Twitter is Blocked in China, But Chinese State News Agency is Buying Promoted Tweets To Portray Hong Kong Protestors as Violent (techcrunch.com) 123
Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua is promoting tweets attacking the protestors and claiming they do not have wider support. From a report: Twitter is being criticized for running promoted tweets by China's largest state news agency that paint pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong as violent, even though the rallies, including one that drew an estimated 1.7 million people this weekend, have been described as mostly peaceful by international media. Promoted tweets from China Xinhua News, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, were spotted and shared by the Twitter account of Pinboard, the bookmarking service founded by Maciej Ceglowski, and other users. The demonstrations began in March to protest a now-suspended extradition bill, but have grown to encompass other demands, including the release of imprisoned protestors, inquiries into police conduct, the resignation of current Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam and a more democratic process for electing Legislative Council members and the chief executive. UPDATE: Twitter is now blocking state-run media outlets from advertising on its platform.
Big duh! (Score:4, Insightful)
No surprise there.......do as we say, not as we do!
Not a twitter user, or even understander (Score:5, Interesting)
OK while I guess I can understand (?) the ability to mass instant-message your various "waiting in line at Starbucks" thoughts to all your "followers" (how don't we see that as a term loaded with a host of psychological implications?), the idea that anyone from governments to marketeers can plunk down $100k and have the twitterverse spammed with whatever they want it to say should discredit the entire mechanism instantly.
I ask honestly: why do people volunteer to give paid media organizations that extra channel into your lives? WTF? Do you subscribe for extra junk mail too?
Re: (Score:2)
Naah... It ain't narcissism. (Score:4, Interesting)
That would require that EVERYONE on Twitter is a narcissist.
And for such a large segment of population to be narcissistic, that would make narcissism as normal or at least as prevalent feature of human psyche as say... love, fear or anger.
It's something else.
It's parasocial interaction. [wikipedia.org]
And the flow is not downward, from the "influencer", "celebrity", organization or whatever - down towards the followers.
It's aimed UPWARD, from the followers/fans, towards the target of interest/agreement/adoration or even rage.
It is also practically a guaranteed echo chamber.
Follow person X's tweets and you will find either people you agree with OR attackers of said person X and by that extension of you too.
It's all the people you adore, all the people that agree with you AND all your enemies whom you can smite - all in one place.
It's self-actualization through both what you love and through what you despise! What more can you need?!
Well... some love would be nice.
Which is why tweets get "hearted".
Re: Naah... It ain't narcissism. (Score:2)
On Twitter you are essentially on a reality TV show. The producers arrange things so that conflicts will arise, to promote engagement. Then they just let you go at it. Boom, instant entertainment, no talent required. Guaranteed lack of intelligent aspects. We can't have the masses reading anything with a message or philosophy.
Re: (Score:2)
Is this any different than you buying newspaper at the booth and have various agencies buy ad space in front page? What about highway billboards while you drive by? Honestly, this reeks of get-off-my-lawn rhetoric to an obvious answer.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe that's my point, to ask that question?
I don't know anyone that /volunteers/ to watch billboards, to touch on one of your examples - it's more like an odious thing we put up with.
Does twitter identify advertised/paid content as clearly as a news paper does?
Then again, the whole spectrum of paid content, spun content, biased content, blogs, personal opinion, objective news...is a great deal more vague than it ever was.*
*to be clear, there was a great deal of spun/biased content forever in every modern n
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Alright; I'm not trying to be an Asshole here but take a minute to imagine this scenario without facebook.
You've got this 'old friend' who you drifted away from, you don't keep in touch with him, you lost all contact with, have no addresses or numbers for , etc. He was completely out of your life. This also evidently not a concern to you, as despite it being very easy to reconnect you hadn't made any effort to do so.
So... you clearly haven't valued his friendship (nor he yours) enough to lift even a finger
Re: (Score:2)
I am on Twitter for the interesting content.
You can learn a lot about politicians by their tweets and how they react to events. You can talk to them directly too, something that is normally difficult. I've had actual conversations with people with real power and influence.
It's also good for getting various interesting people's takes on things too. It's good to get a plurality of views on things, and expose yourself to ideas you might not have considered before. Helps prevent getting stuck in a bubble.
I also
Headline is fucked (Score:5, Interesting)
Twitter is Blocked in China, But Twitter is Selling Promoted Tweets to China State News Agency that Portray Hong Kong Protestors as Violent
Fixed that for you.
Or the content is fucked (Score:2)
Twitter is being criticized for running promoted tweets by China's largest state news agency that paint pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong as violent, even though the rallies, including one that drew an estimated 1.7 million people this weekend, have been described as mostly peaceful by international media.
These demonstrations were in fact [theguardian.com] violent [scmp.com]. And your mainstream international media tend to downplay that violence.
The last demonstration went more peaceful because many other HK residents had enough of violence [hongkongfp.com] and the protesters want to get better PR.
Re: (Score:2)
There have been some few incidents of violence by the protesters. They are mostly not justified, though capturing the guy the "I love police" guy may have been justified, as he appeared to have weapons of the type used to attack protesters. When the police are not protecting the people, they protect themselves.
But what I should really point out is that lighting a fire on concrete steps is not violence. You need to break something or hurt someone to count as violence. Just as graffiti is not considered viole
Re: (Score:2)
"Few incidences"? That's how you downplay violence when it satisfy your narratives? These happened every day on large scale in HK.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Commies lie. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most politicians lie - this is independent of their politics.
Re:Commies lie. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most politicians lie - this is independent of their politics.
You have to lie more when your policies don't work, and lies work better when the press is censored.
Re: (Score:2)
+1 Insightful, Nice to be able to agree with you on one Bill.
Re: (Score:2)
Most politicians lie - this is independent of their politics.
You have to lie more when your policies don't work, and lies work better when the press is censored.
I would say that the policies may be working quite well at achieving their true objectives. Their stated objectives are the first big lie, and success the second.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The careers of politicians
consist of three main positions,
which I shall now supply:
they stand, they sit, they lie.
- Brian Bilston
https://brianbilston.com/2016/... [brianbilston.com]
But all people lie, often, and many times about things that don't matter much. For example in a study by Scientific American found that 90% lie in their profile when looking for a date.
The only reply possible (Score:1)
is in all website you can write compare what is happening at this very moment in Hong Kong with what happened in the Tiananmen Square so the only option left to the Chinese Gov. is to fully block all the Internet.
Re: (Score:3)
It is quite a bit more difficult to bring tanks into Hong Kong from a different province, like they did with Tiananmen Square
They will have a harder time getting local military leaders to crush the protesters into hamburger and wash them down the sewer
Re: (Score:2)
Especially when the US has been very making a show of force by having a visible Naval presence in the area. A major human rights violation of that sort would probably result in widespread global support of an immediate emergency military intervention to protect the people. Which is likely the only reason it hasn't happened yet.
Re: (Score:2)
it is unfortunate that reasonable trade negotiations have been taken out of play, that has been the primary tool with China since Nixon reopened trade with them.
Re: (Score:2)
The tariffs are quite reasonable really. There have been one sided tariff and exclusion policies in place not just in China but India and a number of other places around the globe. Everywhere we've just supported trade being as open as possible expecting everyone else to follow suit and they just haven't done it.
These kind of tariffs make small domestic businesses and suppliers more price competitive with mass imports. Widespread use of domestic suppliers will actually bring their costs down and the prices
Re: (Score:2)
OFFS, when will you stop acting as a shill and actually read up on Smoot Hawley and WW2 [thebalance.com]
And some trite propaganda from a right wing think tank does not qualify, since they are shills as well
Re: The only reply possible (Score:2)
Nice propaganda! One-sided, full of false equivalencies, and wholly lacking in nuance. Just what's needed to keep the people in the dark!
Re: (Score:2)
Oh look, the baby on the playground is crying and calling people names now
Maybe YOU can identify some actual dissimilarities between Smoot-Hawley leading up to WW2 and US tariffs today?
Re: The only reply possible (Score:2)
You Corporate Nazis can't do any better than schoolyard insults, can you?
Dissimilarity #1: Back then we exported WAY more than we imported.
Dissimilarity #2: S-H applied to all imports. President Trump's tariffs apply only to the worst of the trade abusers.
Dissimilarity #3: Back in the day the US had a real industrial base, and was not dependent upon its biggest geopolitical rival for nearly all manufactured goods. This has major implications for risk analysis... if you wish to see the US continue as an inde
Re: (Score:2)
A number of them. As a historian I know loves to say, history has never repeated itself before and it isn't about to start now.
The tariffs aren't anywhere near those levels. We are in a strong economy and not a recession. We still have global economic leverage we didn't have then. And tariffs never had a way of creating more farmland whereas we have a massive and silent industrial infrastructure and plentiful resources to run it sitting idle today just waiting to be fired back up. That just names a few.
Re: (Score:2)
Actual historians say, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes"
There is also the nugget, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it"
Re: (Score:2)
Oh he is an actual historian and one of my best friends in meat space but he isn't big on quotes and sayings like those which are often repeated by professors, in fact he dislikes them. The same set of circumstances with small details of the environment changed, without certain individuals or meetings involved, etc could result in a radically different outcome. In fact, that very concept is the basis of the scientific method.
"There is also the nugget, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it""
Yes,
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the Chinese rhetoric is against the UK, not least because we continue to have a legal responsibility towards Hong Kong for a few years yet and would be required to respond should China act inappropriately.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Dang, to quote the first commentator on that thread
"This is going to be really, really fucking bad."
I cannot disagree, as smart as Xi is, he seems to be conflating Trumps obtuseness with the protests in HK
He may well destroy one because he cannot stop the other
Of course, in the world of international dick-waving, we could all pay a very high price, in a desperately short amount of time
'Mericans, ask yourself, does President Trump display the patience and reserve that kept us from going nuclear with Russia
The audience (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's look at the facts:
So who are the ads targeting? What is the audience?
The answer is: the rest of humanity.
Let's not be fooled, then.
Re: (Score:3)
The tech world - which generally knows to distrust social media - won't be fooled. The rest of humanity - the vast majority - is very much subject to manipulation.
China can squash Hong Kong any time it wants to. China would like to be assured of saving face if-and-when they do so. They need the rest of the world to at least look away, when the rivers of blood start to flow. Failing that, they may just cut off supplies and let Hong Kong get hungry.
Hong Kong is still semi-pretend-democratic, which is just a t
Re: (Score:2)
>The tech world
The same tech world that has adopted similar censorious tendencies as China. There was a time I would have agreed but I think the tech world has learned the wrong lessons about censorship and propaganda from China.
I think you put too much stock into the tech world.
Re: (Score:2)
They have already cut off supplies by threatening air-space violation if CX let pilots or crew who protested to fly. Just like Russia, if they decide to close the air-space there's nothing anyone can do.
Your last point is awesome too. HK is like a scar to them. The one country two systems is like a virus left by the British, telling big daddy what to do. China can't have that .
Re: (Score:2)
They have already cut off supplies by threatening air-space violation if CX let pilots or crew who protested to fly. Just like Russia, if they decide to close the air-space there's nothing anyone can do.
If only Hong Kong had a strategic role as a deep water harbour.
Oh, wait..
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't very complicated. The US navy has a presence the Chinese have been complaining about recently which are poised to respond. If China commits human rights violations to put down the protests the entire world would support their emergency intervention. China is planning to do exactly that so they are trying to drum up any sort of support they can.
Re: (Score:2)
If the Chinese intervene in HK (or Taiwan for that matter), the US will do absolutely nothing.
Sure, Trump will get on Twitter and bleat about the Chinese, but the US military will park it's carrier group and watch it all happen.
We cannot afford a war with China. The rest of the world does not want war with China -- trade is too profitable, and we're all far too dependent on Chinese manufacture.
This is the same strategy that Putin has used; because it works.
Re: (Score:1)
If the Chinese intervene in HK (or Taiwan for that matter), the US will do absolutely nothing
Not quite. The US has citizens in HK mixed with the locals. If the government uses deadly force and kills any US citizen, then the US will have every right to intervene. The carrier group is parked there to let the government know that any attack will be swiftly reciprocated. The Chinese know this and are busy spreading "the protesters are evil and violent" message to justify an attack. This is also why the Chinese have denied any US ship port in HK (more casualties on the ground), and have criticized
Re: (Score:2)
They're there for show. There's no way in hell even someone like Trump would risk an all out war with China over this. (and given the Chinese mindset, any overt military action by the US would absolutely lead to an escalation..)
But taking the bait, How long did the Iranians (a SIGNIFICANTLY weaker adversary, with far less trade) hold US hostages without any real action on the part of the US?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you really think that the US would suffer the loss of an entire carrier group without going nuclear?
Re: (Score:2)
Agree? Not entirely
One of the purposes of a carrier group is to allow the projection of force to continents outside of immediate range
i.e. not just other naval groups, but targets on land, that has been adequately demonstrated since ww2 and the war in the pacific
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that Doolittle's B-25 attacks on Japan were launched from an air craft carrier... [wikipedia.org]
these were the first direct bombing attacks on Japan and demonstrated that the US was not limited to launching bombers from land bases
Re: (Score:2)
Of course I realize that China has nukes, and any SANE person would abide by MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), however the current US President may be a little unhinged
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't very complicated. The US navy has a presence the Chinese have been complaining about recently which are poised to respond. If China commits human rights violations to put down the protests the entire world would support their emergency intervention. China is planning to do exactly that so they are trying to drum up any sort of support they can.
There's a reason they denied recent requests for Hong Kong port visits for 2 Navy ships.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to think it all has something to do with ethics. I might actually support cranking up the war machine to genuinely liberate the Chinese people but our leaders are primarily interested in the military and economic threat of China as well. Those are real considerations, it is one thing for another giant to rise up and even surpass the US it is quite another for Mao's regime to be at the helm.
Re: (Score:2)
In the world of possibilities, I find myself agreeing with you...
China serves as a valid threat to justify military spending that is out of line with the ability of Americans to pay for it
Just to be disagreeable, Mao is dust and has no 'regime', Xi is the child of a party leader who was disgraced and destroyed by Mao during the cultural revolution
I would warmly welcome China taking up the helm of 'world police' and would heartily encourage them to step in Afghanistan as such
Re: (Score:2)
"LOL Shaitan, what happened to your previous "human rights violations"."
I think you are confusing the sales pitch with the actual motivations and also somehow seem to be under the impression that I am "our leaders." The reason to liberate the Chinese people IS about human rights violations. Or are you under the impression we should all just pretend only this specific incident that gave justification to take action counts and we'd ignore the ongoing and mass human rights violations they are already engaged i
Re: (Score:2)
OK, back to disagreeing. Did you let some sane person use you ID?
You say:
>>China is a violent and rabid dog running around and biting its own puppies.
When, in fact China is behaving in a completely sane manner and the US has been running around attacking allies that have stood fast with them for decades
Re: (Score:2)
"When, in fact China is behaving in a completely sane manner and the US has been running around attacking allies that have stood fast with them for decades"
Guess you are one of the lucky ones who isn't of the wrong religion or ethnicity rounded up in a death camp waiting until someone wealthy or important is a match for your organs.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for letting us know your motivations, while I recognize that religions do offer some benefit to the followers, attempting to build a political power base around any religion either results in its persecution (as seen in many countries throughout history), or the corruption of that religion (as we currently see in the US)
IMO, religion is a personal belief best kept personal
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I am actually surprised that they have not astro-turfed this story
Re: (Score:2)
There are also pictures floating around supposedly proving that China is bussing in counter protestors. I can't read their moonrunes so I don't know any details, the photos are over the shoulder of buss riders on their phone supposedly texting/getting instructions on what to do.
I haven't seen that, but I have seen the photos of a bunch of their armed police staged at a stadium right next to Hong Kong for, um, exercises.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Volume trumps facts!
chinese media also posting on west social media (Score:2)
One should also be aware that Chinese government PR is being posted on Western social media platforms like Twitter and FB by state-owned news agency accounts, like those used by my friends in China, in the US and Canada, as well as inside the EU.
Hi, guys! I loved the plum wine, by the way!
Re: (Score:2)
One should also be aware that Chinese government PR is being posted on Western social media platforms like Twitter and FB by state-owned news agency accounts, like those used by my friends in China, in the US and Canada, as well as inside the EU.
Hi, guys! I loved the plum wine, by the way!
Wasn't Saudi Arabia caught astroturfing Western social media over their spat with Qatar as well?
Re: (Score:2)
Iran, Saudis, Bahrainis, India, Pakistan, the list goes on.
Backfire? (Score:1)
What benefit does making HK look bad to "mainlanders" serve? I suspect Xi believes he can embarrass the HK protesters enough to stop. However, a more likely side-effect is that it will drive a wedge between mainlanders and HK residents, exacerbating the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
This campaign isn't targeted at people in mainland China. Twitter is blocked there, remember? It's targeted at the rest of the world.
Hmmm (Score:1)
Can they use that technique to block a certain person of notable tint here?
Twitter is like any other company (Score:2)
Shut them down (Score:2)
Tell me that these rioters aren't violent? (Score:1)
Typical western fake news; I hope one day the sheep wakes up and fuck you over. I won't be holding my breath though, given how pervasive that MSM try to push their Anti-China narrative.
Tell me this is a peaceful protest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
They even attack an old man who just happened to pass by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Or a random report who happens to be Chinese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
By large, the original protests in 2014 were pretty peaceful and initially the p
Doing business... (Score:1)
Nonsense (Score:2)
(clears throat)
Nonsense, my fellow westeners! China would never do such things. Now did you see the game? How about that!
link to twitter blog with archive (Score:2)
link to twitter blog with archive
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us... [twitter.com]
The art of misdirection (Score:2)
"China State News Agency is buying promoted tweets" puts the focus on China as the one and only villain here.
A better headline might be "Twitter accepts China's money to promote fake news about the Hong Kong demonstrations".
Disconnect China from the Internet (Score:2)
FFS, just cut the connection. Evil dictatorships should not be allowed to connect to the rest of the world. Isolate them, don't do business with them, let them collapse like the Soviet Union.
Ironic (Score:2)
I find it very ironic that we are supposed to accept that what the "international media" says is accurate and true, and accept that what the Chinese say is false.
The reason I find it ironic is that the second to last paragraph in the linked article makes reference to the "Tiananmen Square Massacre", which was widely reported upon by the "international media".
If you do a google search for "jay mathews tiananmen square", you will quickly discover that the Tiananmen Square Massacre did not happen.
You will read
Re: (Score:2)
Mathews is an education reporter for The Washington Post. He was the paperâ(TM)s first Beijing bureau chief and returned in 1989 to help cover the Tiananmen demonstrations. With his wife, Linda Mathews, he is the author of One Billion: A China Chronicle. This piece originally ran in the September/October 1998 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review.
President Clintonâ(TM)s precedent-setting visit to China filled the front pages of American newspapers and led the evening television news for many day
Re: (Score:1)
People's Republic of China is a Technocratic Dictatorship with a thin veneer of Capitalism
Please do not mistake this for any form of Socialism that we would see in Northern Europe, where belief in human rights is prevalent
Re: (Score:1)
How is a technocratic dictatorship any different than a regular dictatorship? Soviets used technology and were very advanced. Does that make them a technocratic dictatorship?
Re: (Score:2)
They are both dictatorship regime. Any sub-categorization is meaningless.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Most dictatorships are based on, "whatever the heel the dear leader wants it to be"
In the case of PRC, after a number of failed pogroms, based entirely on emotional claptrap, failed miserably resulting in the deaths of millions.
This has resulted in China embracing reality as the basis for their leadership decisions, hence Technocracy
In addition, historical Confucian systems of leadership were similarly Technocratic and the new systems leverage those beliefs in the same way that corrupt Western leadership re
Re: (Score:1)
"after a number of failed pogroms"
Communism and it's sibling socialism are a failures, yes.
"China embracing reality as the basis for their leadership decisions, hence Technocracy ... historical Confucian systems of leadership were similarly Technocratic"
What does that mean? They use technology to force hegemony? That the programmers and engineers are the elites of society deciding policy? That China uses technology to oppresses and subjugate their people just like the Soviets? It's meaningless.
"Western lead
Re: (Score:3)
rtfw: Technocracy is a proposed system of governance in which decision-makers are selected on the basis of their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. This system explicitly contrasts with the notion that elected representatives should be the primary decision-makers in government [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
This has resulted in China embracing reality as the basis for their leadership decisions, hence Technocracy
This is true, and it has worked well for China since 1979 (with a minor blip in 1989). But today, China is backsliding into plain old-fashioned "Big Man" dictatorship. Xi Jinping is steadily purging him opponents, and removing obstacles to his complete control. The People's Congress has already declared him to be "president for life", removing the 10 year term limit.
This does not bode well for Hong Kong. A technocratic leadership can afford to let the protests run their course and peter out, because the
Re: (Score:3)
>China is backsliding into plain old-fashioned "Big Man" dictatorship. Xi Jinping is steadily purging him opponents, and removing obstacles to his complete control.
Seems like the inevitable. It's not so much backsliding as it is continuing on the centralization of power into 1 party/man through continual modernization and industrialization. The use of technology is just a means to that end such as the Social Credit System they are implementing.
>This does not bode well for Hong Kong.
Hong Kong being han
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the weird things about China is how disorganized it really is despite the appearance of having a strong central government. It's a regular occurence to hear of some provincial party leader being caught being corrupt or trying to run their own provincial dictatorship (and quickly executed), and by appearance it seems that the central government honestly was in the dark about it. My guess is that China's just too large to control centrally.
For instance, you are allowed to have news articles that a hi
Re: (Score:2)
I think that you are seeing similar behavior (drawn to big-man politics) in Turkey, Philippines, even the USA
IMO it is a result of conflict between what people are told about how the world works, and the messy, time-consuming and complex implementation into reality of any policy that people might believe that they want.
Take for example Globalism
People are tired of seeing jobs go away, and being pressured to move to new careers.
They see Globalism as the elephant in the room, which is forcing changes upon the
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget, the west is helping out here as well. Amazed at how many companies are apologizing to China for having the correct belief that Taiwan is a separate country. They'll support any regime as long as the money keeps flowing.
Re: (Score:2)
If, by "technocracy", you mean age-old, worldwide dictatorship kleptocracy, then yes. It is a technocracy.
The real danger is the world may need to learn the hard way there is more to freedom than freedom of speech. Opening up economics leads to a more dynamic enonomy, with more tax base or economic might that can be devoted to military.
Our politicians love touting freedom of speech while stepping all over economic freedoms as some evil thing needing detailed control, leading to degradation of economic mig
Re: (Score:3)
People's Republic of China is a Technocratic Dictatorship with a thin veneer of Capitalism
Please do not mistake this for any form of Socialism that we would see in Northern Europe, where belief in human rights is prevalent
It's just what socialism looks like when you have about a billion people and your system has long since been exhausted.
It's logistically impossible to care about people to the same degree when you have an order of magnitude or two more people to care about.
Re: (Score:2)
I assume that by "care about" you mean "control"
Re: (Score:1)
China is quite capitalistic on a smaller and local scale. But bigger industries are more regulated and state-managed.
The term "socialism" is becoming useless. We need something more fine-grained to describe modern nations.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Confucian Dictatorship draped in Communist imagery, actually somewhat similar to North Korea. Confucian civics recognizes both hereditary rule and elected-by-elites as types of Meritocracy.
Culturally, they actually are always appealing to Meritocracy, not Communism. And economically it is more of feudal system with a strong central ruler, so mostly it isn't controlled closely, but it can be controlled arbitrarily when and where the dictator wants.
It is all way more pragmatic than ideological, but it is root
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can't comprehend cultural differences if you're going to form your own opinions about everything and then use those evaluations to try to determine what other people must believe.
Confucius promoted various ideas of Meritocracy that contradict the constraints on Meritocracy that people in the western world believe in. For example, in western philosophy there are very few who believe that nepotism implies merit, but in the Confucian analysis it should imply merit, and if it doesn't work out that way, perh
Re: (Score:2)
Please do not mistake this for any form of Socialism that we would see in Northern Europe, where belief in human rights is prevalent
I've seen too many people advocating socialism while supporting 'kill all men' or attacking people because of their skin colour to believe that.
Northern European socialism rapidly becomes national socialism.
Re: (Score:2)
The PRC is in no way socialist or communist anymore, it's its own weird unique system.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
John Galt is an imaginary being who is used to lure young people into believing that they are superior to their peers and as such have no lasting commitment to the society that they live in.
John Galt is one of the most toxic and destructive lies that have been played on American society, as demonstrated by its own author, who created the character to curry favor from the wealthy, but who was ultimately abandoned when she became ill and was forced to live off of government social programs.
TLDR: Toady for the