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Maybe the middle class. As I've said elsewhere, there's a profit-incentive to suppress human rights as this limits the ability for people to demand higher wage

Maybe the middle class. As I've said elsewhere, there's a profit-incentive to suppress human rights as this limits the ability for people to demand higher wages. The working poor aren't seeing the uplift, and if they have, the burden has been moved to Uyghur 're-education' camps.

whimsicalism 6y ago
> The working poor aren't seeing the uplift Psh. This comment is just inaccurate, but not unsurprising given general HN bias on China. 700 million to 7 million working under $2/hr in 25 years, but sure 'no uplift' for the working poor.
h0l0cube 6y ago
Got a mystery down vote on my comment. Just FYI, whimsicalism, I didn't downvote you (or anyone in these comments for that matter). But to answer you, I"m not talking about populations at large being uplifted, I"m talking about what's at the very bottom. I'm also talking about the middle to lower class in the US. The notion that access to human rights will continue to increase monotonically for everyone by default isn't bearing out in the present day, at best, people are trading places across the globe. The mid-West of the US with the upper-middle-class of China, for instance.
- lazylizard 6y ago
  didnt up or down vote. but just saying. practically all of the 1b people that the un claim have been lifted out of poverty in the last 3 or 4 decades are chinese. in fact. the chinese recently just claimed to have finished the job. apparently the very last village classified as being in poverty there got reclassified.
  - h0l0cube 6y ago
    Have people forgotten about the Uyghur concentration camps already? China claim it's not happening, and yet a number of ally countries (in the middle east of all places) have declared their praise for the initiative. These are basically slaves (a sharp drop in human rights and wage, obviously), for the profit of China. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83-major-brands-implicated-in-report-on-forced-labour-of-ethnic-minorities-from-xinjiang-assigned-to-factories-across-provinces-includes-company-responses/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83...
MattGaiser 6y ago
Working poor is an upgrade from starving peasant.
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25404875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25404875
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    I don't disagree that it is an important issue, but for a population the size of China, 1 million is a small number.
    - h0l0cube 6y ago
      It seems everyone is talking past the point I keep restating, that you can't have this fabled improvement to quality of life borne from 'the economy' apropos of nothing. Quality of life, and also a living wage, comes from the establishment and endurance of human rights. If government can violently crush dissent, there's no room for workers' rights, there's no incentive to give pay rises etc. and you get phenomena like this: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201123-the-psychology-behind-revenge-bedtime-procrastination https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201123-the-psychology... But that's just the start, and the situation with the Uyghurs is the tip of the iceberg, plenty of that is going on in sweatshops around the world. Anyway, I won't keep on repeating myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25405400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25405400 > 1 million is a small number. What sort of monster are you? And you can be sure that this problem is still happening across the broader population at the tail end. Any talk of China lifting its citizens out of poverty has to be viewed sceptically, given their brazen lack of transparency.

whimsicalism 6y ago

> The working poor aren't seeing the uplift Psh. This comment is just inaccurate, but not unsurprising given general HN bias on China. 700 million to 7 million working under $2/hr in 25 years, but sure 'no uplift' for the working poor.

h0l0cube 6y ago

Got a mystery down vote on my comment. Just FYI, whimsicalism, I didn't downvote you (or anyone in these comments for that matter). But to answer you, I"m not talking about populations at large being uplifted, I"m talking about what's at the very bottom. I'm also talking about the middle to lower class in the US. The notion that access to human rights will continue to increase monotonically for everyone by default isn't bearing out in the present day, at best, people are trading places across the globe. The mid-West of the US with the upper-middle-class of China, for instance.

lazylizard 6y ago
didnt up or down vote. but just saying. practically all of the 1b people that the un claim have been lifted out of poverty in the last 3 or 4 decades are chinese. in fact. the chinese recently just claimed to have finished the job. apparently the very last village classified as being in poverty there got reclassified.
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  Have people forgotten about the Uyghur concentration camps already? China claim it's not happening, and yet a number of ally countries (in the middle east of all places) have declared their praise for the initiative. These are basically slaves (a sharp drop in human rights and wage, obviously), for the profit of China. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83-major-brands-implicated-in-report-on-forced-labour-of-ethnic-minorities-from-xinjiang-assigned-to-factories-across-provinces-includes-company-responses/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83...

MattGaiser 6y ago

Working poor is an upgrade from starving peasant.

h0l0cube 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25404875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25404875
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  I don't disagree that it is an important issue, but for a population the size of China, 1 million is a small number.
  - h0l0cube 6y ago
    It seems everyone is talking past the point I keep restating, that you can't have this fabled improvement to quality of life borne from 'the economy' apropos of nothing. Quality of life, and also a living wage, comes from the establishment and endurance of human rights. If government can violently crush dissent, there's no room for workers' rights, there's no incentive to give pay rises etc. and you get phenomena like this: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201123-the-psychology-behind-revenge-bedtime-procrastination https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201123-the-psychology... But that's just the start, and the situation with the Uyghurs is the tip of the iceberg, plenty of that is going on in sweatshops around the world. Anyway, I won't keep on repeating myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25405400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25405400 > 1 million is a small number. What sort of monster are you? And you can be sure that this problem is still happening across the broader population at the tail end. Any talk of China lifting its citizens out of poverty has to be viewed sceptically, given their brazen lack of transparency.