mazerackham

Human rights are not some global constant, but something that evolves from culture & economics. China has experienced unprecedented growth in the past 30 years, never before seen in history. Hopefully its concepts of human rights will evolve with time, but to judge it now by the same measure we do for the West is unrealistic and impractical

I think you're forgetting the most important part of the equation: China is still a developing country. In fact 50 years ago, it was one of the poorest countries in the world. As amazing as it's total GDP output is (by some measures more than the U.S. now) it has 5x the people. While yes there is some artificial currency devaluation, that is nowhere close to being the reason it's cheaper to live in China.

There's no point in arguing when you talk about historical matters as simply as a fight between your friends. Opium wars are a great example of Imperialism (which is not a good thing, although you seem to try very hard to twist and defend it)

it sounds like you're trying to blame China for the Opium War. Fact is, if there was a war right now, fought to force trade of a highly addictive drug on another country, people wouldn't describe it as an opportunity for that country.

This weak justification for imperialism is dangerous for our future generations. The subjugation and exploitation of technologically weaker peoples for PROFIT, usually under the guise of some self-righteous religion, mandated by god, is something that I hope humanity is done with.

In this case, it was a war fought to force a drug trade. Pathetic.

I don't really know much of Indian culture, but I doubt it's as simple as a "yes sir" from your "typical Indian worker". That sounds like a gross oversimplification.

Again, I reiterate that while cultural effects can be there, I think it's much more prudent to look first for the historical and social causes of differences (wealth, resources, times of prosperity & peace vs war and famine). I'd bet money that those effects are orders of magnitude greater than any cultural effects. It's not as simple as you make it out.

As a point of reference, I want to again point out that immigrants from India and China to the U.S., carrying that same culture, have created much of the innovation from America over the past 20-30 years. I don't think that would've happened with typical "yes, sir, I understood sir, it will get one, sir" attitude, that you are placing on the "typical Indian".

1. As all the controversy shows, he wasn't "clearly in the wrong". Neither was Eric Gardner, that guy who got choked out, nor all the other cases, the names of whom I started to forget because the reporting became so common place, i.e. it was happening all the time.

2. So let's say a white person and a black person in a car have the same rate of performing a crime (let's say smoking marijuana, a harmless pastime enjoyed by all races). Let's say that if a cop pulls you over while you are smoking marijuana, then you will be arrested. Well if a cop is twice as likely to pull you over if you are black, then there will be twice as many black arrests. This is a simplistic model and doesn't even factor situations where a black person gets pulled over, and definitely gets forced out of his car, handcuffed, and searched, whereas a white person might be able to cordially get away with a smile and a "Yessir".

I can see why your girlfriend would hate it so much, she's coming from Canadian, one of the highest standards of living in the world. You can't expect to go to China, and find that same level of comfort. It was a third world country 20 years ago! It's dirtier, it's poorer, and it's WAYY more crowded. It's polluted, and everyone speaks Chinese. I find it sad that she hated it though, sounds like deep down, she hates a part of herself as well.

As for the VPN access, I also write software for a living, and it took me 5 minutes to get set up with a VPN. It was simply enough that my parents could figure it out as well. I get that the Play Store and Google don't work there, I was referring specifically to the fact that for most intents and purposes, a regular Chinese person could use the internet for most of its glory (porn, games, social, news, shopping).

Hukou is unfortunate and controversial issue there. In some ways it makes sense though, you have a massive population and you want to moderate the effects of massive migration. In other ways it's cruel and unfair. I don't know what to do about that, but I don't know if the U.S. has proven a better method. The fact of the matter is that no government has been in the situation China is in right now. To me, that makes it hard to judge.

Overall, I still find your argument that "it's an awful place to live" uncompelling.

Chin up, I don't think it's genetic. This stereotype of being shy, socially awkward losers is beaten into Americans (asian or not) from a very early age. Just look at all of our media. Asians are either totally absent, or complete bottom feeders on the social ladder. I bet that a lot of your personality comes from the environment and expectations you grow up in.

It sucks, but the good thing is that it's never too late to change. There are tons of boss Asians. I was rather popular in high school (and I'm from the deep south, only Asian guy in my class) and college, and often find myself the center of attention in social situations. One of the upper level managers at my company is Asian and he's very social, and he even has an accent! I have plenty of other friends who are very extroverted and confident, and they're asian too.

It's a skill, like any other, and focused hard work will yield improvements.

Lol, I believe that cops DEFINITELY over-arrest blacks. After Ferguson and a huge WAVE of black people dying unfairly at the hands of police officers, you can read a lot of articles online where highly educated black men (ivy league) write about how they get pulled over by a cop once every 1-2 weeks for NOTHING (except for being black).

Think about that, once every 1-2 weeks. I've been pulled over 3 times in my life. Twice for speeding, once for a broken tail light.

There's no immensely cruel and systematic oppression of Asians/Indians over centuries. While things are fair for Asians yet, I'm talking specifically about SLAVERY. Then after that Jim Crowe law and other terrible forms of oppression. And then even now, there's incidents like Ferguson, being made readily apparent by our new age of record-anything technology.

So yea, while I started up growing up in the poorest neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, my situation was not the same as my neighbors. My parents had a college education. They had no debt or drug problems, and did not end up incarcerated. I didn't grow up with people thinking I'm dangerous or about to steal something.

Interesting thing is that as our situation improved slowly to upper middle class by the time I graduated high school, my surroundings got less and less black, and more and more white. It's too simplistic for us to judge the poor, when we do not truly understand their situation.

I think one of the main reasons for keeping affirmative action deals specifically with the systematic oppression and marginalization of Black people in America (that as Ferguson and other black related police deaths show, is STILL happening now).

I think this article is showing that Asians are tired of unfairly paying the cost of that affirmative action, with college being a zero sum game.

I definitely don't think this is true, and I'm Asian as well. I think the parent has a better hypothesis, it's the higher bar for immigration. I bet the demographics of Asian immigrants is way higher educated than the average American. My dad has a PhD, my mom multiple Bachelors, and pretty much all of their Chinese friends had at least a Bachelors, most likely a Masters of PhD.

I would say it's very possible that genetically, the Asian population in America is smarter than the average American. Combine that with a culture that emphasizes hard work and education and you'll have extraordinary results. But don't think that Asians are more intelligent as a whole. There are plenty of idiots back in China to balance that out.

I had a similar situation at work recently. I've always been a high performer and natural leader. People love talking with me, they trust me with their problems, and I do the best I can to help them out. I lead from behind, and try to guide people forward. I've been a manager of a large team, and was up to be promoted to manage an even larger team. I left instead to start my own company. That company got acquired and I got a new manager. The new manager was terrible, and had no idea what was going on with the team. He regularly skipped 1:1s, and after almost 2 months of not talking with him, I get my review feedback.

He mentioned a lot of really positive qualities (great at technical work), but his one criticism for me was that I could "show more leadership". He failed to expound on that when I asked him for examples. He was so uninvolved with our day to day, he was rarely present. Little did he know, I was the one working behind the scenes keeping his flailing team together. This struck me down pretty hard, it was my first known experience with racism in the American workplace. My confidence shattered, and I started doubting myself. I hope to put this experience behind me soon, but it left some serious doubts for me, and honestly, it made me reconsider my previously ambitious aspirations. After this experience, I started really emphasizing with the experiences of women in the workplace.

China has plenty of "original thought[s]". I bet India does too. I always find it amazing that in the U.S. we tend to judge other countries as being "unoriginal" or "lacking creativity", simply because we are better right now. We forget to factor in that we are the wealthiest country in the world, have been for hundreds of years. We have the best resources, and that create a compounding effect for our accomplishments. Not to mention that a lot of our original ideas likely come from specifically China and India.

Haha have you been to China? It's really not as bad as you are imagining. The controls on internet access is not as extreme as portrayed in western media. I'm not sure where this mobility issue is coming from. If you're talking about poor factory workers being constrained, well poor people everywhere have a hard time being mobile. Although at least in China's case, they have some of the world's most developed high speed rails to get between places. Chinese New Year is the world's largest annual migration.

Although many are, the "vast majority" of rich Chinese people are not moving to the West, that's extreme hyperbole. China is full of terrible things: massive income inequality, pollution and smog, corruption, scams, copycat, scandals and more. But there are also amazing things: innovation, one of the world's richest histories, strong families, and a hunger for progress. Life has been improving there for the past 30+ years, not steadily improving, but improving at an explosive pace of progress. It's not "an awful place to live" (at least I hope not for the 1.3 billion people there), and there is far worse you could do on Earth right now.

Very interesting that you've actually experienced this first hand while doing research for a class. I find that the difference in reporting on the same subject matter can be so wildly different, and I find that so confusing. It's so easy to twist stories for your own purpose. I wish there was a better solution.

Do you have any sources to back up what you're saying, or is that your hypothesis?

Also, from your tone it sounds like that is what you hope will happen. I hope that not to be the case.

Not a secret to me. A great tragedy, and definitely a huge error on their record. However, what I said still stands: they lifted 500 million people out of poverty.

You're right, China is only communist in name, not in practice for some time now. I emphasized the word only to point out how we treat anything associated with communism as something to be burned at the stake.

I think you're right in your edit, the Community Party has only been in power for decades. Prior to that, China was in turmoil due to colonization and imperialism by the U.S., France, Britain, and other European states, as well as Japan.

I believe it's more accurate to say that the American sentiment is derived from China being a rising world power ideologically backed by Communism, and an actual threat to America's dominance (by some methods, China's GDP has exceeded the U.S. already). As a Chinese American (I've lived in the U.S. all my life), it concerns me that American media shows such an insanely biased and untruthful view of China. Growing anti-Chinese sentiment is not a good thing for me, or my future children.

I actually find it ironic that we Americans believe that the Chinese population believes in false state communist propaganda, but in reality, we suffer from it ourselves, just from free corporate backed media instead.

Another big secret, is that the source of a lot of poverty being lifted is because of China. That's right, that terribly communist government suppressing its people and free speech, is actually responsible for lifting 500 million people out of poverty over the last 30 years. That is definitely a big secret of american media, and something that it neglects to report on, in favor of free speech violations, naval exercises, ip infringement, and "job stealing".

so, are you implying that Chinese as a people are rude and lack civility? Because that's what your "contribution" to this discussion implies. Not just a few bad eggs, but an entire 1+ billion people.

If I were generous, I might say "you just don't know any better to think critically at a higher level", but I'm not generous. I'm saying "you are a moron".

There we go.

Try to understand for a second why that might be. Is it because Chinese people are inherently rude? I hope you don't answer yes to that. Everything happens for a reason, and just because it violates your fragile ideals of grace and politeness doesn't mean that the behavior is rude.

In fact, I personally think it's pretty rude to characterize 1 billion people as "maximally selfish"

Yes really. You just don't understand what it's like to live in such a heavily populated country

You're still stuck in your narrow view of politeness. The concept of politeness is not a constant, but a variable that changes throughout various cultures.

Seriously, is autolayout actually used by a lot of people? I tried doing something semi-complex a few weeks back and I spent hours fighting with it. Then I spent 10 minutes writing 10 lines of code and it worked.

When you finally grok it, does it become worth it?

>does look like a homepage of a product of years of advanced research

it looks likes a homepage of a product of years of advanced research, and a homepage which was made years ago.

trendy and pretty matter a lot for first impressions, and making a first impression is very important.

The current Haskell website, while it may have a lot of nice and useful information for informed and commmitted haskellers, does not do a good job of making the language look approachable, easy to learn, and interesting.

Sidenote: having a Programming Language website that requires javascript shouldn't be a problem nowadays, when most consumer websites require javascript.

less is more. From a new and interested user's perspective, having a flood of links is not helpful

wow this is amazing. Branding is so important, and Haskell having a page that looks as good as Scala's would be huge