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Because you're seeing it through the lense of western media. If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is trying to do good for its citizens, th

Because you're seeing it through the lense of western media. If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is trying to do good for its citizens, those are straight forward decisions. CCTV protects people from street crime; credit score seems to provide tremendous value in establishing trust between strangers, let's build a better version; people > algorithms, let's regulate the latter.

eximius 4y ago
And "reeducating" non-Han minorities is also for good of its citizens? Those who disagree with the party? A benevolent authoritarian government could be very efficient and good, but we still reject authoritarianism because it is bad.
alphabetting 4y ago
>If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is trying to do good for its citizens Why would anyone do that given treatment of Uyghurs?
- bckr 4y ago
  It's a mental exercise similar to watching a movie."Willing suspension of disbelief", it's called. Why would you care whether Mr. Big Muscles is winning or not given that he's just pretending to be the hero of the universe? From the Chinese perspective, what their government is doing to the Uyghurs is justified because terrorist separatist muslims. And anyway, from the Chinese perspective, nothing really bad is happening to the Uyghurs anyway, they're just being reformed into good citizens.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    If you're American I'm sure you can relate to the Chinese here. I almost never think about the millions of dead Iraqi people my tax money contributed to
    - alphabetting 4y ago
      The major difference is in America you can criticize what America did to Iraqis at the top of your lungs and work to get different leaders elected. Can't do the same in China without consequences.
      - snapcaster 4y ago
        Is that a major difference? to who? us? makes absolutely no difference to the victims
        alphabetting 4y ago
        It's true you can't undo the past but it's still a major difference. A population having the ability to speak freely and change elected leaders can effect change and prevent governments from continuing bad policies. Is it really that difficult to see how different that is from a continual status quo?
        snapcaster 4y ago
        In what way do we not have a continuous status quo since world war 2? the US continues invading countries and expanding the empire regardless of protests or people's writings. That's my point, none of it has made a difference
      - scarecrowbob 4y ago
        I can complain all I want and work for as much change as I'd like. Completely without any sort of consequences in the world.
        alphabetting 4y ago
        can't criticize the govt in effort to elect new leaders in China which was my point.
        4y ago
- analyst74 4y ago
  It's a difficult topic, I don't think any country has found a humane way to deal with terrorist organizations. US chose to bomb Afghanistan into the ground, China chose to establish very strict social controls. Both are terribly inhumane to innocent people in those regions, but what are real alternatives?
  - 2fast4you 4y ago
    Nobody is talking about terrorist organizations.
    - prewett 4y ago
      Terrorism was the reason given for the initial escalation towards the Uighurs around 2014. There were several domestic terrorism incidents involving a handful of Uighurs around, the most notable (to me) being there was a car-fire/bomb in Tian'anmen Square late 2013 and a knife attack at Kunming Train station. Wikipedia lists a steady stream of domestic terrorism incidents involving Uighurs [0]. It seems like the Chinese government only has one tool in their toolbox--control--so apparently their solution is to eliminate the entire ethnicity, although my prediction is that ultimately that will increase the amount of attacks, because now the entire population has a (concrete) grievance as opposed to a few radicalized ones. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chronology_of_major_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chronology_...
      - cntheowaway 4y ago
        It seems in China it’s only considered terrorism if it’s committed by an ethnic minority. Han Chinese have committed far more terrorist attacks yet you don’t see the government putting innocent Han Chinese in concentration camps.
tauwauwau 4y ago
Path to hell is paved with good intentions, and I don't think their are any good leaders.
zeruch 4y ago
"Because you're seeing it through the lense of western media." No, I'm seeing it through taking a series of factually established premises, and comparing them. Critical thinking (however anecdotally a position one launches from) isn't a byproduct of "Western Media". "If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is trying to do good for its citizens, those are straight forward decisions." Are they? "CCTV protects people from street crime" ...or just makes investing in ski masks popular? Your statement is so absent any context (who has access to the CCTV, what legal recourse is there for auditing the footage from a privacy or legal evidentiary perspective), are there controls to prevent abuse, etc. I said nothing of a credit score. I said a social score, which is a very different, and much more contentious issue: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-e...
- Aperocky 4y ago
  > Critical thinking Most people consider themselves critical thinkers, but subconsciously apply a bias on the sources they read. For instance they would go to depth on and apply every single possible suspicion on news that are against their perception, or failing that, just simply labeling it as 'false news'. At the same time, news or information that conforms to their bias are accepted as truth usually without any questions asked. It's alarming because most of the time it is worth a lot more to think critically of the news that conforms to what you believe - because you are already critical of those that are against it by default. That is what true critical thinking is.
  - zeruch 4y ago
    Everyone applies bias at some level, period. That said, the threshold for lazy loading bias can be significantly different for people, and trying to become a Vulcan-Mentat combo might not be the most ideal goal. Actually applying some real rigor and not just resorting to convenient heuristics (e.g. "Western media", "MSM" , "leftist" or "rightist" or several other "ists" reflexively) usually is a good start. " most of the time it is worth a lot more to think critically of the news that conforms to what you believe" Agreed.
andreilys 4y ago
If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is trying to do good for its citizens, Please explain how the continued lockdown in Shanghai is “the Chinese government” doing good for its citizens vs. not wanting to lose face on an absurd zero covid policy?
iqihs 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

eximius 4y ago

And "reeducating" non-Han minorities is also for good of its citizens? Those who disagree with the party? A benevolent authoritarian government could be very efficient and good, but we still reject authoritarianism because it is bad.

alphabetting 4y ago

>If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is trying to do good for its citizens Why would anyone do that given treatment of Uyghurs?

bckr 4y ago
It's a mental exercise similar to watching a movie."Willing suspension of disbelief", it's called. Why would you care whether Mr. Big Muscles is winning or not given that he's just pretending to be the hero of the universe? From the Chinese perspective, what their government is doing to the Uyghurs is justified because terrorist separatist muslims. And anyway, from the Chinese perspective, nothing really bad is happening to the Uyghurs anyway, they're just being reformed into good citizens.
- snapcaster 4y ago
  If you're American I'm sure you can relate to the Chinese here. I almost never think about the millions of dead Iraqi people my tax money contributed to
  - alphabetting 4y ago
    The major difference is in America you can criticize what America did to Iraqis at the top of your lungs and work to get different leaders elected. Can't do the same in China without consequences.
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      Is that a major difference? to who? us? makes absolutely no difference to the victims
      - alphabetting 4y ago
        It's true you can't undo the past but it's still a major difference. A population having the ability to speak freely and change elected leaders can effect change and prevent governments from continuing bad policies. Is it really that difficult to see how different that is from a continual status quo?
        snapcaster 4y ago
        In what way do we not have a continuous status quo since world war 2? the US continues invading countries and expanding the empire regardless of protests or people's writings. That's my point, none of it has made a difference
    - scarecrowbob 4y ago
      I can complain all I want and work for as much change as I'd like. Completely without any sort of consequences in the world.
      - alphabetting 4y ago
        can't criticize the govt in effort to elect new leaders in China which was my point.
        4y ago
analyst74 4y ago
It's a difficult topic, I don't think any country has found a humane way to deal with terrorist organizations. US chose to bomb Afghanistan into the ground, China chose to establish very strict social controls. Both are terribly inhumane to innocent people in those regions, but what are real alternatives?
- 2fast4you 4y ago
  Nobody is talking about terrorist organizations.
  - prewett 4y ago
    Terrorism was the reason given for the initial escalation towards the Uighurs around 2014. There were several domestic terrorism incidents involving a handful of Uighurs around, the most notable (to me) being there was a car-fire/bomb in Tian'anmen Square late 2013 and a knife attack at Kunming Train station. Wikipedia lists a steady stream of domestic terrorism incidents involving Uighurs [0]. It seems like the Chinese government only has one tool in their toolbox--control--so apparently their solution is to eliminate the entire ethnicity, although my prediction is that ultimately that will increase the amount of attacks, because now the entire population has a (concrete) grievance as opposed to a few radicalized ones. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chronology_of_major_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chronology_...
    - cntheowaway 4y ago
      It seems in China it’s only considered terrorism if it’s committed by an ethnic minority. Han Chinese have committed far more terrorist attacks yet you don’t see the government putting innocent Han Chinese in concentration camps.

tauwauwau 4y ago

Path to hell is paved with good intentions, and I don't think their are any good leaders.

zeruch 4y ago

"Because you're seeing it through the lense of western media." No, I'm seeing it through taking a series of factually established premises, and comparing them. Critical thinking (however anecdotally a position one launches from) isn't a byproduct of "Western Media". "If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is trying to do good for its citizens, those are straight forward decisions." Are they? "CCTV protects people from street crime" ...or just makes investing in ski masks popular? Your statement is so absent any context (who has access to the CCTV, what legal recourse is there for auditing the footage from a privacy or legal evidentiary perspective), are there controls to prevent abuse, etc. I said nothing of a credit score. I said a social score, which is a very different, and much more contentious issue: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-e...

Aperocky 4y ago
> Critical thinking Most people consider themselves critical thinkers, but subconsciously apply a bias on the sources they read. For instance they would go to depth on and apply every single possible suspicion on news that are against their perception, or failing that, just simply labeling it as 'false news'. At the same time, news or information that conforms to their bias are accepted as truth usually without any questions asked. It's alarming because most of the time it is worth a lot more to think critically of the news that conforms to what you believe - because you are already critical of those that are against it by default. That is what true critical thinking is.
- zeruch 4y ago
  Everyone applies bias at some level, period. That said, the threshold for lazy loading bias can be significantly different for people, and trying to become a Vulcan-Mentat combo might not be the most ideal goal. Actually applying some real rigor and not just resorting to convenient heuristics (e.g. "Western media", "MSM" , "leftist" or "rightist" or several other "ists" reflexively) usually is a good start. " most of the time it is worth a lot more to think critically of the news that conforms to what you believe" Agreed.

andreilys 4y ago

If you start with the assumption that Chinese government is trying to do good for its citizens, Please explain how the continued lockdown in Shanghai is “the Chinese government” doing good for its citizens vs. not wanting to lose face on an absurd zero covid policy?

iqihs 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]