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Flagged. Lets keep xenophobic comments off HN. [Edit: s/racist/xenophobic as per conversation below]

by ig1 13y ago

monkeypizza 13y ago
It's interesting you assume he was being racist, rather than culturalist. I think it's equally valid to assume he was talking about mainland Chinese business culture. Is it controversial to say that mainland Chinese companies (as we're talking about here) commonly steal or clone business plans?
- ig1 13y ago
  That's equally unacceptable, saying "mexicans are lazy" is as bad as saying "hispanics are lazy". It's just xenophobia. The OP wasn't starting a conversation about business practices, they were attempting to make a witty one-liner by denigrating a group of people and reinforcing a negative stereotype. They were implying that Chinese people don't need to be educated because they do unimportant work. Imagine if someone had said that it didn't matter if women or blacks cheated in exams because all they did was housework and unskilled labour ? - that's exactly the same as what the OP is doing here.
- Volpe 13y ago
  Please point me to the company BYD Stole from? Or Tencent? Or Alibaba? The "copying" that you seem to be referring to, is no different to "normal business" in the US: Apple open a retail store, Microsoft open a retail store (or was it vice versa?) Is that "copying"? or is that "competition"? Is it only copying when the parties are different races? or more controversially when one party is chinese?
vorg 13y ago
There's enough corporate espionage happening in the US also. Just 3 days ago, an officer at a certain US software company announced their intention to launder some open source code written 2 years ago by someone else and bundle it in the next version of their product.
- duncan_bayne 13y ago
  That sounds interesting. Do you have a link you could share?
skwirl 13y ago
edit: I'm going to tone back my comment a bit and try to assume the best - that this was a simple misunderstanding and not an attempt to trivialize intolerance. I believe the person you are replying to was making a statement about widespread Chinese government and corporate practices, and not about the Chinese people in general. God knows that the American government and corporate practices are under a constant barrage of attacks from around the world, yet we do not accuse those critics of xenophobia or racism. Also, from the Hacker News Guidelines: "If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."

Flagged. Lets keep xenophobic comments off HN. [Edit: s/racist/xenophobic as per conversation below]

by ig1 13y ago

Flagged. Lets keep xenophobic comments off HN. [Edit: s/racist/xenophobic as per conversation below]

It's interesting you assume he was being racist, rather than culturalist. I think it's equally valid to assume he was talking about mainland Chinese business culture. Is it controversial to say that mainland Chinese companies (as we're talking about here) commonly steal or clone business plans?

ig1 13y ago
That's equally unacceptable, saying "mexicans are lazy" is as bad as saying "hispanics are lazy". It's just xenophobia. The OP wasn't starting a conversation about business practices, they were attempting to make a witty one-liner by denigrating a group of people and reinforcing a negative stereotype. They were implying that Chinese people don't need to be educated because they do unimportant work. Imagine if someone had said that it didn't matter if women or blacks cheated in exams because all they did was housework and unskilled labour ? - that's exactly the same as what the OP is doing here.
Volpe 13y ago
Please point me to the company BYD Stole from? Or Tencent? Or Alibaba? The "copying" that you seem to be referring to, is no different to "normal business" in the US: Apple open a retail store, Microsoft open a retail store (or was it vice versa?) Is that "copying"? or is that "competition"? Is it only copying when the parties are different races? or more controversially when one party is chinese?

vorg 13y ago

There's enough corporate espionage happening in the US also. Just 3 days ago, an officer at a certain US software company announced their intention to launder some open source code written 2 years ago by someone else and bundle it in the next version of their product.

duncan_bayne 13y ago
That sounds interesting. Do you have a link you could share?

skwirl 13y ago

edit: I'm going to tone back my comment a bit and try to assume the best - that this was a simple misunderstanding and not an attempt to trivialize intolerance. I believe the person you are replying to was making a statement about widespread Chinese government and corporate practices, and not about the Chinese people in general. God knows that the American government and corporate practices are under a constant barrage of attacks from around the world, yet we do not accuse those critics of xenophobia or racism. Also, from the Hacker News Guidelines: "If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."