economist or worse Time) are much less. We're not even talking about having a nuanced opinion here, with all the subtleties of the history of the countries involved, etc. Being from a country that has actual involvement with 20th/21st century history (with other nations etc), not as something abstract that happens away, but in real time, also helps. As opposed to an isolated huge country where the main concerns are the local (state) affairs, and where the average person seldom if ever reads foreign literature, seldom if ever listens to foreign music, and almost never watches foreign movies. Heck, the average person don't even watch the other countries' athletes in Olympics, the media only give them an one-sided US athletes coverage. Heck, the average German or Frenchman can tell a lot more about global affairs than the average American, and I've had such discussions in all of those countries and more. Heck, most Americans can't tell who their own Vice President is.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
> We're being inconsistent with our criticism, unwilling to apply it as a universal standard How do you even know? These complaints are never in direct response to a person who clearly espoused a hypocritical position, it's just general talking into the room, or in response to an assumption. > rather than addressing the global systemic abuse How is "but the NSA" achieving that? Or simply assuming someone else has this > "blindspot" of admitting our own state ... what is "our", here? Americans? Humans? Carbon-based lifeforms? "The West"? If you have to make everything this diffuse and global and systemic to even tackle it, what's your proposed first step? What is a comment you like? > Sunday morning HN comment anguish over the Uighurs of China is navel gazing. I don't know what sunday morning HN comment anguish is supposed to be, but I know that not looking away, even when you could have easily looked away and people would prefer you to, is always good, even just for the person doing it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  I mean, there's a two minutes hate against China on the front page of HN almost every day. Unless you believe China is the sole source of evil in this world (and I'm sure some do!), there is clearly a bit of nationalist bias Oh, neat, I'm shadowbanned :)
jryle70 8y ago
> We're being inconsistent with our criticism, unwilling to apply it as a universal standard A cursory search on HN will give you countless counter-examples. Can you give me an example of the inconsistency? Are you suggesting there should be no posts criticizing China? or every such a post should have a banner claiming "Be gentle. Don't criticize too much. Look into the mirror"? how about HN visitors not from the US? > We're talking about others (Chinese) needing to rebel, blaming this on brainwashing, without adknowledging our own inability and unwillingness to act, without being willing to label this brainwashing You know what is brainwashing? "China’s most popular app is a propaganda tool teaching Xi Jinping Thought" [0] > Our "blindspot" of admitting our own state the abuse of information fundamentally carves out, via the course of international law and sovereignty, the justification for other countries to do the exact same First off, the US is not the leader of surveillance. Other countries don't need US's approval to implement their own surveillance. What a smack of arrogance. Are you sure you don't believe in American supremacy? Secondly, I'm not aware of any "international law" that justifies surveillance because "the US does it". > In essence: fixing this kind of thing starts at home in the United States. Sunday morning HN comment anguish over the Uighurs of China is navel gazing. This reminds me of the the argument against space exploration: "Fix issues on Earth first before thinking of Mars". You know how absurd it is. [0] https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/2186037/chinas-most-popular-app-propaganda-tool-teaching-xi-jinping-thought https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/2186037/chinas...

coldtea 8y ago

That. To add: 1) The complaints are often either hypocritical or naive, mirroring whatever target the official US policy (and thus media) have at that year. People oblivious to 99% of the goings-on around the world merely parrot opinions they read in the media about 1-2 select places, in tandem with official national "interests" against those places. At the same time when you see tons of blog posts, and media stories and so on (and movies and TV series) against country/situation X, you don't see any about country Y which is similarly or much worse, but an ally (or indifferent). E.g. complaining about the treatment of gay/women in place X but always forgetting Saudi Arabia unless it happens to coincide with some beef their country has with it. 2) Opinions used to sell state action and interventions, with blatant disregard for nuance and for the people in the area they're supposed to help. E.g. whenever there was an intervention to "bring democracy" etc, it created worse power vacuums and civil war hellholes in the places it touched (e.g. Iraq, Libya, Syria, jut in the last 15 years) -- but of course it also sold trillions of war merchandise.

PavlovsCat 8y ago
> People oblivious to 99% of the goings-on around the world merely parrot opinions they read in the media about 1-2 select places If you had been about to respond to that commenter "You are oblivious to 99% of the going on's around the world [0] and merely parrot opinions you read in the media", that probably would have given you pause. Being more indirect isn't being more polite, in my books. [0] that could be parsed as either "to 99% of the stuff of which I am aware of, so I am aware of 100 times more things than you", or as "to 99% of all the stuff that actually goes on the world, which would mean you are aware of 1% of everything going on right now, which would make you something between Q and God", both of which are silly. > At the same time when you see tons of blog posts, and media stories and so on (and movies and TV series) against country/situation X, you don't see any about country Y which is similarly or much worse, but an ally (or indifferent). Another way to look at it is that 99.999% (exactly) of the stories here are basically fluff that can disappear quicker than you say "whoops" if the serious stuff isn't dealt with. How come that the precious few cases when something serious, whether it's in the US or elsewhere, gets some attention, are played off against each other? What does this achieve? What does this create room for? It's not a zero-sum game, where making assumptions about a commenter who made a very short comment stating a simple fact, without a hint of any of the stuff you conjure up, somehow improves discussion taking place elsewhere or in the future.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >[0] that could be parsed as either "to 99% of the stuff of which I am aware of, so I am aware of 100 times more things than you", or as "to 99% of all the stuff that actually goes on the world, which would mean you are aware of 1% of everything going on right now, which would make you something between Q and God", both of which are silly. Both of which are accurate (which is almost as good as polite). The average American can't pinpoint Belgium on the map, much less understand global inter-state politics. The people who do (and who don't just have an opinion based on reading NYT or Economist or worse Time) are much less. We're not even talking about having a nuanced opinion here, with all the subtleties of the history of the countries involved, etc. Being from a country that has actual involvement with 20th/21st century history (with other nations etc), not as something abstract that happens away, but in real time, also helps. As opposed to an isolated huge country where the main concerns are the local (state) affairs, and where the average person seldom if ever reads foreign literature, seldom if ever listens to foreign music, and almost never watches foreign movies. Heck, the average person don't even watch the other countries' athletes in Olympics, the media only give them an one-sided US athletes coverage. Heck, the average German or Frenchman can tell a lot more about global affairs than the average American, and I've had such discussions in all of those countries and more. Heck, most Americans can't tell who their own Vice President is.

PavlovsCat 8y ago

> We're being inconsistent with our criticism, unwilling to apply it as a universal standard How do you even know? These complaints are never in direct response to a person who clearly espoused a hypocritical position, it's just general talking into the room, or in response to an assumption. > rather than addressing the global systemic abuse How is "but the NSA" achieving that? Or simply assuming someone else has this > "blindspot" of admitting our own state ... what is "our", here? Americans? Humans? Carbon-based lifeforms? "The West"? If you have to make everything this diffuse and global and systemic to even tackle it, what's your proposed first step? What is a comment you like? > Sunday morning HN comment anguish over the Uighurs of China is navel gazing. I don't know what sunday morning HN comment anguish is supposed to be, but I know that not looking away, even when you could have easily looked away and people would prefer you to, is always good, even just for the person doing it.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yourbandsucks 8y ago
I mean, there's a two minutes hate against China on the front page of HN almost every day. Unless you believe China is the sole source of evil in this world (and I'm sure some do!), there is clearly a bit of nationalist bias Oh, neat, I'm shadowbanned :)

jryle70 8y ago

> We're being inconsistent with our criticism, unwilling to apply it as a universal standard A cursory search on HN will give you countless counter-examples. Can you give me an example of the inconsistency? Are you suggesting there should be no posts criticizing China? or every such a post should have a banner claiming "Be gentle. Don't criticize too much. Look into the mirror"? how about HN visitors not from the US? > We're talking about others (Chinese) needing to rebel, blaming this on brainwashing, without adknowledging our own inability and unwillingness to act, without being willing to label this brainwashing You know what is brainwashing? "China’s most popular app is a propaganda tool teaching Xi Jinping Thought" [0] > Our "blindspot" of admitting our own state the abuse of information fundamentally carves out, via the course of international law and sovereignty, the justification for other countries to do the exact same First off, the US is not the leader of surveillance. Other countries don't need US's approval to implement their own surveillance. What a smack of arrogance. Are you sure you don't believe in American supremacy? Secondly, I'm not aware of any "international law" that justifies surveillance because "the US does it". > In essence: fixing this kind of thing starts at home in the United States. Sunday morning HN comment anguish over the Uighurs of China is navel gazing. This reminds me of the the argument against space exploration: "Fix issues on Earth first before thinking of Mars". You know how absurd it is. [0] https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/2186037/chinas-most-popular-app-propaganda-tool-teaching-xi-jinping-thought https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/2186037/chinas...