- cross-posted to:
- genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
Please don’t put any hate comments against the developers of lemmy or against the person who posted this.
I am also unhappy about what the main lemmy instance is doing.
What are your thoughts?
FediTips and the commenters in that thread make some good points. The fact that this Lemmy instance federates with Lemmygrad (which, if you look at the front page, is full of denialism about the Uyghur genocide) is an atrocity.
And yes, https://lemmy.ml/modlog does indeed have some questionable entries, such as:
I created the Conservatism community, not knowing that Lemmy (lemmy.ml) became a leftist instance. (Lemmy was not explicitly leftist when I made my account in July 2020. Look at this archive of the front page from November 2020, which does not include the word leftist in the sidebar.) Fine, whatever. But, removing the Libertarian community with the rationale “No conservative communities allowed”? I don’t understand that. That’s not even politically accurate.
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Frankly, I’m just not accustomed to what Lemmy (lemmy.ml) is. When you look at most of the services in the fediverse, the “main” instance (usually the biggest one maintained by the developers) is not explicitly political in the way that Lemmy (lemmy.ml) is. For example, in Mastodon, that would be mastodon.social and its successor mastodon.online.
mastodon.online has rules restricting the discussion of egregious topics such as discrimination of protected classes, Nazi symbolism, holocaust denial, etc., but does not declare a broad political position for its entire community. In general, it tries to be a “big tent” and only limits what is necessary to keep the environment non-toxic.
I or someone else could create a libertarian instance of Lemmy, but what I’d really love to see is a “big tent” instance of Lemmy that doesn’t restrict political discussion reasonably close to the center of the Overton window.
(And to clarify, I understand that alt-right groups have tried to appropriate the term libertarian and misuse it to describe things that are not libertarian at all. I strongly disagree with them. The alt-right is not libertarian, but very much the opposite in most cases.)
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I totally agree that it’s healthier for the fediverse to stay decentralized. But instances don’t have to restrict participation to a certain section of the political spectrum to achieve that. I think there’s space for multiple general-interest instances in the fediverse without needing any one of them to dominate the community.
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Having no moderation is definitely a non-starter, since the community would eventually devolve to something like 4chan. I’m just wishing for a Lemmy instance where center-left and center-right folks could interact and discuss general topics, some of which may be political. Politics intersects with so many areas, so having strong political restrictions would really limit the type of discussions that the instance could have.
The Lemmy developers have no obligation to create such a space, you’re right about that. But the Lemmy software is pretty great, and it would be nice to be able to point interested newcomers to an active Lemmy instance where they can talk about a variety of common topics, without alienating a large chunk of these people.
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In addition to what @poVoq@lemmy.ml said, also read the thread What is Lemmy.ml which discusses this topic.
Thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate this paragraph:
One of the concerns that FediTips raised was that they weren’t sure whether Lemmy developers/admins would condone a “mainstream” Lemmy instance. This is a relief to read.
Wikipedia is not a source bruh. In the introductory paragraph on the uyghur genocide article they say that thousands of mosques have been destroyed… But don’t mention they have been rebuilt to accommodate more people or because they weren’t up to code. There are more mosques in Xinjiang alone in 2021 than there are in all of Europe lol.
Wikipedia has a clear agenda and this is clear from looking at their board of directors and demographics. They are not a source and neither are their sources - - they are carefully curated to offer a specific analysis.
Even US state department denies the Uyghur genocide. Give it a rest already.
You are aware that this is just about semantics? It’s not about if those crimes against humanity that some call genocide are happening, it is if those crimes against humanity should be called genocide or differently. Stop gaslighing.
“The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide,…”
Some more quote from the article:
“Secretary Blinken and I have made clear that genocide has been committed against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang,”
“I have determined that the People’s Republic of China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China, targeting Uyghur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,”
“For example, the torture, rape and sexual violence committed against Uyghurs likely constitute genocide ‘by causing serious bodily and mental harm’—the second type of genocide recognized by the Convention,
“More than 1 million Uighurs have been detained in reeducation camps, and many have reportedly been subjected to forced labor and sterilization. China has committed numerous crimes listed in the convention as acts of genocide, including the prevention of births and infliction of bodily or mental harm on members of a group and the compulsory separation of children from their communities, according to human rights groups.”
What I’m aware of is that there is no credible evidence of any sort of genocide happening in Xinjiang. The millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”. CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, but their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.” Furthermore, it doesn’t even make sense from logistics perspective. You’d need a detention city the size of San Francisco to detain one million Uighurs.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he’s the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I’m talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it’s clear that the methodology of his “research” doesn’t pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It’s also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here’s George Bush’s chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED recently admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here’s an excerpt:
Furthermore, a recent joint research report on Xinjiang from multiple academic institutions in Italy states that U.S. is exploiting this issue seeking geopolitical benefits in the name of human rights.
Anybody who still peddles Xinjiang genocide narrative at this point is either utterly ignorant or is willfully spreading misinformation.
Why is it always the same rhetorical methods you (are you ML?) people use?
Telling someone they are wrong, and they just need to read a bit more into it. Then they read a bit more into it, from the source you linked and notice that your entire argument is nothing but manipulative but they anyway use the arguments from the very source you linked as a means to show you how pointless your comment was…and then, like nearly always, people like you will then argue: no, no, all false: read this very long thread.
I did read some threads on that subject from some MLs already. They all had one thing in common:
forced labor is actually something good in this case. But look this is an ideological debate. You think it’s good, I think it’s bad. There’s no point debating that I should change my value system.
You haven’t addressed a single point that I made, and now you’ve shifted from talking about genocide to forced labor which nobody here is defending. You’re clearly not interested in having a good faith discussion here.
Have a good day.
I did. I addressed your original point. Then you wanted to talk about something else and I said, no, I’m not going to follow you into this rabbit hole, let’s first stick to the original point. If anytime someone makes an argument that makes your argument become logical inconsistent, you start to distract with something else, no point following you into the rabbit hole. Because all you want is to win, but I don’t gonna join your rules.
here just so you don’t miss it out, here’s how I respond to your original point: https://lemmy.ml/post/78808/comment/74761
No, you literally didn’t address any of my points. I explained that the source for your claims is not credible. I provided the context of what’s terrorism in Xinjiang and US involvement. I’ve also provided an independent report from Italy stating that US claims are politically motivated. You addressed none of that, and then shifted your argument. You are a troll.
I used YOUR source that YOU used for YOUR claim. Without you using it as a source, I would have never used it as such.
I ONLY used it as a means to proof the manipulative character of your argumentation. Me not following your rhetoric lead, is just me not joining your gaslighting.
fine, so let’s make it a circle.
you and your original point that links to this only source that I used within this discourse:
me:
[then quotes from the source that you used to suggest that genocide is non-existential]
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xD. I get the Joke @TheAnonymouseJoker. Hope you wont get to much downovtes by those not understanding the actual joke. xD Because this might not be obvious to others reading here I give a short explanation:
It’s a common practice by tankies and of those who come at their defense, to make some claim/question about “shit lib” or CIA, and it doesn’t matter if it fits the current argument or not. Usually some conspiracy follow after that.
The joke here is to make a pun out of that behavior, by injecting that “CIA” claim at a moment it just doesn’t servers well.
And here’s why: Someone tried to gaslight an political opponent by linking to an article that they claim to be about “Even US state department denies the Uyghur genocide”. So all I did is to quote some parts of the text, as a means to break the gaslighting spell. And now, the source that was original used to prove that that genocide did not happen, if used by a non-tankie it is CIA propaganda shit libs believe in. And because this art of debate is so absurd, it creates some laughter for some. On the other hand it is also very anoying, because you can’t have any serious logical consistent debate with anyone who argues like that.
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Wondering how someone making a semantic mistake is textbook gaslighting lol.
Do you think Zenz is also gaslighting people btw?
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You’re just playing word games here. Insufficient evidence means there is no ground to claim that there is a genocide happening. This is coming from the lawyers of a country that’s actively pushing the genocide narrative. If you bothered looking at my follow up comment, I provide a lot more evidence to support what I’m saying.
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Nobody is changing any meanings here or gaslighting you. Insufficient evidence literally means that they do not have evidence. You’re the one changing definitions here while accusing others of lying. There has to be a positive proof of something happening, otherwise you’re just asking to prove a negative. It’s quite obvious that you do in fact want to play word games here.
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You just keep repeating the same thing over and over here. You’re also conveniently ignoring my follow up comment that provides a lot more context and sources other than US such as the recent report from Italy stating that the narrative is politically motivated.
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