screw human rights - China is a menace to humanity!

[Mr. Harley]

UR - we got VERY lucky with SARS. Here's a site.

http://203.157.19.193/Seminar17/19May47/RoomA/13.00/Jurai/Jurai_SARS&Avian_flu.pdf

Transmission of 20-50%, fatality rate of 9.6%. If we had not just squeaked by, that kills up to 300 million people (half of 9.6% roughly). Luckily, it's incubation period is just slow enough that it was stopped. If it had been one of those diseases that had a longer asymptotic transmission phase, it would have been the greatest pandemic of all time (because it would have been world wide). It actually may have been good for the world, but I would not appreciate the personal affects - it would very likely get some of my family, all three sisters and my brother work in health care.

You are right about malaria, the problem with people getting as scared about malaria is that it does not affect most of the world, and you are talking about countries that are sadly used to dealing with that kind of fatality rate. Same with diarrhea. Bluntly one of the world problems with population, predicted a long time ago, was that giving the benefits of modern medicine and food distribution to cultures that have not made the steady transition from pre-industrial to post-industrial (which includes not only the West but China also) fertility rates is a recipe for disaster. Sadly, they were right, and moronic anti-family planning rules, like those pushed by the Bush adminstration on the UN and other interenational aid groups, definitely don't help.

[SlowwHand]

Bush didn't need to push that thought on China.
Believe it or not, Bush isn't the creator of all things ignorant.

Ask Al Gore, creator of the internet.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Ask Al Gore, creator of the internet.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-05-04-gore-webby_x.htm

[Kuciwalker]

Re: Re: screw human rights - China is a menace to humanity!

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
While some people are screaming about a hypothetical epidemic, most don't even know that millions will die from malaria alone this year, most of them African children. Furthermore, this year hundreds of thousands will die because they don't have access to clean water. Again, most of them will be African children.

Of course, none of these compares to a hypothetical epidemic.

Way to change the subject

[DaShi]

I take it back. UR definitely knows what a strawman is. This should be in a dictionary or something.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Tingkai


People the world over think that way.

But in China it's policy. There's no protection from it. As mindeye states, it's not normal in China to think any other way. But other places in the world do see this as dangerous, counterproductive, and simply wrong.

[GePap]

Originally posted by DaShi


But in China it's policy. There's no protection from it. As mindeye states, it's not normal in China to think any other way. But other places in the world do see this as dangerous, counterproductive, and simply wrong.

Really? Which?

Those namby pamby Eurocoms? BAH!

[DaShi]

Do you it is right that personal profit takes primacy over public welfare?

[GePap]

Originally posted by DaShi
Do you it is right that personal profit takes primacy over public welfare?

No. I am all for comprehensive public health policy and health care.

But I do see how most people are more then willing to place their personal profit above a nebelous idea such as "public welfare"

[DaShi]

Originally posted by GePap


No. I am all for comprehensive public health policy and health care.

But I do see how most people are more then willing to place their personal profit above a nebelous idea such as "public welfare"

Well, that's what is the norm in Chinese society. Neither mindseye nor myself have claimed this makes them evil. You and Che have already passed that judgement. We're simply stating the nature of Chinese society and occasionally whether we agreed with it or not.

[GePap]

What judgement have I passed on you or mindseye? Don;t go putting statements in my mouth.

I passed judgement on Kuci.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by GePap
What judgement have I passed on you or mindseye? Don;t go putting statements in my mouth.

I passed judgement on Kuci.

I'm sorry, if I was unclear. I was referring to the judgement that you've made on China's society.

[mindseye]

Originally posted by Geronimo


please clarify. How is the decision to grow GM crops in any way comparable to a decision to use human antiviral drugs on chickens?

Sorry, you missed my point, I'll clarify.

I was not trying to say GM crops compare in danger. I was trying to show that this is not an unusual decision for Chinese farmers. GM rice is currently illegal to use in China because testing has not been completed. Yet farmers are already using it because it increases their yield (you can easily buy it on "under the table"). As in the case of anti-biotics, there really is no care given to anything outside of personal gain.

[Mr. Harley]

Slowhand, not quite sure about your post. I'm not saying Bush pushed anything on China - they have done an excellent job of dropping their birthrate to a postindustrial level fater than any other country in the world, including the West. Their methods are something that I can disagree with, but given their situation I cannot say they were wrong, per se. I blame Bush for interfering with international family planning programs that do not meet the criteria set by the Christian right in the US, even when those programs are working.

[mindseye]

Originally posted by Tingkai

People the world over think that way. About 300 years ago, Adam Smith pointed out that the butcher does not sell meet for the good of the community. He does it to make money.

Sure, but not to the extremes found in China. There are few other places in the world I know of where, for instance, multiple companies manufacture and sell fake, nutrition-free baby food which results in dead babies. Or where medical staff would refuse to help a girl with a knife sticking out of her back because she didn't have enough cash on her for a deposit (Chinese emergency rooms often refuse any form of assistance until they see the cash).

It's part of the general (mainland) Chinese worldview to value highly those people you personally know, but to care not at all about strangers (or people you have authority over: see Chinese bosses).

This results in Chinese arriving at different decisions than westerners in given situations. The differences become stark in extreme situations in which small or even trivial personal gain comes at very high public price.

As I said before, you see this in a myriad of ways, great and small, everyday in China. Whether it's red light-running motorists charging full speed through crowds of pedestrians (i.e. strangers), deliberately poisoning municipal drinking water to save a little on chemical disposal costs (deliberately, as in employing lookouts to turn off the waste valves when inspectors come down the road), rampant disregard for intellectual property rights, poisoning your competitor's customers because his business is better than yours, refusal to assist people in dire situations ... you can even see it in little things like elevator behavor.

This phenomenon is simply a part of the tapestry of Chinese society, if you want to live here, you have to do your best to adjust to it. And that can be a challenge for westerners, who typically value the welfare of strangers higher than Chinese do.

As I mentioned before, if you want to learn more about this aspect of Chinese society, check out Lu Xun's writings on "ma mu" ("indifference"), which he considered a major problem in Chinese culture.

Of course there are exceptions. You, undoubtably, are working for free in China out of the goodness of your heart because you want to improve the welfare of the Chinese people.

I'm not following you here, sport. Can you explain how my accepting pay for teaching English harms the public's welfare?