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Fritz the Horse posted:This is being discussed in the feedback thread and your post here might be better suited there. Can I object to the absolutely loving disgusting normalization of "abuser" to describe people that disagree with you online? Seriously that sort of description is spitting in the face of anyone that suffered from actual abuse
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Jan 31, 2022 01:28
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A big flaming stink posted:Can I object to the absolutely loving disgusting normalization of "abuser" to describe people that disagree with you online? Seriously that sort of description is spitting in the face of anyone that suffered from actual abuse I'd put it in the feedback thread and/or PM Koos Group, that way we have it "on the record." The mod team will be reviewing feedback and we can consider how to handle it. Might fall under loaded language or non-standard definitions.
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Jan 31, 2022 01:42
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A big flaming stink posted:Can I object to the absolutely loving disgusting normalization of "abuser" to describe people that disagree with you online? Seriously that sort of description is spitting in the face of anyone that suffered from actual abuse This is just fake outrage. "Abuser" is the correct term to apply to Whataboutists
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Jan 31, 2022 02:43
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MikeC posted:This is just fake outrage. "Abuser" is the correct term to apply to Whataboutists No it is not. If you think posts you disagree with are literal abuse, you should seek help, cause the internet is doing bad things to your brain and emotional state
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Jan 31, 2022 02:51
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e- Meh, post redacted. Just don't want to get involved in this discussion that's not even about China.
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Jan 31, 2022 02:58
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Best Friends posted:No it is not. If you think posts you disagree with are literal abuse, you should seek help, cause the internet is doing bad things to your brain and emotional state Oxford dictionary: use (something) to bad effect or for a bad purpose; misuse. "the judge abused his power by imposing the fines"
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Jan 31, 2022 03:19
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https://twitter.com/henrysgao/status/1487689104259092483 this is pathetic
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Jan 31, 2022 03:34
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MikeC posted:This is just fake outrage. "Abuser" is the correct term to apply to Whataboutists lol, can I put this post in a museum? all the anti china posters itt, this is who you agree with. seriously, you guys make yourselves look totally ridiculous.
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Jan 31, 2022 05:01
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Mirello posted:lol, can I put this post in a museum? all the anti china posters itt, this is who you agree with. seriously, you guys make yourselves look totally ridiculous. This is posting about posters and there is not a hive-mind of anti China posters itt who all agree with MikeC, this post is better suited to the ongoing discussion in the Feedback thread.
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Jan 31, 2022 05:22
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A while back, we were talking about whether China could keep going with COVID zero. Hong Kong might be the first real crack in that armour in what otherwise is an extremely impressive display of COVID zero at all costs. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong...pgtype=homepage edit: Not to go full pirate but some key quotes quote:More local health experts back the idea, saying it made sense for a variety of reasons, including the availability of vaccines, the apparently milder effects of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the shortage of hospital beds and quarantine spaces, and the fact that the city’s fifth wave of infections was already sweeping through the community. By Thursday evening, even Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor appeared to be moving in that direction. MikeC fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Jan 31, 2022 |
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Jan 31, 2022 05:43
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Those are really bad vaccination rates for elderly and infirm, if true. Just had overall, considering the rates of hospitalization seen elsewhere. How porous is the lockdown in HK vs the rest of PRC?
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Jan 31, 2022 06:44
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MikeC posted:A while back, we were talking about whether China could keep going with COVID zero. Hong Kong might be the first real crack in that armour in what otherwise is an extremely impressive display of COVID zero at all costs. I think HK could still get it under control, but it seems like the idea of relaxing policies is starting to get mainstreamed a bit by powerful people. The costs of certain policies are starting to accumulate, too, and the ever-promised benefit of re-opening with the mainland seems as far away as ever. A lot of businesses that had hunkered down and weathered the previous storms are apparently on the brink now. The irony is that excessively strict policies contributed to the outbreak. Very soon after originally imposing the 21-day entry quarantine (in late summer 2021), there was a case of transmission within a quarantine facility. Many critics pointed out at the time that the 21-day requirement created that risk, especially given the variable quarantine conditions. And sure enough, the Omicron outbreak originated when someone picked it up in quarantine. I'm glad that the government responded that Junius Ho is full of poo poo that there's nothing wrong with criticizing government policies. People are already reluctant to participate in anti-Covid activities like testing because they're afraid of getting quarantined and socially shamed (there is no respect for privacy about HK media). Adding fear of NSL charges would be totally counterproductive. He is an absolute clown, piece of poo poo, and shameless power seeker. I'm not sure if you could create a better parody of a transparently insincere pro-Beijing HK lawmaker. He was one of the attendees of the 'partygate' event, which contravened anti-covid measures. He got preferential treatment and only had to spend a day or so in quarantine instead, and he still tried to play it up by posting social media photos of all the stuff he was taking to survive in quarantine, including a few communist books (not the Little Red Book, but something not too far from it; I can't remember exactly). Then he claimed he was the victim, blamed everyone else, and now continues to call for these strict measures, presumably ones that don't apply to him. All this from a wealthy, xenophobic, homophobic landowner. Ugh, this loving guy.
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Jan 31, 2022 06:52
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Rust Martialis posted:Those are really bad vaccination rates for elderly and infirm, if true. Just had overall, considering the rates of hospitalization seen elsewhere. How porous is the lockdown in HK vs the rest of PRC? Yep, vaccination has been the biggest weakness in the HK Covid response, and as you point out, the elderly have horrifically low rates. Many also live in elderly care homes, and in general HK's dense living conditions and often crummy housing infrastructure makes poo poo super risky. I'm not sure what you mean by porous versus the mainland lockdowns. The estates that have been locked down are very strictly locked down. It's not some honor system where people can walk down to the grocery and back. Inbound flights are very strictly quarantined, too, and that has been very effective aside from the cases slipping through mentioned in my above post. Cross-border travel between Guangdong and HK is an overlooked risk. Mainland travelers can (could? might have changed) travel into HK without quarantine, but not vice versa, despite Guangdong having had its own outbreaks. There was also the recent case of the Dutch hamster purportedly giving a human Covid, but when your weak point is a hamster, you're kinda reaching the limits of what's possible, especially for a place that is heavily dependent on international trade and labor.
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Jan 31, 2022 07:02
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Rust Martialis posted:Those are really bad vaccination rates for elderly and infirm, if true. Just had overall, considering the rates of hospitalization seen elsewhere. How porous is the lockdown in HK vs the rest of PRC? I know people don't trust PRC state sources, so I found travel info from an airline: https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_US/covid-19/hong-kong-travel-restrictions.html quote:Transiting through Hong Kong HK is still accepting air travel while the mainland appears to be completely closed to airline traffic? Does HK rely more heavily on air traffic than the mainland such that they have to keep it open? That could help explain the difference. I dunno, the whole things in lawyer talk. Transiting.
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Jan 31, 2022 07:07
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Cpt_Obvious posted:I know people don't trust PRC state sources, so I found travel info from an airline: Mainland isn't closed to airline traffic unless it happened within the last few weeks. I know people who've been flying in regularly from various origins throughout the pandemic. The entry requirements for both HK and mainland have been relatively similar. Residents only, lots of pre-/post-arrival testing. Long, strict quarantines. Occasional outright bans on certain airlines or origins. It all has the additional effect of reducing inflows dramatically. Far fewer flights of all types (incl. cargo) are arriving. Passenger flights are nearly empty. HK does depend a lot more on international trade and labor (and not just skilled/professional), though, and its population is more international, which encourages more international travel for other reasons (e.g., seeing family).
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Jan 31, 2022 07:21
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MikeC posted:This is just fake outrage. "Abuser" is the correct term to apply to Whataboutists For those who didn't see the discussion in the feedback thread, abuser is not a good term to use for whataboutists, or really anyone else you're debating with, even if they are abusing rules, abusing language, abusing assumptions of good faith, etc. This is because it has a very specific connotation which is hard to divorce from it, and is misleading. I don't believe Vox was doing this intentionally and they won't be punished, but in the interest of clear and non-loaded language other terms should be used in its place from here on.
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Jan 31, 2022 07:43
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HK until recently had a truckload of quarantine exemptions including for aircrew, which was ridiculous and something mainland doesn't have as far as I know. The recent Omicron surge originated with aircrew but I think they managed to suppress that transmission chain and the cases we have now originated from someone who got infected in their quarantine hotel because she opened her door at about the same time as an infected guest in a neighbouring room and breathed in Omicron air. She then developed symptoms at home. The hotels here just aren't equipped for airtight quarantine. The estate lockdown in HK lasted about a week and was already seen as being very long, and handled terribly (some people not getting their dinner delivered, cross infection as people went down in the lifts to do their daily tests, etc). HK does not have the infrastructure to handle proper, city-wide lockdown and that's the only thing that will stop omicron I fear. I wish HK would just ask the mainland to help manage the covid response because our leaders have messed it up consistently for over two years now. Bring in the PLA and lock us in our homes for a bit, I just want the border with the mainland to open.
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Jan 31, 2022 07:49
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Rabelais D posted:HK until recently had a truckload of quarantine exemptions including for aircrew, which was ridiculous and something mainland doesn't have as far as I know. The recent Omicron surge originated with aircrew but I think they managed to suppress that transmission chain and the cases we have now originated from someone who got infected in their quarantine hotel because she opened her door at about the same time as an infected guest in a neighbouring room and breathed in Omicron air. She then developed symptoms at home. The hotels here just aren't equipped for airtight quarantine. The aircrew-linked outbreak originated from noncompliance, though, and as you pointed out, it was suppressed. Throughout the pandemic the strategy with aircrews has been to respond to specific loopholes and gaps, but in a way that allowed air travel to continue, given its critical importance to HK. I don't know how a closed-loop system (which would reduce the potential for noncompliance) would be sustainable. I also think you're overstating HK's missteps. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty to criticize and I've done plenty of it in this thread and the Covid thread. But HK has managed extremely well despite having a poo poo hand. And I don't think a HK-wide lockdown would work, or at least I don't see how it would be more effective than targeted lockdowns by building or estate. The Kwai Chung Estate lockdown was lovely for the residents. But it seems to have worked, and it doesn't seem like it was any worse than hotel quarantines or Penny's Bay. I don't know how the PLA would prevent air passing between tiny units in old buildings with crummy infrastructure, and I'm pretty sure no militaries are renowned for their delicious food delivery services. City-wide lockdown would just burn people out faster, citizens and authorities alike. HK maintained zero local covid for months and has had one death since July (fewer than 10 since Feb). If the border were going to reopen for good Covid performance, I think it would have happened already. The government was basically begging for clear guidance on what to do to please Beijing. I think the truth is that Beijing just didn't want to risk anything until after the Olympics and Two Sessions.
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Jan 31, 2022 08:20
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I think that's generally true, but we could have done what Macau did and simply adopt all Chinese covid controls including the mandatory tracking health app. The mainland never quite trusted that we had zero covid because there was never the will to actually enforce a citywide test, combined with the quarantine loopholes and lovely tracking app.
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Jan 31, 2022 08:35
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well - the really remarkable aspect of that translation is the implicit acknowledgement that a welfare state would be desirable in principle if not for the pesky budget constraint. that seems like a big step for an ideological document. it could be instead openly raging against 养懒汉 (encouraging idleness) there's the thousand points of light with chinese characteristics 三次分配 (the "third allocation", i.e., private charity) in the meanwhile
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Jan 31, 2022 14:06
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You know who else wanted to steer clear of the idleness-creating trap of welfareism? Bill Clinton and the 104th United States Congress
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Jan 31, 2022 17:49
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I mean I've been critical about China in my time, but there's no need to outright slander them like that.
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Jan 31, 2022 17:58
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ronya posted:well - the really remarkable aspect of that translation is the implicit acknowledgement that a welfare state would be desirable in principle if not for the pesky budget constraint. that seems like a big step for an ideological document. it could be instead openly raging against 养懒汉 (encouraging idleness) So I take it this isn't something new, and other ideological documents have been against welfare because of the supposed encouragement of idleness?
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Jan 31, 2022 18:09
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ronya posted:well - the really remarkable aspect of that translation is the implicit acknowledgement that a welfare state would be desirable in principle if not for the pesky budget constraint. that seems like a big step for an ideological document. it could be instead openly raging against 养懒汉 (encouraging idleness) I don't think it is the former nor is it raging on the laying flat phenomenon. In fact, after reading the document over again and then going back to that specific part; it feels like the emphasis is on the fact that if you promise the moon and that the government will take care of everyone and everything, then will have a deleterious effect on encouraging individuals to work hard and innovate. There seems to be a dual-track of thought here both in the 4 principles as well as the 6 focal points and it almost implicitly states that the "lying flat" phenomenon is at least partially the result of government failures in policy. Take the 2nd principle of "upholding our basic economic system" and the 3rd focal point "We will promote equitable access to basic public services" quote:In particular, we should encourage people inspiring others to pursue prosperity through diligent work, entrepreneurship, and legitimate business activities. Improper means of acquiring wealth must not be encouraged, and breaches of laws or regulations must be handled in accordance with the law. This is to me is a direct criticism of the numerous 'get rich quick' schemes that happen often at the local level of governance in combination with the rich investor class. We talked about high-speed rail before and how many lines seem to have been built on a dubious premise of whether it would be a good ROI or not. They were built anyways, people got rich and local officials got funds and now many tracks are well below capacity with large debt repayments looming. Similarly, we have already talked about just how much money is stuffed inside the Chinese housing market and that real estate is simply viewed as an asset class to once again, 'get rich quick' with speculators often buying 2nd and 3rd properties in super-heated markets that isn't necessarily driven by legitimate housing demand outside the wealthy coastal cities. What incentive is there to work hard if you see people cheat the system in this fashion? Why work hard and innovate when you can join the crowd and gamble on real estate instead? And if you can't join in either game, it can be very easy to see life reduced to a meaningless grind with no chance of upward mobility even if you turn in the insane 996 work hours that seem to rival the Japanese excessive work demands. This is spelled out in the first principle where he states that upward mobility must be maintained and prevent a 'rigidified social strat' while also developing prosperity in a "non-material" sense which seems just a fancy way of saying good work ethic along patriotic lines needs to be instilled in people so that once you get rich, you are willing to "lending a helping hand" to those who haven't gotten there yet. The weird thing is that if you strip out the China-specific references, this is a document that in principle should be applied to literally every modernized industrial country. Its not like lying flat and the underlying causes of that is purely a problem in China.
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Jan 31, 2022 18:19
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therobit posted:You know who else wanted to steer clear of the idleness-creating trap of welfareism? Bill Clinton and the 104th United States Congress well, it's a respected pedigree back to Lenin raging against idlers. and then... well... Chinese neo-authoritarian visions shrink in horror at the idea that their future, too, involves spending 20-30% of GDP on social transfer spending instead of national rejuvenation or whatever. the political aesthetic is on production - making steel, making semiconductors, and making babies; not degenerate consumption Koos Group posted:So I take it this isn't something new, and other ideological documents have been against welfare because of the supposed encouragement of idleness? the Chinese actually explicitly does say 养懒汉: 尽力而为量力而行。 要建立科学的公共政策体系，把蛋糕分好，形成人人享有的合理分配格局。要以更大的力度、更实的举措让人民群众有更多获得感。同时，也要看到，我国发展水平离发达国家还有很大差距。要统筹需要和可能，把保障和改善民生建立在经济发展和财力可持续的基础之上，不要好高骛远，吊高胃口，作兑现不了的承诺。政府不能什么都包，重点是加强基础性、普惠性、兜底性民生保障建设。即使将来发展水平更高、财力更雄厚了，也不能提过高的目标，搞过头的保障，坚决防止落入“福利主义”养懒汉的陷阱。 google translate: quote:Do the best you can. It is necessary to establish a scientific public policy system, divide the cake well, and form a rational distribution pattern for everyone. It is necessary to take stronger and more concrete measures to make the people feel more fulfilled. At the same time, it should be noted that there is still a big gap between my country's development level and developed countries. It is necessary to coordinate needs and possibilities, and to ensure and improve people's livelihood on the basis of economic development and sustainable financial resources. The government cannot cover everything, and the focus is to strengthen the construction of basic, inclusive and basic livelihood security. Even if the level of development is higher and the financial resources are stronger in the future, we should not set too high goals, make excessive guarantees, and resolutely prevent falling into the trap of "welfareism" raising lazy people. which is clumsily rendered in the official English translation as a 'trap' of welfarism (the translation nuance being that welfarism doesn't necessarily imply such a trap) rather than putting "welfarism" 福利主义 in quotes to emphasize that it is the alien ideology and then being very certain about 养懒汉的陷阱 my understanding is that whether or not 'westernizing' the welfare system is inevitable has been something of a brewing topic since the 2000s at least. the old answer was always "not yet, let's build schools and hospitals in the rural regions first" - concrete (sometimes literally) things like actual roads, buildings, and roads to get to buildings in the vastness that is rural china. two decades later the country actually does have to answer the question of yet more investment in the perpetual future vs consuming more in the now, not least because of macroeconomic and solvency concerns. Eventually the long run is now. the answer, anyway, seems to be to bet on the distant future yet again. A sufficiently serious financial crisis will quickly put paid to that but so far Beijing seems to be successfully perpetually postponing that too only slightly related, a 2015 anecdote related by the chair of the Singapore Public Service Commission that came to mind: quote:8. Our young people are not unaware of the values espoused by our founding fathers, particularly Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. They may not be fully conscious of it, and they may quietly rebel against National Education taught in schools, but because they live in Singapore, go to Singapore schools, and have grown up with family and friends, they are still cast in the same mould as previous generations of young Singaporeans. Many of them have heard the Singapore national narrative. This narrative has been emphasised a hundred times over during Mr. Lee’s funeral and the recent SG50 celebrations: how Singapore was cast adrift post-Separation and survived against all odds, how vulnerable we are as a nation given our size and the neighbourhood we are in, and how we must remain exceptional to continue to prosper. How our people must work hard and stay disciplined because no one owes us a living. How social benefits must not be allowed to erode our work ethic. The ideal citizen envisaged by Mr. Lee Kuan Yew is someone pragmatic, responsible, disciplined, frugal, hardworking, well-behaved, family-focused and puts society before self. Mr. Lee also expected public servants to have all these values as well as stay incorruptible. Singaporeans often take our zero-tolerance policy for corruption for granted, but many foreigners regard it as exceptional and want to learn how we do it. today we would call that 'involution' 内卷, I suppose, but I don't really think China has a monopoly on these types of cultural unease.
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Jan 31, 2022 19:09
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ronya posted:well - the really remarkable aspect of that translation is the implicit acknowledgement that a welfare state would be desirable in principle if not for the pesky budget constraint. that seems like a big step for an ideological document. it could be instead openly raging against 养懒汉 (encouraging idleness) China has also come out aggressively against things like video games, so I think they generally want their people working and producing more, and spending time doing leisure activities less. So perhaps "idleness" is anything that the CCP views as unproductive.
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Jan 31, 2022 20:31
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Rabelais D posted:I think that's generally true, but we could have done what Macau did and simply adopt all Chinese covid controls including the mandatory tracking health app. The mainland never quite trusted that we had zero covid because there was never the will to actually enforce a citywide test, combined with the quarantine loopholes and lovely tracking app. Macau is just way more tied to the mainland politically and economically and would have been over a barrel without cooperating more with the mainland. Or conversely the solution to their problem was far easier: just solve for the mainland variable. Macau can cut off the rest of the world ex-China and largely be back to normal. 83% of Macau's GDP in 2019 was due to gaming and tourism. Those sectors fell 66% in 2020. GDP fell 56% in a year. Virtually all their trade is "personal travel" services, which require people moving across borders, and are dominated by China and HK to a crazy degree. I know quite a few folks working for casinos, and apparently the only thing keeping them alive — and by a thread at that — is duty free sales to mainland day tourists. Throw in all the policy changes vis-a-vis gambling and the shift in tourist demand to Hainan, and Macau seems pretty screwed without support from the north. I really don't know what Macau's future is expected to be. It would be much cooler place if it weren't jammed to the gills with professional gamblers/money launderers and duty free shoppers. In contrast, less than half of HK imports, mostly machinery and electronics, are from the mainland, and only about a quarter of exports are to the mainland. HK trade is far less service-oriented, too, and much of that service is in industries that don't require travel (e.g., finance). I'd bet that a lot of the travel-dependent service trade is ex-China, too, such as Chinese traveling elsewhere or non-Chinese travel to/through HK. I'd still solve for mainland first, of course, but my impression has been that the government has been trying their damndest to do that. But that doesn't get you halfway back. I never understood the HK resistance to using health tracking apps nor what seemed like a mainland fixation on integrating/sharing HK personal health data with mainland systems (though the recent NYT story made me reconsider). If the mainland really wanted someone's data for nefarious purposes, there are a lot of other sources that people are happy to use, like Octopus cards. I thought the solution that was implemented before the latest wave seemed good enough: if you want quarantine-free travel to mainland, you have to permit sharing of your tracking app data. But Omicron hit before anyone was able to use it.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:18
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Why’s anyone surprised, I thought ITT we all knew that the current Chinese administration was a pretty conservative back-to-basics one? And the belief that westerners are lazy bums living off welfare compared with good decent hardworking Chinese people runs pretty deep anyway.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:42
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Smeef posted:I never understood the HK resistance to using health tracking apps nor what seemed like a mainland fixation on integrating/sharing HK personal health data with mainland systems (though the recent NYT story made me reconsider). If the mainland really wanted someone's data for nefarious purposes, there are a lot of other sources that people are happy to use, like Octopus cards. I thought the solution that was implemented before the latest wave seemed good enough: if you want quarantine-free travel to mainland, you have to permit sharing of your tracking app data. But Omicron hit before anyone was able to use it. I can only speak for my extended family on my father's side but literally, none of them (3 Uncles, 2 Aunts, their adult children?) want to have anything to do with the vaccines or any kind of health tracking app. Their stated reasoning was a mixture of the retread anti-vax arguments of, its a trick, it doesn't work, why else would we have to keep getting shots, etc etc. A lot of it stems from a deep mistrust for the government and it feels like they are in a state where nothing is true and everything is subject to an ulterior motive. It isn't a belief that COVID is hoax, just that they are very skeptical of anything coming out of official channels. Which is quite sad. While I think the government are just largely filled by Beijing boot lickers looking to get ahead, I don't think the app is being used as a weapon. As you said, they have much more discreet and effective ways to do so. The vax numbers seem to indicate that they are starting to fall into the minority camp though? I assume your group, especially since you previously mentioned you mingle with party members, doesn't have that kind of problem with vax compliance and app monitoring?
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Feb 1, 2022 04:31
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Beefeater1980 posted:Why’s anyone surprised, I thought ITT we all knew that the current Chinese administration was a pretty conservative back-to-basics one? And the belief that westerners are lazy bums living off welfare compared with good decent hardworking Chinese people runs pretty deep anyway. well yeah the truth is westerns are not lazy bums and they're dying anyway because of the lack of even basic need security pretty shameful to get exactly why the west is doomed so wrong, for shame Xi.
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Feb 1, 2022 06:01
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MikeC posted:I can only speak for my extended family on my father's side but literally, none of them (3 Uncles, 2 Aunts, their adult children?) want to have anything to do with the vaccines or any kind of health tracking app. Their stated reasoning was a mixture of the retread anti-vax arguments of, its a trick, it doesn't work, why else would we have to keep getting shots, etc etc. A lot of it stems from a deep mistrust for the government and it feels like they are in a state where nothing is true and everything is subject to an ulterior motive. It isn't a belief that COVID is hoax, just that they are very skeptical of anything coming out of official channels. Which is quite sad. While I think the government are just largely filled by Beijing boot lickers looking to get ahead, I don't think the app is being used as a weapon. As you said, they have much more discreet and effective ways to do so. I guess saying that I never understood isn't a good way of putting it and just me being lazy when posting that. There is a general skepticism of the state among significant portions of the HK population. The place was always a kind of transformer for interaction between the state and the non-state — pirates and smugglers, rebels, refugees, shady businesspeople, etc. — and even as its anarchic side has been reeled in, it has still functioned in that way. A lot of families immigrated to escape other governments (and not just the PRC), and I find that even the more recent mainland immigrants, though overall pro-PRC, have a pretty realist view of the state. A lot of the village families, which tend to be pro-PRC, are also extremely conservative, more family-oriented than state-oriented, and remind me of homeowners associations on steroids. So this background radiation of distrust of the state is at play here. For vaccines, HK gets hit with disinfo from every direction. Disinfo about 'Western' medicine, corporations, states, etc., resonates with one chunk of the population. Distrust of the Chinese government resonates with another chunk, which is not necessarily mutually exclusive. Policies and public health communications have occasionally discouraged vaccine uptake, too — why get vaccinated if HK will never have covid and not getting vaccinated doesn't affect my life? This has started to change, though, with proof of vaccination increasingly required to do stuff and renewed recognition that HK isn't safe from Covid. For data and testing, there is both a general distrust of giving any info to the government, along the lines of the American "never talk to a cop" principle, as well as a more specific fear of getting sent to quarantine. The fear was not just that quarantine would suck, though that was a big part of it. There is also serious social stigma associated with Covid here. HK is still a pretty small place in some regards. Whenever there have been small outbreaks, Patient Zero (and sometimes the entire infection chain) has been doxxed and publicly shamed even when they did nothing wrong. So the view of many was that there were few benefits to sharing data and getting tested, some risks (however small or imagined) associated with doing it, and few to no costs of not doing it. As with vaccines, this is changing. The apps are increasingly mandatory, and larger outbreaks reduces the stigma. Honestly, I don't think the data collection / tracing app will be as useful in an outbreak as some people think. HK's effectiveness in responding to outbreaks has depended on a lot of old school John Snow epidemiological investigation methods. That doesn't scale well, though, so only works when cases remain low. When an outbreak exceeds that scale, it's already beyond the capacity of authorities, as quarantine facilities would be full, HCWs stretched thin, etc. Even the insights produced by data collection have been useless if not absurd. Recently, two cases passed through a turnstile 9 seconds apart, and the headlines were all "You can catch Omicron in 9 seconds!" despite the fact that the cases could have been face-to-face on the train for 30 minutes before exiting at the same time, etc. Don't get me wrong — the app is far from useless. I just think there is a lot of mindless assumption that "big data AI machine learning" is the solution. You're right that no one seems to think Covid is a hoax. I haven't seen that at all. People seem terrified of it, perhaps to an excessive degree and occasionally in a misleading way — e.g., slathering hands in sanitizer, using those hilariously inaccurate thermometers at every entrance, etc., but still eating out and not getting vaccinated. And regarding my social circles, they're very diverse and include Party members stationed here, local human rights activists, foreign journalists, and everything in between. The Party folks seem mainly motivated by not getting in trouble with the Party, so they're all vaxxed (and had privileges that allowed them to get vaxxed and boosted before anyone else). They really keep their heads down when there is an outbreak, but they were out and about doing the same poo poo as everyone else when there has been no cases for ages. After all, Partygate involved some Party members.
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Feb 1, 2022 07:26
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Regarde Aduck posted:well yeah the truth is westerns are not lazy bums and they're dying anyway because of the lack of even basic need security the journalistic genre of "welfare queens" does exist in Chinese discourse but the language and perspective is different - here's a sampler http://www.xinhuanet.com//comments/2017-01/13/c_129444679.htm quote:How to avoid "raising lazy people" in poverty alleviation work (lightly edited to remove some of the weirder machine translations)
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Feb 1, 2022 07:29
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ronya posted:the journalistic genre of "welfare queens" does exist in Chinese discourse but the language and perspective is different - here's a sampler Those case studies remind me a lot of international development programs in the rest of the world (and probably domestic poverty alleviation programs in other places as well) where some well-intending aid worker rocks up offering interventions that are poorly fit for the context and rife with bad incentives. Hard to be sure, but the areas referenced (Qinba Mountains, Wumeng Mountains, Central Sichuan Hills, Western Sichuan Plain) are also all likely to have significant minority populations, many of which ended up where they are because they wanted to get away from officials telling them what to do. Smeef fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 07:51
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Smeef posted:Those case studies remind me a lot of international development programs in the rest of the world (and probably domestic poverty alleviation programs in other places as well) where some well-intending aid worker rocks up offering interventions that are poorly fit for the context and rife with bad incentives. Recent academic research into aid distribution of foreign aid suggests that just straight up giving cash to people tends to be the most effective way to improve their lives, and that if you give it to the women it doesn’t get spent on booze and gambling.
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Feb 1, 2022 08:04
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I actually snipped out the subsequent section regarding agricultural poverty alleviation programmes - goats and mushrooms and stuff. My point rather is that the notion of a deserving/undeserving poor and all the associated baggage is also present in Chinese discourse, with really very similar political trappings, right down to conservatives simultaneously frankly expressing that the poor should be deferential and grateful when a highly educated party cadre from a prestigious university dispenses some assistance - and also outrage that political correctness prevents them from openly criticizing the undeserving poor for their own good. ronya fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 08:09
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ronya posted:I actually snipped out the subsequent section regarding agricultural poverty alleviation programmes - goats and mushrooms and stuff. I know you don't mean it this way, but the phrasing sounds like they're trying to alleviate rural poverty by paying the poor with goats and mushrooms, which would be a questionable method of relief after a while. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 11:52
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:I know you don't mean it this way, but the phrasing sounds like they're trying to alleviate rural poverty by paying the poor with goats and mushrooms, which would be a questionable method of relief after a while. It’s probably not far from the truth. The BRAC ultra poor program is one of the most effective poverty reduction programs, if not the single most effective, to come out of international development efforts. I don’t know all the details, but it includes giving someone a productive asset like a goat, plus some training, cash, and a savings account. In addition to being effective, the package is pretty cheap and scalable. It’s really only meant for the poorest of the poor, though, hence the name.
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Feb 1, 2022 12:21
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Smeef posted:It’s probably not far from the truth. The BRAC ultra poor program is one of the most effective poverty reduction programs, if not the single most effective, to come out of international development efforts. I don’t know all the details, but it includes giving someone a productive asset like a goat, plus some training, cash, and a savings account. In addition to being effective, the package is pretty cheap and scalable. It’s really only meant for the poorest of the poor, though, hence the name. See, I was picturing them getting paid in goats weekly or monthly like unemployment benefits in the US, which would be much less effective and must more absurdist. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 13:03
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absurdist would be getting .6 goats per month, which I could totally see being the end result of a similar program in the US after it gets negotiated down in the senate. Iirc china was experimenting with all kinds of livestock. Cows/pregnant cows were apparently quite effective because the person would get the immediate benefit of the cow and the dairy, then two years down the road they could either sell or keep the now-grown calves.
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Feb 1, 2022 13:23
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Does anyone remember like 17 years ago when somethingawful got way into the concept of donating bees to heifer international?
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Feb 1, 2022 13:45
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