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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

I think it's interesting that your entire comment history is defending China, and the CPC: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=xtian

And it's full of laughable statement that anyone living in a free democratic country can only shake their head at.

Classic Soviet style propaganda that is TECHNICALLY TRUE while entirely missing the point:

> Xi never declared himself president for life, the National People's Congress simply passed a law removing term limits. Angela Merkel has been chancellor of Germany for twice as long as Xi has been president of China.

View on HN

You can't break HN's rules like this, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. Such perceptions are notoriously vulnerable to cognitive bias, and the discussions they lead to compete for being the most tedious and nasty of everything that appears here. Please review the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and don't do anything like this again. If you're worried about abuse, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it.

Edit: some of you (you know who you are) are now going to suspect me of being a communist agent. Well, I'm not (though a communist agent would say that). If you want a quick antidote, reading my other replies in this thread should help. If that doesn't do it, try these longer explanations from last week:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27397695

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725

and these from a couple months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26637365

One called a shill by another user going through his comment history to make a point? Please don't do this, it's like the deep levels of Reddit. Not only are you both not following the guidelines it also doesn't add anything to the discussion. It doesn't matter what his comments history is. The comment he made can easily stand alone and proves just as much without anyone playing detective.

From HN's Guidelines[1]:

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I generally abhor accusations of shilling and conspiracy and find them irritating, but when they're associated with specific citations of circumstantial evidence, in my opinion they're worthy of being posted publicly.

A thorough reading of that poster's post history at the least suggests a very strong bias that should be taken into account by readers whenever they make a post about this topic. (And they don't seem to post about any other topics.) A valid ad hominem, in my opinion.

I'd say the same if the bias was towards the US government or any other entity. It doesn't have to be shilling; it's about credibility and motivated reasoning.

I don't think you have thought this through. Nothing he wrote is different because of some historical bias. It could have been his only comment or posted from a throwaway account and HN users would still be just fine at understanding it (look at the down votes). If we go through a users history and use it against people the only thing it does is push people to use more throwaway accounts.

If there's a need to go through comment history to give or take credibility then HN is broken. Almost no one has the time to do so and to trust a user that do take the time just moves the point of trust one step. Each comment needs to stand on its own for HN to function. Any measures should be by the system, not the users.

If on a site without accounts, of course each comment needs to be taken individually. But if a site has accounts and someone makes a head-scratching comment, I'll sometimes look through their post history to try to get a better understanding of the context.

If there's functionality available to view people's previous comments, then the system partly intends this to be a measure to help assess integrity and credibility, among other things.

>If we go through a users history and use it against people the only thing it does is push people to use more throwaway accounts.

What's wrong with using throwaway accounts?

>Each comment needs to stand on its own for HN to function.

I don't agree. If that's the case, then why are comments associated with usernames? Why can you see accounts' karma? That information is visible because it's intended to be visible.

Personally, I actually do tend to prefer account-less sites on average (where everything is solely a throwaway, so to speak). But if you're going to give me the tools, then I'm sometimes going to use them, especially if I suspect potential for motivated reasoning.

So I'd be happy with an anonymous HN fork. But if I'm on a non-anonymous one, I'm going to be looking at people's usernames; often reflexively. If I see something from a name I trust, it'll increase credibility for me, and if I see something from a name I distrust, it'll decrease credibility for me. And if I don't recognize it, I may look at their history and may adjust my perception based on what I see. For example, if they seem to be a "single-issue commenter".

I agree you shouldn't actually mention someone's post history in a reply unless you think it's highly, egregiously relevant. In this case, I think it's justified.

"Let's not get up in arms about supposed Chinese internet commenters or Russian fake news."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27082353

Not my entire history, just my history after I learned a little bit about China and realized how many people on this site consider themselves to be intelligent free thinkers but simply regurgitate the pre-packaged US line on anything geopolitical. My only aim is to dissent against the manufacturing of consent for another bloody US war. What’s yours?

I think even if you are a paid troll, you should probably branch out in your interests. There's no real coherent thread or sense of personality coming out in your commentary - it's just 'argument winners', factoids and framings that push a certain view. And maybe you just like to win more than you like providing clear analysis - I'm certainly sympathetic with the idea of cooling geopolitical tensions, but I think the way you're doing it will never work.

(This goes double if you're a paid troll, China is just awful at soft power for structural reasons - a core competence for politicians in a democracy is spin. Trying to astroturf past that is just pissing in the wind.)

Please stop this attack on his person. We really need to be able to summon dang..

I eventually ended up here, but if you want to contact me, the reliable way is to email hn@ycombinator.com, as the site guidelines say: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

I get downvoted for posting undisputed facts that conflict with Western narratives. I would get downvoted even more for my actual analysis.

I do like how often people seem to think that the only reason someone might contradict Western narratives if they’re getting paid to do so. I’m just a white dude from Ohio who wants an end to endless war and imperialism.

If you're operating in good faith and genuinely want to persuade people, then your takeaway from this exchange is that how you're doing it isn't working and you should rethink your approach.

What would be more persuasive?

A more persuasive argument would be something like:

Concede the point that the CCP has motivation to perform these acts, has the capability to hide these acts, and a reason to attempt to deflect any investigation which might reveal the acts. Maybe the CCP has provided free and unguided access of independent western journalists to these supposed camps, where they discovered nothing more than a shoe factory. That’s didn’t happen.

Unfortunately, without the free press investigating, the CCP opens themselves up to criticisms, that, based upon their historical actions, is hard to defend.

How are independent western journalists going to ensure correct reporting? Independent western journalists lie and lie often, they're not much better than the rest of journalists.

So what happens if half of them find a shoe factory and half of them report something else as part of a governmental push for fabrication of ground for war and soft power?

We already see factually incorrect information in Western media, and Western journalists repeatedly lie in similar cases. So knowing that it only takes one story to set a narrative, how is your proposition any more conducive to finding the truth?

When war and empire are the driving concerns, truth is simply impossible. All you can do is reject unfounded information and be skeptical. Yes, that may mean that some atrocities will be successfully hidden. But more lies will not get through, and ultimately those lies can cause way more death.

How many deaths came from the gulf of Tonkin incident, and how many would have died if it is was real but not uncritically believed? How about the Nayiriah testimony?

Besides that, we live in 2021. It's really difficult to hide things. Proof of this was the unauthorized video evidence of a prisoner exchange in Xinjiang done with a drone. It could just as well have been a camp. But in the end it didn't show anything except that prisoner exchanges are done by train.

I’m not suggesting a pair of western reporters. I’m suggesting hundreds of western reporters, each with complete authorization to speak with anyone in private, to go anywhere and gain full access to any location of their choosing. If the NYTimes reports that they went to Camp XYZ and found a shoe factory, and the Washington Post went to Camp ABC and found something less pleasant, then the NYTimes would want to go visit that same camp, along with the other 98 reporters. This isn’t a sinking ship with no independent observers. These are millions of people, supposedly in camps… or shoe factories.

As for the gulf war justification, I have voted against every politician who ever authorized force based upon that deception. Unfortunately my fellow countrymen are willing to excuse it, and thus the lies will continue.

I don't see how two or a hundred reporters make any difference. It just takes one to find or fabricate a story and every outlet will run with it. That's just how the media works.

The only way is to require bulletproof evidence. But we both know that's not the standard that the media are working on.

I'm not saying that western media shouldn't be allowed there, by the way, I'm just saying that if they were or weren't there we would gain precisely zero information, because of a low standard of evidence, because of the certainty of deception, and because of the viral nature of reports.

It's pretty simple to set up such a situation. Instead of a fully accessible factory, you can make up a story of it happening in some sort of controlled, maybe military or otherwise secretive, area. Or you can just claim that they removed whatever you found there. It has been done and will be done again.

So if this openness were to be installed, I don't see how we could gain any information from it.

There is only one thing. Hard data and proof. Not testimonials or qualitative evidence, but hard data. All it takes is for someone to fly a drone in the right place or leak a video. And videos over controlled facilities in Xinjiang have been leaked, they just didn't show anything egregious. So I don't understand why it seems so hard to produce this kind of hard evidence.

There’s first person testimony. Certainly the people making those statements could have ulterior motives.

What would hard evidence look like to you? How could that evidence be obtained? How could the Chinese facilitate that evidence?

Video or photo evidence. First person testimony is often contradictory and objectively very poor. In the case of this issue there were many contradictions.

You have to take a risk to obtain the evidence. I don't see any way for it to be facilitated, facilitated evidence is indistinguishable from fabricated evidence. You'd need to fly a drone or wear a bodycam. It would definitely come at a risk, unless you were doing it covertly with enough resources to minimize it.

Your “more persuasive argument” isn’t a restatement of xtian’s points at all, it is simply a statement of an opposing viewpoint.

It is somewhat ironic, given the context, that xtian’s dissent from the popular narrative is so vociferously countered, and without any recourse to facts.

I'm personally very sympathetic to China, and have a great deal of time for revisionism towards the world order, and like xtian, I take a pretty dim view on the way Xinjiang has been weaponized by western media in order to provide an ethical fig leaf for an essentially cynical western antagonism towards china.

However, at the same time, it could not be more blatant that the Ughyurs face persecution. However sympathetic one is towards China, nobody should forget that it is an authoritarian state, with few political or civil rights, and sometimes that can have serious consequences for groups targeted by the state.

China has historically had a great record in regards to minorities - far better than many countries in the west - but it's obvious that a combination of the war on terror and a rising form of Han nationalism has caused a drastic change in policy, first starting with fairly ordinary persecution (veil bans, etc) then escalating to acts that would be basically illegal in non-authoritarian states.

Denying this neither helps China nor anybody else. It is possible to find western behaviour cynical, and to have serious concerns about the path China is walking.

I reject all your premises. How would it be more persuasive to take a weaker position?

The weaker position concedes reality and let’s you build an argument on the nuances.

China does have a reason to want to detain and control the population. Even the US has detained 22 Uyghurs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_detainees_at_Guantana... The Uyghurs have many individuals who have joined terrorist organizations. Maybe we are looking at China’s Guantanamo.

China has the ability to suppress knowledge of any abuse. The United States has Guantanamo, which was the site of many “enhanced interrogation” techniques. That torture took a long time to surface, with years of lawyers involved to get the details out.

China has an interest in covering up any abuses. Of course they would. The US wouldn’t want details about torture in Guantanamo to come out either. It’s a blight which will be used against the US for hundreds of years.

Now that a baseline is established, why would the “West” want to use this situation against China? Political points at home? Taiwanese separatists trying to make China look bad? Trade disputes.

Sure those are all possibilities. Unfortunately, those motivations can exist, and China could still be doing something other than making shoes in those camps. They weren’t making Nikes in Gitmo either.

But we aren’t talking about 22 people in a Chinese terrorist prison. The accusation is millions. And yes, maybe 22 are being tortured, and the other million are making shoes. Allow hundreds of reporters loose, and one of them is going to find the Chinese Guantanamo, and suggest that all million are subject to that level of detention.

But how else do you assure the west that China is just making shoes around a tiny Chinese version of Guantanamo.

That’s really the argument.

Denying that China has the motivation, the means, and the ability to cover it up - those are all weak arguments.

And I really am trying to help you with your arguments. If the end game is war, it’s my children who will be fighting. Your arguments need to be stronger.

> I’m just a white dude from Ohio who wants an end to endless war and imperialism.

How would anyone know this?

What proof do you want?

This notion that everyone skeptical of western defense contractor funded claims is paid by China is a sad evolution of the close minded rebuttals that existed during the Iraq WMD period.

There is no counter to this false claim online which is why it is unfortunately effective in shutting down discourse.

I guess we are stupid enough to walk into a potential war the same way we were scammed into one not too long ago. We already forgot the lessons as a population.

> This notion that everyone skeptical of western defense contractor funded claims is paid by China …

I don’t see anyone saying anything about skepticism or ‘everyone’. I see pasabagi criticizing xtian’s specific comments and approach.

> I guess we are stupid enough to walk into a potential war the same way we were scammed into one not too long ago. We already forgot the lessons as a population.

Yes, getting scammed into a war with China would be bad. Assuming any negative comment about China to be an attempt to scam us into a war also seems like a mistake.

>I see pasabagi criticizing xtian’s specific comments and approach.

I see him implying that the comments/observations are not in good faith and that he might be paid for taking the positions he takes. This seems completely unnecessary and quite rude.

>Assuming any negative comment about China to be an attempt to scam us into a war also seems like a mistake.

You may not recognize the increased sinophobia in the west but it is part of a well funded centralized effort to demonize and increase the potential for kinetic warfare between western countries and China. The fact that HN acts like an echo chamber for state approved anti-Chinese perspectives doesn't help matters.

A close reading of sino-western historic/economic relations results in a very different perspective than the one which is promoted in western MSM by corrupted organizations.

Since your account has been using HN primarily (exclusively?) for ideological battle, I've banned it. We ban such accounts because they destroy the curious, thoughtful conversation this site is supposed to exist for. Regardless of what you happen to be battling for or against, that's not allowed here. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> You may not recognize the increased sinophobia in the west but it is part of a well funded centralized effort to demonize and increase the potential for kinetic warfare between western countries and China.

Is it? It’s clearly geopolitical, but the claim that it’s intended to lead to kinetic warfare seems like something you don’t have evidence for.

The fact that so much of it is funded by defence contractors isn't a clue? Google ["Xinjiang" "ASPI"] for examples.

Or maybe the massive buildup of missiles and warplanes around China could be a clues? We are now at a stage where geopolitical hostility with China has a good chance of turning kinetic if exacerbated, and there is funding from exactly the parties that would stand to benefit from that, so I don't see how this lacks evidence.

> Or maybe the massive buildup of missiles and warplanes around China could be a clues?

If there is such a buildup (evidence?), it seems like a natural response to check China’s increasing overtures towards Taiwan, a key strategic ally.

There is no evidence that anyone wants a kinetic war for its own sake or that any development in that direction is ‘just’ a product of the defense industry.

China is involved in geopolitics and just as much as the US.

What’s curious here is not the invocation of well known bad acts by the US.

It’s the presentation of China as a benign victim who has no geopolitical ambitions, oppressive behavior, or political repression.

[flagged]

You haven't represented that account's commenting history accurately, and the site guidelines ask you specifically not to post like this. It's nasty and extremely tedious.

If you're worried about abuse, the guidelines ask you to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on.

I'm not worried about abuse and have no reason to believe any is occurring in this or the other poster's case, as I wrote. If I suspected actual attempted "influence" activity etc. I definitely would've reported it instead of posting about it. I also find it unfair and unsubstantiated that other posters are accusing either of them of being supposed "shills" or "agents".

I was just kind of taken aback by the nature of their comment history and reacted emotionally, in part because of the radical defense of what I see as the Chinese government's inhumane and genocidal policy towards Uighurs. And as I wrote, if it were extremely jingoistic support of the US government and intelligence community, or QAnon narratives or something, I think I would view it similarly; though I probably wouldn't have reacted as emotionally, since my impetus was the response to the treatment of that group.

I disagree that I haven't represented their commenting history accurately. The majority of their posts appear to be either of that nature or about Bitcoin, with the plurality being of that nature. I also included a link to their comments for anyone else to verify, and I quoted each of their posts in full to ensure no context was missing. (However, I should've qualified "almost every comment" as "almost every political comment".)

I understand it violates the rules and is nasty and tedious, though. I apologize and will refrain in the future.

I am a natural born US citizen of primarily German descent. I have zero connection to China, any Chinese institutions, or any Chinese nationals. I asked this extremely aggressive zepto person what proof they would accept of that, and I got downvoted with no response. Are we just making up stories about anyone who disagrees with us now? How do we know all of the anti-China people in this thread have no connection to the US state department or intelligence apparatus?

Your account has existed for 10 years so I'm not going to ban you outright just now, but the fact that you're using HN primarily (exclusively?) for nationalistic and ideological flamewar is a serious abuse of the site. We ban accounts that do this, regardless of what they're battling for or against. If you want to keep posting to HN, we need you to seriously recalibrate how you're doing it, and reorient to the intended use of the site, as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

The users foolishly accusing you of being a communist agent are also breaking the rules. That's not relevant to the fact that you're abusing HN.

Actually, I would have a lot more sympathy if you did have a personal connection to China. HN's Chinese users (and those with other connections, such as their family background or couple relationship or work history) are under extreme pressure in these threads, because the forum is majority Western, aligned with Western media and geopolitical views, and a subset of the majority users have the kind of adamancy (and even aggression) that can only come from ignorance. That's a serious problem—users of Chinese background have even been hounded off this site, just for sincerely trying to represent their own viewpoint. I've even been personally accused of being Chinese (as if that were somehow an insult) just for trying to bring more respect into these threads. If you or anyone is interested, you can see some of that moderation history at these links:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

None of that applies to your case, though, if I'm reading your comments correctly, because you seem to be posting strictly out of ideological battle. That's, unfortunately, much cheaper and more destructive behavior. We don't allow it here, because the purpose of the site is curious conversation in which people relate to and learn from each other. Smiting enemies is precisely the opposite spirit of that.

I know what it feels like to hold a minority ideological viewpoint too (having been in that situation many times)—it comes with a feeling of righteousness and resentment that causes one to lash out and feel justified in treating others disrespectfully because, after all, one's cause is right and the truth is more important. Unfortunately this syndrome is poison to the sort of internet forum we're trying for here. Regardless of how right you are (or feel you are), or how important the truths you bring are (or you feel they are), we're going to ban you if you continue this way. We have no choice but to do that, in order to try to preserve HN for its intended purpose. Moreover, it makes little difference how right you are or what truths you're bringing, if this is the way you're going about it, because people don't listen when they're being blasted.

I think the response to your claims about who you are is likely to be because it’s neither verifiable, nor relevant to your arguments here. It’s what you are saying that people are responding to. Not your nationality.

> I asked this extremely aggressive zepto person

I’m curious if you can quote anything in support of your description of me as ‘aggressive’.

Also, you have made it clear that you are an activist who is against many US actions, but what makes you think anyone here is “anti-China?’”.

Most people in the thread seem to regard both the criticisms of the US and, the China’s oppression of the Uighurs as credible.

It’s seemed pretty relevant to a lot of people in this thread. Your general tone is aggressive. I’m curious if you can quote anywhere where I’ve made it clear I’m an activist. That’s not how I think of myself. I’m posting on a computer programmer forum.

The kinds of claims you consider normal about China are in fact anti-China to anyone who’s bothered to learn a little bit about their system and how people there feel about it.

> Your general tone is aggressive.

Can you quote something I have written with an aggressive tone?

>> I’m curious if you can quote anywhere where I’ve made it clear I’m an activist.

Here’s a quote:

“Why do I need to say something bad about China? I’m a US citizen. That’s the only country I have any chance of impacting through criticism.”

And another:

“My only aim is to dissent against the manufacturing of consent for another bloody US war. What’s yours?”

You have an acknowledged political agenda behind your comments here.

> My only aim is to dissent against the manufacturing of consent for another bloody US war.

What has this got to do with whether what is reported about Xinjiang is true or not?

It's pretty simple. If you start from these two premises :

1- All reporting on Xinjiang is rooted in content from organizations linked one way or another to American/Western defence industry (ASPI, Zenz, BBC, etc... )

2. These groups have, as their modus operandi, used seemingly neutral and informative outlets over which they have influence in order to shape public opinion to manufacture consent.

From then on its pretty easy to come to those conclusions. It's empirically true that quite a bit of reporting on Xinjiang is false, and it's also true that the US uses the issue of Xinjiang to back actions that have a 0% chance of helping victims of human rights abuses there but that materially improve the American geopolitical solution.

Wether your want to take it as far as xtian did is something that can be disputed. But it's definitely valid to connect the veracity of western claims on geopolitical enemies to US/NATO warmongering.

> If you start from these two premises :

Starting from those two premises is the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

No it's not. Those premises are reasonable and many people hold them. They're not affirming the consequent just because you can draw the conclusion from them. It's actually kind of the point of premises, to draw consequences from them.

If you disagree, we can discuss where. But there is no fallacy here.

Well NATO-aligned countries seem to be the only ones claiming that it’s true. There’s a pretty clear pattern in US history. Or are you still hoping for Saddam’s WMDs to show up to justify the fact that due to the US’ use of depleted uranium munitions, Fallujah now has one of the highest rates of birth defects, childhood cancer, and multiple cancers in the world?

Ok - so you seem to keep quoting bad things about the US and now NATO, but what has this to do with the truth of what is happening in Xinjiang?

Are you claiming the reports are lies?

Obviously the CCP and anyone they have influence over will want to play the reports down.

There are plenty of reports that conflict with those coming out of the US media, and plenty of conflicts of interest (at the very least) in the sources of those reports.

What do you make of these two pieces of CCP propaganda?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AaitXSdjFP8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=4N385vKhXYQ

Do you not think the CCP has an interest in denying the claims?

You talk as if only one side of this is politically motivated. Is that what you really think?

Of course they do? I was being sarcastic about “CCP propaganda” but I guess you didn’t watch them so you didn’t get it.

Where have I said that only one side has political interests?

> Where have I said that only one side has political interests?

You haven’t, but you have repeatedly cited only one side’s political interests to further your argument that that side is lying.

Oh ok. Let me state China’s political interest: to not have their political sovereignty violated and be carved up by Western powers.

Ah, so you believe China has no geopolitical aims of its own other than defending itself from being dismantled.

This explains the black and white narrative of the US as aggressor and China as victim that you tell.

You can honestly look at this map of US military bases surrounding China and say it’s unreasonable to frame the US as the aggressor? https://www.wsws.org/asset/614e577a-e542-46f7-b838-fbf522495...

Yes, the US has military bases all over the world.

Does that mean it is the ‘aggressor’ in a given situation? Clearly not. There are many instances of countries active aggressively against their neighbors. If the US gets involved, the presence of its bases doesn’t suddenly make it ‘the aggressor’.

That is beside the point. The US is acting aggressively already as it tries to build bases and send fleets around any country it dislikes for whatever reason. It's not if the US gets involved. It already is involved. To not be aggressive or involved the bases should be closed down and no planes or ships should constantly probe Chinese borders. The US nhas no reason to be there except to get involved. It's exactly the same script as the US used in the cold war with the USSR and you know it. China does a lot of wrong but it is not the one being aggressive to the extreme. If China did what the US is doing we would have WW3 instantly.

As pointed out elsewhere China is making aggressive moves towards Taiwan, a strategic ally of the US.

It doesn’t seem credible to suggest that if the US just closed its bases, China and others wouldn’t try to expand their own spheres of military influence.

I’m not suggesting that the US is a benign power. Only that it is not ‘the aggressor’ in a world full of innocent victims who just want to be left alone. There are multiple aggressive powers all acting in their own interests, and China and the US are the most powerful of them.

I 100% believe the U.S.G. would use the Uighur situation as a reason for war, despite other more morally lacking reasons (power). I also 100% believe that the CCP would do something to the Uighur's worth starting a war over. The CCP is a military dictatorship, the people running the show aren't elected officials and the people, Uighur and otherwise aren't free to speak their minds or learn except for what the party allows.

This setup has never resulted in a good outcome long term. Ever. Let's not be naive, but instead reflect on the preconditions necessary for the abuse of power and recognize the CCP has met all of them in this situation.

Amnesty International is just a mouthpiece of NATO?

Amnesty international has previously backed factually erroneous statements of atrocities that were pivotal in justifying military action by NATO.

My aim is the truth, and decent human morals. If China is doing evil, morally repugnant, inhumane things in Xinjiang, then I'm going to say, as clearly as I can, that China is doing evil, morally repugnant, inhumane things in Xinjiang. And I'm not going to sugar-coat it because people have said similar things in the past as part of a push for war.

Please keep such boilerplate flamewar rhetoric off HN. It just leads to the lamest, nastiest sort of internet dreck. We're trying for at least not the bottom of the barrel here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I realize that strong feelings are usually what drives grandiose rhetoric but that's not enough.

There is sugar coating it, and there is exaggerating it beyond what is likely true in a way that will enable even more evil without actually making things any better.

Let's not pretend that it's because people have said similar things before as part of a push for war. It's because the same people, and literal defence contractors, are behind much of this information, coinciding exactly with a push for war.

free hong kong, free taiwan

Stand athwart the push of incentives pulling humanity down the slippery slope to Holocaust 2.0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide

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