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What happens when the CCP decides that you need to die
- lasfter 6y agoThe warning at the top of this article did not prepare me for the images, so I'll offer an additional one: the images are more disturbing than you think. Consider turning images off to read the content.
- jonny383 6y ago"Content warning: extremely graphic distressing images of people being shot in the head by PRC security forces" Not sure how this could be any clearer.
- mettamage 6y agoThe phrase sometimes gets a bit overused. I wasn't fully prepared for some images either.
- lasfter 6y agoDistressing can be pretty subjective, and I was definitely not expecting to be THAT distressed. Figured other people might also be caught off guard.
- oulu2006 6y agoI found this warning clear enough. I think it's a good thing to include these images, we've become too used to content moderation that we're desensitized to a lot of the atrocities that are still happening daily around the world.
- tartrate 6y agoThe images are worse than that. A picture taken at a distance of someone being shot in the head is easier to see or scroll by than a closeup of a head blown in half.
- ern 6y agoThe photo of the woman whose head was blown in half by the rifle is many years (decades?) old. It’s profoundly disturbing, but it’s been widely available for a long time. That doesn’t make it any less brutal or disturbing, but it serves as a reminder of how often we are willing to turn a blind eye to atrocities when it’s economically or politically expedient.
- frereubu 6y agoI see where you’re coming from, but perhaps something like “close-ups of mutilated bodies after execution by large-calibre weapons to the head” would give more of an indication. I didn’t expect the gore, just a wide shot of someone with a gun to their head, a bit like the famous one of the add-hoc execution in the street in Vietnam by Eddie Adams.
- chroem- 6y agoQuite frankly, I suggest the opposite. Most people in the west, and especially in the US, don't appreciate just how evil the CCP is. Our corporate media has given the CCP a free pass on mass murder because many of our wealthiest people have made their fortunes through trade with China. We should all look long and hard at these images so that we don't forget them.
- lasfter 6y agoThat's a fair take. I've seen plenty of this where I'm from, so I don't really have the stomach for more.
- oulu2006 6y agoI think you've made a good point.
- barnacled 6y agoIt is fun to see criticisms of China get insta-downvoted to hell. Mine is fully referenced and went to -1 instantly... there is definitely some real denial about what the CCP actually do.
- oulu2006 6y agoYeah, I noticed, CCP agents are around in force. I upvoted, but I can only do so much.
- barnacled 6y agoI honestly wonder whether it's that or just standard HNers who are in some sort of woke-led state of denial. A totalitarian genocidal regime who has demonstrably lied consistently about everything of any importance but if you question whether, perhaps, they might have possibly done a little more about wet markets/traditional Chinese medicine given the 2003 SARS outbreak which clearly indicated this major risk area - and you get hammered for it. Go further and suggest maybe covering up the outbreak to give the virus enough time to spread everywhere was maybe not a great thing and the next virus might have a higher case fatality rate than 0.4% and that's it you're done. This is without even getting into the 'walked out of a lab' theory which would presumably get me banned off HN... It seems criticising the US, UK etc. for the slightest thing is fine but criticising totalitarian genocidal sabre-rattling pandemic-unleashing states is beyond the pale.
- dkdk8283 6y agoThe warning should be absent. This is the reality of the CCP and could be the direction that pro-censorship and pro-communist nations laud. It’s all fun and and games when popular opinion vilifies the likes of terrorists or pedophiles but it’s a slippery slope. Next thing you know the executions start for DMCA violations and so called hate speech that will radically change in 40y. As george carlin famously said we are all circulating the drain.
- sascha_sl 6y agoSome people, and stay with me here, have different reactions to graphic violence than you. Shocker, I know.
- cryptica 6y agoWell these people in particular need to toughen up and face reality so that they know what it means if the government executes someone, that it's not just a data point on a chart. They need to feel it and toughen up. If we become a nation of cowards, then those in power are going to start doing this and nobody will have the courage to stand up to it.
- sascha_sl 6y agoTrauma is a real thing people experience, and having associated triggers is not particularly rare, believe it or not. I'm sorry if some particular political leaning convinced you that's only a thing on tumblr. And I don't see how "standing up" in the US would ever do you any good, with the sheer force of militarized police and actual military. I hope this is not leading into a tired "if only Germany would've had guns" point.
- cryptica 6y agoI don't understand how 'being triggered' is a bad thing... People who 'get triggered' are too sensitive. They have to train themselves. We are on planet earth, we live then we die. This is a fact. Emotions are tools to allow us to navigate our lives as members of society. They are useful, not something we should be shielded from. We need negative emotions just like we need hunger to know we need to eat, thirst to know we need to drink, pain to know we need to avoid physical harm, etc... IMO, those who can't face reality shouldn't be involved in shaping it.
- Scapeghost 6y ago> Consider turning images off to read the content. I'm sorry, I can try to understand the well-meant intent behind this, but what, and pretend the world is all roses and rainbows? No. Leave the images on. You first world city folk need to SEE the horror that goes on beyond your ivory towers, some of it enabled by the very work that you do.
- lasfter 6y agoI wasn't always first world city folk, I've seen the horror and my family has been touched by it. I'd rather never see it again, though unfortunately news from my former home often makes it unavoidable. If you need to see brutality to empathize with the brutalized, then go ahead and look at the gore. But I think most people are emotionally capable enough to realize that executions aren't pleasant experiences without photo evidence.
- justnotworthit 6y agoWho are you yelling at? They're not here.
- tartrate 6y agoLet me put it bluntly. There is a closeup of a woman with only half a head. It comes as a surprise as the first images are not as bad, and the article's content draws you in. I had to stop there even though I wanted to continue reading.
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoAfter that image there's only a closing paragraph anyway, so you didn't miss much.
- elmo2you 6y agoPersonally, the images themselves do not particularly upset me. Maybe regretfully, but I have seen enough of the actual results of armed conflicts. Personally, I think the images of mass murders with piles of death (often naked) people from WW2 far more disturbing. However, you do correctly point out how this article appears to draw people in and then goes for maximum shock effect. I'm sure that whoever created this article did that on purpose. Even if the cited numbers happen to be accurate, this kind of tactic is rather typical for propaganda. The same can be said about producing "facts" that are either hard or impossible to verify. To be clear: I am not saying that this is propaganda, but it does at least raise a few red flags about potentially being just that. Further research needed. EDIT: to be even more clear: I have no doubt that the CCP have committed horrible crimes. But that will not make me just believe whatever somebody might write about it.
- runawaybottle 6y agoDid not expect to see an image of someone with their head half blown off. Trying to find my thoughts on this. The Einsatzgruppen pretty much started the Holocaust via mass shootings (before all other methods). They switched to gas vans (according to this article, China uses this too? What in the fuck) for some vile cognitive gymnastics where they convinced themselves it was too demoralizing for the goons to have to shoot that many people without being drunk all the time (to carry out the deed). They sought a more efficient, less taxing method, and that’s where the gas vans came in. The Nazis did this to anyone that they could lump into ‘a national threat’ bucket, so Jews that were also communist Russians were instant kill (as opposed to German Jews who initially got put in labor camps). If the CCP ever decides routine shootings is taxing or inefficient (like the Nazis), things wouldn’t be so far off to having an “efficient” death camp to just handle it en masse. I tend to always over-fit the Nazi parallels, especially with China, but China’s prime issue is scale. Whatever they do, they must always consider scale. Crackdowns will happen at scale (Hong Kong), censorship will happen at scale (speech/internet), imprisonment will happen at scale (Uighurs), and mass executions (if we were to ever get the numbers) will happen at scale. As hard it is to not turn away from that picture in the article, I would sincerely like to know what that woman’s crime was.
- ekianjo 6y ago> imprisonment will happen at scale (Uighurs), Not just imprisonment, mass raping of Uighurs women as well: https://www.insider.com/uighur-activists-mass-rape-chinese-men-xinjiang-2019-12 https://www.insider.com/uighur-activists-mass-rape-chinese-m...
- dan-robertson 6y agoI think the point of the article is that the choice to involve ordinary police officers in the killings is to give them a stake in the current regime (or at least to make them fear the consequences of any other future regime.) I don’t think more organised death camps fit with that motive, but it could be wrong.
- runawaybottle 6y agoThe Einsatzgruppen were actually like ordinary police. They were never actually told to create death camps initially, it was just more ... efficient, so Nazi sub leadership switched to that somewhat independently. This book makes an interesting point about the bottom-up theory of what really started the Holocaust (this is an unforgettable read, I feel like author literally accounted for every death batch (and yes ‘batch’ has to be used due to the scale): https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471 https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stal... Basically, it was simple broad directives that got interpreted by these disparate elements of the Nazis in the Eastern front. What does it mean if someone is not only a Jew, but also a communist Russian? Pretty much an instant threat, and forward deployed units liberally interpreted it into mass-killing vs forced labor camps. Once that genie was out of the bottle, you would look unproductive in the regime if you weren’t upping the ante. What is the CCP creating here? You want units with blood on their hands ratcheting up new and interesting ways of currying favor with the regime? Hey bosses, I found a great new way to promote CCP Authority, forget Uighur camps, get a load of this. Suddenly you have a macabre competition within a peculiar institution that can only become darker if left to find it’s own logical purpose (be the very best ccp you can be, whatever that means, and oh John the guy you started with recently rose the ranks doing this, not saying you should too, but take some initiative). No master plan, just a dark organic evolution.
- cryptica 6y agoIt's important to see the photos to properly absorb the content and message of the article. This reflex to shield one's self from reality is extremely harmful for society and it's cowardly. The fact that the images are a 'shock' to some people shows just how disconnected they are from reality. They are powerful images but they should not be shocking... The term 'killing' should already embody these emotions without the images. The emotions that people feel when looking at these images, that's exactly what 'killing a person' means.
- technicolorwhat 6y agoMaybe the thing is that we are so conditioned by having half assed censored media pictures and quotes like its graphic, that when someone finally delivers on it, we just get shocked. This is how it looks like when someone head gets blown off.
- sto_hristo 6y agoTurning those images off won't make them disappear from existence nor resurrect the victims. Stop being willfully ignorant - that alone enables any monster out there to do as they wish unaccounted for.
- barnacled 6y ago"and probably many more" is an understatement. There is mass organ harvesting from Falun Gong followers [0] and God knows how many die in the Uighur concentration camps [1]. There is a 99.9% conviction rate in crimes in China [2] (which is the same as basically having no rule of law) and political prisoners seemingly 'disappear' all the time. China are known for lying consistently about almost everything and keep a tight lid (as much as they can) on anything that would cause them to 'lose face' both within and without the country so any estimates are likely significantly low. [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go... [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps [2]:https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-9/ https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-...
- barnacled 6y agoThe fact this fully-referenced post got insta-downvoted to -1 says it all about HN.
- strogonoff 6y agoI strongly suspect it would be beneficial to require a downvote to be accompanied by a comment. Even if it is an optional thread property depending on the nature of the link posted, and is at moderator’s discretion.
- CyanBird 6y ago> It says all about HN. You mean well educated? "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"; Wikipedia and lots of writeups tracing back to the singular source of Adrian Zenz are not it sadly
- abc-xyz 6y agoMost of the claims have nothing to do with Adrian Zenz, and I’d love to know what you have against him since his reporting seem to be factually accurate.
- yters 6y agoFortunately the mods are asleep right now, otherwise this would already get flagged for drawing "ideological debates," the worst thing ever on HN.
- abc-xyz 6y agoI think the reason it stayed up is because the wumaos have been sleeping on the job. At least it took them a good hour to flag it off the site.. but yeah, the mods are complicit as well since they allow the wumaos to so easily censor content by abusing the flag system.
- CommanderData 6y agoIt's been flagged?
- abc-xyz 6y agoHow else would you explain the rank 2 thread with 100+ upvotes, no flamebait comments (at the time) and only 1 hour old disappearing off the site (I checked 5+ pages)? All threads critical of China follow this pattern, and I highly doubt it’s dang personally removing them (because he sometimes reinstate them).
- CommanderData 6y agoHm interesting. The Hn AstroTurfing is real I guess.
- dang 6y agoPlease read and follow the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. They ask you not to post insinuations about astroturfing, foreign agents, and the like. If you don't have any evidence, the odds are overwhelming that this is internet users indulging in fantasy stories about how their enemies are sinisterly manipulating everything. That is an extremely low-quality class of internet comment—in fact, it's probably tied for last place. If you're trying to have an internet forum that doesn't go down the toilet—and we are—you have to minimize this kind of thing. Hence the rule. In reality, the world is complicated, the community is divided, and the sinister enemies are overwhelmingly just normal community members who happen to have very different backgrounds and views than you do. People who want to participate in HN discussion need to be able to absorb and tolerate that fact, not try to erase it with cheap and lazy accusations, which is what the vast majority of these comments are. Unbelievably cheap and lazy, in fact. I absolutely don't mean to pick on you personally—this is a system-wide problem and it's getting worse. Also, in case anyone is wondering "what about real manipulation? doesn't that exist?" — that is addressed in the guidelines as well: if you're worried about it and think you might be seeing it on HN, email hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. We always look into it. It may take us a while to reply, but we will. There was a long discussion about this the other day if anyone wants more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25597879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25597879.
- BelenusMordred 6y agoOpening line: > The PRC executes between five and ten thousand people per year Anyone got a source for that claim? Amnesty estimates "1000's" but doesn't actually give a figure and claims to not know it. I'm guessing the worlds biggest human rights org would love to know Matt from substack's source? For comparison we have the Saudis, Iraq, Egypt and Iran coming in with a few hundred executions each while certain other allied countries refuse to publish and are also hidden away behind government secrecy. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/
- CyanBird 6y ago> I'm guessing the worlds biggest human rights org would love to know Matt from substack's source? I would guess ramblings from some dark Falun Gong blog, as clearly he has no issues quoting them elsewhere on the piece, which on my eyes for as gruesome as the topic might be takes a huge amount of credibility away of him and the piece
- dirtyid 6y agoThese are the kind of numbers and narrative Tibetan/FLG NGOs from the west throws out. Read: outdated propaganda from a bunch of exiles from 20-30 years ago stuck in "immigrant time bubble" where their impressions of the country is locked in a outdated reality. Which more or less summarizes this entire article and most ridiculous amateur CCP bad analysis regurgitated by western "enthusiasts". It's like whenever people insinuate Tianamen 2.0 will repeat for xyz events like China is trapped in some pre reform time bubble in terms of culture and capabilities. Somehow a modern China with 14T economy is going to have deal with problems the same way as post war China with 200B economy. I've never seen so many seemingly intelligent people go full smooth brain on this subject matter including in this thread. It's particularly hilarious to see people claim their very smart PhD Chinese colleagues being brainwashed, when theses colleagues have experience in both east and west - they're not the ones with singular perspective and the information deficit. It's not their brain washing, it's yours. Chinese diaspora reciprocate stories of how brainwashed their western coworkers are.. Queue reactionary 50c accusations when 50c doesn't operate in English inside or outside GFC. China is ~50X wealthier since 89, a wealthier China with riot gear and information control doesn't need to Tianamen dissidents haphazardly. A wealthier China with lethal injection doesn't need to shoot people in back of head in open fields and bill family for bullet, nor execute as many when it's economical to lock them away. Which is largely what happens outside of most egregious crimes / drug smuggling charges. Not to mention much of China executes XYZ for bullshit reasons media reporting turns out to be China sentences person to "death sentence with reprieve" - a symbolic sentence that's functionally life imprisonment. Things aren't the best, but they are generally trending in the right direction.
- macleginn 6y agoThe text could use some references.
- lb1lf 6y agoWhile the methods employed by the PRC are, ahem, somewhat more pragmatic than those utilised in most other countries still having the death penalty, it is mere nuance - the state murdering its own citizens is a practice which should have been long abandoned - whether the state is Iran, the US, China, Saudi Arabia or any of the handful of others still having the statute on its books.
- toxik 6y agoCapital punishment is one thing, blowing people’s brains out for dissenting is another.
- sascha_sl 6y agoThat's assuming you have a functioning judiciary system. At 99.9% they do become the same.
- jahnu 6y agoWhile Japan's legal system is certainly deserving of criticism, who's isn't?, this stat is thrown around without any understanding of what it really means. What is the conviction rate in your country of residence? What does conviction rate actually mean in the context of the legal process in your country and Japan? If you don't know the detailed answers to those questions I suggest not making such grand claims about equivalence. Here is a short radio episode explaining this topic. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3s5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3s5 Edit for clarity: The parent has for some reason edited their comment and now it looks like I was defending China's rate in my reply. They originally made an equivalence claim between Japan and China and I wanted to add information explaining that this stat doesn't necessarily mean what it's often at first glance interpreted to mean. The parent then replied to my comment with a reply that suggests their edit was in fact malicious. But I can't be sure of that.
- sascha_sl 6y agoOr you could read the source within the article, as mentioned. https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-9/ https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-...
- pi-err 6y agotl,dr: CCP involves as many ordinary people as it can into the judicial and extra-judicial killing process in what could be "life insurance" for the regime: too many have blood on their hands to ever face accountability. Personally, the dissonance around China has come to an extreme. Is most reporting incorrect, or has CCP become the most efficient and durable totalitarian regime in history? Or is it a form of social engineering that has actual mainstream support in China? Or is it a doomed experiment, just like all other previous authoritarian regimes in history? There is something quietly unsustainable building up.
- CyanBird 6y ago> has CCP become the most efficient and durable totalitarian regime in history? Not really, here are just forces at play which would benefit if you thought so We are in due time for the US and Western public to have a new evil boogyman presented to them. People are getting too unruly these days, so this will help keep them in line
- Nesco 6y agoYour post seems to me that you intensely believe the creed that western-style “liberal democracy” is the most stable political regime. It is true it is very stable though you should try to separate the reality with the propaganda set up by those states, especially the US one. For example: > Or is it a doomed experiment, just like all other previous authoritarian regimes in history? The Pharaonic system which was may be the most despotic ever created lasted for nearly three millenia. The current age of all “democracies” (~ representatively guided states with some kinds of power separations) pales in comparison. And regarding the robustness of those regimes the only continental country to not crumble when confronted to the shock of the blitzkrieg was the USSR (operation barbarossa lead to the death of 5 millions people in 200 days to give an idea). I am not trying to defend authoritarian regimes but the questions of which political system is the fairest, which one is the most legitimate, which one is the most stable and which one is the most robust are not the same and should not be conflated
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- throw142857 6y agoThrowaway because I don’t really want to taint my account with no-good discussions like this. (I’m an HN regular with some 8k karma.) If you know the Chinese language, go to Weibo and find announcements of rulings on high profile murder cases, rape cases, etc. Most likely you’ll see that people overwhelmingly call for tougher punishment; comments expressing dissatisfaction with non-capital punishment are often voted to the top. It’s a different culture, the majority or at least an extremely vocal minority (I highly doubt it’s a minority, but that’s a possibility) expect an-eye-for-an-eye punishment for murder as well as some other morally outrageous crimes. You may find it barbaric or whatever, but it’s a different culture. See also (on the largest Chinese language Q/A site, like Quora): https://www.zhihu.com/question/25084350 https://www.zhihu.com/question/25084350 Why do you support capital punishment? https://www.zhihu.com/question/25084336 https://www.zhihu.com/question/25084336 Why do you oppose capital punishment in China? You can gauge the relative popularity of opinions from the stats alone. Mind you, the user base of that site is relatively well-educated and progressive.
- chroem- 6y agoThey receive social credit points for doing that though.
- CyanBird 6y agoAs opposed to hacker news where OP feels so at risk that he can't comment on political topics with his real account for fear of reprisal?
- throw142857 6y agoOh I’m comfortable with commenting on political topics. I’m not comfortable with commenting on China topics, since (a) there’s a very good chance my comment would be voted to oblivion so no one would see what I wrote anyway (this one was instantly downvoted, then voted back); (b) I would be called a shill; (c) correcting people who use a circlejerk of questionable sources to support opinions about things they have absolutely no experience with yet feel very confident about is both exhausting and mostly pointless. This post is a good example. Zero references, but will be used as fact in the next round of discussions.
- throwaway4good 6y agoThe images used appears to be from a public execution in 1995, rural China, for a triple murder.
- neonate 6y agoCan you explain why you say that? What's the source?
- CommanderData 6y agoHow do I (as a westerner) realistically affect change? China's been persecuting Mongolian, Moslem, Christian, Buddisht minorities for a while and I recently read about concentration camps for Uighurs minorities on the BBC. I want change, will my purchase decisions have any affect and are boycotts even effective?
- hndudette2 6y agoWe need to prop up India as much as possible ASAP. Once China has a credible competitor in the manufacturing space, peaceful influence can be applied through economic means.
- CommanderData 6y agoI have begun supporting Korean and Japanese products where I can. Also I have a pretty big influence on procurement where ever I contract. I could bring to discussion the UK gov advisories on using Chinese network and IT equipment. I just don't know if this is enough or I can do more?
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- spritecolar 6y agoThis whole article reeks of Western propaganda against China. China is being turned into the new al-Qaeda to justify yet another Western military adventurism.
- CyanBird 6y agoWhat's interesting is that, at least in the case of the Iraq War, there was no ought right public Iraqi diaspora calling for the downing of the Saddam regime, but in the case of China and Iran, it is very interesting to me how far right Monarchist groups such as the Iranian Tondar group which even did terror attacks on the nation call for quite literally an invasion of the country and setting up a literal Monarchy on it as opposed to the current Theocratic Republic It is just so interesting this year seeing the Trump administration ratchet up the rhetoric pressure on the Chinese government and make strong use of Falon Gong, which are just renowned to be.... Unreliable in their narratives to say the least, as a spearhead and baseline to build a PR campaign against the country But yeah, lacking a horse on the race, in my case, it is just interesting seeing how the knots of war are slowly tied
- quattrofan 6y agoHey but iphones!!!
- aristofun 6y agoPeople mist know this. Please share. China is like a facelifted third reich turned inwards.
- daftponk 6y agoThis essay is bs, and deceptive bs. But it's in plenty of company, and likely serves the market hungry for "China bad" tales. Trigger warning: facts ahead. The lead image is a woman executed for "intentional homicide" (that's what the sign says, "intentional homicide - her name") The article makes a handful of irresponsible accusations. It claims China is executing "probably many more via militarized kangaroo courts," insinuates China is doing "“social cleansing” of undesireables like petty drug abusers, liquidation of badly-behaved members of minority groups, or outright political murders of people within the CCP hierarchy", and mislabels China's legal system as "state terror", getting almost poetic with its description of how it imagines this operates: "Effective systems of state terror rely on a dance between the known and the unknown in the mind of the public," which seems like the opposite of the very obvious "known" of a public execution where the criminal carries sign expressing their bona fides, and flies in the face of the author's own description of "Regular judicial personnel handle identity confirmation and terminal legal dispositions". So where could this invention of "state terror" and all these imagined tentacular bogeymen of "state terror" come from? Perhaps from the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, which the author neglects to mention. Or perhaps from the period of Japanese occupation and the mass killings and disappearances of ordinary folk that the author again neglects to mention. Where does the author get his (or her, it's hard to tell if it's a pseudonym or not) picture of China? One possibility is biased Western media which for the last few years has worked its readership into a frothy fervor of China hatred, mostly based on such misrepresentations and lazy accusations. Which if the author has his (or her) biased view of China from the media he consumes, presents a further interesting possibility. It seems that a "dance between the known and the unknown in the mind of the public" would pretty well describe the constant state of confusion and conflict instigated and inflamed by the media apparatus of certain unnamed "free" countries. Perhaps the author is projecting his experience of such "state terror" onto a place he doesn't know about (but feels justified to misrepresent and smear), in some sort of "fantasy idyll dystopia" that lets him feel he has it lucky to be where he is? The essay also expends a paragraph on Nazis and Soviets, and spends quite a bit of time imagining the dastardly inner workings of the state he fabricates, and how the dogma of spreading responsibility for illegitimate killings onto as many people as possible ensures their coercibility. Hmm, sounds like the typical blackmail-type coercion engaged in by state security and intelligence organizations, and their proxy sex crime rings, in many unnamed "free" countries. Again, possibly the author is projecting his own experience of this kind of "coercive covert control". Especially likely given the vast majority of Chinese see their state's legitimacy as totally solid and, if anything, complain of the forgivingness of their punitive systems, rather than their harshness. To the reader unacquainted with Chinese history beyond the ancient anodyne depictions of flowery courts, silk-clad concubines, and scurrying sneaky eunuchs....this bloodlust (or "Justice boner"?) might seem unaccountable and odd. But a closer look at Chinese history (even 20C Chinese history) will quickly correct such ahistorical readers of their delusions. They gave the world the 20C's bloodiest revolution. And it was a popular revolution, not a "illegitimate tyrannical crackdown", so the people are pretty accustomed to using blood and death to reshape things how they want. I know it's a compelling and soothing fantasy to try to, in one's mind, delegitimize the Chinese state, and pretend a "kinship" with all the "oppressed Chinese masses", and feel like your own country is so much better, but honestly, you'd all be better off fixing the problems in your own countries, and looking to China as a source of strength, inspiration and partnership, rather than persisting in these "feel-good" fantasies (which frankly reek of being demented and intoxicating swansongs to a dying "Era of Western dominance"). Even if your goal is to complete with and beat China, you'd be better served by being able to see it clearly, which these feelgood Western fantasies of "China bad", only cloud. Honestly if you want to make yourself as "the enemy of the Chinese state" you'd be far better served by seeing it clearly first, as these sort of self-deluding fantasies (which are, incidentally, embarrassingly racist and blind to such in their snooty fake-righteous didactic criticism), only play into the hands of those you want to define as your enemies. The uncomfortable truth that the country that is soon to be seen as (or in fact already) the largest economy, with all its foreignness to Western minds, to have that suddenly thrust upon the world stage in first place, is understandable very hard for many people in other countries to accept. It's hard, and not helped that your native medias have gone into a "2 minutes China hate" overdrive. That they resort to these sort of made-up but soothing fantasies is understandable, as it both plays into the hands of your domestic politics always hungry for the next weapon of mass distraction, and somebody to blame. But you shouldn't show "contempt before investigation" you should keep your mind open, and be vigilant against such implanted fears and fabrications, lest you become instruments of the will of power brokers the intentions of which you do not understand. You have much to learn from, and much the benefit from China, if you'll only keep an open mind, instead of engaging in, quite frankly, this tired mental masturbation that is all these sort of lazy accusatory fake narratives amount to. Not that there's anything wrong with that...but it's not going to help you and it's not going to make it easier to deal with the facts. And it really doesn't have to be that hard. Just keep an open mind, start with a neutral (not "we are better" or "we are worse" mindset) and think for yourselves. You can't travel right now, so at least, travel in your mind, and adopt the same open-minded curiosity you employ when traveling physically. Look for the good, and be on the look out for dangers, but don't go hiding in a cave of your own fear and invention because somebody pointed to a geopolitical map and told you, "there be dragons."
- koonsolo 6y ago> There will be recriminations and retributive violence. It’s likely that some officers who participated in the decades of state sanction slaughter will face the same grisly, unceremonious end that they inflicted on others. I'm not sure about this one, but maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in. I would have thought the same thing, but my wife is from Slovakia and I was surprised to learn that no such thing happened. It seems that everyone was involved in government somehow, and everybody was just doing their thing to live a decent life. The real violence came from grabbing the new opened up market, and so trying to grab as much of the newly opened market and money as possible. Not so much revenge of what happened because of the government. I definitely want to know if this was the case in other countries too.
- strzzz 6y agoWe as western countries should do a lot more to show these things happening in China to our citizens. We should stop giving our money to china businesses and make business decisions not only based on price...
- COGlory 6y agoI am glad to see SubStack allowing this type of content to be published on their platform. I am still cautious because they are a centralized platform. But glad to see they allow this type of stuff.
- dang 6y agoAll: this article was flagged by users, not moderators, for the obvious reason that both it and the title are extreme flamebait. Predictably we got a wretched flamewar out of it. Please review the site guidelines and use HN in the intended spirit: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Nationalistic flamewar is not ok here. Slurring groups or individuals who disagree with you is not ok here. Cartoonish accusations about communist agents and spies secretly manipulating the thread is explicitly against the site guidelines. It is also, frankly, foolish and a little embarrassing—anyone reading this thread or any other, whose emotions aren't pre-inflamed on the topic, can easily see what's going on: people with different backgrounds and therefore different views disagree with each other and feel strongly. I've studied this problem in depth for years; I've pored over voting data, flagging data, and lots of other data, and I can tell you that the evidence not only confirms that, it's probably the most solid evidence of any kind I've ever examined [1]. The value of this site is curiosity [2]. The goal is curious conversation. When the needle goes this badly into the red, curious conversation is impossible. Worse, we get the internet thread equivalent of a world war. That's a grandiose analogy because internet forums are so trivial—but the emotional dynamics are not trivial. The anger and accusation here are the forces which, in the extreme, make people to try to destroy each other. One can derive a significant conclusion: if HN is to have a chance at achieving its mandate—which is in all our interests, because it's only that which makes the place interesting—then we all need to work on these dynamics in ourselves. Here's one way to do that: don't see the other person as an enemy, a demon [3], a communist, or a brainwashed Westerner. See them as someone who doesn't have the same information you have. Share information with the intention to communicate, not defeat the other. Don't expect to persuade them—deep things like this can only shift slowly. When someone responds with information that you feel is false or, worse, might have some truth to it, tolerate the painful flare-up that will inevitably surge in your system. Wait for it to subside—don't let it power your response. Remember that you're talking not only to one person who perhaps strongly disagrees with you—you are broadcasting to an entire community of readers. Practicing these skills is the only way to make your case to the community that can actually do any good, so even if there are brainwashed Westerners or sinister manipulators or communist spies, it's what we need to be doing anyway [4]. [1] As I've said elsewhere, the odds that someone who was posting about Julia in 2015 is a communist agent who was planted to manipulate HN round to zero. That, in the median case, is who you're talking to here. There are years' worth of explanations about this problem at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=astroturf%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme..., for anyone who wants more. [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=demons%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [4] This is the "sufficiently smart manipulator" (SSM) argument: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=sufficiently%20smart%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...