They can, and many do succeed. In the US right now, education is a proxy for class, so saying the uneducated Chinese can succeed is like saying the Chinese lower class can succeed, which isn't necessary true. It requires capital to start a business, not education.
This is true. However, online media is becoming more and more concentrated(and manipulated) as well. Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Google, and 4chan all make up a large chunk of our online media, and it should be apparent to most people at this point that each of those sites are either controlled by a company, country, or PR team. It wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing a decline in trust of online media in the future, too.
In Europe, generally, 1) webmasters are usually responsible of the comments left in their webpages by their users, and 2) webmasters have to make clear what their names and addresses are.
Myself, sometimes I've thought of creating a forum or a community, only to be turned away when I think of that. Do you think 4chan would have ever existed if moot had had to put his real name and address there, and if he was legally responsible of what people published in 4chan? Impossible.
So all online communities will always be concentrated in the US, at least for the foreseeable future. :(
I don't believe the issue is US-vs-nonUS. I believethe issue is internet "capital" concentration, which will emerge regardless of national origin. There is a networking effect that makes it difficult to start a successful platform, and those in power will eventually work to maintain or strengthen their power.
This is all well and good if you live in a wealthy family in the US. However, the global economy means nothing to me if my entire family is seeing a declining quality of life, I have to wait for years and go tens of thousands of dollars in debt to find a good job, and I live in fear of getting sick because I don't know how I'll afford it. That's why my priorities are for my family first, country second, and global "community" last.
If globalization is needed so badly to lift the world, we need to find a way to change it in a way that doesn't destabilize us in the process.
Americans are solidly opposed to the Republican party's agenda to gut health care. [0] Blaming Americans for their health care problems is like blaming Russians for Putin's largesse. It's just generally much harder for the masses to hold the few accountable than for the few to keep the masses in check.
This problem has existed long before the most recent iteration of healthcare "reform". People (real Americans!) have consistently voted in the representatives who are trying to undo a medical system that covers everyone because they are so enamored with the free market ideal and hate the idea of contributing to their country in the form of taxes.
I meant my country as a group of people, not our government. I don't care about my government, it has failed me, but my country is full of everyday people just trying to get by. Because we are of a same or similar culture, and because we live in closer proximity, it's only natural that I care about them more than people of other countries.
It is related to the declining quality of life Americans are experiencing. If the economy was still incredibly unequal but quality of life was still going up, there wouldn't be nearly as much disdain for the rich as there is right now.
From the article, it didn't sound like the Chinese are exactly generous with sick time. Admittedly it wasn't directly addressed other than by the general "Chinese workers work more hours" observation.
> my family first, country second, and global "community" last.
Well, in many cases (but not all of course), people who put "country" first, get much better outcomes in the end. In fact, if you look at the poor half of the world -- it's where everybody mostly put themselves first.
So I argue that for the best life quality, there should be
some balance between the two. Although figuring out the best balance is a very hard problem.
This is quite the catch-22. Domestic wealth inequality within the US has widened. Global wealth inequality has narrowed (dramatically). These two trends are very connected.
Speaking of one group is not ignoring the other. Nobody said that sexual harassment against men is okay. It's okay to recognize that social norms affect the genders asymmetrically and structure language around that.
Engaging in identity politics opens up pandora's box :).
Men have a more difficult time obtaining social, emotional and physical intimacy with other people (in both romantic and platonic contexts). For the purely romantic context, there is a huge disparity in the required effort to obtain intimacy in a romantic relationship.
Women can obtain intimacy and have a very successful romantic life without making any advances at all. A man will have a very unsuccessful romantic life if he never makes any advances.
Society fails men on the social/physical/emotional intimacy front.
These are natural, primal needs have huge consequences on happiness. This lack of intimacy naturally causes men to seek intimacy in sometimes inappropriate contexts and situations.
Since a large cause of the behavior is the failing of society, it may be prudent to give higher leniency to men for these situations. The intimacy gap should at least be acknowledged whenever identity politics are brought up in these situations.
> A man will have a very unsuccessful romantic life if he never makes any advances.
#NotAllMen But seriously. I'd like to talk more about this in a different setting. This sentiment rang true for me before I got out of high school. After that, it mattered much less.
> Society fails men on the social/physical/emotional intimacy front.
This is a common view point, and it is false. There's a fixed amount of attention that can be directed towards certain issues. Accordingly, paying attention to certain issues is ignoring others.
In fact some definitions of attention define it as the ability to ignore unwanted or unneeded things. In general, I do think it is correct to focus on a specific, salient example of harassment, that is, women's harassment than the abstract. Just as I think it's better to focus on sexism or racism rather than "discrimination"
My original response doesn't ignore them, it was my additional commentary adding that all founders shouldn't have to deal with it. The discredit to the response itself is evidence that one side weigh more sway based on gender. No one should have these types of issues.
Right, and that should be obvious to any reader. My point is that this is an issue that is asymmetric between the sexes. Acting like it's not just makes it seem like we're trying too hard to ignore genders when they exist and affect us.
You can't legislate away a cultural problem. See the drug wars, anti discrimination laws, and others. If we're going to be so cheap that we can't add bicycle infrastructure then we need to at least fund a public awareness campaign and possibly start teaching our kids about it.
You are right. I guess I should have said "you can't punish away a cultural problem." Using legislation to change the culture itself can certainly work if done right.
Although your examples are valid, there are many counter-examples: see increasingly-stringent enforcement of anti drunken-driving laws since the 1970s. Although drunken driving does still occur, it's vastly more uncommon than it was before we began legitimately enforcing the laws we have.
The reason legislation like this isn't helping our country at the moment is because of globalization. Labor laws may help the workers, but it's a net negative if those laws just lead to the outsourcing of jobs. We need to choose between globalization for maximal gains for the rich, or protectionism for quality of life for our workers. At the moment, a middle ground doesn't seem possible.
Globalisation is fine where regulation can ensure that standards are still met. There is nothing that prevents domestic legislation setting standards for the working conditions of those who produce goods in foreign countries.
Protectionism isn't going to help workers in the long term. We live in a global market; accepting that and using legislation to deal with negative outcomes is a totally valid approach. The fact that it hasn't been done is because of the large amount of money standing in the way of it.
Theoretically this is true, but look at how it's worked in practice. Manufacturing was shipped to places like China and Mexico where the minimum wage and quality of life is much lower. When considering these things, should we consider the theory of globalization, or the reality of what is happening?
It's a little scary that you're advocating Americans compete by, say, doing away with child labor laws or safety standards. That's a disturbing enough view that you don't even want it linked to your primary HN account.
There can absolutely be a middle ground. We can tax rent-seeking. We can quit the austerity focused trickle-down policies that have been shown to fail, and put money into the hands of people who will actually spend it. We can actively redistribute wealth.
Why would you rather give up protections that cost our ancestors their lives to establish?
I'd be interested in seeing proof that protectionism actually does benefit workers; I suspect the effect is mixed. Cheap goods from overseas often can help improve poorer people's standards of living, and it's not hard to see how protecting industries from more efficient competition overseas can benefit business owners.
What makes that idea difficult is the fact that profits have become decoupled from contribution to society. Anymore, most corporate gains aren't being passed along to the workers, just to the owners. Granted, the equation shifts with small businesses compared to large ones, but the idea that business = improvement is a bit simplistic.
Only the Sith deal in absolutes! I doubt profits have become decoupled from contribution to society as a rule.... there's going to be some statistical distribution of benefit. Understanding those stats will let you make good decisions on immigration. Though, I personally like Trumps idea. As a totally non related aside, New Zealand is a great place to come and innovate if the US isn't going to let you in :)
> What makes that idea difficult is the fact that profits have become decoupled from contribution to society.
This is not true. Anyone can claim that in a certain venture profits are not coupled to the contribution to society, as long as the person refuses to acknowledge or define "contribution to society".
For instance, do you consider T Bone Pickens to have contributed to society via his profits? If no, then what about Warren Buffet?
It is not trickle down economics. It is optimizing for the highest amount of tax dollars.
If you have 2 people, one which will contribute >30K a year in taxes, and another that will contribute 10k a year in taxes, that is free money on the table that we are losing out on, if we don't accept person 1.
But at a very minimum, you can agree that if someone makes more money, then they will pay more in taxes?
Why shouldn't the government optimize for letting people into the country that are going to give it a lot of tax dollars? We could then use those extra tax dollars to do things that society wants.
> if someone makes more money, then they will pay more in taxes?
Absolutely not true for everyone. It depends heavily on how they make their money.
Many very wealthy people are also able to abuse loopholes and decrease their tax bills. Do you remember when people thought Trump didn't want to release his tax returns because they showed he paid zero taxes? Yes, that's a real thing. Billionaires making millions in a given year are able to pay nothing, if they organize their finances correctly.
Also, people have value to the economy outside of tax dollars. They also spend money, fill jobs that aren't filled by domestic workers, and produce babies (which wealthier people produce at a lower rate and which are necessary to fund things like Social Security).
> Anymore, most corporate gains aren't being passed along to the workers, just to the owners
Was this ever the case? I mean, look at the Victorian era and what amounted to forced labor camps in the coal mines of West Virginia – seems like profits are almost always sucked up to the top.
You're implying that all white men have a sense of entitlement and power, an assumption that is racist and sexist, much like saying black people all like watermelon or women all are overly emotional. You're blurring the line between cultural differences and racial differences which, if left unchallenged, lead to discrimination. There are millions of white men that aren't in a position of power or don't get ahead because of their skin color. In fact, due to affirmative action policies, if anything white men are being pushed out. What makes you think white men are privileged when as a whole, they've been seeing a decline in income?
Edit: to those downvoting me, could you please explain why?
This is a particularly bad misreading of the comment you're replying to.
The commenter quite explicitly said that they're not referring to all white men. Nor even that being white or a man are among the qualifying conditions.
They are referring to the degree to which people buy in, consciously or subconsciouly, to the notion that their whiteness or masculinity are inherently or naturally good/powerful/dominant.
The problem is acting like definitions are fluid when we're not. If I write a huge paragraph about how black people are violent, but mention in one sentence that I'm talking about black people as a symbol for power and not as a race, that doesn't change the fact that I just talked about an entire race as a whole. It's still ignorant, and blurring the line between race and culture is a dangerous rabbit hole.
Definitions are pretty fluid and the top level poster did take time to try to qualify the definition for the purposes of discussion. The problem is that fully qualify a definition often results in a long essay that nobody wants or has time to read, and trying to come up with a new label that's both accurate and accessible to the casual reader is a very slow and difficult process.
Since HN is a well-educated community, on the whole, it's not unreasonable to expect a little more work on the part of potential readers than for the same comment posted on a broader platform like Facebook. Unless I know from prior experience where a particular poster stands, when I read a comment I find attitudinally startling on HN I try out a few different interpretations before making assumptions about what was meant.
Personally, I agree that unclear or shifting definitions are bad for discourse.
And in this case, I would agree that there are better ways to express the idea.
I used a stronger tone than necessary about your original reading, I didn't mean to be hostile. But I did think it was clear that the poster was not generalizing as broadly as you took it.
The idea that hundreds of non-white alt-righters could gather at a college and all act like extremist liberals while not leaking the fact they're alt-righters is pretty absurd to me.
He didn't say that. He said it was playing in the media the way a right-wing propaganda piece would have played, even though it wasn't one. I thought that was pretty clear, especially given the last sentence of his first paragraph.
They didn't say they were going to start removing videos with illegal content, they already do that. They said that they were going to start removing videos that don't break any rules, yet the company deems them unsavory. Which is incredibly frustrating since 1) YT has become the center of our changing culture, and 2) not everyone lines up with the PC Californian culture that dominates large multinational corporations.
They didn't say they would remove the videos, instead they will display an "interstitial warning and they will not be monetised, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements." Which is not even on the level of a shadow ban, as practiced e.g. on HN.
I wonder what effect Google's wagging finger and implied scolding from an interstitial will have on people who stumble across a video they like but is branded as naughty.
I find it an interesting question because:
A) Not every video branded as culturally unacceptable will be. Not every video is as bad as the worst-case hypothetical used to justify the content classification.
The landscape of cultural attitudes differ from California-based content minders. The categorization can be flat out wrong, there will undoubtedly be a small percentage of videos that even the minders see as mis-classified.
B) Social interventionist policies can - and often do - backfire.
e.g.: Teens that deliberately seek out taboo. The allure of R movies, M games, Explicit Lyrics, and underage binge drinking can cause them to live a period of their life less well-adjusted than if that content wasn't aggressively filtered from their lives in the first place.
If they do that, they might as well remove the videos, since they have the same goal in mind. Look at the quarantined subreddits on Reddit. While the company gets to say it allows free speech, it basically removed those subreddits from existence, thus successfully controlling the narrative. Do we really want large corporations to intentionally guide the direction of our culture? Personally, I don't. In the end, a corporation would guide it in a direction that favors itself and its donors.
