You're underestimating the number of HN users with a Chinese background or some China connection (work, marriage, family, travel, study) whose experiences have led them to hold different views than you do. That's perfectly legitimate, and the idea that they must automatically be propaganda accounts is deeply inhumane. I don't want to work on a site where that sort of poison—including the poison in your comment—is considered ok.
My GP comment links to cases where users were abused and even hounded off this site by ethnic/national mob behaviors. Those users were innocent—the evidence for this was overwhelming. It was the mobs who were at fault. I think that's shameful. Like most HN users, I sympathize with underdogs, and seeing people get ganged up on gets my dander up. I'm confident that the vast majority of the community here would agree with me about that—at least when their own passions (and fears) aren't activated. None of us want to be that sort of community, but it can easily end up that way by default, so we need to take conscious care to avoid it.
I've asked FooBarWidget to stop posting exclusively in China-related arguments, because that's against the site guidelines in its own right, but that's hardly proof of, or even an iota of evidence for, the cloak-and-dagger fantasies that internet users love to sling at people in minority positions. Those accusations are against the HN guidelines for deep and good reasons. Therefore you can't post like this here, and I've banned the account.
One sign of how foolish these fantasies are is the certainty with which internet warriors declaim them. They never weigh evidence or consider other possibilities. It's always "demonstrably and with certainty"! What good fortune to be surrounded by enemies who are so evil, yet so dumb as to give themselves away at every turn. It's the best of all worlds: a chicken in every pot, a communist under every bed, and a spy (or three) in every internet thread.
What's poignant is that the users who get abused so dramatically in Western forums like this are often the very ones trying to defend and articulate the West to their communities back home—where they no doubt encounter similarly xenophobic feelings on the other side. They're in an impossible position. You don't have to agree with them, but you do have to drop the Boris and Natasha routine if you want to post to this forum. It is cartoonish and incurious, and would be silly if not for its malicious effects.
My GP comment links to cases where users were abused and even hounded off this site by ethnic/national mob behaviors. Those users were innocent—the evidence for this was overwhelming. It was the mobs who were at fault. I think that's shameful. Like most HN users, I sympathize with underdogs, and seeing people get ganged up on gets my dander up. I'm confident that the vast majority of the community here would agree with me about that—at least when their own passions (and fears) aren't activated. None of us want to be that sort of community, but it can easily end up that way by default, so we need to take conscious care to avoid it.
I've asked FooBarWidget to stop posting exclusively in China-related arguments, because that's against the site guidelines in its own right, but that's hardly proof of, or even an iota of evidence for, the cloak-and-dagger fantasies that internet users love to sling at people in minority positions. Those accusations are against the HN guidelines for deep and good reasons. Therefore you can't post like this here, and I've banned the account.
One sign of how foolish these fantasies are is the certainty with which internet warriors declaim them. They never weigh evidence or consider other possibilities. It's always "demonstrably and with certainty"! What good fortune to be surrounded by enemies who are so evil, yet so dumb as to give themselves away at every turn. It's the best of all worlds: a chicken in every pot, a communist under every bed, and a spy (or three) in every internet thread.
What's poignant is that the users who get abused so dramatically in Western forums like this are often the very ones trying to defend and articulate the West to their communities back home—where they no doubt encounter similarly xenophobic feelings on the other side. They're in an impossible position. You don't have to agree with them, but you do have to drop the Boris and Natasha routine if you want to post to this forum. It is cartoonish and incurious, and would be silly if not for its malicious effects.