zarro

Given that commercial activity affects my unalienable rights to life, liberty and property I would disagree that its not subject to the protection of the Constitution.

I also find fault with the commerce clause of the constitution and think its broad interpretation as an economic defense mechanism is archaic and filled with undesirable effects (such as the drug war, limitations to trade and international tariff wars), not to mention contradictory to the constitutional principle of liberty.

This is the best response that I have gotten which I think a majority of Chinese people agree with and epitomizes my exact point that it is counterproductive to villainize one another.

Instead of letting contention escalate to coercion and violence we should focus on setting mutually agreeable rules of economic competition, and let whichever system is more successful in producing value succeed.

Important side point regarding intellectual property - our system here is also messed up and copyright/IP laws will no doubt be changed soon. The important part regarding that is setting common rules of engagement, and allowing those that are responsible for development of new methods and ideas to capture some part of the value that they created, without enforcing through the coercion of law an arbitrary monopoly. Such rules are in both of our interests, as Chinese people should also be able to capture the value that they create through innovation - perhaps why some think the innovation curve is so low in China is because there is not enough incentive for there to be more (There would be if we formed some kind of rules for innovators to be allowed to capture some value from the product/services they create).

I hope you realize, I am NOT anti-china, I am anti-Totalitarianism, because I think its not in both of our long term best interests. But I also think that if some are happy to live under what I would call "totalitarianism" I am 100% okay with that as long as I am allowed the same prerogative to chose what system I want to live with.

I see lots of Anti-China sentiment. I would be very careful here into not falling into their deliberate trap of making "The West" China's "Enemy".

China in its current totalitarian form needs an "Enemy" to survive, without it, it has to deal with difficult internal questions which will force it to adapt and change - and this what scares them.

Totalitarian governments rely on distraction and misdirection of the populace in order to survive. Without it to use as ammunition to unify the people against a commonly perceived "enemy", the very nature of its limiting rule forces the populace to start questions to try and improve their own condition. Questions like "freedom" and "censorship". Totalitarian governments are not equipped to satisfy difficult questions like this and will either adapt or crumble.

Thus the best way "oppose a government that is the sworn enemy of values you regard as precious" is to allow it to face its internal discord without giving it the "enemy" it so desperately needs as ammunition to use against you.

EDIT: There are many comments that I think are misguided attacking this concept, here is rebuttal to them:

Proposition: If China wants to make the west an enemy, it will do so with or without us by the total control it has over its populace.

Rebuttal: So the best counter plan is to help them in doing so?

Proposition: So the solution is don't speak out about real issues because you don't want to piss off Chinese citizens and make them think you are the enemy?

Rebuttal: Obviously not, but rhetoric implying war or xenophobia is hardly the answer either.

Proposition:Most totalitarian governments fail on the battlefield. Think of Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the empires that fell during WW1, or the Axis powers in WW2.

Rebuttal: Just because totalitarian regimes have fallen on the battlefield before, does not mean they will do so in the future. Not only is this proposition utterly foolish and dangerous but its not even remotely true in the nuclear age.

Proposition: Even if you watch or read the heavily controlled Chinese media, it's never about fighting anyone or pointing the finger at anyone.

Rebuttal: This is almost categorically untrue and uninformed. In fact, in times of political tension anti-west and anti-Japanese sentiment in the government controlled media is used almost without fail. No protests are allowed, but anti-west and anti-japanese protests are manufactured by the state.

Proposition:Should we allow economic coercion and suppression of political speech in the US by a state power? Can we not speak out in favor of those protesting in Hong Kong that were promised 50 years of "one country, two systems"?

Rebuttal: Of course NOT! But we should act on the defensive, and prudently, with our own best interests in mind.

Proposition:This theory has proved wrong. China has been welcomed into the WTO over the last 20-30 years and it has not reformed. It is now extending it's economic superpower into political and cultural power. It's not about making an enemy, it's about limiting this unwanted influence.

Rebuttal: To say the theory has proved wrong is premature, China took advantage of one sided trade agreements that created a competitive advantage for itself, subsidized by us. Limitations of its political and cultural power should be in the form of leveling out this competitive economic playing field, and not escalation into xenophobia or coercion.

The point of debate is not about self-censuring in order to get bankrolled, the point is about contesting using the law to actually coerce someone from creating what they want, which is what China does, and the potential influence of that mentality onto our culture (and the slippery slope to law).

I don't see how its acceptable to use coercion to enforce an opinion of "duties that trump free speech rights" that don't involve force, fraud, or defamation.

Totalitarian governments rely on distraction and misdirection of the populace in order to survive. Without it to use as ammunition to unify the people against a common "enemy", the very nature of its limiting rule forces the populace to start questions to try and improve their own condition. Questions like "freedom" and "censorship". Totalitarian governments are not equipped to satisfy difficult questions like this and will either adapt or crumble.

Thus the best way "oppose a government that is the sworn enemy of values you regard more precious than your own life" is to allow it to face its internal problems without giving it the "enemy" it so desperately needs as ammunition to use against you.

I see lots of Anti-China sentiment. I would be very careful here into not falling into the trap of making ourselves China's "Enemy".

China in its current form needs an "Enemy" to survive, without it, it has to deal with difficult questions like "censorship", and in order to survive will need to change - and that's what really scares them.

The ADA law actually doesn't make sense to me. I get they are trying to stop discrimination, but the means they take is misguided and an encroachment on peoples rights.

If you have a business and are offering a service, you are doing so at-will. Your not obligated to provide anyone with any product or service, if you were, how is that not slavery? The law forces you to provide a product or service without allowing you use your own judgement.

The law itself is unconstitutional. How did it even pass?

Before this episode I always wondered why they kept making those bad transformers movies, turns out China loves em.

I think its fine if people want to make movies for the China market, but what I find alarming is copycat behavior trying to bring that sort of censorship here.

It doesn't make any sense to me why anyone should apologize or censor themselves creatively just because someone got salty about it. I find the notion limiting someones creative expression to someone else's judgement of "appropriate" to be despicably egregious.

Sure you can vote with your dollar and time by not watching something you don't like, but its the creators prerogative what to create and what not to create.

Anyone arguing the contrary on the effects of censorship has not looked into the origin of the word.

I think underground or overhead even for buses and trains makes more sense.

High density and high traffic urban areas would be the first targets obviously.

You presume boring will always be prohibitively expensive.

In the future it seems completely logical that all surface level traffic would be by walking, scooter or electric bike, etc, and everything else would be subsurface.

The question itself comes off as prejudiced because you seem to imply that the wealthy should pay more than those that are not wealthy, and discarding the fact that your discriminating against those that are wealthy by doing so.

The argument is, all those services and much more could be provided for privately much more efficiently.

Taxes that aren't flat and equal for everyone are discriminatory.

I think this “vilify the rich minority” mentality that’s so popular these days is destructive in the fact that the people that popularize this, see it as a path of least resistance to getting subsidized at the expense of the rich, instead of working toward improving themselves and the value of the products/services they provide so that they may, in return, purchase valuable services for themselves.

In the end when this sort of mentality is allowed to win out, what it leads to is the dissolution of those valuable services these “rich” people provide which made them their wealth in the first place. It’s unfortunate that only AFTER their dissolution, the original proponents of this mentality are the ones that suffer and realize their short sightedness.

I disagree with the proposition that performance and reliability are categorically mutually exclusive.

I think the way that it works in America at least is that you have a minority of rich and healthy people and a majority that does not have much money and is not super healthy. Our democracy is suppose to be limited, in that the government is not suppose to use its monopoly of coercion to enforce the majority decision on the minority. So to get around this the voters forced the hospitals to treat them, even if the question "what if you can't pay for it" was left tacitly unanswered. The hospitals of course can't afford to pay for this bill either so they give the government an invoice for it, and the governments only way of paying that invoice is by increasing taxes. Which is a conundrum of where we are at.

Of course the majority (if its poor and sick) is going to pick the path of least resistance - which is to vote short term to get a subsidy from the healthy and rich (instead of pursuing to long term path toward developing skills to provide valuable services so that you could get rich and afford valuable services, such as healthcare, not to mention living life in a way to minimize chance of getting sick/ill in the first place.)

But in the end this sort of "take from the rich and minority" mentality just leads to the dissolution of thevalue that they create, and unfortunately only after they are gone, to the dissolution of the principle architects of that mentality.

I don't see how you can justify without using a double standard the idea that its okay to use coercion to take advantage of a minority to enforce an idea of "acceptable" that they might not agree with.

Contrarian argument regarding point 2:

I find it weird and misguided how people think that using coercion to force people into buying healthcare is somehow acceptable. To those that think it will make the cost of healthcare more expensive for the rest of us, I think that is a dubious assertion, in fact I think it will get much cheaper. The presumption that they are in contentious debate with is the necessity that different people have to get different tiers of service based on how much they pay.

It makes all the sense in the world when you compare it to any other business. You wouldn't expect for someone who paid $1M to get the same level of treatment as someone who paid $100.

People would buy insurance according to different tier levels of quality and risk profile, with their being astronomically high costs of insurance for old wealthy rich people, who in their desire to prolong life will incentivize creation of new modes of treatment to cure themselves (Which in the short run the development of which will help them, but in the long run, everyone, as after it gets discovered and scaled it will get cheaper).

People would also buy cheaper level of tiers, from which naturally the quality of treatment, and queues will get lower/longer.

You will also have people that don't buy insurance, and this should be their prerogative to do, as it would be the healthcare providers prerogative to decide whether to provide them with free treatment (they are not slaves, they are not obligated to provide a free service, and what makes the people that don't pay more important or a higher priority than those that willingly pay and fund these services).

I'm not saying that this is the BEST solution, I'm saying that this is BETTER than anything else proposed which leads to things like the "cobra effect" in which you make the initial problem way worse by the implemented solution, than by what it would have been without it.

I think that is a lazy business model, selling cars at a very low margin just so that you could make money by planned obsolescence and high cost replacement parts.

I would rather buy a car for more money that's engineered to the best possible attainable engineering perfection than one that is not.

Often, those more reliable cars are even cheaper and made in massive production. Given Teslas goal of accelerating the change to sustainable energy, it would be in their best interest to make the best possible and reliable car they could at the highest possible production numbers, instead of leaving a competitive advantage for toyota to take over reliable scalable production. Besides I would argue the purpose of the model 3 is a mass market vehicle that is really nice, and not just a niche "luxury" vehicle as is often implied.

Although it not "Guaranteed" you can rest assured when you buy a Prius for instance, the probability of you having a catastrophic failure or expensive repair before 200k miles is very low - and if it happens, is usually covered by Toyota themselves.

I'm not sure that the European version of outsourcing that responsibility to the government is the way to go for the same reason.

Letting people set up private companies with competitive options I think would probably drive the best results.

They are wonderful cars and I have never heard anyone not loving the driving experience.

The only concern that I think is preventing growth (Other than production of course) - is the concern about long term reliability.

If you buy a camry or prius you know almost for a fact, that your going to drive 200k miles without a problem, and if there is one, its recognized as an engineering failure and the dealership fixes it for free - and fast.

But with Tesla, there are lots of rumors that the queue for getting stuff fixed it really long, and that after warranty expires, really expensive.

What I am really scared of is another "BMW" style reliability experience, which I would consider to be a catastrophic failure on the part of Tesla.

Edit - also accidents "caused" by "autopilot" software, and liability is still a big question.

I really think that the sooner we can separate out pensions and healthcare from employers, the better.

Businesses main area of expertise is not in pensions and healthcare, and they cannot provide these services as efficiently as if there were many different insurance companies on the market offering these services for sale, and instead the company paid you a fee for your services, and then you went out on the market and bought your own pension plan and health insurance.

REPLY TO ALL: No one "picks" a universal language. Is spontaneous chosen when people adopt because it drives the most value for them.

Its not the end-all that English is that language, but I think its fair to say that anywhere in the world atm English might be the closest to a "universal language".

I for one would rather stick to English, until a better alternative "proves" itself in the "marketplace of ideas".

As for the main argument about the phonetics, I think most languages have this problem, for instance in Germany every region has its own nuance and dialect, but the common one is "High German".

Same thing in English, and I would argue (even as an American) that our common version is "RP English or BBC English". If you can speak in this dialect, not only will (almost) everyone understand you, but speaking it also comes with a hint of "Respect", as its not so easy/common to do.

Is it not possible to consider that part of the English languages perceived disadvantages as a universal language could be also perceived as an indirect advantage? In that learning its grammar and structure is fairly easy (Barrier to entry is low), but perfecting the nuances of its depth in precision and pronunciation is fairly difficult.

Contrarian perspective here:

English is not my first language, but I have come to deeply appreciate the idea of a common language that people share so that we can all work together regardless of where in the world we are.

Knowing more than one language adds lots of value, because each language offers different modes of thinking and conception. But also having one common language adds an insane amount of value, because now you can both win by having the capability to exchange ideas with people that otherwise might not happen and the opportunity cost is unpredictable.

(Example - German and Japanese teams use a universal language as a common language to work together on a groundbreaking energy project. That collaboration might not have otherwise happened due to language barriers. But if both parties learn a "Universal language" as a collaborative base, we can all gain advantage from that product of that win-win scenario. )

No Replay: People get salty because of subjectivity of person.

Replay: People get salty because of subjectivity of technology/rules.

Result: Some people will always be salty.

Why: There is an underlying subjectivity in nature. Nature itself is probabilistic. There should be general agreement on rules of competition with the intention to minimize the degree of contention. The creation/modification of rules to have a higher/lower degree of precision should be measured by the degree of utility they provide in minimizing that contention, as well as degree of attractiveness to convince people to agree to compete with them.

That being said, I'd be more concerned about head injuries than I would be about Replay review for the NFL.

"The censor was a magistrate in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances.

The power of the censors was absolute: no magistrate could oppose their decisions, only another censor who succeeded them could cancel it.

The censors' regulation of public morality is the origin of the modern meaning of the words censor and censorship."