
Li Wenliang - Anon84
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang
======
simonh
Understandably there’s a lot of anger directed against the police and
administrators that censored Dr Li. Of course they will be convicted of
corruption or misconduct or something, but that just makes them victims too.
They were doing their jobs exactly the way they were trained and incentivised
to do it. I’m not justifying them, actively supporting a corrupt system is a
corrupt thing to do, but them being punished by the system they worked for is
bullshit.

I just hope Chinese people realise that the censorship of their protests about
this is exactly the same as the censorship of Dr Li. It’s the same system run
by the same people for the same reasons.

It’s crap like this that the HK protesters are trying to keep out of HK. Most
Chinese mainlanders swallowed the party line about HK. I hope this gives them
cause to reconsider that attitude.

~~~
tomphoolery
> but them being punished by the system they worked for is bullshit.

It's not bullshit, it's comeuppance. This is what happens when you just follow
orders. The punishment fits the crime.

~~~
derefr
So, in your opinion, being coerced to kill someone with a gun to your own head
would make you guilty of a crime? Most systems of law disagree.

There is a large difference between "orders" that disobedience to results in
being fired, or a dishonorable discharge from a military; and "orders" that
disobedience to results in being disappeared. The latter is plain-and-simple
coercion, no different than being held hostage and being told to do something
by your hostage-taker.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> So, in your opinion, being coerced to kill someone with a gun to your own
> head would make you guilty of a crime? Most systems of law disagree.

I'm not so sure about this. There are many legal and law-like systems that
would agree you've done something wrong by committing the murder, even if you
had a good reason.

I'd expect more agreement as to the idea that punishment should be light than
that your behavior wasn't wrong in the first place.

------
whatshisface
Hopefully Americans are by now completely inoculated against the idea of
having systems in place to stop people from "making false comments on the
Internet." The Chinese now have a very bad situation on their hands with no
clear ways for them to improve it, but America is not there yet.

~~~
heartbeats
Ha-ha, no. Rather the opposite - after all, we need some kind of system to
prevent anti-vax disinformation from undermining our public health response.

EDIT: Yes, this is satire.

~~~
seibelj
If someone made it illegal to post anti-vax statements, it would just embolden
people to do it more. That's just how human psychology works. It's also the
most ridiculous, knee-jerk reactionary power we could possibly give the
government.

~~~
jbay808
By this reasoning, China censoring doctors who warned about the flu was merely
very effective reverse-psychology in order to get people to take it seriously?

I don't support internet censorship, but I do support consistency of
reasoning.

------
aristophenes
As soon as he started feeling sick he booked a hotel room to keep his pregnant
wife and child from getting it. Respect.

------
thedudeabides5
Wasn't this just top of the front page? Now it's not even on like page 5? What
gives?

Is there admin over-ride to what's on the front page and did this get
censored?

~~~
keanzu
There's an 'overheated discussion detector' but as far as I know the precise
mechanism isn't described.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089)

------
Aperocky
Is this thread being hidden and if so, why?

~~~
tpmx
I guess something along the lines of "this thread may disrupt the harmony of
our shared society" or similar.

------
leoh
Obviously his censorship by the Chinese government was dumb and harmful and
obviously he was right about the virus. But I don't quite understand how an
opthalmologist would be equipped to identify Coronavirus. Does anyone have the
details here?

~~~
snapetom
He didn't identify Coronavirus specifically. He initially called them SARS
cases. The message to his colleagues was along the line of, "hey, there's
something going on here. We're seeing SARS again." After that, he was called
into the police department for "rumormongering."

------
tpmx
Well, it will certainly be interesting to see how the moderators handle this
thread.

~~~
cliqueiq
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that.

~~~
tpmx
The conclusion was: bury it.

Not terribly surprising. Not terribly inspiring either.

------
foobar_
> After screenshots of his WeChat messages were shared on Chinese forum and
> gained huge attention, his manager talked to him, blaming him for leaking
> the information.

Managers playing the blame game as usual.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _Wuhan police summoned and admonished him for "making false comments on the
> Internet"._

I want everyone to think of this type of stuff when you hear someone
advocating for 1st amendment free speech exceptions.

It always starts innocent enough, such as protecting elections against fake
news, or stopping false vaccine scaremongering, etc...

but the laws will always, _always_ , eventually be used to silence those who
challenge the government. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS! KEEP YOUR RIGHTS!

------
sizzle
Would love to see a toxicology report that has some verifiable chain of
command element to rule out foul play from his unfortunate demise as a dissent
in that harsh political climate where having an unpopular opinion can result
in your life being ended.

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shmageggy
It would be nice to have some context in the title. As of right now just
seeing a name at the top of HN is effectively click bait.

------
jackallis
China therefore is not ready to be a global leader on anything.

~~~
jmcqk6
I have no idea what you're trying to say. There isn't some criteria you have
to meet in order to be a "global leader" beyond just doing things.

Chine is a global leader in a whole lot of things.

You're going to have a lot of trouble finding any country that doesn't do
shitty things. Turns out that's a people problem, not a governmental one.

~~~
datashow
Can you list the things China is a global leader in?

~~~
Panoramix
You mean like solar panels, drones and 5G? There's plenty of things

~~~
datashow
I did't expect you would name "global leader" in each of those items, that
would be a lot. Maybe ping pong as another one?

------
known
"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it"
\--Einstein

------
40acres
From the outside looking in the combination of Coronavirus response and Hong
Kong protests are the strongest challenges to the Communist Party legitimacy
I've ever seen. I think we're a long way from any possibility of downfall but
its been interesting to see the backlash from mainland citizens over Li's
death and even Xi go out and make public appearances to sure up the appearance
of control over the virus response.

~~~
theseadroid
Reading many Chinese sources made me doubt your assessment. Regular mainland
Chinese are not happy. But not to the point that they are thinking alternative
governance. Rather some of the anger are rooted with the expectation that the
Party can be better in future.

~~~
rini17
The trust can get irreparably broken, though. This happened in eastern Europe,
resistance was not an option so the result was widespread apathy and
stagnation instead.

~~~
Aperocky
> This happened in eastern Europe

And the results are in.

Would you like to live in 1970s Russia or 1990s Russia as an ordinary Russian?

~~~
rini17
So you imply China mentality is closer to Russian - if the party falls,
everything goes to hell?

I don't know, I was born in Czechoslovakia.

~~~
Aperocky
Czechoslovakia had the advantage of being a small country next to the EU.

China had the disadvantage of being the most populous country in the world.

In crisis, economic or otherwise, Czechoslovakia is much more likely and
capable of being rescued by the international community. China will need to
rely on itself if only because it is way too big for any kind of help to be
substantial and meaningful.

Thus the outcome will likely be even worse than Russia, which only has around
1/10th the population of China and an impressive natural resource reserve.

------
nyolfen
warning your close friends in a private chat group does not seem like the same
thing as whistleblowing imo

~~~
yurlungur
I think part of the reason why Li Wenliang's story stirred up such emotions is
that he wasn't really an activist with a righteous indignation, he was just a
normal citizen looking out for the people around him. That said, his action
effectively blew the whistle through the spread of information.

~~~
nyolfen
it seems more like the guy who leaked the screenshots and got him in trouble
is the whistleblower

------
mudil
As someone who came from the Soviet Union, I can attest that this is how
socialism with the government in charge looks like.

~~~
yes_man
Although we all get what you mean and respect your experience, let us not
confuse corrupted, oppressive, authoritarian single-party regimes with
"socialism" just because they call themselves "socialist" or "communist"
states. Especially in case of China, whose economy these days is de facto
capitalism with strong rule of government

~~~
mudil
Well, Soviet Union was pure socialism.

~~~
kelnos
It was also a corrupt, repressive, single-party, authoritarian regime, which
was the important ingredient for its badness and eventual downfall. Its
economic policy likely just made it fail faster, which I think is what sets
China apart and has made it more successful. That, and more-advanced
technology that has made mass surveillance more practical.

~~~
TheFiend7
It comes back to distribution of power and if you believe power is all
corrupting or not.

You either have some guys in charge managing things, or you attempt a
distributed/mob rules mentality in regards to policies and legislation. Either
way in a socialistic system the government is THE governing body, and there
aren't really any checks and balances other than the very body managing it.
Which goes back to the question of whether or not you can trust the
government.

IMHO the debate between the extreme right and extreme left is more about
philosophy than policy.

~~~
kelnos
Is the lack of checks and balances a necessary feature of a socialist
government, or is it just that the Soviet Union didn't have checks and
balances, by design?

~~~
TheFiend7
Socialism lacks checks and balances because it's a decentralized/distributed
model of rule. Now in reality it's possible the military could exist as a
pseudo "check and balance". But checks and balances do not exist as a defined
construct in socialism, by being distributed it argues it doesn't need checks
and balances, because it's run by the people.

Secondly checks and balances are arguably anti-socialism even, because it
would introduce a backdoor/round-a-bout way of enacting rule that wasn't
endorsed and driven by the people. So no, the lack of checks and balances
isn't just a Soviet Union thing, it's a socialism thing, otherwise it isn't
true socialism.

------
_bxg1
And we've had our own disease outbreak (measles) because of a _refusal_ to
remove actual false statements from the internet.

There is no simple solution. The mechanism that allows disinformation to be
mitigated also opens the door for abuse.

~~~
breck
I think we all need a little humility on how good our medical information is.
It is bad. Very bad. We've had success with using math and science in domains
like chemistry and manufacturing and think that we can apply it directly to
human biology. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Human beings are far more
complex than anything we make (look at how many cells your body produces every
second, and how much information is in each one of those cells), and we don't
have the luxury of massive, repeatable experiments.

Our current data tools are nowhere near good enough for us to be so confident
in most domains of medicine, such as vaccination.

I get vaccines, but I support someone's write to abstain. It's a bit of a leap
of faith and "authorities" have a long track record of giving terrible medical
advice all the time. Here are 4 loosey goosey examples: currently 2 million
opioid disorders with hundreds of thousands of deaths stemming from
"prescriptions"; $100's of billions in revenue to depression drugs which have
been terribly ineffective, and only now, after decades of banning them, is
USGOV allowing psychedelic trials, which seem to cure people in a session, for
next to nothing; the food groups—a lot of good nutrition advice has done;
stress is a top of cause of medical problems and the top cause of stress is
financial problems from health expenses!

We don't need to "remove actual false statements from the internet". Instead
we need to figure out how to actually put true statements on the internet. And
no one I've seen is close to figuring that out.

~~~
_bxg1
> Our current data tools are nowhere near good enough for us to be so
> confident in most domains of medicine, such as vaccination.

I think you're conflating things like nutrition with the whole of biology.
There are lots of things we understand quite well, and have _mountains_ of
data on, and vaccines are one of the best examples of those.

Nutrition science is famously unreliable, but there are reasons for that
beyond just the intrinsic complexity of the domain itself:

\- It grabs headlines because it's something individuals can control
themselves, and because it has a direct relationship to mass-market priorities
like physical appearance. So the media jumps at every opportunity to
sensationalize a study that may not actually be making any bold claims.

\- Billions of dollars are funneled by megacorps into sham studies that
pollute the discourse, for their own profit-seeking motives.

All three factors can also apply to drugs, _especially_ mental-directed ones
(because the human psychology is a whole other layer of complexity). The
opioid crisis had nothing to do with the science, but with greed and
addiction. The drugs themselves were safe; you can overdose on anything.

But none of these apply to vaccines. Their relationship to the human body is
comparatively simple. They aren't a home-remedy. They aren't (relatively
speaking) a big business. They also aren't some new, unproven technology. They
are one of the most widely-deployed and successful medical inventions ever
created by man. There are few things in the world that we have _so much_
conclusive data around.

There's plenty of true information on the internet. The past several years
have made it abundantly clear that true information does not win out against
false information rooted in fear. Don't be part of the problem.

~~~
breck
> There are lots of things we understand quite well, and have mountains of
> data on, and vaccines are one of the best examples of those.

Point me to this "mountains of data" in a usable form. There should be a site
right, that contains a simple big table of all vaccinations administered
worldwide and how the results went? I don't want to see some static PDF with a
paltry 10,000 data points. We are all savyy programmers here and know that a
relatively simple table could be created so any parent can do a simple single
query against all the world's medical live data to see if vaccines are safe,
right?

That would be science. That would be Six Sigma.

But I can't do that. So I need to take a bet on who to believe: scientists
pushing non-science or non-scientists. I recently talked to some doctors here
who recently were in Samoa helping the Measles outbreak there. Two children
died from getting vaccines there in 2018 ([https://www.immune.org.nz/hot-
topic/infant-deaths-samoa-trag...](https://www.immune.org.nz/hot-topic/infant-
deaths-samoa-tragic-outcome-error-preparing-mmr-vaccine)). Clearly those
deaths shouldn't have happened. Where's the push to bring Six Sigma to the
medical world? Instead it's "vaccines are safe", read the PDF.

We can't be so confident until we actually have clean, accessible, usable
databases. Our medical data infrastructure is very very bad.

> They are one of the most widely-deployed and successful medical inventions
> ever created by man

I agree in the ranks of medical inventions vaccines are amazing. But still,
not the best comparison group. How effective was the flu vaccine this year?
Surely I should be able to see that information in a single query. But I
can't. (the rough answer from doctors I've sampled is about 30%, or 70%
ineffective).

People are right to be skeptical of medical advice until some dramatic
innovation comes to the space.

~~~
_bxg1
> We can't be so confident until we actually have clean, accessible, usable
> databases.

And then you'd question who put that data there, and whether it was real.

It's impossible to never take anything on any level of trust. When your
scenarios get more and more elaborate (a secret worldwide conspiracy to push
vaccines? we can't even cooperate on simple stuff), at some point you have to
ask yourself, "Is my skepticism driven by real information, or by what-ifs?"
That's how you distinguish conspiracy theories from not: what prompted the
question?

Not that an increase in open data would ever be a bad thing. But it's a huge
logistical challenge, and it shouldn't be required for something this well-
known.

~~~
breck
> And then you'd question who put that data there, and whether it was real.

That's a fair point. You're right, you do need to take some things on trust at
some point.

I don't know what the solution is. If I knew the answer I would have built it
by now :). But I do hope we don't start censoring skeptics and instead
overcome them by building things.

