A Death in the Family, ARCS Video Collaboration Workshop, China and the Olympics

[tcpip]

Just before we were about to head off to the second session of our fortnightly Call of Cthulhu game (Masks of Nyarlathotep, Horror on the Orient Express), caseopaya received a 'phone call that her brother had died at home the night before at the rather young age of 49. Although the cause of death has not yet been determined, he suffered from type II diabetes and had a nasty foot infection; I am guessing blood poisoning and subsequent septic shock at this stage. I had only spent a few days with the 200cm, 120 kg ex-biker with a surly morning mood, but I found him quite likeable (after 9.30am). He was a genuine person of substance who appreciated the same and clearly cared a great deal for his little kid sister and the feeling was reciprocated; caseopaya is currently making arrangement to go to Perth for the funeral.

Twice in the past fortnight I've had to attend the three-day ARCS Video Collaboration Workshop twice, once in Adelaide and once in Melbourne. Both went well, and I will never cease to be amazed by the endurance of Access Grid advocate Jason Bell who can, quite literally, talk for the better part of three days on the subject. For my own part, slides and notes of the presentation I gave are available. I've also put in a application to present to Linux Conf Australia where I'll try to summarise the three-day experience into a single session!

I readily admit upfront that I care little for the elite of competitive sports; I consider the real "medal count" of a country is the general level of activity and health, rather than how well a highly specialised select group performs. Australia may do very well in the Olympics, but when the average member of the population has questionable levels of fitness I think we are a failure rather than a success as a "sporting nation". This aside however, the media spotlight on China has been at least successful in uncovering how frightened this totalitarian dictatorship is of even modest criticism; spending $100 million USD on the opening ceremony where a sixth of the population lives on less than $2 USD per day is an obscenity. Whilst China itself has lost the media battle, in "free and democratic" Australia Channel 7 censored a Tibet advertisement; they (and some of their advertisers) will be receiving some terse correspondence from yours truly.

Comments

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

No snark/confrontation intended:

What do you have to say regarding the conditions of Tibet pre-Chinese hostile-takeover? What about the accusations of a theocratic dictatorship where the average citizen fared little better than the citizens of North Korea do now in terms of quality-of-life?

I'm not well-versed at all on the China/Tibet debate, and it seems like an issue where everyone falls on the side of Tibet, with the exception of a view voices whom you'd expect to deliberately be against the grain.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I think the conditions of life in Tibet prior to the Chinese takeover were terrible. It was a feudal theocracy with widespread slavery and the average citizen probably fared worse than contemporary North Korea.

Regardless of this however, all nations have the right of self-determination. I am not an advocate for or against Tibet's independence or integration into China. What I am in favour of is Tibetans being allowed to choose which path they take for their own country.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

What happens if that choice is wrong?
I mean, yay Tibet and all, but what happens if they seek self-determination and the nation is unable to support itself?

I have pondered this question a lot over the year or four.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

What happens if that choice is wrong?

Then they carry the responsibility for making a wrong choice and will have to rethink their decision.

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

Mmmm... Where do you draw the line, though? Is there a point at which the actions of a given nation or government demand action from the rest of the world? The hideous situation of North Korea, for example, is the kind of thing that would motivate me to action.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, one has to be extra-careful in this situation. The general (UN Security Council) rule of thumb is the international community should only act when a government's bad actions end up being a threat to neighbouring nations (this was the entire claim behind WMD in Iraq). Sometimes, due to the balance of world politics, getting the UN to move on a particular government can be fraught with difficulty. I have little problem, for example, with the Vietnamese government (acting against China and the US) deciding to invade Cambodia to remove Pol Pot - his regime was causing spillover effects into Vietnam and Laos (and Thailand for that matter).

In general however a dictatorial government is best overthrown by the people who have lived under it.

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

The general (UN Security Council) rule of thumb is the international community should only act when a government's bad actions end up being a threat to neighbouring nations (this was the entire claim behind WMD in Iraq).

I have to wonder about this policy. Will there be actions against Russia, do you think, for the ongoing combats in Georgia? What about the Sudan?

I wonder if the UN isn't hamstrung by it's own bureaucracy (which is necessitated by the interaction of so many nations and cultures, granted). I've read a few interpretations of law that say that Iraq wasn't even, by UN standards, a "sovereign nation" when the US/Coalition force invaded it this latest time, which takes a lot of the wind out of a lot of anti-war sails, in my opinion. (Then again, I'm one of few people who will admit to a [somewhat reluctant, in this case] pro-war stance)

In general however a dictatorial government is best overthrown by the people who have lived under it.

In this case, the ones who are starved, both of food and of information? The lifestyles of the North Koreans constitute an atrocity, a gross act of inhumanity by a shrewd, callous, morally bankrupt government. So long as we permit the deliberate starvation and illiteracy and totalitarian rule of the North Koreans, what justification or consistency do we have with regards to interactions anywhere else?

Perhaps the standard of "You're not harming anyone else, so do your own thing" is appropriate for an individual - "Stockpile weapons? Sure! Do drugs? Fine. Start shooting your neighbors? Police get called." - but is it really appropriate when we're talking about entire human lifetimes lived in abject misery, eating grass and caged like animals from the rest of the world? Especially in a time of unprecedented travel, freedom, and enlightenment through information sharing?

When does the standard change? When do we stop allowing one person, or small groups of people, to destroy the lives of others for nothing more than power's sake?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder about this policy. Will there be actions against Russia, do you think, for the ongoing combats in Georgia? What about the Sudan?

Russia is a member of the Security Council; thus any peace keeping actions have to be carried out with their agreement. Whilst the international community has hitherto ignored Ossetia's right to self-determination, I actually think the Russian intervention was largely welcomed by people in the region (the opposite applies to Chechnya)

So long as we permit the deliberate starvation and illiteracy and totalitarian rule of the North Koreans, what justification or consistency do we have with regards to interactions anywhere else?

I think the justification is "what do you want us to do?". Engaging in military intervention under the current circumstances is highly unlikely. China probably views NK as a buffer state. NK isn't exactly the sort of environment you want to fight a war in either.

At the moment I must say I prefer the south korean approach; break down NK's isolation, get the people on the north side the border to experience freedom and a decent standard of living.

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

At the moment I must say I prefer the south korean approach; break down NK's isolation, get the people on the north side the border to experience freedom and a decent standard of living.

Agreed, and for the record, I wasn't necessarily advocating a military approach to the issue. I was mostly just concerned about the idea of "national self-determination over all else," which was your justification for the freedom of Tibet, regardless of the situation it was in before the Chinese takeover.

Being that I haven't much love of the notion of "nations" to begin with, I don't know where our common ground will be about this. I honestly think that nations, and the emotions and dramas they create and inspire, are one of the largest detriments humanity faces at the moment, and that we (humans) ought to be turning our ethical and philosophical talents toward the task of being rid of them in favor of unification of "human" goals over "national" ones.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I agree that universal human rights transcend the contextual rights of national self-determination. All that latter means is that a population of a country is entitled to determine which state they live under.