157 karma · joined December 16, 2016
I have never worked with Bryan. What's the general opinion about Valerie's statements about working with him.
https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/10/22/why-i-wont-be-atte...
https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has...
Could you clarify which people you are thinking of and your specific meaning of what they would miss?
I'm thinking about those historical track record. I'm thinking of those millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians whose lives were ended. I wonder about the millions more whose futures were ruined. I'm thinking about those millions of Iranians trapped by blowback to the Mossadegh coup. Nicaraguans? Guatemala. Honduras. Pakistanis? Afghans? Somalis? Iraqis? Yemenis? Those are just the ones we see in the news. Who knows about all the ones we don't see.
Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1Malaysia_Development_Berhad_s...
"According to its publicly filed accounts, 1MDB has nearly RM 42 billion (USD 11.73 billion) in debt"
The Malaysian taxpayer got finangled into guaranteeing all of that debt allegedly by GS.
> 7.5 Billion is almost 10% of the entire company's shareholder equity, truly a staggering sum for GS to pay.
Apparently the 1MDB losses have cost Malaysian taxpayers around USD $12 billion. Given that GS was the underwriter and allegedly the key enabler of the scandal, punishing GS by making them pay at least the majority of those taxpayer losses seems unjustified or unfair to you? What amount do you believe is fair?
For example, if a "fence" helps a thief sell off some "gear" and the thief is caught. How much should the "fence" be liable for? How much should the victims get back?
Could you provide some data to substantiate these accusations? The prosecutor is the first non-Muslim Attorney General in Malaysia's history, picked right after a historic election for Malaysia where the opposition party won for the first time. I don't see any evidence of corruption from what I scanned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Thomas_(barrister)
The finance minister is Lim Guan Eng. A politician who was previously imprisoned for defending a rape victim. Allegations of corruption against him were proven to be false and planned by, ironically, a corruption-funded organization under the former regime (the one that was partnered with GS). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Guan_Eng
> I don’t think GS did anything wrong and I hope they tell the Malaysians to fuck off.
You seem to have very strong opinions. I'm wondering if you realize that Tim Leissner, Goldman's VP already pled guilty to money laundering. https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2018/11/08/goldman-sac...
I'm very curious about your motivations for your post.
You could be just as likely to draw the analogy with the USA.
You're making a statement. You are saying "America is ultimately a force for good". America is definitely a force for the good of a certain set of humans. Whether it is a force for the good of the world (ie: the full set of humans on the planet) is certainly very questionable, especially in recent years.
Describing the faction of the Taliban that for a brief period gave Bin Laden sanctuary as a "government" seems like an unusual way to interpret the term government. It is the equivalent for us of having some bandit hiding within some cult in Maine or Kentucky and us describing that cult as the government of Maine. Also, as others in this thread have pointed out, those Taliban offered to handover Bin Laden if evidence was provided convicting him of the crime. It is interesting to compare our level of "conviction" of blame for some sets of people and willingness to accept collateral damage to civilians who happen to be around them, but when it comes to our own, even despite blowback and high levels of culpability, we deny the equivalence and block judgements even from UN courts.
Could you clarify? Upon whom? My understanding is that neither the Afghans nor the Iraqi civillians that ended up being the majority of the victims of our subsequent actions were the perpetrators of the acts on 9/11 or even from the societies that nurtured them. If I recall correctly, 15 of the 19 were from Saudi Arabia and the remaining 4 were from the UAE, Egypt and Lebanon. Even Osama bin Laden was Saudi, and nurtured in Switzerland, funded by the US Army and subsequently protected by the Pakistani Army which was itself directly funded by the US taxpayer.
What data are you basing that on? We and our Arab client states are the biggest polluters by far, on a per capita basis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... CO2 emissions by country name (only fossil fuels and cement manufacture, metric tons per capita
China 7.6 India 1.6 United States 16.4 Qatar 40.5 Saudi Arabia 19.2
Could you elaborate on above? I did not understand the logic behind the sentence. E-Ink displays by themselves do not generate any light as they don't have any backlight or light emitter behind the display. That's why they work in bright sunlight. Some products with E-Ink displays have frontlights for night time reading. Is that what you are referring to? If so, given this article, just turning off the frontlight and using non-blue light sources for lighting is sufficient to avoid this, right?
People were saying the same thing about Bill Cosby, that he was one of the "good guys" right up until light was shed on his behavior with a specific subset of human beings.
I know great engineers who treat me really well but at the same time are horrible human beings who treat specific subgroups of people in an unacceptable way.
This process of helping such people identify that they have a problem, that they are behaving in an unacceptable way and then fixing it is a good thing.
Where in the article does that "sounds like" come from?
I believe you're intentionally misconstruing my argument. It would be ridiculous to claim that Europeans invented brothels in Asia. What I am pointing out, which is well supported by historical evidence, is that European colonialism, resource extraction culture, such as the encomienda system in the Americas created the political and socio-economic structures that are the dominant structures behind the sex trafficking and "sexual activity based dealmaking" that is discussed in the article.
For example, impoverished indigenous Americans like the Mayas/mestizo are used as sex exploits/rites of passage/sex maids by the modern teenage descendants of Spanish conquistadors who treat it as a bonding experience. Much like how frats have group sex acts with women from impoverished backgrounds (or minorities) as part of their hazing/bonding rituals.
I see this as one of the effects of European colonialists on East Asia and South East Asian colonies. The practice of colonialist generals/warlords, typically of a naval background of using brothels as a place/culture to bond with other warlords/generals and their local puppets is the predecessor of the current "elite level" business culture observed in these former colonies.
For a more contemporary example, Thailand did not have this sexpot/sex tourist city reputation until after the Vietnam War. It was the exploitation of Thai beach resorts and cities as RnR locations for US soldiers that created the current conditions.
I have studied Hinduism and India in detail. I'm sorry that you feel my analysis is incorrect, but I can try to explain. Firstly, the census data you linked to still relies on the British definition of "Hindu". It may come as a surprise to many Indians including those that would describe themselves as "Hindu" that in fact, the term Hindu was popularized by the British and just meant "non-Muslim". That definition even originally included Buddhists and Sikhs.
" The British government created a compendium of religious laws for Hindus, and the term 'Hindu' in these colonial 'Hindu laws', decades before India's independence, applied to Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs.
Rachel Sturman (2010), Hinduism and Law: An Introduction (Editors: Timothy Lubin et al), Cambridge University Press,
Beyond the stipulations of British law, colonial orientalists and particularly the influential Asiatick Researches founded in the 18th century, later called The Asiatic Society, initially identified just two religions in India – Islam, and Hinduism. These orientalists included all Indian religions such as Buddhism as a subgroup of Hinduism in the 18th century. These texts called followers of Islam as Mohamedans, and all others as Hindus. "
There is little in common with the "Hinduism" practiced in say, Uttar Pradesh with the "Hinduism" practiced in Kerala. In Kerala, Hindus even eat beef from cows which would be considered a sacrilege in Uttar Pradesh. This is why the term Hindu does not really communicate any information other than "non-Muslim" and even that is debatable since parts of the "Hinduism" practiced in places like Rajasthan bears a great deal of resemblance to Arabic-Islamic culture.
> virtually no differences between British colonization and Chinese occupation of Tibet.
There is one huge difference. The British already successfully got away with it. Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada are the resulting trophies. Almost got South Africa too.
I'll venture that it's the executives who are pulling in the big bucks. Looking at the glassdoor numbers, profs are peaking at under $200k, the vast majority well under $100k. Contrast that with Comms directors making $250k.
I think Africans and Native Americans would beg to disagree. Heck, experiments like the Tuskegee Experiment were done not on foreign Africans but natural born Americans who just happened to have black skin.
Stuff like the Sand Creek massacre, Wounded Knee, and so many others just aren't part of our national (or international) consciousness. No body talks about the intentional sterilization of hundreds of thousands of Native American women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_of_Native_Americ...
You sound cynical and used a lazy argument. Can you justify the parent poster's demand that Americans be provided with jobs? How about justifying horse trainers demanding that the car industry be stopped?
Well, that's all nice and stuff but you're wrong. Firstly, if you're good at your job, you wouldn't need to be concerned. Secondly, you weren't concerned when all those manufacturing and blue collar jobs went to Mexico. What about when all those chemical plants and electronics/assembly/everything else moved to China? No sir, you weren't concerned at all. In fact, you enjoyed the lower prices that brought you. You didn't care about those factory workers in Flint. Why should your job be any different? Why shouldn't corporations be allowed to do whatever they need to do to deliver better shareholder profits and lower prices to their customers? America needs profits, not jobs! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp6-VLpWgRo
Without protectionist regulation and subsidies European and American farming isn't competitive either.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6256274
For those wondering, that term means hot water heater.
That seems interesting. I'd be interested to know whether that's true and for which specific countries. How much of it is powerful MNCs utilizing their power to put the right politician/legislator in place, similar to how lobbying works in the US.
I'm also surprised you use the strong words "overlook" and "fact". I wonder if you're perhaps confusing hollywood portrayal of Asia/Africa/developing countries for reality. I see that mistake made often by people who have not spent significant time overseas or have chosen to live purely in an expat bubble.
> You might not be aware that in a country like China it is common for foreign companies to be penalized for "corruption" that is widely known to be standard fare in local industry.
I'm quite familiar with China. What you're saying maybe partially true but just like the USA, it's lobbying, not direct corruption. Calling it "standard fare" "corruption" would be equivalent to calling American business/lobbying industry as the same. In much the same way that you wouldn't call Boeing/McDonald Douglas/steel industry/coal industry lobbying as corruption. If I'm mistaken, could you please give a specific instance with the facts you're referring to.
You'll be surprised how deep the rabbit hole goes. Horlicks is heavily marketed and distributed by its owner Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK). What is less well known about GSK is its kickback and corruption network throughout India and Asia. Doctors/nurses/hospital admins would get kickbacks in the form of lunches, dinners, entertainment, trips, conferences, gifts. In China, GSK was fined $500 mil for corrupting doctors. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29274822
Even in the US, where the scale of corruption is arguably lower, GSK was fined USD$ 3 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical...