| ▲ | Danox 7 hours ago |
| The antifreeze toothpaste people didn’t get away with it, nor did the 3000 pigs in the river people, and nor did that one group of executives who were in charge of a fertilizer/chemical plant that was one of the largest industrial catastrophes in the world let alone China. If you get caught in China, Vietnam, or Singapore the penalties for white collar criminals is zero tolerance. You can’t buy your way out if you do something so spectacular that you cause the government to lose face. You might as well go jump off a building or a bridge cause you’re done for. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/china-executes-ex... https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/uvm7oy/i... |
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| ▲ | dnautics 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > nor did the 3000 pigs in the river people, and nor did that one group of executives who were in charge of a fertilizer/chemical plant What about the bridge falling down people, or the overpromised scam apartment people, or the tunnel that flooded people, or the police officers that blocked view of the flowers left for the folks who died in the tunnel that flooded people, or the opened the dam to flood the farmers during the rainy season people, or the fake drains people, or the fake fire hydrants people, or the lead paint in the kids school food people, or the covered up the lead paint in the kids school food doctors, or the barricaded an apartment that was burning during covid people, or the apartments with styrofoam instead of concrete that collapsed in venezuela earthquake people...? |
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| ▲ | throwawalien 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I haven't heard of many of these but the ones I have were state actors covering up things the state itself did or enabled. that's a different category from private executives getting punished when they embarrass Beijing. | | |
| ▲ | dnautics 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | i looked it up and at least the evergrande ceo seems to have bern fined to the point where he had to declare bankruptcy (as of a few months ago, my information is old), so i guess he did find some justice (i think hes not very bright and was likely lied to by his underlings -- many such cases, so it is nice that the buck stopped there but the root cause was not fixed afaict) | | |
| ▲ | nixon_why69 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Evergrande was a credit crunch similar to Silicon Valley Bank, they were funding development of projects by selling the units before they're built, they got ahead of themselves and then a pullback in housing prices exposed them. It sucks extra bad for the people who took out a mortgage for a home that didn't get finished, but it does seem like more of a screwup than corruption. |
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| ▲ | warumdarum 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| ? Everyone in the party is incolved in similar crimes. The only thing they are guilty off in addition is a lack of loyalty to emperor xi. Incompetence and criminal corruption, that you can edit out of history, but intrigue is unforgivable. |
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| ▲ | threatofrain 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You're assuming that this guy was actually being prosecuted for crimes or that this guy lacked loyalty to Xi Jinping. A tremendous number of top generals and leadership has been wiped out in a short time and not necessarily refilled, and it's not because China has a huge disloyalty problem. | | |
| ▲ | mmooss 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > it's not because China has a huge disloyalty problem. Why not? Dictators often purge anyone who is a threat, often because they form a possibly competitive power structure (regardless of their intent), and often because of paranoid perceived disloyalty, and for actual disloyalty. And corruption is the cover story they commonly use - it's vague, general, the public sees enough gov't corruption to believe it and to hate it. Trials are not needed. Off the top of my head, Putin in Russia, Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, ... |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | ClumsyPilot 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are you sure?
Do you have an example of substantial disaster or scandal that resulted in loss of life and loss of face for China, but perpetuators got away? For UK I have: Grenfell tower scandal (over 100 dead, no one in prison), infected blood scandal (thousands dead, no one in prison), postmaster scandal (thousands falsely imprisoned , no perpetrator in prison), etc. | | |
| ▲ | jknoepfler 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Are we restricting this to businesses, or is the genocide of the Uyghurs fair game? | | |
| ▲ | ClumsyPilot an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | How does it relate to the question? Wuhan situation is clearly government policy. It may be terrible, but that is besides the point. It was not policy of British government to burn down a skyscraper in central london with hundred of people inside cooked alive. It was not the policy of British government to infect 30,000 people with AIDS. Yet British government is unable or unwilling to take action against people responsible. | |
| ▲ | nixon_why69 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They ran a rolling internment program for a few years, holding people against their will in mandatory patriotism camp for months at a time. That's bad and wrong but you need to be killing people to call it genocide. It's been a master class in propaganda on this topic, look up the name Adrian Zenz and see how often he gets uncritically quoted. | | |
| ▲ | saxonww 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > you need to be killing people to call it genocide No, you don't. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/... See Article 2. | |
| ▲ | nkmnz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "Killing people" is not required for committing a genocide: Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements: 1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and 2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively: 2.1 Killing members of the group 2.2 Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group 2.3 Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part 2.4 Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group 2.5 Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group [0] https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition | | |
| ▲ | nixon_why69 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Nobody destroyed any groups. There was a big overreaction that violated people's rights but the people still exist and are fine. If we contrast with how the West have reacted to terror attacks, its quite rich to see them throwing UN definitions at China. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Honest question here; is it a traditional Uyghur owned and managed restaurant freely frequented by local Uyghurs as a living expression of past and ongoing Uyghur culture, or is it more a Disney "themed Uyghur restaurant" with the same relationship to Uyghur culture as Outback Steakhouse has to actual IRL Australian food and culture (ie three tenths of f-all). | | |
| ▲ | nixon_why69 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It's run by a family from there, they speak dialect among themselves which is very much not Wuhanhua. The food is only slightly xinjiang actually, its a stretch noodle shop with a couple of lamb dishes. But even if it were the latter.. even that would go against the narrative of total cultural hostility? |
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| ▲ | mmooss 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're omitting so much, such as torture and ethnic cleansing and massive levels of abuse. Any genocidal concentration camp could be called 'an internment camp'. Anyone reading this, just look up coverage in credible sources. |
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| ▲ | sbayg 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | COVID19 | | |
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| ▲ | bs65 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "If you get caught". Do the math on how many get caught per capita. Its like worrying about a random coconut falling on your head.
Fighting corruption in unequal societies is not possible because ambitious people born without wealth and status, and constantly bombarded with signals from birth that wealth and status is a sign of success, will do whatever it takea to get it.
The Law doesnt reduce corruption. Its just a story like Religion that allows people to cope with a reality they dont control. |
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| ▲ | Wingman4l7 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What about if the harm is solely limited to people outside of China, because the product was export-only? |
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| ▲ | RajT88 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The smart ones quit while they are ahead and procure citizenship somewhere else (like Canada). |
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| ▲ | hintymad 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > penalties for white collar criminals is zero tolerance I think this is more about punishing political grafting than white-collar crime. |
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| ▲ | DaedalusII an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| if trump ordered someone to be shot for accepting bribes we would find this idea a lot less appealing anyone who spent a lot of time in that part of the world will tell you this stuff can basically be made up the western method to do this is to plant csa material on a person and then publicly announce they've been caught with it. not many people consider that 'possession' can simply be a USB stick found in a tree on your 2 acre lot, or a usb stick that has been planted in your car your entire family and social network will immediately cut you off and very few consider these things can be fabricated |
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| ▲ | nkmnz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > You can’t buy your way out if you do something so spectacular that you cause the government to lose face. You don't have to buy your way out as long as you are the government, i.e. the chairman. |
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| ▲ | pibaker 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > You can’t buy your way out if you do something Not with money. |
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| ▲ | echelon 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's also not like the West doesn't impose extremely harsh punishments on the top financial crimes. You can go away for life if you steal enough money. | | |
| ▲ | bryanrasmussen 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Generally in a federal prison for non-violent offenders. on edit: In the U.S obviously, in Western European nations I would assume better conditions than that even. | | |
| ▲ | ajam1507 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Seems like the appropriate place for a non-violent offender. | | |
| ▲ | ebbi 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I suppose it is only non-violent on the surface. What if the stolen money could have been used to strengthen the healthcare system or improve citizens’ lives in other ways? |
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| ▲ | golem14 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Right, cough, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli, cough. | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized and that they would invest with him again. He didn't lose them any money or have any actual damages to people for the crime he was convicted of. I don't think he'd go to jail for what he did there in China, or even probably Singapore. If you're thinking of the pharmacy drug price jacking thing, the thing he did that physically harmed many people, he wasn't convicted for that. | | |
| ▲ | stevenally 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | "He wasn't convicted for that". Maybe that's the point. Maybe he should have been. | |
| ▲ | golem14 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Shkreli's investors straight up testified they didn't feel victimized That makes it right? And that is what you think is reprehensible about him ? | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's not right, but that's how you get convicted of these crimes in Asia. If you make your investors money, everyone is happy, it's incredibly, incredibly incredibly unlikely you'll be convicted for defrauding them. In fact in the USA it's extremely rare to get convicted of defrauding a person that got the returns they want and have no interest in pressing charges. Now maybe if you hurt someone else in the process you'll get convicted, but that's not what happened in Shkreli's fraud conviction, the only people he was accused of harming were the investors who said weren't harmed and had no damages or interest in prosecution. What happened to Shkreli was a most extreme anomaly practically worldwide. | | |
| ▲ | golem14 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't agree. If this sleazeball had done this in China, there's a good probability that with enough complaints he'd seen a pretty swift reckoning. IMO, the Chinese government has a pretty good ear for the happiness of their population. It depends on how the complaints are voiced. Karen-like entitled complaints are definitely not working there. Often, legit complaints also do not work, but sometimes they do. I'm curious if this particular guy is actually going to be executed or the sentence being commuted to life without parole, like in other cases. Looks like it's not. |
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| ▲ | loeg 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're moving goalposts. | | |
| ▲ | golem14 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >> It's also not like the West doesn't impose extremely harsh punishments on the top financial crimes. You can go away for life if you steal enough money. > You're moving goalposts How? |
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| ▲ | ClumsyPilot 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | For UK I have: Grenfell tower scandal (over 100 dead, no one in prison), infected blood scandal (thousands dead, no one in prison), postmaster scandal (thousands falsely imprisoned , no perpetrator in prison), no Eipstein clients are I. Prison to this day, Covid procurement was corrupt, no one went to prison And finally no one went to prison for the global financial crisis, which was caused by fraud | |
| ▲ | kcatskcolbdi 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Generally the only people that get harshly punished in the west are the ones who steal/defraud from rich people. | | |
| ▲ | prewett 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Who's defrauding poor people? The risk/reward is much better for defrauding rich people... |
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| ▲ | jibal 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In the U.S. you get pardoned for a fee. The pardon office's motto is "No MAGA left behind." | |
| ▲ | kebez 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | Aunche 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > If you get caught in China, Vietnam, or Singapore the penalties for white collar criminals is zero tolerance. LOL. Bribery is basically required in China for anyone with a medium sized business. Otherwise, you'll be indefinitely blocked by a bureaucrat who has no incentive to help you. Departments in municipal governments are often underfunded and bribery makes up for a significant portion of their effective payroll. |
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| ▲ | ClumsyPilot 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Facilitation payment are usually considered the less egregious kinds of bribery, some may be considered acceptable in a culture, and there can be a whole etiquette to it. In some countries, doctors or surgeons are severely underpaid and it would be customary for a well off citizen to bring them a gift or a cash summ before an important surgery. That’s quite different from Kickbacks (rampant in UK leaseholds by the way), etc. |
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| ▲ | simmerup 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Only if you get caught and someone in power doesn’t like you |
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| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | epolanski 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| While I am all for holding especially c corp and politicians accountable, similar sentences are a tragedy for me because there is no legal system I would trust, and I don't believe in death sentences as a crime punishment. |
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| ▲ | reinitctxoffset 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In the 90s and 00s when I was a kid, being a crook had real consequences here too. Not the death penalty per second, but the die in prison penalty left and right. When John Meriweather and the rest of LTCM nearly blew up the market they didn't get a bailout, and the taxpayer didn't fund the hole in the balance sheet. The New York Fed organized private money and leaned on all their counterparties to get it done, but they didn't backstop it. Meriweather and the Sheik and Scholes and the rest were wiped out, they worked it off for a couple of years for salary and then skunk away in shame (we had shame back then). Took it like men near as I can tell. I admire John Meriweather a great deal in spite of the scandal. President Clinton was impeached and very nearly removed from office for (ultimately) consenting but untoward involvement with a young woman (they got him on lying about it technically, but the political will was there because the country was furious about the skirt chasing. Enron. Accounting that went from aggressive to sketchy to fraudulent (most of it would pass with flying colors today). Hard time. Skilling, Fastow I think just got out like five years ago (don't take my word for the date). Ken Lay IIRC died before they locked him up which saved him dying inside. Madoff, died in prison. Ebbers, I think he died in prison too. When Microsoft was gearing up to strangle the web in its crib the Justice Department pulled guys off of terrorists and human traffickers to go take a pipe to Gates until he backed off, he was allowed to keep Microsoft intact by letting the web happen, the Feds weren't asking, he decided to not fuck around and find out. Consequences for serious fucking bad shit for people who are our leaders work. A people gets exactly what it demands from it's leaders and that's exactly what a people deserves. Right now we're choosing to settle for a lot less, China is demanding more. Which is why we're getting our asses kicked. |
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| ▲ | ClumsyPilot 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > we had shame back then The collapse of our standards has been heartbreaking to see and I am observing that most are simply in denial. | |
| ▲ | mmooss 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think your comment is valuable and insightful, but > China is demanding more. I have yet to see evidence of that beyond propaganda. Naming someone who reportedly gets a harsh sentence is not evidence. | | |
| ▲ | ClumsyPilot 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > Naming someone who reportedly gets a harsh sentence is not evidence. And if I show you official statistics you will say statistics out of China can’t be trusted. Folks like yourself will only realise when it’s too late | |
| ▲ | reinitctxoffset 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The PRC is lapping us in everything from solar panels to electric cars to broad-based robotics and AI in real goods heavy industry. Their power grid runs at a huge margin of excess capacity and they easily bring more online because they can still do infrastructure projects. They are rapidly overtaking the United States in domestic, sovereign, and secure semiconductor fabrication. They're a couple of nodes behind but Kirin SoCs and multi-terraweight LLM inference on Aspire look pretty hot shit to me and no one can yank them around like a dog on a leash that it'll get turned off. Government is dramatically more participatory than the western caricature. It is substantially at the local and regional level that it is directly participatory (so, the size of the whole US). At the very top it is representative in the sense that a party guy in Beijing is considered incompetent (they care about that) if the needs of the region are not on the agenda. When's the last time you called your congressman and got change? Innovation is plural, research is open, the university system is in the loop, the public benefits. Real wages are going up. The PRC gets jumped in with Putin's Kremlin by lazy Americans who don't talk to Chinese people. It's not the Kremlin. It's JFK in a Chairman Mao hat. | | |
| ▲ | mmooss an hour ago | parent [-] | | As I said, I have yet to see evidence. That's a bunch of words, but if we didn't know before LLMs and before the Internet, we know now: words are cheap and valueless without other properties. What distinguishes those words from propaganda? Why should someone believe it's true? Throwing insults at people who disagree or question you makes it less likely there is substance to the words. | | |
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| ▲ | DANmode 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > If you get charged FTFY |
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| ▲ | solenoid0937 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [flagged] |
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| ▲ | b112 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You're only hearing about the ones caught and punished. You have no proof of "Zero tolerance", or of what percentage of people are caught. |
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| ▲ | maxglute 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | CCDI has disciplined like 7m+ officials by now, flies and tigers (low and high), _you_ only hear about the juiciest tigers. 100+ provincial/ministerial officials gets investigated per year. It's a wide anti corruption program, lazy but easy back of envelop calc, there's ~100m CCP members, need to be CCP to be in politics and business, so 7/100 ~7% of those classes including top level, which feels like reasonable amount given historic corruption rates. Anecdotally, petty level corruption essentially gone, corrupt/graft industrial complex (banquets/gifts etc it was entire service sector withing broader luxury) went out of business 10 years ago. Not saying corruption gone - it's evolved to your normal financial vehicle engineering like in west. | |
| ▲ | malfist 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Zero tolerance" and "we catch every criminal" are two unrelated ideas. | | |
| ▲ | elevation 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes -- and even a spectacular punishment does not establish the guilt of the recipient. Some may be innocent (framed) or only partially guilty (scapegoat.) Other may have been known to be guilty all along and has only recently fallen out of favor. | | | |
| ▲ | observationist 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The thing they have zero tolerance for is the embarrassment, not the corruption, pollution, crime, or other abuse. You can do whatever you can get away with so long as you don't cause embarrassment or shame. | | |
| ▲ | throw10920 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's one of the big cultural differences that people from the West don't really get - that "saving face" is one of the core concepts that Eastern societies are built on - not the actual things that, when discovered, cause you to lose face (e.g. corruption). | | |
| ▲ | Revanche1367 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Ah, the old “only western people have morals, everyone else just cares about how it looks” argument. And where did you get this super objective assessment that eastern peoples only care about “saving face”? Couldn’t be a stereotype popularized by western people to feel better about themselves could it? The racists always come out in full force under any post showing an eastern country doing something better than the US in particular. | | |
| ▲ | throw10920 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Ah, the old “only western people have morals, everyone else just cares about how it looks” argument. That's not even remotely close to what I said. You should read the comment you're responding before responding with ignorant and blatantly manipulative falsehoods. > And where did you get this super objective assessment that eastern peoples only care about “saving face”? Again - never said anything like that. Learn to read. > The racists Actually, learn to think. This has absolutely nothing to do with race, as anyone who has passed high school can tell you. This claim is straight-up objectively false. The second you start slinging the word "racist" around you immediately prove that you have zero valid points to give and are just trying to cry your way into acceptance. Which correlates with the rest of this post. This is either a troll post, written by a middle-schooler, or blatant propaganda. | | |
| ▲ | isr 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not the guy who responded to you, but “only western people have morals, everyone else just cares about how it looks” is pretty much what you tried to imply. And before you start on me, yes - I'm able to "think", and no, I'm not a "troll" If its not what you wanted to imply, then perhaps you'd be better served at owning up & clarifying, rather than insulting others who merely pointed out what you originally wrote. And on a general note (not specifically or only you), I'm somewhat amused (in a morbid sense) at the sheer predictability of some of the "oh no, don't you dare try to impugn any moral superiority to that lot over there, vs us westerners" reactions. Refreshing to see how even after a multi year ongoing genocide, kidnappings other countries presidents, and triple-tap bombing little girls elementary schools, westerners still feel they own the "moral high ground" (wherever that is anymore ...) | | |
| ▲ | throw10920 7 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > pretty much what you tried to imply Ahhh, the propagandist's classic tactic - when unable to muster even the feeblest possible response to an argument, just make up things and pretend that the other party said them. Fact: I said nothing of the sort. You are lying. |
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| ▲ | SepiaSapient 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | (Spoilers for The Wire) I buy the whole thing that some cultures give more weight to face-saving than others. I would classify my supposedly western country (Chile) as one that gives it more weight than, for example, Germany. Even then, this just sounds like a kneejerk "you cannot trust these dastardly orientals". Face saving is a thing in the US, to the point that it's a common plot point prestige TV (e.g most of The Wire). It's an accepted fact in political campaign with spin doctors. The 30K in credit card debt to keep up appearances is also face culture. The hustle culture, etc. You don't need to be racist, you just can be skeptic of the claims of an autocratic government. | | |
| ▲ | throw10920 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Nowhere did I say that Western countries don't care about saving face - it's just not a deeply embedded cultural priority that is nearly as valued as it is in many Eastern cultures (including, relevantly, China). |
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| ▲ | anigbrowl 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Saving face is certainly A Thing, but China has also had a strict legalistic tradition extending back about 2500 years. There's rather more to Chinese public life and philosophy than 'Confucius say' and the CCP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy) | | |
| ▲ | throw10920 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | You got it. I'm not saying that saving face is the only cultural priority - just that it's a much greater one than in most Western cultures - and most Westerners don't understand that, and that leads to misunderstanding of the mindset and rationale for actions and decisions. |
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| ▲ | dnautics 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | yeah since when does "saving face" not happen in the West? Isn't there a war in europe that's been going on for four-ish years now that essentially a face-saving operation that has killed nearly a million? | | |
| ▲ | underlipton 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | There was a great essay I read a few years ago that I can't locate, about how much of Western society is driven by the threat or actualization of humiliation. The Black Freedom Struggle (all incarnations) was won (inasmuch as it was won) not really through moral appeals or the imposition of practical reality, as much as through the humiliation of the slaver/segregationist position on the global stage and in the media. You want to win? Make them look stupid in such a way that continuing to fight makes them look even more stupid. Pain doesn't stop people, practical futility doesn't stop people; but, faced with the prospect of being considered persona non grata or a laughing stock or just robbed of their dignity, whether they win or lose, that is when people will call the match and walk off. So, yes, face is a Western thing, too. | | |
| ▲ | iamnothere 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I would say it’s worse in the West, as we have generalized the concept across society to the point where our politicians (and even our militaries) are only able to fight symbolically. Actual ground truth has become secondary. See also: oil futures, politicians who feud over “vibes” instead of tangible policy, constant symbolic strikes in war with no results, etc. |
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| ▲ | ClumsyPilot 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Wasnt the especially hard trial and punishment of Chelsea manning, assange, etc. not a punishment by the western establishment for losing face? | |
| ▲ | blaufuchs 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah it’s pretty funny how worked up the CCP get when they’re called out. “How dare you accuse us of launching a spy balloon?”. Whereas Russia hits you with the “oh those aren’t FSB agents, just lovers on vacation ;)” | | |
| ▲ | ClumsyPilot 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well I given that it wasn’t a spy balloon in the end, perhaps they had a point | | |
| ▲ | nixon_why69 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I mean, the entire concept of "spy balloon over the continental US in the 21st century" could be considered a litmus test for critical thinking. A country with satellites is running a Wile E. Coyote tier balloon plot? |
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| ▲ | maerF0x0 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | One of the problems with absolute authoritarian regimes is that the friends of those in power are defined as "not criminals", and vice versa for enemies. It's part of the reason I'm against presidential pardon. (Except for when it's retrospective on laws that have changed, maybe?) | |
| ▲ | dnautics 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | luckily the phrase gp wrote was: "caught and punished" So, zero tolerance cannot be known without correct stats on both catching and punishing. so it is, indeed unknowable. |
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| ▲ | KennyBlanken 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Is there any evidence any of the people convicted were actually executed or imprisoned? If any of those people were politically connected, they probably just got a new identity and shoved off to somewhere else in the country. |
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| ▲ | pibaker 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > If any of those people were politically connected Connection works both ways. You can be your superior's lapdog on Monday and jailed for being so cordial that he thinks you are trying to take over his position — I mean, taking bribes — by Wednesday. Given how this man stayed out of trouble for 30 straight years before finally being apprehended, I feel this could be exactly what happened. He probably had some political leverage to keep the prosecutors looking the other way. And the moment he lost his leverage — maybe his superiors changed their minds about him, maybe he stepped on the toes of someone, who knows — they went after him. | | |
| ▲ | varjag 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | What happens in countries with no rule of law is rule of power hierarchies. A regional party boss would have his trusted deputes running things, who have their underlings, they underlings have their preferred business partners (police chiefs, businessmen, prosecutors, control authorities) and so on. A bribe at any level is always redistributed upwards. Sometimes the big guy falls out of favor with bigger guys, and then the whole structure is up for grabs. The whole vertical is massacred (sometimes literally) while new people take over from the top down. Often what's visible happens a few degrees removed from the actual cause. There's understanding among the ruling class and much of the populace that it's just How Things are Done. But moments like that give you public trials with executions that make some naïve Westerners clap. |
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| ▲ | jibal 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > If any of those people were politically connected, they probably just got a new identity and shoved off to somewhere else in the country. It's great that you provided evidence of that ... no hypocrite you. |
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