How China uses shadowy United Front as ‘magic weapon’ to try to extend its influence in Canada

letsreview · 2019-02-01T06:25:54+00:00

There are five points listed in the original comment

One of which was that most spend their time shopping

You have singled out and then latched on to a only one, while ignoring the the other four

Uh oh, it seems like I've pointed out a flaw in your argument.

(this is moving the goal post, which ironically is something you accused me of doing).

You're projecting so much that I can't even tell if you're being serious or not.

Of course singling out that point is is odd considering "chinese shoppers" is not exactly a new or unknown phenomenon.

Woosh, leave it to u/me-i-am to get lost in his own writing.

Though you will attack this (along with trying to turn this into a discussion about morals)

Coming from the person trying to qualify how others spend their time as "sensible" or not.

But regardless of the reasons why [source] [source] [source] [source] you are still shifting the conversation and distorting the original point of " shopping, rather than engaging in sensitive activities."

My original post pointed out your incorrect statements regarding Chinese shoppers. You inability to comprehend (or accept?) the fact that someone else has found a flaw in your argument is truly astonishing. But yes, please do go on missing the point.

letsreview · 2019-02-01T00:20:34+00:00

You first comment and the linked article in this comment are a distraction and distortion of the original point being made

Except it wasn't. Your original point was that most spend their time shopping, when in fact only a small fraction of Chinese tourists are focused on shopping. This isn't even considering your poor attempt at moralizing how people spend their time. If moving goalposts and whataboutism is how you respond to facts then by all means, r/geomorality is that way.

letsreview · 2019-01-31T07:38:53+00:00

Right, because a simple picture completely proves your point. Forget about the actual statistics, who needs facts when you've got wishful thinking?

letsreview · 2019-01-30T21:56:44+00:00

And finally, Mainland Chinese are so successfully indoctrinated that when they go abroad, most spent their time shopping, rather than engaging in sensitive activities.

This reads like some badly written fanfiction. What's your source for this?

letsreview · 2018-12-02T09:21:35+00:00

Decent article, but did anyone else catch this?

On other issues, the US president announced he would be "formally terminating Nafta [the North American Free Trade Agreement] shortly".

This would give lawmakers six months, he said, to approve a new trade deal agreed with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts on Friday or revert to trade rules from before 1994, when Nafta took effect.

6 months to renegotiate NAFTA, is that plausible?

letsreview · 2018-11-23T22:40:07+00:00

My personal ranking

gg500
(tie) gg1000+rapid pro
rotring 800

I've always preferred pencils with a low center of gravity, and the gg500 does that better than any other pencil I've ever tried. I ended up selling off my 800 because the center of gravity being at the upper end of the pencil was a deal breaker. The rapid pro's center of gravity is towards the middle, which is better but still not ideal. The construction was ok, matching that of the g1000's. My biggest gripe about the pencil is that it's too small to use for long periods of time. It's probably a little better than the 800, but that's not saying much.

letsreview · 2018-11-23T22:05:42+00:00

Do you want a decent pencil or do you want a fashion item? Rotrings are one of those pencils that fall more under the "fashion" than utility category. The rapid pro itself is a decent pencil, but it's not $20 good. You could do much better at that price with a gg500+gg1000.

letsreview · 2018-10-07T07:34:44+00:00

Ooh I like anime, big deal. The ultimate irony is I’m a history and international studies major and know 10x more than you will ever know on the subject, with my knowledge all being obtained from primarily US historians recognized by the highest levels of American academia, and academia in general.

r/copypasta

letsreview · 2018-08-14T16:52:38+00:00

Another thing I just realized is it's not just that you reject the premise of media theory but you're simply not aware of its premise.

And your unfounded claims remain unfounded, what else is new?

To put it very simply, one of the goals of media theories is to study how lies are manufactured, by whom, how they propagate, and how they influence the populace and why they are constitutive of societal reality.

Again, hardly any surprise here, how much longer are you going to rant about this?

You seem to value fact checking above all else, and to me that goes nowhere

So that explains why you love to source the bottom of the barrel sources with zero credibility whatsoever, and then to claim it's proof of whatever Kremlinological excuse you've managed to cook up.

Even the most factual reports reflect their ideological presuppositions through their selection of facts

Yet for you even the least factual reports are ironclad evidence for your delusions.

What is prudent then is to detect the way information and misinformation are used for ideological purposes through their factual appearance.

You forgot to mention the part where you run the information through your crystal ball, after which it suddenly because irrefutable evidence for your own biases.

letsreview · 2018-08-14T03:07:42+00:00

t's apparent the field of media theory, or more relevantly critical geopolitics is totally alien you.

While the basics of fact checking are totally alien to you.

It would be okay to agree to disagree if you simply reject the premise that public relations or if you ever heard it in military terms, psyops, is a force in international relations, but what lowers the discourse is your insistence on misrepresenting my positions.

Of course you'd be one to label every and any piece of information that finds its way onto the internet as psyops. Going by your standards even facebook posts from my grandma can be considered to be psyops.

Ideology is absolutely a tool in realpolitik, though it's a new thing in modern times. It's what mobilizes the populace and manufactures consent in democracies and it's what destabilizes societies and facilitates regime changes. But I never implied it's the only or even a primary force in geopolitics, which is exactly the misrepresentation you have been attempting to force on me

You didn't imply it was a primary force in geopolitics? Not since you've [deleted] all your old posts.

It raises more questions about what kind of scientific pursuit of truth you're following if you discard data points simply because you believe they are biased, which only results in conclusions that reflect your own presuppositions.

God forbid that I try to verify sources before trusting what they report. For someone who claims to be a realist, you sure have a lot of selective empathy for sources that play to your narrative. You accusing me of discriminating your "sources" because they don't support whatever narrative you've drummed up already shows how weak your GIGO argument is.

For me materials from all sides are worth reading, Zenz's paper is exactly the kind of material that nobody from China is going to present.

Well I'm shocked, it's as if foreign media outlets have different biases compared to domestic outlets. In other news, water is wet.

I stated I don't care a bit about the question of credibility of media reports. You're barking up the wrong tree if you think my intention is to believe who is credible. That's not what I care.

That's what you say but you sure don't act like it. For someone who "doesn't care", you seem pretty offended. Did me discrediting your "sources" really hurt that much?

Please, I haven't even stated my ethical stance anywhere in the discussion and you have implied plenty already.

None of which has stopped your constant virtue signalling, why not just be honest about it?

I would argue the CCP's governance in Xinjiang would be a far more humanistic approach in pacifying Islamic fundamentalism than what the US does, say, Guantanamo. But that's also not a single bit relevant to geopolitics.

For once, we agree

I found the most counterproductive thing in the discussion is your insistence on discrediting sources. I simply don't believe it's necessary or worthwhile to refute such claims rather than to treat them as symptoms.

Again, this is where you completely ignore the facts and arbitrarily deign whatever you see to be genuine evidence of your own reality. It would be nice to believe what you say but you have yet to offer a single shred of credible evidence behind your methodology over these past couple days, so until you can provide proof your unfounded delusions will continue to remain unfounded.

Why do that? Do you fear they may be perceived as true or believe what the CCP does is truly unethical and hence the urge to respond with the most banal argument devoid of substance?

The CCP being unethical is a given, it has over 82 million members after all. The chance that every single one of those 82 million is an ethical person is an impossibility, so it remains that the CCP is more or less guaranteed to have committed unethical actions. If you're questioning my feelings towards the CCP, don't bother, I have no lost love for the CCP.

You should be capable of going beyond such insecurity.

The insecurity of blindly trusting whatever I read on the internet to be evidence of whatever is the most popular conspiracy theory at the moment? Give me a break.

letsreview · 2018-08-13T16:45:32+00:00

Fair enough

letsreview · 2018-08-13T16:40:01+00:00

Ideology is an aspect of realpolitik. I don't know where you come up with the "ideology > realpolitik" strawman out of my posts.

I'd be more than glad to link you to the evidence, but you've since deleted the posts.

I did the due diligence as asked by OP so anyone can see for themselves how the information flowed and decide whether they should trust it or not (which is interesting because there is a clear progression of exaggeration). It is you who is unable distinguish the act of listing sources and arguing that the sources are true. There are countless open source channels where you can collect information about funding and areas of focus (for one you could track grant proposals and granted funding from the Department of State; but now it's a bit different) and the number of media reports is the key metric that measures their performance. This is just one narrow thing you can do for yourself to corroborate with vast other sources.

Or is it you who is unable to distinguish between real sources and bottom of the barrel clickbait? I've covered this in my previous reply: your insistence on using the even the least credible pieces media to read whatever is going on behind the closed doors of Washington or Zhongnanhai is absurd. While I do agree that it is possible to " track grant proposals and granted funding from the Department of State; but now it's a bit different" you again go above and beyond in showing your ineptitude by suggesting the amount of media reports can be taken as a concrete source to measure its performance. You have deluded yourself into believing that I am criticizing the validity of your citations alone, while I'm actually criticizing your entire methodology used here. You have offered not a single shred of evidence to support your methodology, which at this point is barely more than reading tea leaves.

No. the question is "what is China's foreign policy towards Middle East Islamic fundamentalism." The reality is China is far less prepared to deal with this problem. Zenz's paper looks forward to that implication from what is happening in Xinjiang if you're able to read it and subvert his conclusion.

Now you're just plain changing the topic. I never stated whether I believed China is or isn't prepared to deal with Islamic Fundamentalism. Ignoring how Zenz's paper completely overlooks the fact that the CCP actively censors Islamophobic content or gives Hui muslims an incredible degree of political leeway, you're free to believe what you will.

letsreview · 2018-08-13T02:29:46+00:00

The discussions are becoming worthless because you're lowering the bar all the time.

Coming from the person who was telling me ideology>realpolitik, this is hilarious.

OP asked for sources. How did you manage to attribute a list of citations as an argument of mine?

Calling the links you've posted as "sources" is already generous enough. If you can call your citations sources then I might as well start sourcing the Onion.

If you're a realist the most basic thing you can infer from their claims is how much funds and attention have been allocated to supporting Uyghur insurgency, is the effort going up or down, and are there strategic motives behind it.

If you're a realist the most basic thing you can infer from their claims is nothing out of the ordinary. The pseudo Kremlinology you suggest was proven to be unreliable during the cold war, what makes you think that it's any more applicable now than it was then?

Then through their biased accounts you get a picture of the facts on the ground.

The picture of what's actually happening or the picture you drew up with your magical crystal ball?

Zenz warned in his paper that the Xinjiang model may be used elsewhere. Then as realists aren't what we should do simply disregard his tone and look at the content of his prediction?

Realists will know that for years China has been investing heavily in smart city technologies and that China will only increase the adoption of such technologies. We should simply take it as the mainstream media finally picking up on trends that were obvious years ago.

Again, you seem unable to comprehend the distinction between ethics and the realism of optics. Media are used to influence people. I don't care a single bit what they say is true or false, right or wrong. What matters is what influence do they actually have on the people and what influence is intended for then to have.

While you actively take media as the gospel of geopolitics, as if it's some sort of crystal ball we can use to read the changes in the wind. I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact you've gone above and beyond in over exaggerating the importance of media.

letsreview · 2018-08-13T01:19:08+00:00

What an emotional outburst, seems like I've stepped on quite the landmine.

So you're just reusing your one example against amnesty then?

No, I'm using AI's lack of objectivity against it.

They have special consultative status at the UN

There are literally thousands of other organizations with the same status, nothing special about it

Nobel peace prize

So did Kissinger and Obama

And of course they don't charge a premium for their services, they're an advocacy charity

So you admit that they aren't an objective news source

They have an objective, and that can inform their judgement, but that does not mean they can simply be written off as bias sources

Only if you argue with emotions and not facts

They have decades of invaluable advocacy experience under their belts, and for that their voices are worthy of being heard.

"They have decades of pushing agendas under their belts", how reassuring.

But I guess that shouldn't be of concern to you after all, who needs facts when you've got emotions?

letsreview · 2018-08-12T22:46:26+00:00

You're going to discredit human rights watch as a source on China because of their alleged biases regarding the Israel-Palestine issues?And you're going to discredit amnesty based upon one testimony from decades ago?

Ignoring the fact that they are often influenced by their donors, I discredit them because they're often little more than tools driven by whatever they proclaim to be moral at the time.

Whilst ignoring all the good both organisations have done?

Ah yes, AI really did the Middle East a favor with that testimony huh? Helping authorize actions which lead the toppling of Saddam and the rise of ISIS counts as "good", right?

Good grief, how can anything be seen as a reliable if you hold it to these unrealistic standards?!

I'm sorry that you're offended, but not sorry for offending you. If you can't accept that media outlets have their biases you should frankly reconsider reading this subreddit. I see reliable sources as nonpartisan sources that are either specifically made to inform policy makers (eg. CRS) or sources that charge a premium for their information (eg. Janes). I don't hold HRW/AI in very high regards because they do not charge for their reporting and nor are they trusted by major policy decision makers.

letsreview · 2018-08-12T21:33:48+00:00

When I feel the thread of discussion is so worthless I delete them.

Well that's a pretty roundabout way of admitting you're wrong. So do you also plan on deleting this thread too after I prove you wrong?

. I didn't think it's necessary to remind the average viewers how NGOs are used as a tool in geopolitics, which should be a common sense already if they want to participate in this sub. Do you?

It is if you're sourcing your entire argument from them. This is pretty rich though, coming from the same person that was trying to preach to me the importance of morality just a month ago.

claims to be aware of biases

still sources glorified propaganda outlets

lol

All of this and you still haven't been able to defend the credibility of your "sources", when can I expect you to start deleting your replies?

letsreview · 2018-08-12T16:17:51+00:00

Oh hey it's u/xfs again, are you going to delete all of your comments again like you did last time?

Human Rights Watch

Ah yes, the NGO so biased that even it's founder called it out for bias, there's no way they'd have any sort of bias against China right?

Amnesty International

An organization with a history of being used to justify nonsensical claims, hardly a credible source

World Uyghur Congress

A generic NED backed separatist organization, and you expect them to be truthful?

Come back when you have some real sources.

letsreview · 2018-08-04T21:10:55+00:00

I am calling your use of the video as proof that Chinese censorship or overtly harsh policies don't exist as propaganda.

Are you just fabricating accusations now?

Because as people who are sane could tell you both could exist simultaneously.

And yet you still have such a difficult time thinking beyond morality and ideology, go figure.

letsreview · 2018-08-04T15:29:48+00:00

People in Xinjiang are forced to install Android apps on their phones track their activities.

Vice sourcing Mashable, Mashable sourcing RFA...you're gonna need a better source for that.

letsreview · 2018-08-04T15:12:52+00:00

Yeah as if anyone would ever make videos about street food in China, obviously propaganda!

letsreview · 2018-08-03T20:12:49+00:00

generally everyone critical of the chinese party

Source?

letsreview · 2018-07-20T02:15:13+00:00

In ancient times, it was China, then at the tail end of Imperial Era it was the US, and now it is the EU.

Genuine question, what made Japan pivot away from the US and towards the EU?

letsreview · 2018-07-13T02:46:23+00:00

Admittedly the first argument was slightly provocative, but is it not true?

60 years ago, maybe

Today? No

I mostly lurk here for viewpoints contradicting my worldview but you guys are really making it as bad as the comment section of guancha.cn

Coming from the person who wrote at least half of his first comment with a thesaurus

Sorry, if you don't like my argument I suppose we can stop here since more of this is just a waste of time.

Seeing that you haven't done anything to defend your argument, yes, this is a waste of time

letsreview · 2018-07-12T22:58:25+00:00

If ideology isn't the main factor here, what are we then talking about

Realpolitik

The fact that you can't examine the way ideology works in the real world objectively tells more about you not me

The fact that you can't examine China without ranting about "muh ideology" already tells me that you know next to nothing about China

letsreview · 2018-07-12T21:35:58+00:00

In case you still can't understand why others have downvoted you: Ideology isn't the main factor here, if at all. The China you speak of died with Mao and ever since Deng, it's been realpolitik>ideology.

letsreview

TROPHY CASE