Hacker News: yourbandsucks

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Novelty and Heresy"

yourbandsucks — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 18:56:32 +0000

Don't forget the part where they all have access to running water and penicillin now. They're responsible for the greatest humanitarian success story in world history over the last 40 years.

Overlay that with how the US spent our cold war dividend over the same period..

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Novelty and Heresy"

yourbandsucks — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 18:38:07 +0000

Every big country has got some skeletons attached to it, especially including the US.

If you're primed to see the foreign country as monstrous and evil, you'll see it that way, whatever the balance of the facts for people who live there may be.

For example, social credit. Do you know what it is? Do you know specifically what's being proposed and implemented right now? Or are you going off of some breathless reporting?

(super briefly, there's no consumer credit system in China. Currently there are 2 corporate credit systems evolving in response to need (alipay, wepay), and something like 15 different government-sponsored pilot programs testing different ideas in different provinces, because having consumer credit scores is in fact important for finance. This gets reported as some Big Brother Social Credit Program With A Big Dystopian Plan by western media).

New comment by yourbandsucks in "TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship"

yourbandsucks — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 19:01:56 +0000

Think of it as a scissor statement.

Either it's the most mild, milquetoast statement possible or it's a declaration of war against Human Rights, Mom and Apple Pie.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship"

yourbandsucks — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 15:10:07 +0000

Eh. I commented that "Chinese people are people too" the other day and got pretty heavily downvoted.

Are those downvoters expressing a reasoned belief that Chinese people aren't people? Or are they just reduced to a set of tribal motor reflexes with up and down arrows?

I'm actually kinda hoping it's the 2nd one rather than the first.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship"

yourbandsucks — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 15:01:44 +0000

I mean.. politics ought not to be an exercise in demanding conformity and punishing any non-standard thought.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Lyndon Johnson’s Unsung Role in Sending Americans to the Moon"

yourbandsucks — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 21:50:17 +0000

Without LBJ, we wouldn't have had the Space Program, the various civil rights bills of the 60s, or Medicare. He also escalated Vietnam from a minor conflict to a major disaster.

Most impactful President since FDR, easily, yet he doesn't get half the press of Reagan or Nixon.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Cook: ‘China Hasn’t Pressured Us’"

yourbandsucks — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 16:33:49 +0000

Not really. Despots usually have politics to deal with. Not everything is possible.

The companies in question had a massive technological and force advantage over the local populace with free reign when it came to managing dissent with force. Their only political concerns were back in Europe.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "An update on YC China"

yourbandsucks — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 23:30:04 +0000

Nazis are not in fact people for the purposes of discussion. They are movie extras who get shot as fast as possible.

You really had to go full Godwin dehumanization on a billion people right away?

New comment by yourbandsucks in "An update on YC China"

yourbandsucks — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 23:12:10 +0000

Chinese people are people too, you know.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "TikTok hits 1.5B downloads, outperforming Instagram"

yourbandsucks — Wed, 20 Nov 2019 01:38:41 +0000

That's certainly the official US line on the matter.

How has the official US line held up, historically, when it comes to coups vs socialists in Latin America? Why should it be different this time?

New comment by yourbandsucks in "TikTok hits 1.5B downloads, outperforming Instagram"

yourbandsucks — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 17:30:23 +0000

It's been like a week since the last US-backed Latin American coup.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank"

yourbandsucks — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 20:47:23 +0000

"Rule of law" doesn't mean picking and choosing whom it applies to. Saddam was our best buddy when he was using mustard gas in Khuzestan against the right people.

International politics is rule by power rather than rule of law. The person you're replying to got it right.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "The Innocent Pleasure of Trespassing"

yourbandsucks — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 18:53:00 +0000

How.. how many people have you shot on sight?

New comment by yourbandsucks in "One-Percenters Close to Surpassing Wealth of U.S. Middle Class"

yourbandsucks — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 14:56:48 +0000

This development is actually terrifying. If socialism has no home on the left, we'll see it rise on the right, with nationalist tones.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Open Letter to the Linux Foundation"

yourbandsucks — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 01:14:27 +0000

Also very much part of politics, although not actually at issue anywhere near this debate, as nobody is arguing against those things.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Open Letter to the Linux Foundation"

yourbandsucks — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 01:13:27 +0000

If he would have? We should kick this guy out of the Linux Foundation because he hypothetically might disagree with us at a conference?

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Open Letter to the Linux Foundation"

yourbandsucks — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 01:01:51 +0000

You seem to have your facts confused. Wood wasn't publicly planning to wear a provocative hat to a conference or anything like that.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Open Letter to the Linux Foundation"

yourbandsucks — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 00:49:05 +0000

Fighting over ethical norms is actually a pretty good definition of politics. Or one key aspect of it, at least.

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Tech and Liberty"

yourbandsucks — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 21:19:54 +0000

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

New comment by yourbandsucks in "Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia"

yourbandsucks — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 14:36:08 +0000

It is complex! You're right.

It's also complex over there, where Americans don't speak the language or understand anything about the culture or history. Our lack of understanding does not make them 1-dimensional movie villains in reality.