Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericjang | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for taking the time to write this out. Two questions, followed by a response to one of your comments:

1) On the Uyghur issue. If what you say is true, why is it difficult to get CSPAN footage in Xinjiang?

2) Is there a hypothetical future event or evidence that would shift your viewpoint to believe the "western narrative"? If so, what is it?

> Women being lifted out of poverty became "genocide through birthrate suppression".

It can simultaneously be true that the heavy-handed actions (as you put it) successfully lifted women out of poverty, and also violated their individual human rights. The words we use to describe these actions aren't mutually exclusive truths.

View on HN

> Is there a hypothetical future event or evidence that would shift your viewpoint to believe the "western narrative"? If so, what is it?

A good start would be a motive for why Beijing would do a Holocaust against peoples within China.

Hitler had a motive, you can read all about it in Mein Kampf. It was out in the open. There is nothing even remotely resembling such a policy by Beijing.

On the other hand, there is a very clear motive for why Washington would spread misinformation about Beijing. So to believe Washington's story is to put on my blinders towards Washington's interests and simultaneously accept that Xi Jinping is a comic book villain. Sorry, but that is ridiculous.

> On the other hand, there is a very clear motive for why Washington would spread misinformation about Beijing.

And the rest of the world? Why is the free press of the entire world conspiring against China? Or the free press in the US? Does Washington own that?

Anyway, we can only speculate on the motive. Ethnic cleansing? Perceived threat of religious beliefs? Who knows. You're gonna have to do better than "I don't think those are strong motives" to dismiss mountains of evidence.

Your long list if irrelevant facts is very impressive, there's no doubt you are well read on your history. The consistency with which you present these facts any time China's atrocities are mentioned is also impressive.

Do you even consider the possibility that you are being tricked by the same warmongers who tricked you into thinking Saddam Hussein was about to use WMDs against the West?

I don't know where you were twenty years ago -- maybe too young to really follow the news? -- but pretty much nobody outside far-right cults like evangelical fundamentalists bought that bullshit line even at the time.

So fuck knows who this "you" (who was tricked by that) that you think (or pretend to think) you're talking to might be

When I ask pro-CCP people the question "what might change your mind", I often hear a variant of what you just said - "consider the motives (of the American hegemony), it explains our observations".

But that doesn't answer my question (2). Would you please answer it directly? Either there is some hypothetical evidence that would change your mind, or there is no hypothetical that could change your mind. Providing the affirmative to one or the other would help us understand whether you are open to changing your perspective at all.

For what it's worth, I'm happy to volunteer a hypothetical that would convince me to believe more in the narratives that you provided.

If you insist: how about the Uyghur population decreasing instead of increasing? That would be a good indicator that a genocide is actually taking place.

Anyways, please don't dismiss my comment. What is Beijing's supposed motive here?

> Anyways, please don't dismiss my comment. What is Beijing's supposed motive here?

Oh yes, I'll gladly dismiss it: You introduced it with a carefully weasel-worded "a good start would be"... So even if you got an iron-clad motive in reply, you'd just go on quibbling, because it was, after all, "just a start". So: Dismissed!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com