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Comment by christophilus | Hacker News Reader

I remember hearing how the Chinese couldn’t innovate; only copy. It’s like… You do realize that the Chinese are humans, not Neanderthals, right? Humans are intelligent and innovative. Scrappy humans (which the Taliban are) frequently surprise with how much they can accomplish with so little.

Granted, the system and culture does make a massive difference in terms of the trajectory and compounding effects of a populace. But these remarks come off as thinly veiled racism, rather than a critique of the political systems involved— and I’m not someone who sees racism behind every blade of grass.

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I don't think it's racism. I reject the premise that because we play ourselves up and them as under us that it's racism. We do that with everyone. Canadians and Australians are beneath Americans. We "know" this in our heart of hearts.

Somehow when it's people with a different skin shade these accusations of racism come up. Racism is a red herring. 99% of the time it turns out to be the case that racism is a lazy explanation for something more complicated or uncomfortable to explain.

> Canadians and Australians are beneath Americans. We "know" this in our heart of hearts.

Your definition of "racism" is far too narrow if that doesn't count as a racist statement to you.

Lol what. You don't know what racism is.

Your definition of "racism" is far too broad if you consider all xenophobia a subset.

I'm not saying all of anything is anything else. Maybe we'll have to agree to disagree.

The notion of "anti-Irish racism" in the UK or USA, or "anti-Polish racism" in Ireland, is widely accepted enough for me to believe that the definition I'm used to isn't unreasonable.

Your definition of "racism" is far too broad if that counts as a racist statement to you.

Let's not confuse nationalism with racism, even if the two are quite often intertwined.

> I remember hearing how the Chinese couldn’t innovate; only copy.

Japan in the 1950s and 1960s was viewed as a copy-cat manufacturer of cheap stuff. A few decades later, and things changed.

There was a joke about this shift in the movie Back to the Future.

I don't think the Taliban are stupid but some articles "glorifying" them are. There was one talking about how drug trade and road tolls are going to turn Afghanistan into an economic power house...

I don't think it has anything to do with Racism. You'd be surprised if the Amish had a space program, but not because of racism. The Taliban wouldn't have high-tech capabilities (and probably wouldn't exist at all) if it wasn't for their support from Pakistan, Quatar & friends (ongoing) and the US (when they were fighting the Russians).

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