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Boycotts, disinvestment, and sanctions is how civil rights movements are fought. Of course the Chinese people won't know why other countries are pulling away, b

Boycotts, disinvestment, and sanctions is how civil rights movements are fought. Of course the Chinese people won't know why other countries are pulling away, because their government won't allow that information to reach them and will blame foreign enemies instead, but blaming foreign powers only works for a limited time. And what better strategy would you suggest? What we shouldn't do is overlook abuses in other nations simply because our own nations are imperfect.

hutzlibu 6y ago
"Boycotts, disinvestment, and sanctions is how civil rights movements are fought." How about: leading by good example? There are plenty of chinese people outside of the great firewall regulary going back. So that information would get in.
- leereeves 6y ago
  Why not both? We can (and should) lead by good example while also actively opposing human rights abuses in China.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    Yeah, but since the US is NOT leading by shiny good example and continues to be allied with really bad examples like saudi arabia - the rest of the world views it all as just power struggle between china and US - which it mostly is.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      Perhaps our government should cut ties with both Saudi Arabia and China. I (and I think most people opposed to the CCP's recent actions) would support that. Of course realpolitik keeps us supporting the Saudis, but one morally wrong choice doesn't justify another morally wrong choice.
    - dang 6y ago
      It looks like your account has been using HN primarily for political/ideological/national battle. This is against the site guidelines: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We ban the sort of account that does this, because it destroys the curious conversation that HN is supposed to exist for. More explanation if desired: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
      - hutzlibu 6y ago
        I don't think my account was using HN primarily for "political/ideological/national battle", but this was indeed such a debate. Still, can you help me finding out, where exactly I was destroying curious debate here? Because in my opinion, I was trying in honesty to actually have a rational, curious debate about the implications of a trade embargo against china. Without attacking persons, just by arguments supported by citations. Maybe a bit too snarky at times, but I don't see, how that would validate a ban, but it is your site and your decision.
        dang 6y ago
        It's hard to figure out where a site like HN should draw the line when it comes to political arguments. We have to draw one somewhere, because political flames will consume the site entirely if we don't. But making all political themes off-topic isn't an option either (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). It's a tough problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844. One key test that we apply is whether an account is using HN primarily to argue about these things (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...). Even when they're not breaking the site guidelines in other ways by being snarky and so on (which is very good if so, and not at all common with this sort of account), that's still out of sync with the intended use of the site. This test turns out to be useful because it's an objective moderation standard (so when people inevitably say "you're just moderating me because you don't like my politics" we can answer in good conscience that that's not true), and because it fits the data well: HN accounts really are bimodal this way, and the ones that are using HN primarily for politics are far more likely to be damaging the commons here. Those are the principles we use. The factual question is whether your account was using HN primarily to argue about politics. If not, I'm happy to be wrong—it just looked that way to me when I skimmed quickly. Even bimodal distributions have borderline cases! But it would be good to get more squarely into the desired mode.
Veen 6y ago
> Boycotts, disinvestment, and sanctions is how civil rights movements are fought. Boycotting a billion-strong nation is not the same as boycotting Amazon because you don't like its labor policies. China is a technically advanced millennia-old civilization with a huge army, vast geography, and a nationalistic population. If anything, boycotts and sanctions will increase nationalist feeling in China and create an unstable and dangerous situation. The U.S. and Europe do not have the economic leverage to take down the second biggest economy in the world without destroying themselves in the process. Furthermore, as liberals never seem to learn, despite the disaster of Iraq, if you did succeed in instigating a "regime change" in China, the result is likely to be immediate destabilization of the whole region and a horrendous civil war with massive loss of life. It will not magically transform China into a happy democracy.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  Even if China doesn't turn into a happy democracy, I will sleep better at night knowing I'm not involved.

hutzlibu 6y ago

"Boycotts, disinvestment, and sanctions is how civil rights movements are fought." How about: leading by good example? There are plenty of chinese people outside of the great firewall regulary going back. So that information would get in.

leereeves 6y ago
Why not both? We can (and should) lead by good example while also actively opposing human rights abuses in China.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  Yeah, but since the US is NOT leading by shiny good example and continues to be allied with really bad examples like saudi arabia - the rest of the world views it all as just power struggle between china and US - which it mostly is.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    Perhaps our government should cut ties with both Saudi Arabia and China. I (and I think most people opposed to the CCP's recent actions) would support that. Of course realpolitik keeps us supporting the Saudis, but one morally wrong choice doesn't justify another morally wrong choice.
  - dang 6y ago
    It looks like your account has been using HN primarily for political/ideological/national battle. This is against the site guidelines: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We ban the sort of account that does this, because it destroys the curious conversation that HN is supposed to exist for. More explanation if desired: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
    - hutzlibu 6y ago
      I don't think my account was using HN primarily for "political/ideological/national battle", but this was indeed such a debate. Still, can you help me finding out, where exactly I was destroying curious debate here? Because in my opinion, I was trying in honesty to actually have a rational, curious debate about the implications of a trade embargo against china. Without attacking persons, just by arguments supported by citations. Maybe a bit too snarky at times, but I don't see, how that would validate a ban, but it is your site and your decision.
      - dang 6y ago
        It's hard to figure out where a site like HN should draw the line when it comes to political arguments. We have to draw one somewhere, because political flames will consume the site entirely if we don't. But making all political themes off-topic isn't an option either (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). It's a tough problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844. One key test that we apply is whether an account is using HN primarily to argue about these things (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...). Even when they're not breaking the site guidelines in other ways by being snarky and so on (which is very good if so, and not at all common with this sort of account), that's still out of sync with the intended use of the site. This test turns out to be useful because it's an objective moderation standard (so when people inevitably say "you're just moderating me because you don't like my politics" we can answer in good conscience that that's not true), and because it fits the data well: HN accounts really are bimodal this way, and the ones that are using HN primarily for politics are far more likely to be damaging the commons here. Those are the principles we use. The factual question is whether your account was using HN primarily to argue about politics. If not, I'm happy to be wrong—it just looked that way to me when I skimmed quickly. Even bimodal distributions have borderline cases! But it would be good to get more squarely into the desired mode.

Veen 6y ago

> Boycotts, disinvestment, and sanctions is how civil rights movements are fought. Boycotting a billion-strong nation is not the same as boycotting Amazon because you don't like its labor policies. China is a technically advanced millennia-old civilization with a huge army, vast geography, and a nationalistic population. If anything, boycotts and sanctions will increase nationalist feeling in China and create an unstable and dangerous situation. The U.S. and Europe do not have the economic leverage to take down the second biggest economy in the world without destroying themselves in the process. Furthermore, as liberals never seem to learn, despite the disaster of Iraq, if you did succeed in instigating a "regime change" in China, the result is likely to be immediate destabilization of the whole region and a horrendous civil war with massive loss of life. It will not magically transform China into a happy democracy.

throwaway3699 6y ago
Even if China doesn't turn into a happy democracy, I will sleep better at night knowing I'm not involved.