8 ms·

China shows its true colours – and they're not pretty

37 points by wubin 5y ago

threshold 5y ago
[dead]
jetsetgo 5y ago
[dead]
staff009 5y ago
Paywall - can not read it.
mattcwilson 5y ago
https://archive.md/p2DN6 https://archive.md/p2DN6
xwolfi 5y ago
It's another discussion on the HK election reforms, which probably would not have happened without all the media hysteria 2 years ago. We'll see, I predict people either wont vote or vote blank and the gov'll have to do a crazy dance to explain it - or people will vote and it'll be brushed away by the media. The communists are ruthless when we complain, and we're brainwashed if we don't - there's no way we'd approach this as a complex multi factor and multi opinion problem.
- gentleman11 5y ago
  Calling them reforms is unfair. They removed free elections and replaced them with a “pick whoever you want as long as it’s one of these people we choose” system
  - thuccess129 5y ago
    The problem with a pick whoever you want approach is that inside players game the system and you end up with a table top sized voting form. Pick one above the line from out of seven or number all your choice from 1 to 49 below the line is a workable approach. Owners of the media, religiocults and background radiation vantablack money tilt the playing field on West's Democracies.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      What are you trying to express? Because if the idea is "Interested entity I can influence administrator A", the possibility could be stronger "without mechanisms of control from P, the public".
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    I agree to some extent (bit sad since I got the right to vote in HK just this year and bleh) but I cant argue against the principle they put forth on the face of it: yes only patriot should ever be elected, yes calling for foreign sanction was treason, and yes there are candidates who are not aligned even if the traditional pandem refused to show. Im a lot more disappointed by the pandem whole fucktard strategy than I am by the predictable DAB sycophancy. Maybe always calling for disruption, insulting and blocking debate doesn't work and they could try something more subtle and more patient. They were elected in big number since forever and I feel they shot themselves in the foot and it's hard to defend them even if the DAB is asinine. So I guess, blank.
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > there's no way we'd approach this as a complex multi factor and multi opinion problem. No country I’m aware of really nails free and fair elections. There’s always some kind of third party acting as gatekeeper that makes it difficult or impossible for absolutely any candidate to win who the electorate might want. But, countries fall on a spectrum of how well they approximate this ideal. It’s pretty clear that an electoral system like in HK where all the candidates are chosen by the one party allowed to rule is way to one extreme of the spectrum; the opposite side to free and fair! There’s no hand waving this away with calls for inappropriate nuance.
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    The key difference between China and the rest of the elective systems is: do they even consider voting as a positive feedback loop? As long as we dont convince (and as a "small" city, we cant force, only convince) them that it s in their own interest to let us support, or midly criticize them by voting, they'll go backward and decide for us. And they may not even take bad decisions, just remove ownership from the local population which for me is key to buy into the policies. Most democracies manage well the dance between "we ll only propose policies that make sense" and "people can vote freely". We have to learn that too.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      > do they even consider voting as a positive feedback loop To some material I have read (probably a TED talk), value is given to feedback, but it is top-down in evaluation (strong reliance on performance reports of/on officials) and made through surveys (instead of voting) in the bottom-up side. I think it could have been: Eric X. Li, "A tale of two political systems" (Jul 2013), https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_... : «[...] Adaptability, meritocracy, and legitimacy are the three defining characteristics of China's one-party system [...]» The TED website has a categorization of topics, so there exist a collection: https://www.ted.com/talks?topics[]=china https://www.ted.com/talks?topics[]=china
      - 5y ago
samuraifox1 5y ago
These UK news always portray Asian giants in bad news. I dont believe them blindly.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  The subtle difference between wisdom and manipulation: "Repeat after me: you shall inquire and criticize all thoughts" vs "Repeat after me: you shall retract trust from all thoughts" - instil activity or instil passivity. Edit: silent downvoting snipers confirm the stated idea (the nuance being productive vs depaupering).
- quiffledwerg 5y ago
  Newly created CCP 50 cent army account doing its job.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    The uttering 'I dont believe them blindly' could be literal (there is always a chance), but/yet it is very much the language that an attemptive manipulator could adopt. Suggesting some kind of animal "adoption of stance through imitation of the acting wise". I was surprised to see, in this context, in the past few years, some clearly absurd pieces of communication that comprised images of ignorance and images of "revealing" knowledge. This given, q., let us not forget the guidelines, «Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like». The "political interest" is out of here, this is a place for debate on intellectually relevant topics. The interest here (specifically to these "theoretical suggestions" the new account/member triggered) is in language, response, awareness of the instruments, intellectual processes, intellectual productivity.
    - xwolfi 5y ago
      And I mean, it's true for a lot of places. When I lived in France and there was some riot, my american friends called me asking how I was, afraid for my life because of the CNN loop, and now that I live in HK, I have german friends, tourists not even residents, who send to american frigging senators worried email asking to sanction our oppressors because of the same kind of news loop. China over reacted and is not doing the right thing ... yet. It's not finished, the Earth is still rotating, it's still our country too, we'll find another way to express our discontent. What doesn't help is the news loop constantly exciting the debate to irrationality. I think you dont need a CCP shill to say "they always say the same thing, I dont trust them blindly". This should even be said of Xinhua :D

37 points by wubin 5y ago

threshold 5y ago

[dead]

jetsetgo 5y ago

[dead]

staff009 5y ago

Paywall - can not read it.

mattcwilson 5y ago

https://archive.md/p2DN6 https://archive.md/p2DN6

xwolfi 5y ago

It's another discussion on the HK election reforms, which probably would not have happened without all the media hysteria 2 years ago. We'll see, I predict people either wont vote or vote blank and the gov'll have to do a crazy dance to explain it - or people will vote and it'll be brushed away by the media. The communists are ruthless when we complain, and we're brainwashed if we don't - there's no way we'd approach this as a complex multi factor and multi opinion problem.

gentleman11 5y ago
Calling them reforms is unfair. They removed free elections and replaced them with a “pick whoever you want as long as it’s one of these people we choose” system
- thuccess129 5y ago
  The problem with a pick whoever you want approach is that inside players game the system and you end up with a table top sized voting form. Pick one above the line from out of seven or number all your choice from 1 to 49 below the line is a workable approach. Owners of the media, religiocults and background radiation vantablack money tilt the playing field on West's Democracies.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    What are you trying to express? Because if the idea is "Interested entity I can influence administrator A", the possibility could be stronger "without mechanisms of control from P, the public".
- xwolfi 5y ago
  I agree to some extent (bit sad since I got the right to vote in HK just this year and bleh) but I cant argue against the principle they put forth on the face of it: yes only patriot should ever be elected, yes calling for foreign sanction was treason, and yes there are candidates who are not aligned even if the traditional pandem refused to show. Im a lot more disappointed by the pandem whole fucktard strategy than I am by the predictable DAB sycophancy. Maybe always calling for disruption, insulting and blocking debate doesn't work and they could try something more subtle and more patient. They were elected in big number since forever and I feel they shot themselves in the foot and it's hard to defend them even if the DAB is asinine. So I guess, blank.
nyokodo 5y ago
> there's no way we'd approach this as a complex multi factor and multi opinion problem. No country I’m aware of really nails free and fair elections. There’s always some kind of third party acting as gatekeeper that makes it difficult or impossible for absolutely any candidate to win who the electorate might want. But, countries fall on a spectrum of how well they approximate this ideal. It’s pretty clear that an electoral system like in HK where all the candidates are chosen by the one party allowed to rule is way to one extreme of the spectrum; the opposite side to free and fair! There’s no hand waving this away with calls for inappropriate nuance.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  The key difference between China and the rest of the elective systems is: do they even consider voting as a positive feedback loop? As long as we dont convince (and as a "small" city, we cant force, only convince) them that it s in their own interest to let us support, or midly criticize them by voting, they'll go backward and decide for us. And they may not even take bad decisions, just remove ownership from the local population which for me is key to buy into the policies. Most democracies manage well the dance between "we ll only propose policies that make sense" and "people can vote freely". We have to learn that too.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    > do they even consider voting as a positive feedback loop To some material I have read (probably a TED talk), value is given to feedback, but it is top-down in evaluation (strong reliance on performance reports of/on officials) and made through surveys (instead of voting) in the bottom-up side. I think it could have been: Eric X. Li, "A tale of two political systems" (Jul 2013), https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_... : «[...] Adaptability, meritocracy, and legitimacy are the three defining characteristics of China's one-party system [...]» The TED website has a categorization of topics, so there exist a collection: https://www.ted.com/talks?topics[]=china https://www.ted.com/talks?topics[]=china
    - 5y ago

samuraifox1 5y ago

These UK news always portray Asian giants in bad news. I dont believe them blindly.

mdp2021 5y ago
The subtle difference between wisdom and manipulation: "Repeat after me: you shall inquire and criticize all thoughts" vs "Repeat after me: you shall retract trust from all thoughts" - instil activity or instil passivity. Edit: silent downvoting snipers confirm the stated idea (the nuance being productive vs depaupering).
quiffledwerg 5y ago
Newly created CCP 50 cent army account doing its job.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  The uttering 'I dont believe them blindly' could be literal (there is always a chance), but/yet it is very much the language that an attemptive manipulator could adopt. Suggesting some kind of animal "adoption of stance through imitation of the acting wise". I was surprised to see, in this context, in the past few years, some clearly absurd pieces of communication that comprised images of ignorance and images of "revealing" knowledge. This given, q., let us not forget the guidelines, «Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like». The "political interest" is out of here, this is a place for debate on intellectually relevant topics. The interest here (specifically to these "theoretical suggestions" the new account/member triggered) is in language, response, awareness of the instruments, intellectual processes, intellectual productivity.
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    And I mean, it's true for a lot of places. When I lived in France and there was some riot, my american friends called me asking how I was, afraid for my life because of the CNN loop, and now that I live in HK, I have german friends, tourists not even residents, who send to american frigging senators worried email asking to sanction our oppressors because of the same kind of news loop. China over reacted and is not doing the right thing ... yet. It's not finished, the Earth is still rotating, it's still our country too, we'll find another way to express our discontent. What doesn't help is the news loop constantly exciting the debate to irrationality. I think you dont need a CCP shill to say "they always say the same thing, I dont trust them blindly". This should even be said of Xinhua :D