elfexec
Joined 6 years ago
Karma
8
Submissions
255
Member since
Dec 21
Recent submissions
Comment · 6 years ago
Comment · 6 years ago
That's because it's true from time to time. Journalists, diplomats, NGOs, academics, etc are the top spy vectors.
Do you really think russia is killing "journalists" because they are journalists or because they are spies or worse? Do you think the Saudi's killed kashoggi because he was just a "journalist" or because he was something else? Every major news/media organization in the world ( west, east, south , north ) are tied to the state. Whether you talk about the NYTimes or BBC or Xinhua or RT or Al Jazeera or [fill in the blank], they are all state organizations.
Of course this doesn't mean all journalists are spies. Most are just mindless grunts working for a paycheck like everyone else. But the journalists who are sent to iran, china, russia, etc are more likely than not tied to the state in one way or another.
Comment · 6 years ago
"More than 340 tech workers at Amazon used the hashtag #AMZNSpeakOut in public statements that condemn the company for not taking sufficient action on the climate crisis."
340 whole workers?
Total number of amazon employees : 750,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)
So 749,660 employees did not protest? Shouldn't that be the real news?
Comment · 6 years ago
As awful as the theft of wealth was, the bigger crime was the prevention of industrialization. India was directly stopped by britain from industrializing because britain didn't want a competitor and rather wanted to use india for resources to power its industrialization. China directly somewhat, but mostly indirectly was prevented from industrialization by western powers ( and eventually japan ) who destabilized china and seized its major ports, industries, resources, etc.
If india and china were able to free itself and industrialize when japan did, india and china would easily have the two largest economies in the world today. It's disheartening thinking about all the wealth, knowledge, goods, discoveries etc the world missed out because of shortsighted greed and brutality.
Comment · 6 years ago
> Bullshit
It wasn't bullshit. Generally, the merchants and voyagers who reached china were in awe. It was why europeans wanted to get to china in the first place and not the other way around. Even decades after the opium wars, europeans were still in awe even while burning and pillaging.
"... I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Summer_Palace
Now that the roles are reversed, it's the chinese that are in awe of us. It's why they send so many students, merchants, etc to the US. For a few hundreds years, it was europeans who were as eager to go to china as chinese are now eager to get to the West.
> Chinese Propaganda with their "5000 years old culture".
Yeah, the continuous 5000 years is really a stretch. If they have 5000 years, then might as well say europe has 5000 years or more.
> If you can really talk about a "continuous civilization" for 5000, 3500 or even 2000 years is doubtful.
Even 1000 is doubtful as the mongols conquered china for a while there.
> I am skeptical about the "Chinese Century"
We are 2 decades in and nowhere close to a "Chinese Century". This century will most likely become a multipolar century.
Comment · 6 years ago
> So the argument today that psychiatry lacks any scientific basis and rigor for its practices is still very valid and legitimate.
It's been said that psychiatry is the new religion and psychiatrists the new priests for a reason. Any good actor with enough information can pretend he has a mental illness and fool psychiatrists. Not only that, you can have psychiatrists come up with different diagnoses for the same individual - even to the point of contradicting each other. And there is no scientific way to show one psychiatrist is correct or not.
Just like religion was the best we could do with level of knowledge we had in the past. Psychiatry is sadly the best we can do with the current level of knowledge. It's pretty much voodoo, but it's better than the voodoo that came before it. If neuroscience ( an actual science ) lives up to its potential, then we'll finally be able to toss psychology into the same waste bin we put astrology in and perhaps psychiatry can have a scientific foundation.
Comment · 6 years ago
> The real effect is that Turkey will get more and more behind the rest of the world because its citizens do not have access to information
Considering the censorship that goes on in Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, etc, I'm not so sure about your claim.
> Regimes that block access to the truth
Lets not kid ourselves and pretend wikipedia is the "truth". Jimmy Wales has come out as being partisan and agenda-driven like much of tech. Wales/Wikipedia represents "truth" no more than Google or Facebook does. Not only that we know that there are unsavory actors ( including government, ngos and especially PR groups ) who are manipulating wikipedia articles.
Comment · 6 years ago
Not just Apple. Microsoft had quite a rally itself over the past decade. So did tesla, netflix, facebook, AMD, Amazon, nvidia, etc. The tech sector did very well during the loose monetary period since the financial crisis.
It's insane looking at Apple and Microsoft. They are valued at about 1.39T and 1.25T respectively. The trillion mark by itself is amazing, but if you just look at the fraction alone, Apple's fraction is nearly 2X Disney and Microsoft's fraction is 2.5X Tesla. And microsoft pays you a dividend every quarter.
Rising tides lift all boats, but some more than others.
It's expected in a "brigadable" topic - anything to do with climate change, veganism, china, gender, etc. My original comment was downvoted within a second of being posted. So it couldn't have been a human reading and downvoting.