This doesn't refer to the double-paned outer window, the pressure window. It refers to the innermost protective pane, the "scratch pane" that keeps greasy fingers and portruding camera lenses from reaching the two "real" windows. It's the hole in the scratch pane people are asking about
I much prefer democracy (the lack of large scale human rights abuses is a big plus) but one can't argue that with the fact that a multi-generational one-party system CAN encourage a refreshing degree of long-term thinking. This is a good example. (Of course, examples abound of the opposite--also in China)
The best argument for democracies, are their possibility of peaceful revolutios and this problem might become very relevant for china too.
You can compare the early US with present china. Both countries had/have great potential for economic growth, and everything went well for its citizens as long as the pie got bigger. The interests of the elites and the working class were aligned by that. Once the interests of these two groups diverge, democracies become relevant again. That's why the tech oligarchs are so afraid and politically engaged, to distract us with the have-nots below us.
Today, china just has the better aligning plan, while the west is struggling to keep it's democracies. IMO any reasonable trajectory for sustainability and social stability is a contradiction to western elites, who cannot think outside their status quo, while china just builds it. I really wish china well and that they dont develop such an arrogant international stance like the west.
I'd honestly turn the argument on its head. It's China that is being democratic, in the most literal sense. Giving the people what they want, clean energy, cheap stuff, infrastructure simply by satisfying market demand.
It's the largest western, ostensibly democratic nation that is run by some combination of occult neoreactionaries, techno-elites and pseudo-royalty all of which seem to have lost connection to immediate reality in pursuit of annexing territories, bringing about the singularity or what have you. It is ironically China who is more short termist and notably better off for it
I would actually much prefer if the US was run by people who fix potholes in the streets than something that resembles Dune's House Harkonnen
Neither is democratic. Democratic is direct rule of citizens, or at least some significant fraction of citizens. Only Switzerland is partially a democracy nowadays. Western countries are oligarchies, where elected elites are ruling however they deem necessary, but possibly with some caution because of elections. China is not even an oligarchy, it's a despotic regime, completely severed from the citizens.
It's not market demand. The government is ordering the construction of solar and wind farms without regard to the market demand or to the citizens residing in the locations where the solar farms and wind farms are to be built.
That's the exact opposite of democracy and capitalism.
It's a rational way to deal with their energy needs, reduce pollution and their impact on the climate.
They have small gas and oil reserves if I remember. Unfortunately, if they were sitting on Venezuela or Russian style reserves or oil/gas the story might be different. But unlike Europe, the Chinese can see that being beholden to foreign states to keep the lights on is asking for trouble.
They seem to have avoided the ideology the big fossil fuel companies push in the west to make fossil vs green a political/class discussion, not a rational one. Rationally it makes most sense for a nation to generate their energy needs in a way they control with wind/solar/nuclear.
you can't just go redefining terms until they mean what you want them to mean. You can say "China meets the wants of most of its citizens" (in which case, citation needed...) but that is definitionally not democratic. Democracy is a system, and a process can or cannot be democratic (within or outside a democratic system).
>you can't just go redefining terms until they mean what you want them to mean
Sure I can. There's obviously no one meaning of the term. The Democracy of the Greeks has very little to do with the Democracy of Rousseau, or the 21st century. The Chinese themselves consider their system democratic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism).
And you can make the case that a system that delivers the will of the people has a stronger claim to the term than a system that merely exhausts itself in staging democratic processes with no regards to outcomes.
This is funnily enough even happening within Western societies where people are branded pro or anti-democratic usually based on their affiliation. Laying exclusive ownership to the term is simply a rhetorical tool.
I take issue with "the lack of large scale human rights abuses."
Are you ignorant or just deliberately ignoring the genocide of the Palestinian people with an estimated 680,000 dead (~30% of Gaza) that occurred with widespread support of almost every western democracy?
China may be an authoritarian state but I would argue their large scale human rights abuses are far tamer than what these so called western democracies have been doing for the past 2 years and the direction we're headed.
Yes, I'm not including deaths in the colonial periphery. That's a rather different dynamic to the domestic question. Your criticism of this simplified view is a valid and welcome addition to the conversation, though.
The West's post-colonial exploitation and suppression of the global south does strike me as a feature of unfettered capitalism more than the political systems "back home".
Freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom from abitrary detention, just to name a few.
Of course some speech, association and rule of law (as opposed to rule by law) is enjoyed by most people. But it is indisputable that China restricts speech and association severely, and silences "troublemakers" arbitrarily.
Let me preempt the inevitable replies: this comment is about China and China alone. It it factual irrespective of what freedoms may or may not be enjoyed anywhere else including the US.
I wasn't saying China has those freedoms, just that China has at least as much of them as the US. Just today - or was it yesterday - an ICE agent peered into a woman's driver side window and shot her three times point blank. Because of her speech. Where's the freedom there?
A freedom does or does not exist. Some cultures have more freedom than others. If it's "Western" of me to admit I prefer more freedoms rather than less, I'll very proudly own up to that. But I don't know what that has got to do with the question I answered.
As for concrete examples:
#1: Freedom of speech -- one may not advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, criticize the ruling party, advocate for a change of government or political system in China, state that Taiwan is an independent nation, argue in favor of free and open elections in Hong Kong, advocate for workers' rights, talk about Tiananmen Square, talk about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, talk about human rights abuses in China at all... and the list goes on. Someone might manage to do so, sneaking past the firewall, but they are liable to be slammed with #3 below.
#2: Freedom of association -- contrary to what one might expect in a country with "Socialism with Chinese characteristics", one may not unionize. In fact one may not set up any civil society group outside the approval of the CPC. I could editorialize on the reasons for this but I'll refrain in the interest of brevity.
#3: Freedom from arbitrary detention -- China has a specific category of criminal offense just for this: being able to detain anyone at any time for any reason. The crime is "Picking quarrels and provoking trouble", and is used liberally on anyone who speaks out against the government and manages to catch their attention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picking_quarrels_and_provoking...
Now, Chinese people, and others, will argue that there's this reasona and that reason why it's good to restrict freedoms in this way. I obviously disagree. But what shouldn't be in dispute is the fact that these freedoms are very much restricted in China.
I self-host a music library on Plex and use Plexamp on my phone. I have liberated music I bought on iTunes, ripped my old CDs and added more from BandCamp (and for official purposes that's the extent of my library).
It might be welcome by the majority of Venezuelans (nor not, depending what’s next) but it is not justified in a US domestic sense or indeed by international law
The obviously reply to that would be "The US forces were invited by the democratically elected Venezuelan leadership to put a stop to the ongoing coup"
The concept of "international law" here is pretty confusing because to begin with you'd need to choose who decides what counts as a violation of Venezuelas sovereignty. Presumably the people backed by the US are okay with this, and team Maduro isn't.
Presumably, if you were to agree that Maduro wasn't in fact the legitimate leader of Venezuela, you'd just consider this an internal issue with US helping in local law enforcement matters.
If you disagree and consider Maduro to be the legitimate president, presumably no amount of justification will help you see it differently. But then, I'm not sure anyone particularly cares about your opinion either.
>The obviously reply to that would be "The US forces were invited by the democratically elected Venezuelan leadership to put a stop to the ongoing coup"
Were they? And is that the justification the US has cited? If not, you're writing fan fiction and that's not really interesting.
I'm not a supporter of totalitarian regimes including Maduro's, but the US has a track record of producing very poor outcomes for people in South America when they topple one leader in favor of a more--shall we say--"market friendly" character waiting in the wings.
As for international law, it is extremely clear, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. International law recognizes only two clear exceptions: self defense or a US Security Councul resolution.
>Were they? And is that the justification the US has cited? If not, you're writing fan fiction and that's not really interesting.
This is all necessarily speculative, we might never have sufficient visibility to know all the facts.
I'm merely attempting to provide the strongest reply the administration could provide if they cared to try. I believe it's reasonably grounded in facts.
1. US government openly does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate head of state of Venezuela
2. US government does recognize Edmundo González Urrutia as the president-elect.
3. Venezuelan opposition has been heavily lobbying in an effort to get foreign governments to intervene in Venezuela
All of these things are verifiable facts, I think they can be distilled into my perfectly reasonable suggestion as to how the US could fend off such criticism.
There's no second party to this action, it's the US's alone. Even if we accept the electoral fraud claims, Venezuela did not ask for US intervention. The rightfully elected leader of a nation can't call for a second nation to invade and bomb their nation.
Because nations have laws and the majority of nations laws don't give a leader unilateral authority to call for self invasion. In fact, that's usually called "treason".
For Venezuela, this would be something that, if any organization could call for it, it'd be the "Supreme Tribunal of Justice" [1]
And before you say it, yes I get that they are corrupt. But there are still laws. Which is why if you are going to overrule the laws of another nation, you should have at least some backing from the UN first. Deciding on your own that the the courts are wrong is just international vigilantism.
> Which is why if you are going to overrule the laws of another nation, you should have at least some backing from the UN first. Deciding on your own that the the courts are wrong is just international vigilantism.
On the other hand, if much of the world agrees with you anyway, not bothering with asking the UN might not matter at all.
> As for international law, it is extremely clear, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations. In international relations, actors are simply the individuals and collective entities, such as states, international organizations, and non-state groups, which can make behavioral choices, whether lawful or unlawful. Rules are formal, typically written expectations that outline required behavior, while norms are informal, often unwritten guidelines about appropriate behavior that are shaped by custom and social practice.[1] It establishes norms for states across a broad range of domains, including war and diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights.
Sure, yeah, but you'll just give yourself a headache trying to keep track of all the ridiculous things this admin puts out.
The reality is that there a lot of people across the political divide at very high levels of government who deeply dislike Maduro for a variety of reasons, some perhaps more pure-hearted than others.
Oil and drugs are obviously not even how they're justifying this to themselves. The oil in Venezuela isn't that interesting because it's really only US and some Canadian oil companies that are capable of extracting it. The US is always going to control oil production in Venezuela, no matter what.
But yeah, instead of focusing on all the silly statements the admin puts out you might as well just guess at the eventual steelmanned argument they'll present in writing at a later date.
This is quite a bit like the invasion of Panama by US forces and the removal of Manuel Noriega from power. Except Noriega wasn't "elected" like Maduro and the US doesn't have a strategically important canal to protect in Venezuela.
Anyway, good riddance. Maybe the Trump Administration actually has a plan for peaceful transfer of power now that they removed Maduro? The US still needs to disrupt ELN drug operations, if that's what they're really after.
There are many undemocratic and repressive regimes around the world. Trump has professed his admiration for various of these leaders. You can't seriously attribute noble goals of supporting democracy to him. Also, shouldn't he then be doing this in many other places in the world?
I like how we went from "international law" to "noble goals", I suppose that's pretty on point :)
> Also, shouldn't he then be doing this in many other places in the world?
No, I don't see how that would follow. I can choose to give money to a charity, but that does not mean I have to choose to give my money to all the charities in the world.
Much like “intellectual property”, “international law” is a nonsense term that tells you only that the person who employs it lives in their own bubble, captured by powerful interests of others.
And money is just a construct but I still need to pay the mortgage. And international rules removed the hole in the ozone layer, reduced cheminal weapons stockpiles by something like 99%, and ICJ rulings have adjudicated to force entire countries to comply with compromises.
I would be curious about the logic that allows you to call intellectual property a nonsense term while still allowing other property to make sense. Both are social constructs.
Crime rates also statistically correlate with demographics, but if I assume a specific person is a criminal based on that stat, I would (rightly) be called racist.
Expecting people to assume 'historically black' == 'poor' similarly feels racist.
"Historically black" is a euphemism -- that's a term that makes people feel better about something awful -- which refers to the fact that for the majority of the last three hundred years people have been systematically, governmentally, socially and personally discriminated against because of the color of their skin, and that racism led to massive inequity reflected in wealth, income, education and standards of living.
The facts of history show this. It is not a subtle statistical effect.
People who argue the way that you have been are either woefully ignorant of this matter or are playing games trying to justify the status quo, or are just racist trolls. This isn't a FAQ on HN because it's a FAQ in real life.
> Crime rates also statistically correlate with demographics, but if I assume a specific person is a criminal based on that stat, I would (rightly) be called racist.
Who said anything about a specific person? They are talking about a neighborhood, in a urban area in a region known for the endemic poverty in black-majority areas due to the long shadow of slavery and Jim Crow.
As a wise character once said, "poverty is a condition, not a crime".
> > Expecting people to assume 'historically black' == 'poor' similarly feels racist.
There are a few historically black communities in the US that are middle-class and prosperous, and Black Americans have made huge advances, but to this day, concentrations of Black American community prosperity tend to be the exception rather than the rule.
The question is how you check, qualify and--last but not least--apply the statistical findings. Are we trying to lift disadvantaged communities by providing extra resources and help people get on a better footing in life, or harassing individuals on the street because they have a certain skin color? I'm very eager to support the former and protest the latter.
I don't know, what are we doing with these assumptions? Are we trying to lift disadvantaged communities by providing extra resources and help people get on a better footing in life, or harassing individuals on the street because they have a certain skin color? I'm very eager to support the former and protest the latter.
I'm sorry you're saddled with an Intel Mac. The Apple Silicon Macs really changed everything. Clearly Apple is capable and willing of shipping extremely good and performant hardware, even though historically they haven't always done so. I do blame Intel for their monopoly on mediocraty for the late-10s Macbooks though.
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