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> I’m not justifying them, actively supporting a corrupt system is a corrupt thing to do Ok, I'll justify them. There is almost no chance that anyone in the sa
by keanzu 7y ago
> I’m not justifying them, actively supporting a corrupt system is a corrupt thing to do
Ok, I'll justify them. There is almost no chance that anyone in the saga decided to do the evil thing because they wanted to watch the world burn. Not the government policy makers nor the police who carried out their orders. Every person is doing what they believe is the right thing. Some of the people were mistaken. With the benefit of hindsight we can see that Li Wenliang was not mistaken.
How many SARS II hoaxes has the government stomped on that we never heard about. How many doctors or patients in a nation of ~billion people have misidentified an outbreak of the common cold as "the next SARS" in the last 17 years. They aggressively stamp out the embers of a rumor before it gets going and becomes a raging fire of panic. This time the government erred, it wasn't a misidentification, the virus was real. They aren't evil or corrupt or murderous. They are fallible humans and they make a mistake.
- radicaldreamer 7y agoWhat hoaxes would have involved 7-8 doctors in the same city, at the same time?
- edanm 7y agoThat's a false dichotomy. It isn't either a hoax, or real. More importantly, it isn't that either the government decides to stamp out info, or hoaxes/misidentifications will become a "raging fire of panic". In most of the western world (among other places), everyone is free to say what they like. The government doesn't get the right to decide what you can and can't say. And yes, hoaxes happen. Misinformation happens. But I don't think there have been these massive problems that you're foreseeing. And what's more, it's not clear that the government has the right to decide what's worse - these kinds of problems, or potentially more people dying.
- keanzu 7y agoI was trying to suggest that human are fallible - doctors, patients, police and policy makers all; however I used the word hoax way too much as both responses focus on that. I've reworded. Hopefully that addresses the issue? > the government decides to stamp out info There are other ways, as you've described, but I believe this is the way the Chinese government has demonstrated that they prefer to handle it. You can argue it is a wrong choice but I can't accept the OP's characterization of it as a corrupt choice.
- throwaway1997 7y agoThat would maybe work if he wasn't arrested for talking about this problem in a private WeChat group. Li wasn't trying to announce it to the world at this point, he was just discussing with his peers.