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These issues need discussion in a neutral venue. China is not a model of anything but given the intense debate in the US about the systemic corruption of the lo

by throw2016 7y ago

These issues need discussion in a neutral venue. China is not a model of anything but given the intense debate in the US about the systemic corruption of the lobbying system pointing fingers at others as if corruption is somehow unique to 'other countries' seems cognitive dissonance. Political corruption is the single biggest source of corruption in most countries which is done officially in the US. Just because you make something 'legal' doesn't suddenly make it any less corrupt. The 2008 banking crisis revealed massive levels of fraud, collusion and corruption in the banking system and the bailouts with 'too big to fail' betray something even more deep seated and systemic. There is a huge problem of revolving doors across industries with regulators getting hired by the companies they were regulating and politicians getting hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches. There is a well documented history of corruption in banking, real estate, pharma, energy and multiple other sectors and we have even seen this entering education. Most commentators know about the widespread corruption in their countries but there is weird dissonance and finger pointing making any kind of informed discussion impossible.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Yeah I agree. Adding to that, there's a sort of nationalistic competition driving the bias as well. The united states was top dog in terms of GDP, the trend towards china unseating that throne in the coming years drives a lot of this dissonance. What in your opinion is a neutral venue? I like the technical expertise here but opinions are definitely not neutral.
- icebraining 7y ago
  A neutral opinion seems a contradiction in terms. Is your opinion neutral? What distinguishes it from the rest of the opinions here?
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    The bias on this forum is largely American european or western. How do I know this? Language. You'd obviously get a different flavor of bias on a chinese forum. Can you imagine yourself claiming your own country to be more corrupt than another? If not then how can you imagine a prideful chinese person doing the same? Bias colors every corner of this forum just like it would color a chinese forum. I would say I am less biased on this topic than the average person on HN. How can I say that though when bias can color my judgement on my own bias? How can anyone say such a thing due to this recursive fact? I believe the method around this problem is not to use your own judgement to judge bias in your own judgement but to look at external factors surrounding your circumstance and use probabilistic causative connections between those external factors and possible bias to determine a persons' overall level of bias. For example, an African living in the congo will have less bias on a China vs. America debate than a chinese person, an icelander will be less biased than a new yorker for the same debate. The external factor in the previous examples is race and location. So for me I come from a more different background. I am chinese and american. I hold no nationalistic pride for either country and I could see my self living in either country if need be. It's apples and oranges to me, literally. Racially though, I'm chinese so from circumstance my bias would be equal to an chinese born american but less than an american born white guy or an asian born mongoloid. Overall I'm probably more biased than the african. In short, I am less biased than most people on this forum because of my background. So a neutral venue would be like people who talk about this stuff but are mostly from like singapore.

crimsonalucard 7y ago

Yeah I agree. Adding to that, there's a sort of nationalistic competition driving the bias as well. The united states was top dog in terms of GDP, the trend towards china unseating that throne in the coming years drives a lot of this dissonance. What in your opinion is a neutral venue? I like the technical expertise here but opinions are definitely not neutral.

icebraining 7y ago
A neutral opinion seems a contradiction in terms. Is your opinion neutral? What distinguishes it from the rest of the opinions here?
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  The bias on this forum is largely American european or western. How do I know this? Language. You'd obviously get a different flavor of bias on a chinese forum. Can you imagine yourself claiming your own country to be more corrupt than another? If not then how can you imagine a prideful chinese person doing the same? Bias colors every corner of this forum just like it would color a chinese forum. I would say I am less biased on this topic than the average person on HN. How can I say that though when bias can color my judgement on my own bias? How can anyone say such a thing due to this recursive fact? I believe the method around this problem is not to use your own judgement to judge bias in your own judgement but to look at external factors surrounding your circumstance and use probabilistic causative connections between those external factors and possible bias to determine a persons' overall level of bias. For example, an African living in the congo will have less bias on a China vs. America debate than a chinese person, an icelander will be less biased than a new yorker for the same debate. The external factor in the previous examples is race and location. So for me I come from a more different background. I am chinese and american. I hold no nationalistic pride for either country and I could see my self living in either country if need be. It's apples and oranges to me, literally. Racially though, I'm chinese so from circumstance my bias would be equal to an chinese born american but less than an american born white guy or an asian born mongoloid. Overall I'm probably more biased than the african. In short, I am less biased than most people on this forum because of my background. So a neutral venue would be like people who talk about this stuff but are mostly from like singapore.