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Gail Wynand posted:The other thing with breast feeding is that with the rest of the Chinese food supply also hosed up, who knows what is in people's breast milk..(likely all kinds of heavy metals at least) Environmental chemical exposure through breast milk is a major concern, but the consensus seems to be that the benefits still outweigh the risks, especially since heavy metal contamination is just as likely to be found in the formula or water anyway, especially if the whole food supply is screwed up anyway. See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569122/ And the specific danger they're worried about of melamine is something that can be entirely avoided by breast-feeding. Of course, the reasons most people feed formula is usually some combination of advertising and thinking 'it's modern' plus the fact that formula is more convenient and makes it easier for women to go back to work.
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Jul 27, 2013 01:39
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Ardennes posted:I think there has a "Tom Clancy-ization" of some type of epic conflict between China and the US, when it will probably be a much drier contest between proxy states. In addition, raining missiles down on Taiwan for example has issues of its own. The situation is much more of a chess game than a game of risk. This is something that should be noted. There will not be any direct conflict between the United States and China (unless China does something stupid like attacking Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan) because any such conflict would immediately become an existential threat for China, giving them no reason not to simply launch nukes, similarly to how the US would if suddenly a hostile Russian fleet appeared on their coast like so many video games, movies, and books have portrayed occurring yet for some reason lacking the logical followup of the fleet being nuked. Basically, we're not going to see Real Life Call of Duty here, although I would bet that when Western developers and production studios grow more ballsy we'll probably see fictionalized versions of such a war more frequently. Proxy wars in places like Africa and the Middle East seem more likely, although I have no idea how China would project that kind of power when an anti-Chinese counter-coalition is already forming in their backyard.
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Jul 27, 2013 02:08
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Fojar38 posted:This is something that should be noted. There will not be any direct conflict between the United States and China (unless China does something stupid like attacking Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan) because any such conflict would immediately become an existential threat for China, giving them no reason not to simply launch nukes, similarly to how the US would if suddenly a hostile Russian fleet appeared on their coast like so many video games, movies, and books have portrayed occurring yet for some reason lacking the logical followup of the fleet being nuked. This will never happen because access to the Chinese market is pure gold to any media company.
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Jul 27, 2013 02:14
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Fojar38 posted:Basically, we're not going to see Real Life Call of Duty here, although I would bet that when Western developers and production studios grow more ballsy we'll probably see fictionalized versions of such a war more frequently. Doubt it, since such a game wouldn't be able to be sold in China.  A proxy war of some sort in Africa is somewhat plausible, though. Possibly in the form of another civil war but with the sides funded and equipped by the US and China under the table?
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Jul 27, 2013 02:16
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hailthefish posted:Doubt it, since such a game wouldn't be able to be sold in China. China has shipped tons of arms to extremely suspect regimes like Zimbabwe and Sudan before, so it's not that far-fetched at all. Though the most likely opponent might not be the US.
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Jul 27, 2013 02:22
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hailthefish posted:Doubt it, since such a game wouldn't be able to be sold in China. Are military shooters that popular in China? I know that Battlefield 4 portrays a "Battle of Shanghai" between US and Chinese forces.
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Jul 27, 2013 02:26
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Cream_Filling posted:This will never happen because access to the Chinese market is pure gold to any media company. The Operation Flashpoint game involving America fighting the Chinese wasn't banned. Turns out that if you don't portray the Chinese as Evil Yellow Bogeymen Out To Eat Your Souls portraying a war between them and another nation doesn't immediately get you banned.
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Jul 27, 2013 02:30
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MJ12 posted:The Operation Flashpoint game involving America fighting the Chinese wasn't banned. Turns out that if you don't portray the Chinese as Evil Yellow Bogeymen Out To Eat Your Souls portraying a war between them and another nation doesn't immediately get you banned. I thought Operation Flashpoint and Battlefield both got banned for this. As well as any game which portrays Tibet or Manchuria as independent of China, even historical ones like Hearts of Iron. I don't know where there's an actual list, but a cursory search reveals this rumor: http://www.ali213.net/news/html/2012-7/46455.html
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Jul 27, 2013 02:48
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MJ12 posted:The Operation Flashpoint game involving America fighting the Chinese wasn't banned. Turns out that if you don't portray the Chinese as Evil Yellow Bogeymen Out To Eat Your Souls portraying a war between them and another nation doesn't immediately get you banned. I know that the earlier Hearts of Iron games got banned because they "didn't depict China's borders correctly," such as Tibet being independent, Japan occupying Manchuria/Taiwan, and the various warlord factions that made China during the WW2 era a seriously disunited country. I wouldn't call historical accuracy a portrayal as "evil yellow bogeymen," and their banning of those games reveals their touchy attitude towards facts that they would prefer not to recognize.
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Jul 27, 2013 03:23
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The question of whether or not games are "banned in China" isn't really that relevant since 95% of Chinese are going to get pirated versions anyway.
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Jul 27, 2013 03:37
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Gail Wynand posted:The question of whether or not games are "banned in China" isn't really that relevant since 95% of Chinese are going to get pirated versions anyway. Admittedly media conglomerates care a little more because they still get some income from box office receipts. I think Homefront was originally going to have China as the enemy before it was changed to North Korea. I guess Crysis might have always had North Korea as an improbable boogeyman.
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Jul 27, 2013 03:39
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Ardennes posted:Admittedly media conglomerates care a little more because they still get some income from box office receipts. I think Homefront was originally going to have China as the enemy before it was changed to North Korea. I guess Crysis might have always had North Korea as an improbable boogeyman. This makes me curious if these games even sold well enough in China to justify compromising their artistic integrity.
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Jul 27, 2013 04:46
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Fojar38 posted:This makes me curious if these games even sold well enough in China to justify compromising their artistic integrity. The key is that their publishers are afraid of getting blacklisted, not the developers themselves. The same goes for movies - only a handful of foreign films get approved every year and almost all of them pull in a ton of cash, so there's huge financial incentives to play ball or else see every movie you're distributing mysteriously not get approved because you sold a film somewhere in the world mentioning Tibet.
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Jul 27, 2013 04:54
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Torka posted:How well-founded are fears about contamination of mainland formula? Obviously it's a real concern due to the melamine poisoning but is this extreme level of aversion we're seeing now really warranted? 300,000 babies got sick, thousands went to the hospital and around 300 died. And the article is wrong about one thing: it should read "adulterated with melamine" not "tainted with melamine." The melamine poisoning was completely intentional. Melamine is an industrial plastic precursor very high in nitrogen, so when you add it to anything that tests food for protein by counting nitrogen atoms melamine boosts it a ton. Companies added melamine so they could cut the baby formula with filler. Multiple companies were caught doing this. Multiple companies were caught adding poison to baby formula so they could take out nutrition. I'm not like shouting at you but you need to understand that to understand the issue. Now imagine you're a Chinese parent. Like half the milk powder industry got caught poisoning babies on purpose in order to cut down the nutrients in their food. Do you feel safe allowing any of those companies to provide food for your child? Who cares what the news reports (bought) and the tests (faked) say, there's no way in hell you're going back to them. This "buy Chinese" nonsense the party is lowing about is bullshit, the Sanliu scandal has turned Chinese off to domestic brands for a generation at least, and with good reason. It's a microcosm for wealthy Chinese getting foreign passports or outright leaving the country. Lots of people want to leave China. When the Penzhou petrochemical project went forward and the Chengdu government moved the weekend to stop students from protesting, one of my friends with a middle-class life and wife and child and parents to take care of told me he was thinking about leaving the country for the first time. If you don't live here you just have to understand this if you want to understand China: there is no public trust in institutions, no trust in companies, and no trust in justice or the government. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jul 27, 2013 |
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Jul 27, 2013 06:20
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Yeah pretty much the same thing in Russia, less about food quality (although Russian standards are also very weak) but more about the cost of living, authoritarian rule and lack of opportunity. That said, I don't know how about many Chinese people would move given the chance.
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Jul 27, 2013 06:40
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I did a research paper on China a year ago and I'll try to find the data I used, but if I remember correctly something like 60% of the upper middle class(might have just been a survey of millionaires, can't remember) and up were either in the process of trying to leave or were mulling over the idea of leaving.
Mustang fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Jul 27, 2013 |
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Jul 27, 2013 07:31
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Cream_Filling posted:The key is that their publishers are afraid of getting blacklisted, not the developers themselves. The same goes for movies - only a handful of foreign films get approved every year and almost all of them pull in a ton of cash, so there's huge financial incentives to play ball or else see every movie you're distributing mysteriously not get approved because you sold a film somewhere in the world mentioning Tibet. Pretty disguising I think. Art is not something that should be controlled or manipulated to fit the whims and opinions of some fat buggers in suits, no matter what country they are in. It would be nice if people could make products and be more interested in their quality than whether or not some government yahoo will take offence.
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Jul 27, 2013 07:59
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Yureina posted:Pretty disguising I think. Art is not something that should be controlled or manipulated to fit the whims and opinions of some fat buggers in suits, no matter what country they are in. It would be nice if people could make products and be more interested in their quality than whether or not some government yahoo will take offence. Well the people who will compromise their art for profit has presumably already designed it specifically to appeal to mass audiences. So not a big loss.
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Jul 27, 2013 08:44
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Anosmoman posted:Well the people who will compromise their art for profit has presumably already designed it specifically to appeal to mass audiences. So not a big loss. That... makes alot of sense. gently caress those people then. XD
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Jul 27, 2013 12:36
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What's the state of academia and scientific (non-military) research in China? Someone earlier mentioned that there are only a few internationally renowned universities, and I believe I've read in the past that science in China tends to be rife with research fraud. On the other hand, I know a couple scientists who have heard that China is pouring a ton of money into their research, but I'm unfamiliar with the mechanism how. Does China have their own NSF and NIH for funding?
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Jul 27, 2013 17:23
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Bizarro Watt posted:What's the state of academia and scientific (non-military) research in China? Someone earlier mentioned that there are only a few internationally renowned universities, and I believe I've read in the past that science in China tends to be rife with research fraud. On the other hand, I know a couple scientists who have heard that China is pouring a ton of money into their research, but I'm unfamiliar with the mechanism how. Does China have their own NSF and NIH for funding? I have a friend who's deep into Chinese anthropology and archeology, and she says that there are institutions where you basically fund a dig, tell them what you want to have the result be, and they'll get back to you with your desired result no matter their findings.
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Jul 27, 2013 18:23
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Vladimir Putin posted:I would be so stressed as a parent in China right now. I can't imagine the pressure and stress of having to go overseas to buy food for your baby. They don't have to, this is just dumb paranoia. Chinese milk powder is much safer now than it used to be, and Chinese women still have breasts.
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Jul 27, 2013 19:31
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TheBalor posted:I have a friend who's deep into Chinese anthropology and archeology, and she says that there are institutions where you basically fund a dig, tell them what you want to have the result be, and they'll get back to you with your desired result no matter their findings. Sorry to Godwin but are we talking similar to the Nazis and their digs that found hey, Germany had an ancient culture just as advanced as the Romans sort of thing or something more subtle?
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Jul 27, 2013 19:45
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ReV VAdAUL posted:Sorry to Godwin but are we talking similar to the Nazis and their digs that found hey, Germany had an ancient culture just as advanced as the Romans sort of thing or something more subtle? I didn't ask, but I assume it's more subtle than that. The Chinese academics she was talking to all knew that place was full of poo poo. If they came out with national enquirer-esque stuff like that, they would probably become well known to the general public as liars, too.
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Jul 27, 2013 21:40
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ReV VAdAUL posted:Sorry to Godwin but are we talking similar to the Nazis and their digs that found hey, Germany had an ancient culture just as advanced as the Romans sort of thing or something more subtle? A more apt comparison would be the North Koreans, who're actually still doing this.
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Jul 27, 2013 23:18
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Longanimitas posted:They don't have to, this is just dumb paranoia. Chinese milk powder is much safer now than it used to be, and Chinese women still have breasts. Why do you trust these companies again?
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Jul 28, 2013 01:21
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TheBalor posted:I have a friend who's deep into Chinese anthropology and archeology, and she says that there are institutions where you basically fund a dig, tell them what you want to have the result be, and they'll get back to you with your desired result no matter their findings. TheBalor posted:I didn't ask, but I assume it's more subtle than that. The Chinese academics she was talking to all knew that place was full of poo poo. If they came out with national enquirer-esque stuff like that, they would probably become well known to the general public as liars, too. I'm quite interested in Chinese archaeology myself, though only as a side interest because I study ancient Mediterranean history, and there is a good reason that the results of archaeological excavations can be easily manipulated. Chinese archaeological method and theory is largely based on the Soviet model, which involved taking extensive notes in the field but only publishing an overview of any findings unless the find is particularly significant. This means that most archaeological reports are lacking in the sort of information and analysis that is standard in Western archaeology, while most of the important, detailed findings are sitting in an archive somewhere, thus making it easy to present results publicly in vague terms and skew them one way or another. This isn't unique to particular universities or institutions, either; the Chinese government is blatant in its manipulation of scholarship on ancient history in a way that surpasses even the USSR in its heyday. The most egregious example is the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, which was basically a means of providing a scientific foundation for that claim of "5,000 years of Chinese history." Western scholars unsurprisingly criticized heavily the methods and results soon after it was released, though this dissipated quickly undoubtedly because of the Chinese government's willingness to revoke archaeological permits. Needless to say, the chronology established by this project is now canonical in Chinese scholarship.
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Jul 28, 2013 02:01
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Longanimitas posted:They don't have to, this is just dumb paranoia. Chinese milk powder is much safer now than it used to be, and Chinese women still have breasts. I honestly wouldn't take any chances with my kids and I don't blame Chinese parents who would be concerned. Also not everybody can breast feed, for example if you had a C section.
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Jul 28, 2013 03:24
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The one bright spot, I suppose, was that the same academics she was talking to were trying to form their own associations of only reputable archeologists. It's great for the Chinese government if they can make up whatever poo poo they want, but the fact of the matter is that because of those same antics, no one cares what Chinese academics have to say.
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Jul 28, 2013 03:46
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Eh. Most chinese scientists worthy of the name would be getting the gently caress out of dodge from the sounds of it. If good brains move to where they can be better used, why complain?
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Jul 28, 2013 03:52
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Vladimir Putin posted:I honestly wouldn't take any chances with my kids and I don't blame Chinese parents who would be concerned. Also not everybody can breast feed, for example if you had a C section. ...You can totally breastfeed after a c-section. Apparently it sucks and is hard, but it's not like it's impossibly more difficult than ~the natural way~.
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Jul 28, 2013 04:01
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hailthefish posted:...You can totally breastfeed after a c-section. Apparently it sucks and is hard, but it's not like it's impossibly more difficult than ~the natural way~. After a c section most women are doped up from anesthetics and don't get to breast feed in the first crucial hours. The baby is usually taken away while the mother sleeps off the meds and is basically recovering from surgery. Meanwhile the baby is hungry and has to be fed so guess what it gets formula and it gets a synthetic nipple. So it's that much harder to breast feed since you've already 'trained' the baby from it's first moments on earth to eat formula. It's not impossible to breast feed after c-section but it's hard and every time you fail, the baby either goes hungry or it gets formula which further reinforces the formula pathway.
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Jul 28, 2013 04:20
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Bizarro Watt posted:What's the state of academia and scientific (non-military) research in China? Someone earlier mentioned that there are only a few internationally renowned universities, and I believe I've read in the past that science in China tends to be rife with research fraud. On the other hand, I know a couple scientists who have heard that China is pouring a ton of money into their research, but I'm unfamiliar with the mechanism how. Does China have their own NSF and NIH for funding? Terrible. A shockingly small percentage of published Chinese studies are properly controlled, in any field. There's a pervasive culture of fraud (just like in the rest of the professional culture) and the conclusion of Western academia has been to declare all mainland Chinese science garbage until they can clean up their act. MeinPanzer posted:This isn't unique to particular universities or institutions, either; the Chinese government is blatant in its manipulation of scholarship on ancient history in a way that surpasses even the USSR in its heyday. The most egregious example is the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, which was basically a means of providing a scientific foundation for that claim of "5,000 years of Chinese history." Western scholars unsurprisingly criticized heavily the methods and results soon after it was released, though this dissipated quickly undoubtedly because of the Chinese government's willingness to revoke archaeological permits. Needless to say, the chronology established by this project is now canonical in Chinese scholarship. This is so (PRC) Chinese, start from a proclamation of murky origin and then go through the motions of whatever legitimizing process is required to have it declared true. Then crush dissent from anyone honest enough to point out that it's bullshit. I do ask Chinese people this question all the time, "5,000 years of history starting when? Starting with what?" and people just goggle with no response. 5,000 years of history is drilled into people here without even an attempt to connect it to reality. Sometimes I get people start talking about the Shang Dynasty but that only takes you back to 3,000 years, and then sometimes they try to go Xia but that would mean the Xia Dynasty has to be 2,000 years long! Even Erlitou culture is only 4,000 years old and that's firmly pre-history. I wonder where the hell they got the 5,000 year number that has such a stranglehold on Chinese thought now. WarpedNaba posted:Eh. Most chinese scientists worthy of the name would be getting the gently caress out of dodge from the sounds of it. If good brains move to where they can be better used, why complain? Yeah, this. Chinese science and Chinese restrictions on intellectual freedom create a real brain drain, mostly to the United States. There are lots of good Chinese scientists working at US research institutions.
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Jul 28, 2013 04:29
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Arglebargle III posted:Terrible. A shockingly small percentage of published Chinese studies are properly controlled, in any field. There's a pervasive culture of fraud (just like in the rest of the professional culture) and the conclusion of Western academia has been to declare all mainland Chinese science garbage until they can clean up their act. A route that I know of with some of the Chinese academics is to co-publish with somebody in a western nation. I know my PhD. adviser and my department chair went to China a few times a year, and hosted some Chinese professors/postdocs on a mostly one-way exchange from China to the U.S.
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Jul 28, 2013 06:15
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Arglebargle III posted:I do ask Chinese people this question all the time, "5,000 years of history starting when? Starting with what?" and people just goggle with no response. 5,000 years of history is drilled into people here without even an attempt to connect it to reality. Sometimes I get people start talking about the Shang Dynasty but that only takes you back to 3,000 years, and then sometimes they try to go Xia but that would mean the Xia Dynasty has to be 2,000 years long! Even Erlitou culture is only 4,000 years old and that's firmly pre-history. I wonder where the hell they got the 5,000 year number that has such a stranglehold on Chinese thought now. I sometimes wonder if it doesn't have to do with anxiety over Near Eastern historical records going back much further. If you're going to imprint some bullshit rounded number in everyone's minds, might as well make it match the age of the oldest historical states (those of Ur in modern Iraq). On the topic of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, I have to quote the words of Edward Shaughnessy, one of the foremost non-Chinese authorities on early Chinese history, in an article he wrote criticizing the project, whose goal was to bring together "under socialist conditions" over 200 scholars from various different disciplines: quote:Scholarship by committee (or, even worse, by committees) is almost surely designed to result in compromise at the lowest common denominator. What is needed is for single individuals, with control of all of the evidence at hand, to produce their own chronologies that will then compete freely in the market of scholarship. I am confident that someday one of those individuals will solve the puzzle of ancient China's chronology.
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Jul 28, 2013 06:54
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We need to be careful here, western scholarship can be more than happy to tow a line. British historians kept very quiet on Mau Mau for instance. More broadly the "free market"of scholarship strangely seems to favour voices that are friendly to the elite such as Niall Ferguson. More dissent is allowed but that dissent tends towards much lower public prominence.
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Jul 28, 2013 10:15
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False equivalency is false. "But X has problems too" is a useless thought-terminating cry of surrender. It is a retreat from critical thought. It is, like any act of surrender, an act of consent. The speaker authorizes and legitimizes whatever misdeed he excuses by its utterance. If I could express how much I dislike false equivalency in harsher terms without going into purple prose, I would. I could go into why this particular equivalence is false, but I won't. It's a well-known logical fallacy, and one that the Chinese state loves to employ in defense of its misdeeds, and one that Chinese people constantly employ to rationalize away their cognitive dissonance between inculcated nationalism and dislike for the state, and we should just leave it at that.
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Jul 28, 2013 10:47
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Easiest way to challenge false equivalency is to ask 'So you're saying China/The Chinese can't do better? At all? You're just going to take cues from the West and never make your own decisions?'. Either they blow up in your face, concede the point or have their nationalism rather well bruised. Which, for me, is always win-win-win.
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Jul 28, 2013 10:56
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I'm sorry but when I see someone suggesting the reduction of scholarship to a "free market of ideas" is a positive thing I'm going to attack it. Chinese scholarship seems to be worthy of little but contempt but that does not mean it should be a cause for backslappery for western scholars. As others have pointed out more broadly China's system is becoming ever more similar to neoliberalism thus failings it is easy to see in China as outsiders should be cause for reflection regarding failings in our own, increasingly similar system. That China, a repressive dictatorship, needs to do better regarding it's scholarship is so obvious as to be almost unworthy of comment. The point is to ask the question, can't the west do better too?
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Jul 28, 2013 11:36
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ReV VAdAUL posted:That China, a repressive dictatorship, needs to do better regarding it's scholarship is so obvious as to be almost unworthy of comment. The point is to ask the question, can't the west do better too? We're in the China thread though.
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Jul 28, 2013 11:41
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