Last week I talked with Freddie deBoer about his book Cult of Smart on my podcast. Anyone else read it? What did everyone think? https://narrativespodcast.com/2021/02/08/28-the-cult-of-smart-with-freddie-deboer/
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Book Review: Scientific Freedom by Don Braben
Cowering To Genocide: Uighur Persecution And The World’s Last Hope
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Also, I should mention, ideas that you think might have a higher chance of working are encouraged! This is a problem I think about a lot.
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Excellent job Solenoid. I love this!
Viliam/Mitchell-thank you both for reading!
I’m with Viliam-happy to debate terms/use less hyperbole, but very bad things are happening to Uighurs in Xinjiang right now. The purpose of this post is to encourage people to think of solutions outside of what is currently being done because none of it seems to be working.This might not be the correct solution, but at the very least folks need to know that it is possible to stop, the terrible things happening right now to people in Xinjiang.
If you believe you can make a positive change in the world, you have some shot at making it happen. If you don’t believe you have a chance, you have no shot.
This is by no means a high percentage play, but when you’re down 25 in the 3rd quarter you better believe and start throwing some deep balls. And sometimes, you’re able to make it happen.
I’m definitely afraid that this is the most likely outcome. It’s a classic collective action problem. It’s interesting that the NBA will take action on social issues, but you could look at those and say they’ll only do it if it helps them financially, not if it will actually affect the bottom line. It would take concerted efforts from players (such as Enes Kanter) to get them to do anything. You would only have to convince 400 people in the league to make something like this happen-much smaller than trying to move the state dept. etc.
You may be correct, that at the end of the day folks just don’t care about sports very much. If you think there is a core fanbase of around 100 million people rabid fans in China, I believe that may be enough to move the needle. Again, this is not a high percentage play, but I think it’s an interesting option, that’s higher than the other options I see on the board to try to prevent this really bad thing from happening.
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Ahh-great idea!
Great catch-thank you!
Yeah, it truly sucks. Incentives are all out of wack.
Thanks for taking the time to really engage with the post. This is the strongest argument against this, that’d they would just shut it off and folks really wouldn’t care. They did blackout some games, upload feeds later after they could make sure materials were scrubbed of #freehongkong, etc. A think a longer-term, more comprehensive ban would make people more upset.
This idea is not even really a solution, it’s more like a hail mary pass when you’re down 8 with 3 minutes left. Will it work? Probably not, but it sure is higher than running the ball (essentially our collective response at the moment).
I agree that there is surprising support for current internment from otherwise normal, nice people. I think putting a face on children separated from their mothers make help this. I also agree that we are not, in a broad sense significantly more moral people (look what we did at Gitmo etc). I do, however, have a sense that bad things happen in America, but generally (at least compared to other places), once they get enough media exposure we correct them. Perhaps this is just a naive view of mine, but it’s strongly held.