133arc585

joined 2 years ago
[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

The reason people keep bringing up Iraq is not for some "whataboutism". It's simpler and more significant than that: it shows a hypocrisy, and double-standards. It's not that people are saying "what Russia is doing isn't bad because the USA did bad" (that is whataboutism, by the way); they're saying that the USA's (and the world's) feigned outrage over Russia is hypocritical because of what the USA has done. Nobody held (or intends to hold) the USA to account for what it's done, yet everyone is demanding Russia be torn apart, torn down, everyone tried for war crimes, etc. It's a double-standard. If the USA had been held to account for what it did, then people wouldn't be saying "but Iraq" (and if they did, that truly would be simple whataboutism). But until there is fair application of standards, it's fair to call the USA on its hypocrisy when it wants to pretend to be the world's police while simultaneously (ironically, in line with behavior of actual police) causing tremendous harm itself.

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You're taking an overly specific definition of lynching and framing the situation wrong, and coming to a bad conclusion.

A court's refusal to punish it, in nearly every case, is tacit support. They aren't saying "please, lynch!" but they're saying they won't punish lynching.

This also easily fits any definition of lynching that's not so restricted so as to only include "hanging black people from trees in town squares".

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

My issue is that you said they're capitalist. They're not. They do use a market economy in addition to a planned economy, as part of the overall socialist economic system. It's not a binary either-or; using a market economy doesn't mean it's capitalism, and planned economy (intervention) doesn't mean it's socialism. When I said they're structural terms, and relate to purpose: capitalism's purpose is to maximally extract profit and concentrate wealth; socialism's purpose is to better the lives (materially and culturally) of its people. China, as a socialist system, takes advantage of the benefits that a market economy can offer (efficiency, competition, resource allocation, demand and pricing signals) but doesn't use it to extract and concentrate wealth: instead, it uses the net benefits of the market economy to benefit the people. Similarly, a purely planned economy can be very stable and fair but is prone to stagnation and slow progress. By using both systems simultaneously, taking the relative advantages of each, China is able to benefit from efficiency and stability. There's also no pure free market economy: every capitalist economy has degrees of government intervention (another name for planned economy), especially in times of crises.

I also don't know what you meant about a "strong central government" not making them communist. That seems like a strawman. Nobody would say that a strong central government makes it communist, or a lack of a strong central government means it's not communist. "Strong" with no other qualifies is also not very useful: do you mean tough and resilient, or do you mean controlling?

I weighed calling them socialist, but it seemed… unhelpful when what i was trying to highlight that the unemployed youth are relying on family, and not the state.

This is a trap that people keep falling in to. Just because a socialist country doesn't do "good thing X" doesn't mean it's not socialist. No system is perfect; the difference is that the CPC makes strong plans, sticks to them, and publishes progress reports to address the problems that do arise. Should the state be taking the burden here where family currently is? Perhaps. But it's failure to do so doesn't mean the system isn't socialist. Again, I'll repeat my earlier statement: being "socialist" is a statement that is about the purpose of the government and the relation of the government to its people; it is socialist if it is for the benefit of the people en masse. Being "socialist" is not a statement of a utopic ideal antithesis to capitalism.

If you truly are willing to read about this, the book I mentioned is a good overview of China as it exists, as an implementation of a socialist society, at a level that does not require previous knowledge of theory or of China. Being intended for a foreign audience, it makes a concerted effort to address common misconceptions held by those outside of China about China. It's also very heavily sourced: each chapter ends with several pages of citations used in that chapter, including primary sources from CPC members, official government documents, analysis and critiques, and "historical"/foundational texts.

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Wow. Reading through those Descriptions is rough. Many of them involve the cop lying with verbal testimony not matching bodycam footage. One I saw was after the guy was already restrained, he bit the cop's finger, so the cop shot him. Others show that they are looking for (or will make up) any excuse to shoot: one person had a lighter in their hand which caused the cop to shoot and kill them. It's honestly disgusting that people will go out of their way to defend this system. I guess that's a level of privelege that I just don't understand; how can you possibly be sure you'll never be in such a situation with a lying, murderous police officer?

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Fully sourced means my statements were sourced, not that it was dripping in sources.

Also, the book I cited is not propaganda. Please don't resort to calling everything that posits an alternate view propaganda.

From the Springer page on the book,

Roland Boer is a professor in the School of Marxism Studies at Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.

So he has a degree in and is a professor in the exact subject he's talking about, from a respected University:

Dalian University of Technology (DUT) [...] is a public research university located in Dalian, Liaoning, China, with an additional campus in Panjin, Liaoning. [...] Formerly called the Dalian Institute of Technology, DUT is renowned as one of the Big Four Institutes of Technology in China. [...] As of 2022, DUT was listed as one of the top 400 global universities in several major international universities' rankings

Moreover, it's not some random publisher or some guy's PDF on the internet. It's published by Springer which, if you have done any academic reading in almost any field, you will know that Springer content is high-quality and trustworthy. In fact, at a lot of the university libraries I've been in, some subjects (maths, especially) are probably three-quarters Springer publications,

Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing.

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you say falun gong organ harvesting didn’t happen, why don’t you (or other people in this thread that keep denying it) provide any source to prove your point instead of downvoting?

How do you expect someone to prove a negative? What sort of evidence would you like that proves that something didn't happen?

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

No, and to paint everything this way serves to delegitimize alternatives to capitalism. China is not capitalist, they are socialist. They have their own problems, because no system is perfect. But there are alternatives to capitalism, and not everything is "secretly capitalism in disguise".

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

It's interesting how you went from "it's not relevant at all" to "it's relevant in general but not in this case" after I gave you a reply.

If you have found a new security or privacy flaw, I would love to hear about it. But pushing your irrelevant opinions on others who are not interested, is unpleasant for us, and a waste of time for you.

My opinions are not irrelevant, as I laid out in my previous comment that you just agreed with. Others are obviously interested, and it's not "unpleasant" for them, as people responded and upvoted (and no downvotes)--indicating it's relevant. It's not a waste of time for me, because not only did it take me negligible time to type literally three sentences (actually, I copy-and-pasted the comment from one I made earlier, I didn't even write it fresh here), but it has value to others and as such is not a waste of time for me.

So whether he agrees with you that guys can become girls or vice versa, or whether he believes the same narrative that you do regarding corona is simply irrelevant.

The strawman construction was a nice little touch. Completely ignoring the part where I laid out that my personal stance and agreement or disagreement with the CEO is irrelevant, you act as if I personally disagree with the CEO and then use that to dismiss me.

You obviously have an agenda. So be it. But this conversation is truly a waste of time: you were obviously wrong and as soon as that was pointed out you shift goalposts.

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

I see, thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure about the specifics of how they produce their product from the upstream source.

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (3 children)

If you think the two are unrelated you're oblivious to the considerations that must be taken into account when discussing potential privacy concerns in software. It's not ad hominem to acknowledge that the personal convictions and values of the CEO (and indeed other employees) can potentially decrease the sense of privacy of a product.

If the CEO is so adamant in his anti-X stance that he decides it's acceptable to censor access to materials about X, or perhaps worse that he decides to expose anyone using his software that discusses or supports X, would not consider those valid concerns?

Companies are made of people, and software is made by people. Since people are not neutral, companies and software are also not neutral. The stances of a company or software on privacy, freedoms, etc are all influenced by the stances on those exact issues by the constituent people of the company and developers of the software.

Consider Elon Musk and Twitter. Given Elon's personal beliefs and how adamant he is to enact and enforce those beliefs, do you consider him a neutral influence on the privacy of Twitter as a product? There is no way to see him as a neutral influence; he has direct influence by his ideological stance on the software. As such, if you have enough distrust in him or his ideological stance, that can transfer to distrust in Twitter as software.

In fact, it's not even about whether I support the CEO or whether I think his stance is "right" or "wrong" as you imply. It's entirely about how the CEO sees his beliefs in relation to the company and product he's overseeing. I could entirely agree with the CEO and still consider their influence to be a detriment to the product if he puts his ideology ahead of pragmatism, for example.

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