Hacker News Reader

Comment by hyperdunc | Hacker News Reader

It's the authoritarian Chinese government insisting on censorship. Not so much the Chinese market.

Chinese propaganda is well-spread. I had a Chinese roommate, well educated to boot - PhD in Econ from Columbia, and I could feel the reverence he had for Mao even though his ancestors were landlords.

I've traveled throughout eastern China and I've encountered this indoctrination many times when talking to otherwise reasonable people.

But despite the widespread nationalist zealotry, most ordinary folk still seem to enjoy bootlegging Western media choc full of Western morality. They're not trying to ban it.

Though of course China does have its very own PC police that are encouraged by the government.

He realises that being a landlord is immoral. Nothing wrong with that.

Read Mao's "On Contradiction".

Similar experience. He said Mao had to make hard choices as a leader to propel his country forward. I asked him why India didn't have to starve millions to do the same thing.

After 1949, Mao barely did anything right and I’m surprised if any Chinese born after 90s would still defend him. But I doubt India is such a great example, we probably all have seen photos of the Gange

Are you comparing a polluted river to the deaths of millions?

Polluted by dead bodies...

From flooding or what? Seems like there is a difference...

You do realize that floating a family member's body down the Ganges is considered a sacred ritual and that what you just said has nothing to do with mass deaths due to negligence right?

I admit I didn’t know about the ritual part, but just a little google show me this:

-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnao_dead_bodies_row

And many sources mention they did this just because they can’t afford proper cremation.

Another funny picture is Train with many people attached outside, not sure if that’s another convention or custom :)

Mao’s picture has been greatly undermined after 2000s as even the CCP history book said he made terrible mistakes and there were several wide spread videos criticizing Mao. His time has been long gone and only a little respect passed to the next gen mainly from grandparents.

It’ll be interesting if you could talk with him regarding his position for the government, recent issues and long term policy. My bet is he’ll be super supportive and you might be surprised that “greater good” trade off is well accepted

Lots of Americans express admiration for our founders and institutions too, though. Flags and conspicuous patriotism are everywhere in our country.

It's possible that that's just normalized for you but it seems jarring when you see someone revering a 'commie'. The programming runs deep on all sides.

Furthermore, the western market is more than happy to comply with the censorship.

authoritarian government is a tautology

Different forms and examples of government exhibit relatively different levels of authoritarianism. Communist governments are invariably more authoritarian than liberal democracies.

If that's true then your comment still doesn't make sense. As there cannot be non-authoritarian government, calling a government authoritarian makes objectively no sense and is just meant to provoke emotions obviously.

All government is authoritarian but not to an equivalent extent. From a liberal point of view the current Chinese government is relatively authoritarian, as evidenced by many things including recent examples of censorship.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com