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(It's already happening in current times;) China recently made a movie star apologize in public, to say effectively, 'Taiwan is not a country'. I don't care wh

(It's already happening in current times;) China recently made a movie star apologize in public, to say effectively, 'Taiwan is not a country'. I don't care what the name is, but that island just a little bit off the coast of the big country known as China, should be recognized by the UN and member nations as a sovereign nation.

latch 5y ago
It's been a while since I read the book, but this seems like a stretch. One country imposing implicit/vague economic penalty on a citizen of another country, doesn't seem right relevant to me. When 1984 and "Orwellian" are used as a catch-all for any type of oppression or even any type of propaganda, I think it does a great disservice.
- premium-komodo 5y ago
  > When 1984 and "Orwellian" are used as a catch-all for any type of oppression or even any type of propaganda, I think it does a great disservice. I agree, but it's not hard to make a stronger case. Organizations like Google, Facebook and Twitter centrally decide Truth, and then penalize anyone who posts anything in conflict with their version. Google censors the videos of people who dare to disagree with e.g. the WHO. Facebook deboosts "vaccine hesitancy"; Twitter sabotages the engagement of people with a diverse set of "wrong" opinions, degrades the various subnetworks by silently deleting followers, annotates tweets with the Official Truth, etc. The same thing is done here on HN, a kind of filtering that assumes its own hypothesis. Someone posts something contrary to the prevailing story? Well, if it conflicts with the WHO, it must be conspiracy theory junk. I don't recognize this site, so I'm going to flag this article. People seem sure they know what the truth is, so they feel comfortable squashing anything that conflicts with their current understanding.
  - loopz 5y ago
    At some level you always need a way to filter out noise, so quality have to improve to get signal.
    - premium-komodo 5y ago
      Begging the question. There are highly qualified people like Sucharit Bhakdi who are being declared conspiracy theorists for no other reason than that they are going against officially sanctioned truth. Which is the high-quality signal, the NYT or Bhakdi? One is held up as authoritative by those in power, one is suppressed in the hopes that it will not even be considered. If delusion and propaganda gains prominence, filtering the truth might seem like filtering noise.
      - loopz 5y ago
        I think the core problem here is giving away your powers to amoral corporations.
coliveira 5y ago
The movie star did this not because he was oppressed, but because he wants the Chinese money. This doesn't make me feel sympathy for this situation.
floren 5y ago
John Cena had to do the same recently. Shameful.
FooBarWidget 5y ago
I think you're seriously underestimating how many Chinese people -- not just the government -- will get seriously pissed off at someone who proclaims that Taiwan should be its own independent country. There's a saying that if China's government is democratic, then they would've launched an invasion yesterday.
jollybean 5y ago
China didn't make him do anything. China has 1B people, it's a huge market, and out of the choice to keep is own brand in good standing there, he changed his tune. It was in effect a self-serving corporat4e act. Yes, it's complicated, but they didn't 'make him'. It's scarier when Hollywood tows the CCP party line, in addition completely ignores issues such as Tibet etc. for fear of reprisal. Other corps do it as well.

latch 5y ago

It's been a while since I read the book, but this seems like a stretch. One country imposing implicit/vague economic penalty on a citizen of another country, doesn't seem right relevant to me. When 1984 and "Orwellian" are used as a catch-all for any type of oppression or even any type of propaganda, I think it does a great disservice.

premium-komodo 5y ago
> When 1984 and "Orwellian" are used as a catch-all for any type of oppression or even any type of propaganda, I think it does a great disservice. I agree, but it's not hard to make a stronger case. Organizations like Google, Facebook and Twitter centrally decide Truth, and then penalize anyone who posts anything in conflict with their version. Google censors the videos of people who dare to disagree with e.g. the WHO. Facebook deboosts "vaccine hesitancy"; Twitter sabotages the engagement of people with a diverse set of "wrong" opinions, degrades the various subnetworks by silently deleting followers, annotates tweets with the Official Truth, etc. The same thing is done here on HN, a kind of filtering that assumes its own hypothesis. Someone posts something contrary to the prevailing story? Well, if it conflicts with the WHO, it must be conspiracy theory junk. I don't recognize this site, so I'm going to flag this article. People seem sure they know what the truth is, so they feel comfortable squashing anything that conflicts with their current understanding.
- loopz 5y ago
  At some level you always need a way to filter out noise, so quality have to improve to get signal.
  - premium-komodo 5y ago
    Begging the question. There are highly qualified people like Sucharit Bhakdi who are being declared conspiracy theorists for no other reason than that they are going against officially sanctioned truth. Which is the high-quality signal, the NYT or Bhakdi? One is held up as authoritative by those in power, one is suppressed in the hopes that it will not even be considered. If delusion and propaganda gains prominence, filtering the truth might seem like filtering noise.
    - loopz 5y ago
      I think the core problem here is giving away your powers to amoral corporations.

coliveira 5y ago

The movie star did this not because he was oppressed, but because he wants the Chinese money. This doesn't make me feel sympathy for this situation.

floren 5y ago

John Cena had to do the same recently. Shameful.

FooBarWidget 5y ago

I think you're seriously underestimating how many Chinese people -- not just the government -- will get seriously pissed off at someone who proclaims that Taiwan should be its own independent country. There's a saying that if China's government is democratic, then they would've launched an invasion yesterday.

jollybean 5y ago

China didn't make him do anything. China has 1B people, it's a huge market, and out of the choice to keep is own brand in good standing there, he changed his tune. It was in effect a self-serving corporat4e act. Yes, it's complicated, but they didn't 'make him'. It's scarier when Hollywood tows the CCP party line, in addition completely ignores issues such as Tibet etc. for fear of reprisal. Other corps do it as well.