If Osama bin Laden “hated our freedom” as Bush said, then mission accomplished.
Land of the oppressed, home of the scared.
It was later that we decided, oh no, let's let the terrorists win by throwing the bill of rights on metaphorical fire.
That reasoning sounds eerily close to the Reichstag Fire Decree.
These people are being detained by people with POLICE written on their vests, charged in front of a magistrate, and released. All the info is on the Portland website of arrests.
https://oregon.staterecords.org/multnomah
What civil liberty has been suspended?
Those are the violations of civil liberties we are discussing and this argument throws out.
You can even see who the arrest agency is and it includes federal agencies. Note that most of them have been released.
But up thread you claim that the people detained and placed in unmarked vehicles are listed there. I was wondering how you had determined that, or if you were assuming it to be true, or what.
It just demonstrates that some people detained in Portland have been detained by officers working under those entities.
Freedom has pros and cons. The historical foundations of Freedom in America is an idealistic notion that should be tempered with modern knowledge about the price and complexity of freedom.
My friend in China has told me that the crisis has largely been contained in in their country. The irony here being they have less freedoms than we do but they can now go out in public without worrying about transmitting or receiving covid.
This does come with tradeoffs, but I don’t think the masks and beach are part of that tradeoff. People can and will voluntarily take on inconvenience for the good of others, but they have to be convinced. Our dysfunctional president has actively fought against creating a consensus that we should move as one against this virus. When the US decides to do something together, especially in the modern era, we do it incredibly well mostly without sacrificing human rights (with some obvious historical injustices we have to remedy). What is happening here is a failure of leadership, not a failure of liberty.
>...freedom to not wear masks and go to the beach during a pandemic.
>...they can now go out in public without worrying about transmitting or receiving covid.
People who are going to the beach probably are not worried about COVID. There's also a fair amount of debate among the technocrats about how transmissible it is on a beach.
Ultimately people just want the freedom to decide for themselves. Central planning isn't always the best for everyone. Fallibility plays a key role. If your friend is happy with her situation in China, that's fine. I'm sure beach goers also enjoyed themselves...
There were huge huge crowds on the beach with know one wearing masks and now we're experiencing Covid spikes. I wonder why?
The doctors and the CDC are telling everyone to stay in and wear masks. Ignore the technocrats, they're not experts.
By definition a technocrat would be ordained as an expert in his field. However, this does not preclude the fallibility of man. If we extrapolate from this, we can say that it would be impossible for an individual or group of individuals to obtain the perfect information necessary to ideally centrally plan a society.
There is a propensity for 'experts' in their field to massage data to suit political or personal goals. Heart attack deaths are down, but COVID deaths are up. Some have suggested that this is due to selective reporting of deaths which would otherwise be cardiac arrests as COVID related deaths.
There's also the problem of the unseen. Even if the epidemiologists could have the perfect information in regards to controlling an outbreak, they wouldn't necessarily appreciate the economic or social implications of their mandates.
If we accept these limitations, we can say that greater information can be obtained via the network effects of decentralized decision making. This is the value of individualism which has allowed the west to flourish, whereas more communal cultures have been regressive. Of course this is all a very general overview.
>and now we're experiencing Covid spikes. I wonder why?
I'll ignore your cherry picking and refrain from picking an equivalent counter-example.
If we accept that the US has failed in managing the covid crisis, then we should just as readily ask if top-down planning has been effective. Instead you focus on the inverse.
Not to mention the statistical measures and statements from technocrats are all inline and consistent.
Your retort is the equivalent of flat earthers or fake moon landing conspiracy theories. Open your eyes.
>Not to mention the statistical measures and statements from technocrats are all inline and consistent.
Wear a mask, don't wear a mask. Cloth face coverings are sufficient. Cloth face coverings are not sufficient.
A paper debunking the use of hydroxychloroquine was retracted, as many studies are. Without a doubt, the issue has become politicized.
Human knowledge is imperfect. Science is a system of rational inquiry practiced by fallible humans, not a system of belief. Scientism would be the misuse of science as a system of belief. Typical of the theme, those who criticize scientism (and the annointed technocrats) are castigated as heretics and unbelievers.
Attempting to conflate my doubts about the effectiveness of technocratic management and central planning with flat eartherism is plain hyperbole. This kind of retort speaks to your inability to address the issue.
What would fact-checkers have said to Copernicus?
I gave you 3 contexts. Anecdotal, statistical and sayings from technocrats.
Statistical: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
Technocrats: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6498/1481
Anecdotal evidence was already provided to you.
>Wear a mask, don't wear a mask. Cloth face coverings are sufficient. Cloth face coverings are not sufficient.
Technocrats from China and the US were obviously divided about this. Sources of information can be wrong. But in this specific case I am providing you with 3 sources. Each consistent.
>Human knowledge is imperfect. Science is a system of rational inquiry practiced by fallible humans, not a system of belief. Scientism would be the misuse of science as a system of belief. Typical of the theme, those who criticize scientism (and the annointed technocrats) are castigated as heretics and unbelievers.
But it is more perfect then anything that can come out of you. If I have provided you evidence from three sources or even one source it is better than anything you can come up with. Right now the information I provided you is the best information we have. Similar to how the theory of gravity is the best theory we have for why things go down and not up.
>Attempting to conflate my doubts about the effectiveness of technocratic management and central planning with flat eartherism is plain hyperbole. This kind of retort speaks to your inability to address the issue.
No I am conflating your ability to ignore evidence and not present counter-evidence. All you do is just doubt doubt doubt. How can you doubt without evidence yourself? How is that scientific? It is not. You can just as well doubt the theory of gravity. There is no difference, and your bias makes you incapable of seeing that.
There are multiple lenses and sources and observers seeing what's going on in China both biased and unbiased. You have utilizes none of those sources, only choosing to doubt.
I have presented evidence. Where's yours?
>But it is more perfect then anything that can come out of you
How so?
>There are multiple lenses and sources and observers seeing what's going on in China both biased and unbiased
Everyone has a bias. Everyone's view is subjective by definition.
I'm not sure you've understood anything that I've written here.
Nothing can be proven. This is a property of science and reality. Even a scientific paper can't prove anything. What can be done is to say my hypothesis has more evidence and is more likely than your hypothesis to a significant degree.
This is how science works. We can say hey look this scientific paper has more rigor and accuracy than the opinions of a religious shaman in Africa because we understand the statistical rigor and science that is used by the scientific paper to gather evidence to support a conclusion. We also understand that the shaman in africa came to a conclusion getting high off some drug in his straw hut so we know one source is better than the other.
>>But it is more perfect then anything that can come out of you >How so?
You're not a credible source... You're not a scientific paper, you're not a statistic. You're just a person on the internet spouting off his opinions, not too far off from an African Shaman.
If I write a thesis can I cite "random person on the internet" as a source? No, I can't because you don't have the reputation or the scientific rigor to gather any evidence that's worth anything. You are not a "lens" into what's happening in China, because you yourself use other "lenses" to see what's going on. Your opinion and your information is only as good as the "lenses" you are using. Yet look at what information you provided me with. You provided me with no sources and a shitload of opinion thats it's pretty much useless.
Thus in order to give more credence to your statements you have to back them up with credible sources. You tell me which lens your using, why it's accurate and how it supports your conclusion... Which you have not done.
As a random person on the internet myself, my word is as useless as yours until I backed up my word with sources more credible than myself.... Which I have done.
>Everyone has a bias. Everyone's view is subjective by definition.
Underneath every viewpoint is the actual object being viewed. And that objective reality cannot be biased. But all observations of said object is done through a lens and that lens is biased.
But....
Some views are less biased than others. For example a scientific paper that statistically measures the amount of covid cases in China is less biased than a random person on the internet stating his useless opinion without evidence backing it up.
There can be cases where there are two scientific papers that come to opposite conclusions. In this case it's hard to tell which lens is more biased and which lens is more accurate. In this case no conclusion can easily be declared.
>I'm not sure you've understood anything that I've written here.
I understand everything you've written. You don't understand how to make a point and how to back it up and you don't understand science. You just view the world as a muddy: "everyone has a biased viewpoint" without truly understanding why and without truly understanding how to navigate such a world and make some "viewpoints" less biased than other "viewpoints."
Not to mention your viewpoints and lenses that you're using have led you to come to a deeply inaccurate and incorrect view of China. You realize the nobody can actually 100% prove to the flat earthers that the world is round? What they can do is present scientific evidence that makes a flat earth very very unlikely. That's it.
I can assure you, with my background and the sources I have presented to you, I can never prove my point to you, but I have certainly shown that my conclusion is quite accurate by presenting to you several angles of the same objective reality: The scientific angle, the anecdotal angle and the statistical angle.
Think about it, if Fox news can produce dozens of stupid people who don't know any better, how do you know the media isn't affecting you? It is. To people in the know... you look like a flat earther.
As a piece of non-formal advice: you really need to go to China to see the phenomenon that's happening there. The speed of Chinas' ascendence to power has never been seen in the history of civilization. It produces a country with a story more complex than the one sided viewpoint most HNers have. Really most of it is just pride. Nobody in the states likes to think of China as a country who will one day have a GDP that exceeds the US, so they need to make up some story to make China look worse. You can criticize your president but something that will really hit a nerve is if someone says that China is more powerful than the United States because it's really close to happening.
I thought you wanted to discuss the differences between individualism and a centrally planned society. Is that true, or were you primarily interested in nationalism and identity politics?
Pursuant to what I viewed as a noble discussion about these ideals, I attempted to sidestep your tribalism and focus on what I viewed as the crux of the issue.
Central planning requires perfect information to live up to its stated goals. Thus in any centrally planned society we see mishaps resulting from imperfect information wielded by central planners.
In contrast, decentralized systems based upon individualism and free markets are generally more resiliant to errors committed by individuals. Participants who have the _freedom_ to choose for themselves can observe errors committed by others and look for alternate solutions. Similarly, they can emulate successes they observe.
At the time, I felt that a succinct reply was sufficient to express these general concepts.
In response to these points you provide anecdotal evidence about your friend attending a wedding in China. While I am no mind reader, I could only assume that you were implying that the wedding was not canceled because of the superior central planning of the CCP. This is absurd on many levels.
First of all as I pointed out, China is a large country. There are lockdowns elsewhere. Week to week we see new lockdowns throughout the country. Even Beijing has had entire neighborhoods on lockdown. Head central planner Xi, has fled the capital.
We can also look to Sweden, where lockdowns were not mandated at all by the central authorities. Death rates there are normalizing.
Finally, if central planning equated to competent governance, then why did COVID-19 originate under the reign of central planners?
In your next comment you misuse the temporal sense and suggest that you have already given me three contexts. In this comment you provide a link to a COVID study and a map of COVID cases. Obviously, these data have no relation to the points expressed about technocracy or central planning.
>Nothing can be proven. This is a property of science and reality
The points made are philosophical. They can be challenged or even refuted logically. So far you have failed to do so. You haven't even approached the discussion. Observation can be part of this process, but strictly speaking this is not scientific.
Then you go on to hyperbole and debase yourself with ridiculous insults. Much of your rambling follow up is dedicated to the same. The greater part seeks to defend China from an imagined slight. I will entertain this digression.
China is not the CCP. Throughout this discussion you appear to conflate the two. This is an important distinction. You also make several inaccurate assumptions about myself, but I'll leave that to the side for now. In any strictly logical debate, the identity of the speaker should not play a role.
GDP is a self-gratifying statist metric preferred by technocrats the world over. The calculation of GDP justifies further government intervention in an economy. In the case of the west, this can be in the form of credit expansion. In the case of the CCP's centrally planned economy, this is much more direct.
GDP can be increased by simply paying workers to dig and fill holes. While this will increase GDP, it will not add any value to the economy. Similarly in China we see 'tofu buildings'. These kinds of projects may increase GDP, but they decrease the quality of life for market participants. Residents have been injured by these shoddy constructions. Markets are distorted and capital is misallocated, preventing entrepreneurs from contributing actual value.
Removing your hands from the neck of the patient is not the same as performing the Heimlich maneuver.
From this perspective it would be more fitting to applaud the increase in the standard of living of the Chinese people. The CCP is not responsible for this, they have stood in the way and continue to obstruct. Crediting the CCP for these increases is anti-Chinese. The Chinese people deserve credit for increasing their standard of living in spite of the obstructions of the CCP. Those individual entrepreneurs who have strived, survived and thrived while the party has attempted to milk them at every step deserve our applause.
Yes, I encourage you to travel and see the real China, to involve yourself in an entrepreneurial pursuit anywhere in this amazing world. I think this will give you a different perspective. Thanks for the discussion.
Nope. I'm just trying to teach you.
>Pursuant to what I viewed as a noble discussion about these ideals, I attempted to sidestep your tribalism and focus on what I viewed as the crux of the issue.
No. You don't get it. Your entire argument is tribal. You need to present evidence, you have none. Just statements of your own opinions.
>Central planning requires perfect information to live up to its stated goals. Thus in any centrally planned...
Again another opinion. With no offering of evidence. How about you give me a an example of a perfect system that doesn't need perfect information and then we can talk about the merits of central government. I really can't even cite an example of a government that doesn't require perfect information to be perfect. But go ahead, here's an opportunity for you to give me evidence to show me that I'm wrong.
>In contrast, decentralized systems based upon individualism and free markets are generally more resiliant to errors committed by individuals. Participants who have the _freedom_ to choose for themselves can observe errors committed by others and look for alternate solutions. Similarly, they can emulate successes they observe.
And what makes you say people behave this way? Where's your evidence? Again, another useless opinion because I have a different opinion: People are doomed to repeat history, people as a group mob function with as if they were a single person with an IQ of 80. My opinions differ from yours. Again your useless attempt to turn me requires evidence. There is no tribalism going on here. I am teaching you how to debate because you don't know how. All in all my real opinion is a hybrid of your opinion and mine. People are shades of both creating a story that is far more complex than your simple classifications of behavior. But again, who cares because no evidence.
>In response to these points you provide anecdotal evidence about your friend attending a wedding in China. While I am no mind reader, I could only assume that you were implying that the wedding was not canceled because of the superior central planning of the CCP. This is absurd on many levels.
No. I am presenting to you a piece of evidence. The evidence doesn't prove anything by itself, it just gives more credibility to something. The more evidence I present to you the more credibility is given to my hypothesis. So in total the evidence I presented to you were three in total: Technocratic, Anecdotal, and statistical. Each piece of evidence no doubt has different levels of quality and veracity but all three combined together form a consistent picture. No doubt, if I observe a friend going to a wedding in China it shows consistency with statistical evidence and news articles.
>First of all as I pointed out, China is a large country. There are lockdowns elsewhere. Week to week we see new lockdowns throughout the country. Even Beijing has had entire neighborhoods on lockdown. Head central planner Xi, has fled the capital.
Evidence. Please. Cite your sources.
>We can also look to Sweden, where lockdowns were not manda...
Cite your sources. Give me statistics. Numbers. You could be pulling all of this out of your ass.
>Finally, if central planning equated to competent governance, then why did COVID-19 originate under the reign of central planners?
Why do people have such simple minded views on issues that are startlingly more complex? I know why. It's because of pride. It's US vs. China and the US has to be better. Look, I don't equate central planning to better governance or worse governance or perfect governance. I never said this, you just assumed it. I equate it to alternative governance. If the US was an Orange then China would be an Apple. You're comparing Apples and Oranges.
For example how do you explain the massive growth China has experienced over the past decades where millions and millions of people are pulled out of poverty at a breakneck pace that has not been witnessed in the history of civilization? You're not wrong about about China's failures. But you have blinded yourself to the failures of your own government and the successes of China.
Regardless of your own opinion. China GDP is projected to surpass the GDP of the US within in your lifetime, this is fact.
>The points made are philosophical. They can be challenged or even refuted logically. So far you have failed to do so. You haven't even approac...
So philosophical points don't need evidence? No man. They do.
>They can be challenged or even refuted logically.
If you were actually logical you would know that in all of science and reality as we know it, nothing can be proven. Pure Logic is the domain of abstract maths, but in the real world as we know it, science requires evidence. Your logic must rest on a foundation and that foundation is called an axiom aka evidence.
>Observation can be part of this process, but strictly speaking this is not scientific.
This is not a logical statement. Observation HAS to be part of the process. Basically you're implying that conclusions and opinions can be formulated with ZERO observations about the world as we know it. How do you even know there's a global pandemic going on? You must've observed something.
Statements like the one you made indicate to me that you have an intense lack of logical and scientific maturity.
>Then you go on to hyperbole and debase yourself with ridiculous insults. Much of your rambling follow up is dedicated to the same. The greater part seeks to defend China from an imagined slight. I will entertain this digression.
I have not insulted you. Just stated facts. You take offense to the truth. For that I cannot help you.
I am not defending China. I am defending facts. I'm not blindly supporting China. I'm attacking the blind support of total freedom as if individualism is the perfect answer to the worlds problems. With Americas total fuck up of handling covid-19 we can easily see the price we pay for freedom.
Let me put it this way. My initial post is in support of a balanced narrative between individualism and central planning. The pros and cons of each.
>China is not the CCP. Throughout this discussion you appear to conflate the two. This is an important distinction. You also make several inaccurate assumptions about myself, but I'll leave that to the side for now. In any strictly logical debate, the identity of the speaker should not play a role.
Then we won't reveal our identities. But you need to note all logic rests on foundational axioms (aka evidence) and you have presented none. Therefore you are not acting logically nor are you acting scientifically.
As for China not being the CCP. There's really no point in stating this fact. Obviously the Chinese people are different from the Chinese government. I know this and you know I know this. I conflate the vocabulary but I assume you have the intelligence to know when I'm referring to one or the other. This is more of a jab at me for something that clearly you already know is not true (aka an insult).
>GDP is a self-gratifying statist metric preferred by technocrats the world over. The calculation of GDP justifies further government intervention in an economy. In the case of the west, this can be in the form of credit expansion. In the case of the CCP's centrally planned economy, this is much more direct.
True but unfortunately, it's the best quantitative metric available. It's a piece of evidence that correlates with the rising quality of life in China and is no doubt a slice of evidence that shows the benefits of central government.
>GDP can be increased by simply paying workers to dig and fill holes. While this will increase GDP, it will not add any value to the economy. Similarly in China we see 'tofu buildings'. These kinds of projects may increase GDP, but they decrease the quality of life for market participants. Residents have been injured by these shoddy constructions. Markets are distorted and capital is misallocated, preventing entrepreneurs from contributing actual value.
Doubtful this has much of an impact on overall GDP or the overall story of China. If it does you need to provide evidence. Which you have not.
>From this perspective it would be more fitting to applaud the increase in the standard of living of the Chinese people. The CCP is not responsible for this, they have stood in the way and continue to obstruct. Crediting the CCP for these increases is anti-Chinese. The Chinese people deserve credit for increasing their standard of living in spite of the obstructions of the CCP. Those individual entrepreneurs who have strived, survived and thrived while the party has attempted to milk them at every step deserve our applause.
Now who's going on a tangent? More opinions. Some I agree with some I don't, but again no evidence. So really I can present my opinion but everything will go in circles until someone presents evidence.
In my opinion the CCP and the people participated in the success of China overall. The CCP also, no doubt, hindered progress at times but the same could be said of any government and people. In fact those TOFU buildings you mentioned are the result of the lack of centralized control. Local officials gaming the rules because the central government don't have the power to stop them.
>Yes, I encourage you to travel and see the real China, to involve yourself in an entrepreneurial pursuit anywhere in this amazing world. I think this will give you a different perspective. Thanks for the discussion.
Why encourage me if I have already obviously done something similar (like living in China for years). I'm encouraging you because it appears to me that you have not even visited.
You could never know, because freedom of speech and the press doesn't exist there. The CCP jailed the doctors and experts who spoke up about the original Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in 2019, then proceeded to have a public banquet without social distancing or masks in the following weeks, and the CCP celebrated the fact that 40,000 families[1] showed up to it.
You say that the lack of freedom has been a good thing for handling the outbreak, but that lack of freedom stopped doctors and epidemiologists from learning more about the coronavirus outbreak while it could still be contained, and prevented them from informing and warning the world about it.
[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/coronavirus-wuha...
I'm talking about the general handling of the epidemic. When china got serious, they killed it. When America tried to get serious they got people protesting that covid is a hoax.
There's some really stupid shit that china did like you brought up above, but overall in the big picture scheme of things... China did a really good job and the United States is bungling the whole situation.
Again, because of the lack of free speech and press in China, the only proof of what you allege publicized through CCP approved media.
Doubling down on authoritarianism and suppression of the press after initial authoritarianism allowed an epidemic to become a pandemic just suggests you can't trust the press in China without extensive independent auditing, which the CCP doesn't allow.
Lack of free speech is not the reason why this pandemic spread. The proof is in the United States. The United States "freedoms" including speech has allowed it to be #1 in covid-19 cases.
Additionally, I'm not even sure how your misguided reasoning works... Patient Zero has a disease, he covertly spreads it to 3 people who in turn also covertly spread it 3 people, the cycle continues... Where in this scenario of compounding growth does free speech stop a disease from being covertly spread?
Also China isn't stupid. They aren't North Korea. When there's a real problem in China they won't clamp down on the information and release propaganda that is completely ludicrous. In fact if covid-19 was still killing tons of people in China and the Chinese media was hiding it, the US would know because Chinese citizens have the freedom to talk to the press outside of their borders. Word gets out.
Either way, the US and US public was informed about the impending problem WELL before it arrived at our borders, we failed to take action for various reasons including the fact that we didn't need to do such a thing for SARS or ebola.... Everyone is still learning about covid.
>Again, because of the lack of free speech and press in China, the only proof of what you allege publicized through CCP approved media.
The CCP is not that powerful. Nor does their desire to preserve their own image become so ludicrous that they'll outright lie about the pandemic dying down for no reason. Your image of China is twisted. Yes they are authoritarian, yes they are fallible to human weaknesses, no they are not stupid, no they are not North Korea, and no they are not evil incarnate.
>That doesn't make authoritarianism something to be celebrated, that makes it something the CCP should be embarrassed of.
This statement is where the controversy lies. Do you want to be embarrassed about authoritarianism or are you more embarrassed about all the deaths occurring in the United States despite superior medical knowledge?
In New York City I read a story about a nurse in tears because she had to remove a respirator from an older patient to give a chance to a younger patient to live. They are choosing who lives and who dies in NYC because they don't have enough respirators.
The counterpart story in China was they built an entire hospital in a week to handle the crisis and now the hospital is mostly empty because the crisis is dying down.
It's kind of embarrassing that China wasted resources on building a hospital that is now empty. But you know what's more embarrassing? The fact that my own country can't build enough respirators and as a result a nurse has to choose between killing an older patient or a younger patient because some people have the freedom not to wear masks.
Take a look at this video and tell me which country should be embarrassed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f6-MDhygWc
Like literally every country is looking at the US and shaking their heads. This isn't just my opinion... it's an obvious fact and if you can't see this, then you're lying to yourself.
Freedom has a price, and we are paying that price right now with deaths and "embarrassment."