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Dilbert_X wrote:

The free market and democracy are two different things, and they're not compatible.

If companies can maximise their profits and make the best return for shareholders by censoring their own content doesn't capitalist theory mandate thats exactly what they must do?

So Jay, do you want a perfectly functioning free market or do you want democracy? - Its time you decided, or you can continue with writing incoherent messes of posts, your choice.

My posts are coherent, you just don't agree with them.

How is anything having to do with China a free market issue? Companies are free to make money as they please, but dealing with China and the anti-free market principles they live by completely distorts the market. Their worldview is completely incompatible with western views of freedom. As a rationalist I understand there is too much money to pass up. As an idealist I wish that more companies, especially creative companies, would take a stand like South Park did and eschew the money for greater ideals. I think the Chinese government is an abomination.

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

The free market and democracy are two different things, and they're not compatible.

If companies can maximise their profits and make the best return for shareholders by censoring their own content doesn't capitalist theory mandate thats exactly what they must do?

So Jay, do you want a perfectly functioning free market or do you want democracy? - Its time you decided, or you can continue with writing incoherent messes of posts, your choice.

My posts are coherent, you just don't agree with them.

How is anything having to do with China a free market issue? Companies are free to make money as they please, but dealing with China and the anti-free market principles they live by completely distorts the market. Their worldview is completely incompatible with western views of freedom. As a rationalist I understand there is too much money to pass up. As an idealist I wish that more companies, especially creative companies, would take a stand like South Park did and eschew the money for greater ideals. I think the Chinese government is an abomination.

So you're saying companies should put democracy before profit?
That doesn't sound like a capitalist free market to me.
And how does film-makers skewing their scripts in a particular way to maximise exports affect you in the least?

Apparently this is a market distortion too far, what about all the other distortions in the market?
Where does your idealism swing in then?
How can a free-market even have a distortion? Surely the market reacts and irons it out, isn't that the point?

You live in a one and a half Party state in which corporations own and control the government, hardly different from a one party state where the government owns and controls the corporations.
Not sure why you're suddenly excited about democracy, when you've never experienced it or cared about it.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-10-09 17:24:09)

Dilbert_X wrote:

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

The free market and democracy are two different things, and they're not compatible.

If companies can maximise their profits and make the best return for shareholders by censoring their own content doesn't capitalist theory mandate thats exactly what they must do?

So Jay, do you want a perfectly functioning free market or do you want democracy? - Its time you decided, or you can continue with writing incoherent messes of posts, your choice.

My posts are coherent, you just don't agree with them.

How is anything having to do with China a free market issue? Companies are free to make money as they please, but dealing with China and the anti-free market principles they live by completely distorts the market. Their worldview is completely incompatible with western views of freedom. As a rationalist I understand there is too much money to pass up. As an idealist I wish that more companies, especially creative companies, would take a stand like South Park did and eschew the money for greater ideals. I think the Chinese government is an abomination.

So you're saying companies should put democracy before profit?
That doesn't sound like a capitalist free market to me.
And how does film-makers skewing their scripts in a particular way to maximise exports affect you in the least?

Apparently this is a market distortion too far, what about all the other distortions in the market?
Where does your idealism swing in then?
How can a free-market even have a distortion? Surely the market reacts and irons it out, isn't that the point?

You live in a one and a half Party state in which corporations own and control the government, hardly different from a one party state where the government owns and controls the corporations.
Not sure why you're suddenly excited about democracy, when you've never experienced it or cared about it.

What exactly is democracy to you? Democracy is mob rule and so are free markets. What is popular, whether an idea or a product, wins. It doesn't mean the products or the ideas are inherently good or moral, only popular. Both the idea and the product can be destroyed when moral arguments are made against them. They can be made unpopular by being made distasteful.

What I am making is the moral argument against the products being exploited by the Chinese government via their monetary leverage in the market. If a Western country tried to control our media corporations in the same way that the Chinese do every journalist would be howling. I want that moral outrage turned against every company that deals with China and turns a blind eye to their concentration camps, slave labor, social scoring systems and everything else that is antithetical to freedom.

Again, China is an absolute abomination and the left wing media needs to see them as such instead of seeing them as vague cousins in arms because they are nominally communist. If China doesn't represent the utopia on earth the left wants to bring about, then they should spend more time talking about how they would do things differently. But they can't, because they secretly want that kind of power. As stupid as trade wars are, I'm happy Trump has instigated this one with China. We need to get off their tit.

Last edited by Jay (2019-10-09 17:43:40)

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opin … edman.html

Jay wrote:

The part where the censor is watching over Stan's shoulder and making him do edits didn't do it for you? Aren't you a superhero movie guy? Don't you know that every script goes to China for approval by their censors before it's even made? Chasing after Chinese dollars has allowed the Chinese to censor us. This has been going on for decades. We sit here reading about freedom of speech protests on campus and other silliness when the autocrats of the world are busily censoring our own internet and speech through our whorish technology and entertainment companies.

I didn't actually see the episode. The last season of South Park I watched start to finish was back in like 2008 or 2009. Dilbert's more of the comic book movie guy to talk to, I think. I haven't been to a comic book movie theater screening in years, and am several movies behind on the Marvel/DC front.

Is this a shaming thing? Because if so, how many products do you own that were made in China, or have parts or materials originating from China?

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Larssen wrote:

uziq wrote:

well it was effectively the beginning of the end of semi-autonomous governance anyway. hence the protests. durrrrr.

The moment carrie lam withdrew the bill there was an opportunity for diplomatic engagement. Instead, the protests evolved. Over time the message changed, the demands expanded, the rhetoric became more confrontational. There's a conscious effort by some to spark actual violence. They want the Chinese to respond with excessive force.

I'd be interested to see how this all plays out once the protests die down.

The protest demands evolved based on the HK government's reaction to the protests. It's incredibly misleading to paint the message coming from the protests as a nebulous set of demands. Don't forget the use of triad and police violence as the protests escalated. It seems like you only want to criticize the protesters for not like, being all diplomatic as their heads are getting bashed in by new-wave Pinkerton thugs.

The most recent protesting coalesced around the opposition to a proposed extradition bill, but the roots and key players trace back to the Umbrella Revolution and Occupy Hong Kong movement from 2014. The movement has always been about increasing HK autonomy/limiting Chinese influence on Hong Kong politics. The very election of Carrie Lam is seen as illegitimate through this lens, so it's disingenuous to scold the protesters for not engaging on a diplomatic level. If you recall the result of that movement, diplomatic engagement led to essentially zero concessions by the Hong Kong/CPC establishment. Meanwhile, people were arrested and served jail time, and a few have supposedly gone missing, which is a pretty good fucking reason to protest against an extradition bill in my opinion.

For someone obviously steeped in international politics, this is a hard swing and a miss for you - the protesters NEVER saw Carrie Lam as legitimate, because she was elected through a change in the electoral structure which gives China oversight on who can actually run for Chief Executive of the SAR, which triggered the movement these protesters are borne from. The extradition bill is a very real threat to any present and future protest and an erosion of liberties, based on the results from the 2014 Umbrella Revolution/Occupy movement.

The fact that I didn't add a treatise in my post on the historical context to the protests doesn't mean I'm unaware. Of course there's a cause and effect relationship between how the protest movement evolved and how China / the HK government handled the situation. The grievances can be traced back much further than 2014 as well. It's not that the protestors don't have a right to be angry, it's that continuous escalation on this level will fail.

It's important to see through the (conflict) narratives for a minute and just look at the social dynamics. The current protest movement is very fragmented and some factions seem powered by ideologues on the extreme end of the spectrum - they want independence for HK. They push people to be violently confrontational because an excessive response on the part of the police increases their base of support and allows them to shape an us vs them narrative (even though they are a small group of the whole protest movement). Controlling the narrative here is extremely important and these moments are ideal opportunities to them.

The 18 year old who got shot is an example. He ran with people throwing molotov cocktails, though that is often glossed over. The shooting was quickly seized upon by many news outlets, especially english-language ones, to underline the overarching story of the repressed HKer vs the Chinese evil empire. Be aware that this is the whole point to that part of the movement, and that they are very invested in disseminating their message in english language publications as well. Many of the protest actions are intended to ellicit  more violent responses. An airport occupation would've been beat down by riot police anywhere in the world.

And yes, the Chinese response is excessive, and triads didn't help, though arguably so far they've also been very restrained if compared to their handling of other protests & minorities.

Jay wrote:

Again, China is an absolute abomination and the left wing media needs to see them as such instead of seeing them as vague cousins in arms because they are nominally communist. If China doesn't represent the utopia on earth the left wants to bring about, then they should spend more time talking about how they would do things differently. But they can't, because they secretly want that kind of power. As stupid as trade wars are, I'm happy Trump has instigated this one with China. We need to get off their tit.

jeez jay you have really been drinking the kool aid lately. didn't i tell you before, you never go full retard?

the 'left-wing media' see china as its brothers-in-arms? can you point me to the media sources in question that exhibit pro-china tendencies, please? i read my fair share of left-leaning journals and see almost zero sympathy for china. which ones are you reading? n+1? jacobin? the new left review? oh wait, do you mean the 'MSM' are crypto-leftists who all secretly long for communism in america? are you feeling alright, jay?

maoism went out of vogue with european and american intellectuals in the 1960s, right around when the evidence and news coming out of china was absolutely irrefutable. you might have found some radicals in paris or something in the 1970s who remained committed to the project of maoism (sartre was a famous fool and didn't recant until late in his life). as for support for chinese communism in the west in the 21st century? almost zero. most of the left sees china as a state-capitalist regime who are communist in name only, at this point. widespread financial and market reforms have just made it a more predatory, and better, exponent of capitalism than america. you're pissed off because they are beating you at your own game.

i think the bigger issue is not being able to tell between social democracy, which is the centre ground for most of that western world, and ‘the Left’, regardless of the various strains of leftist thought or factions.

america, the most unequal society in the advanced world, seems to view any form of taxation or federal activity as ‘Leftism’. it’s a very distorted worldview and has little to nothing to do with genuine public ownership or wealth redistribution. AOC doesn’t want to send everyone to work on farms, does she?

uziq wrote:

i think the bigger issue is not being able to tell between social democracy, which is the centre ground for most of that western world, and ‘the Left’, regardless of the various strains of leftist thought or factions.

america, the most unequal society in the advanced world, seems to view any form of taxation or federal activity as ‘Leftism’. it’s a very distorted worldview and has little to nothing to do with genuine public ownership or wealth redistribution. AOC doesn’t want to send everyone to work on farms, does she?

I think a lot of non-republican Americans do admire China's engineering achievements and the CCP's willingness to invest in infrastructure. Maybe not as much as they need or the best quality but they are doing it regularly and without anyone trying to stop it for ideological reasons such as opposition to government spending. The last time the U.S. did mass infrastructure spending was 10 years ago during the Great Recession when Obama and Democrats passed the Stimulus bill. Recently a lot of Americans flipped out when AOC suggested we spend money weatherproofing homes so that we don't have a bunch of homeless people every time a storm comes. They made memes calling her a dumb bitch for trying to save their homes.

In America the right calls any thing the government does socialism. Build a park, build a dam, give people subsidies to buy private health insurance, give school kids free breakfast...all socialism. All tyrannical socialism. After hearing for a lifetime that everything good that government does is socialism a lot of people actually started to like socialism since a lot of people also want services that the free market isn't providing. The fact that the Chinese are an organized people and don't have a lot of the cultural issues we do makes it worse.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

uziq wrote:

i think the bigger issue is not being able to tell between social democracy, which is the centre ground for most of that western world, and ‘the Left’, regardless of the various strains of leftist thought or factions.

america, the most unequal society in the advanced world, seems to view any form of taxation or federal activity as ‘Leftism’. it’s a very distorted worldview and has little to nothing to do with genuine public ownership or wealth redistribution. AOC doesn’t want to send everyone to work on farms, does she?

I think a lot of non-republican Americans do admire China's engineering achievements and the CCP's willingness to invest in infrastructure. Maybe not as much as they need or the best quality but they are doing it regularly and without anyone trying to stop it for ideological reasons such as opposition to government spending. The last time the U.S. did mass infrastructure spending was 10 years ago during the Great Recession when Obama and Democrats passed the Stimulus bill. Recently a lot of Americans flipped out when AOC suggested we spend money weatherproofing homes so that we don't have a bunch of homeless people every time a storm comes. They made memes calling her a dumb bitch for trying to save their homes.

In America the right calls any thing the government does socialism. Build a park, build a dam, give people subsidies to buy private health insurance, give school kids free breakfast...all socialism. All tyrannical socialism. After hearing for a lifetime that everything good that government does is socialism a lot of people actually started to like socialism since a lot of people also want services that the free market isn't providing. The fact that the Chinese are an organized people and don't have a lot of the cultural issues we do makes it worse.

China doesn't have to deal with things like property rights. No one owns anything. Every piece of property reverts back to the state after 99 years. It's why so many of the oligarchs were sending their money here and to Canada before China clamped down with capital controls. When you can disappear troublemakers instead of patiently listening to them whine at the next town hall advisory board meeting you can get things done. Personally, I'd rather deal with the NIMBY's bitching than having them forcibly relocated at gunpoint, but I'm also not a fan of Sim City being played in real life.

AOC is a dumb bitch because she wasn't pushing for weatherproofing, she was pushing for forced energy efficiency upgrades in every commercial and residential building in the entire country. Nothing like top-down dictatorship telling people they need to spend their own money on their own homes for stuff that isn't likely to pay back to get the memes flying.

No one owns property in America either. If you don't pay your property taxes, they will take your house away. If someone wants to build a mall where your house is the city will take your house away too. In many states people don't even own the oil under their homes. I know it is worse in China but we shouldn't pretend that they are a bizarre system.

forced energy efficiency upgrades in every commercial and residential building in the entire country.

Sounds like a good idea. That would have been a better thing to spend money on than tax cuts. Speaking of those didn't Trump take away your property tax deduction?

calling a woman politician a ‘dumb bitch’. stay classy. really betraying your unreconstructed blue collar attitudes, there, jay. do people at the yacht club talk like trailer trash too?

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

uziq wrote:

i think the bigger issue is not being able to tell between social democracy, which is the centre ground for most of that western world, and ‘the Left’, regardless of the various strains of leftist thought or factions.

america, the most unequal society in the advanced world, seems to view any form of taxation or federal activity as ‘Leftism’. it’s a very distorted worldview and has little to nothing to do with genuine public ownership or wealth redistribution. AOC doesn’t want to send everyone to work on farms, does she?

liberal is not left. liberal is far from left.

how many thousand times have i said this to you on this forum over the years? but you keep sounding off like some wannabe conservative blowhard about ‘the evil left’. a little truth and integrity in your language, please.

In America they are synonymous.