Turn out, partial ownership by chinese company is not a good thing...
- Thread starter meiam
- Start date
The difference is that the rise of the Nazis had very little to do with the nation being capitalist but was due to the state Germany was left in as a result of WWI giving them the ability to exploit Nationalist ideals to come to power, not capitalist ones. Genocidal Communist regimes on the other hand tend to come about as a direct result of giving the party more and more power in order to attempt to implement communist theory into practice. If the Nazis had been created by a corporation growing too powerful and taking over would serve as a better counter point to communism. However, even if we do take at face value Nazis=capitalism, the communists still have the Nazis beat several times over in terms of genocide.
But none of this matters anymore. There are no capitalists or communists. There are only crabs. Crabs holding long handled brushes to clean the places their claws can't reach and wearing little shower caps for no discernable reason. ALL HAIL THE SHOWER CRABS!
But none of this matters anymore. There are no capitalists or communists. There are only crabs. Crabs holding long handled brushes to clean the places their claws can't reach and wearing little shower caps for no discernable reason. ALL HAIL THE SHOWER CRABS!
I think you'll find the Communists only took power in countries that had suffered plenty of trauma and misrule, too. (Or were installed after invasion by other Communist nations.) It's not like they were happy and stable regimes where the population popped along to the voting booth one day and decided en masse "Hey, y'know, I quite like the sound of the name Karl Marx, let's see what they can do!"Silent Protagonist said:
For my part I imagined a crab sitting in a bathtub then suddenly having a revelation and then running out into the streets shouting, "Eureka! Walk FORWARDS and BACKWARDS!"Silent Protagonist said:
On the one hand, Blizzard definitely over-reacted in my opinion and have only made things worse from a PR perspective since. However, I kinda feel sorry for the asshats in that the growing economic power of China is forcing companies to bend over backwards or jump through hoops if they want to make any money in that market. Not just Blizzard, but most any game companies, airlines, travel agencies and even the NBA are getting caught up in China's push to exercise their economic muscles to force compliance for _their_ preferences and political desires. It's something of a no-win situation for them.
Adding in the way China has no problem playing the old superpower gambit of trapping smaller nations in debt-laden contracts to gain influence and using multiple avenues to push their preferred propaganda, things are getting worrisome, especially with the advent of international communications technology and the control mechanisms that China has also developed to gain social control over their own nation and spreading that influence as best they can throughout the world.
Things are definitely going to get ugly as we march towards our even more dystopian futures and China's economic might seems only likely to grow and their willingness to use it to force compliance on others grows along with it.
Adding in the way China has no problem playing the old superpower gambit of trapping smaller nations in debt-laden contracts to gain influence and using multiple avenues to push their preferred propaganda, things are getting worrisome, especially with the advent of international communications technology and the control mechanisms that China has also developed to gain social control over their own nation and spreading that influence as best they can throughout the world.
Things are definitely going to get ugly as we march towards our even more dystopian futures and China's economic might seems only likely to grow and their willingness to use it to force compliance on others grows along with it.
Disagree a bit there. Now, sure, if you want those Chinese megabucks, you need to kowtow to China. But there's plenty of markets around, if you really want to avoid China, you can. Not good for your bottom line, but not necessarily company ruining.davidmc1158 said:
Genocidal totalitarian, yeah no, thats right-wing. And I mean, do you really want to defend Stalin? The guy who helped Hitler take over Poland? Right-Wingers already love throwing Stalin at us as if we automatically like him because he called himself a communist. Stalin sucks.Agema said:
Saelune thinks right wing means evil and left wing means good. So when Agema says "Stalin was not right wing." they hear "Stalin was not evil." Saelune's rantings make a lot more sense once you realize their conception of left and right is not a rough spectrum of various socio-economic philosophies, but are simple stand ins for good and evil. That's why they have delude themselves into thinking anything they think is bad is right wing because left wing is good by definition.Thaluikhain said:
To be clear, nobody thinks you like Stalin, and nobody expects you to defend Stalin. Stalin gets thrown at you because you know Stalin sucks, and the idea is that you might go "oh, Stalin sucks and was a communist, so communists can suck."Saelune said:
My eyes are currently rolling so hard they're wearing away their sockets.Saelune said:
What do you really expect? I've spent years sitting here trying to disagree with people claiming Hitler was left-wing, and you think I'm just going to swallow the idea Stalin is right-wing? I really hate to break it to you, but lots of left-wingers have slaughtered their way through political opponents or even just inconvenient citizens minding their own business in the pursuit of ideological absolutism. Pol Pot. Stalin. Mao, take your pick amongst many others.
Acts of staggering brutality are a tool to coerce reluctant societies into compliance with policy, and it's not a tool only emplyoed by right-wingers. Left-wingers ignore this at their and everyone else's peril, otherwise there's every chance they'll end up trying it themselves.
I don't think Tencent's 4.8% stake in Activision Blizzard is the biggest issue here, though I'm sure it doesn't help. The problem is the amount of revenue that is generated in China.Meiam said:
Let's say Blizzard reverses course, with Activision's support, and gives the prize money back and updates its policies and allows any and all Hong Kong support. And China, as a result, institutes a country-wide ban on Activision Blizzard game sales, blocks all connections to Battle.net, etc. That's going to cost the company a *significant* amount of revenue (and profits) and create long term damage to the company's stock price.
The shareholders of the stock, who couldn't care less about Hong Kong, would absolutely take action over that decision, whether it would be threatening some type of shareholder lawsuit or courting a full-on corporate takeover of the company. In any event, if a decision from the Activision Blizzard executive team suddenly erased 50% of the stock's value because China suddenly bans the company, then I can pretty much guarantee you that the majority of shareholders (and probably the board of directors too) would immediately start looking to replace that entire executive team with new people that would do exactly what Blizzard is doing now.
I'm not saying what Blizzard is doing is right (it's not) or that I support their decision (I don't). I'm saying I've covered a fair number of shareholder lawsuits/revolts/takeovers and seen executive teams dumped for a whole lot less than what Blizzard is facing right now.
To circle back to my original point, Tencent isn't really the big issue -- it's the rest of the shareholders that Blizzard is afraid of.
Left-Wing = Pro-Human Rights.Silent Protagonist said:
The core idea of communism is to create equality by tearing down the evils of capitalism and greed. However due to those evils and how inherent they are in humans, it never works out and right-wing fascists like Stalin and Mao use it to conquer the common person.
When the right supports concentration camps, pedophiles, religious extremism, and keeping rights from women and LGBT people, all in the name of 'cause thats how it used to be', that is evil. When the left supports rights for women, for LGBT people, for all ethnicities, freedom FROM religion, and basic human living conditions, that is good.
It is people who try to argue that child rapists and child killers and White Supremacists deserve to be heard who are delusional.
Pretty much this. The sheer power shareholders have over companies is constantly overlooked. If a company does something that knowingly will cost those shareholders money, they can take legal action against them. Decisions like this are often a company trying to save itself from it's own shareholders, rather than them simply bowing to some other entity. Who those shareholders are is also often overlooked. If I recall, a hell of a lot of Activision-Blizzard's shares are owned by investment firms such as Blackrock and Vanguard Group. Investment firms are comically evil and don't give a damn about anything other than money, so you can pretty easily bet they wouldn't take well to China banning the company. I'm also not saying any of this is right or endorsing the decision, but it's more that the system itself is completely fucked than anything else.Exley97 said:
It's a combination of factors, in my opinion. On the one hand, you have the one actual responsibility of a company: to make money. China is the world's largest video game market, and any video game company has a responsibility to look at that market as a source of revenue and consider what they would need to do to get into that revenue stream. On the other hand, as China has emerged as a global superpower economically, they have pushed outwards with trying to influence other nations using their economic strength to their advantage. Where those two things intersect is outlined very well in post 54 above by Exley97.Thaluikhain said:
China knows it has the economic power to wield and it's just now coming to light for many corporations and national governments elsewhere just how much power that really means. Also, as other nations get puled into the debt-structures that China has been building in order to gain further and stronger influence worldwide, that economic power is just going to grow. But, how do you deal with it? How do you, as a company, maneuver your way through this mess without failing at the one thing you are supposed to do for the shareholders (make as much profit as possible)?
Welcome to the 21st century Catch 22. And that's all before you realize that China is also pushing forward on developing it's military power at the same time. China is determined to be a full-on world class superpower. The Middle Kingdom is rising again and the barbarians are going to be put back in their subordinate places once more.
I am not looking forward to these developments. And adding the surveillance technology and social control systems that China has also developed, I was not speaking flippantly about what's coming as dystopian.