> If you're going to comment on an inflammatory topic like this, do so with respect for the opposing point of view. If you can't muster any such respect, and only want to smite enemies
So you're saying we should respect the views like:
1. the members of particular ethnicity and religion are terrorists, and
2. that mass-imprisonment of innocent members of an ethnicity is the correct response to the fear of terrorism from them?
Because those are some of the views expressed in this thread:
Why not both? I'm serious. It seems like a good idea to promote competition and put a ceiling on the prices of essential medicines based on the global market. 10% above the lowest price may be a bit aggressive, but something must be done to stop these 10,000% markups we're seeing now.
> If you’re thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler or Nazis when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician.
Or any other regime.
My comment was not hyperbolic, as WWII is pretty much the perfect real-world example of the political ramifications of scientific and technological advancement. Far from "benefit[ing] all of mankind even if the benefits are initially felt closer to where they're conducted," if the Nazi's had invented the atom bomb before the allies, mankind would have suffered more than it has.
Exactly my point. Science wasn't neutral in WWII, and it's not neutral now. If von Braun hadn't been part of their regime, they may not have had V-weapons. If Hitler hadn't been such an anti-Semite, Jewish scientists may not have fled Europe en masse and instead helped the Nazi's develop the atom bomb.
Back then, if people celebrated and supported Nazi science in the name of an idealistic concept of politically-neutral human scientific advancement, Europe and maybe even America may be subjugated under a Nazi flag.
Everyone who cares about liberal political institutions should hope that authoritarian regimes are scientifically and technologically backwards, and work to keep it that way.
No, I emphatically do not. That's the most false and inflammatory misreading of my comment possible. The Chinese people are not villains, full stop.
The point I was making is that political regimes matter when it comes to the desire for progress in science and technology, and the idea that it doesn't is naive. I'm glad the Nazis and the Soviets were technically and scientifically behind the Allies and the West, and I think the world would be better off they had stayed even further behind -- even if that meant that humanity as a whole has its scientific and technical progress retarded for the want of their contributions.
Only one of those links was about Muslims. One was about the terrible conditions in labor camps that even Han Chinese are sent to, and another was about the jailing of human rights and defense lawyers for doing their jobs.
I don't care what nationality advances science, but I do want unabashedly authoritarian regimes to be at a technical and scientific disadvantage to ones that at least pay lip service to human rights.
They are harbingers of the computing apocalypse and have shown that progress is a lie. By 2050 we'll be forced to use monitors with the aspect ratio of swords, because the manufactures are going to need to find another ratio to senselessly maximize after they've achieved peak thinness.
My main problem with 16:9 is how obscenely long they are. I use my monitors to do work, not watch movies, so I have a lot more need for vertical real-estate.
Tilting them on their side doesn't help, because they're far too narrow that way.
> Maybe engaging China is the first step to them opening up their society? Similar to the arguments against the Cuban embargo.
No. Them "engaging China" will not open up Chinese society, because Google will have to implement the exact same censorship regime that all the other Chinese sites do.
The Chinese government doesn't give a shit about Google's prestige in the West. They'll kick it out the second it gives them a little lip or is non-compliant with their demands. Google has zero power to change anything for the better.
Also, China has discredited the idea that capitalist engagement will cause liberalization. They've shown that an autocratic regime can have its capitalist cake and eat it too.
> You realize that automated credit scores are a thing in the US right? China is taking the concept a step further, but it's not unique to them
That's a disingenuous and misleading comparison. Your American credit score isn't going to drop if you criticize the president on twitter, or do investigative journalism that makes a government official look bad.
> That’s the gp’s point I think, the U.K. doesn’t have the the same separation of powers between government branches as the US. With some minor exceptions, Parliament is the whole enchilada.
An example of this is that, until recently, their "supreme court" was a committee in one of the houses of parliament:
> I'm trying to manufacture a theory that better fits all the facts. Intimidation is a simple theory, and acceptable as a fallback, but if that's all that was going on, then it raises some questions.
You definitely seem like you're trying to manufacture a theory, but nothing you've written "better fits all the facts."
At best, I think you're operating under a set of faulty assumptions that's causing you to mistakenly reject most likely explanation.
> Wouldn't that be like a new zealander visiting the LA and doing something the Bloods don't like, and so the bloods barge into his hotel room on the night before he returns to new zealand and says "hey is anybody else here"? Like, what's the intimidation? He's about to be beyond their reach, and they didn't even say anything explicitly.
> If it's intimidation, it's both lame, ham handed, and ineffective.
The intimidation is that they've shown interest in her and that they can get to her. It appears that she may have been a Chinese citizen (her account is translated), and Chinese people who annoy government officials in China may eventually be disappear into prison.
> It seems more like they were looking for a specific person, instead of trying to intimidate directly.
That idea doesn't make any sense. They didn't search other rooms, and this person was a journalist that was covering a story that's more than likely embarrassing to one of their superiors.
It seems like they wanted to threaten and intimidate her in a deniable way. Their excuse was flimsy by design.
> Plenty of countries get around this with independent but government funded media
Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at. I don't recall the conversation advancing in that direction very often.
> The only problem I've ever had with the ABC is that it's crap at local news.
I honestly think local news is the main problem. I'm not super pessimistic about the NYT, the WSJ, or the Washington Post. They have the prestige and the reach to attract lots of subscribers and/or patrons, and they're big enough to invest heavily in technology. It's the small local and regional papers that worry me. The staff per eyeball to cover all their beats is probably a lot less favorable, and they don't have much prestige to draw on to attract other support.
> Soviets tended to play up the bad points in their propaganda, so it would likely be pushing images and videos of people suffering with AIDS
Soviets tended to play up the bad points in their propaganda, so it would likely be pushing images and videos of people suffering with AIDS, captioned with "American pigs aren't researching or treating this mass epidemic ripping through their capitalist stronghold".
So you're saying we should respect the views like:
1. the members of particular ethnicity and religion are terrorists, and
2. that mass-imprisonment of innocent members of an ethnicity is the correct response to the fear of terrorism from them?
Because those are some of the views expressed in this thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18565634
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18565128
Tolerance and respect of such views is shameful.