LESSWRONG
LW

All of En's Comments + Replies

Cowering To Genocide: Uighur Persecution And The World’s Last Hope
En20

I think 100m is overstating the hardcore fan base by at least a factor of 10. You can do some fermi analysis to come up with a better ballpark number. Start with the middle class, further segment by young males, further segment by interest in NBA, then multiply by a hardcore fan factor ratio, which you could estimate by taking the ratio in the USA and applying a discount rate.

Reply
1willbobaggins
Ahh-great idea! 
Cowering To Genocide: Uighur Persecution And The World’s Last Hope
En40

Thanks for your response! I've worked in and around China for a long time and also read extensively on China (highly recommend "The Party" by Richard McGregor). So while I am not an expert by any means, I have at least a base of knowledge and experience more than the average joe. 

Honestly, the NBA doesn't have the moral compass to take this sort of action, nor does really any large US corporation. Even Google only pulled out of China when it didn't matter. They were so behind in search and maps in Baidu, so when they left "due to censorship", it didn'... (read more)

Reply
2willbobaggins
I'm definitely afraid that this is the most likely outcome. It's a classic collective action problem. It's interesting that the NBA will take action on social issues, but you could look at those and say they'll only do it if it helps them financially, not if it will actually affect the bottom line. It would take concerted efforts from players (such as Enes Kanter) to get them to do anything. You would only have to convince 400 people in the league to make something like this happen-much smaller than trying to move the state dept. etc.  You may be correct, that at the end of the day folks just don't care about sports very much. If you think there is a core fanbase of around 100 million people rabid fans in China, I believe that may be enough to move the needle. Again, this is not a high percentage play, but I think it's an interesting option, that's higher than the other options I see on the board to try to prevent this really bad thing from happening. 
Cowering To Genocide: Uighur Persecution And The World’s Last Hope
En230

Except China already banned the NBA for a year due to some seriously softball comments over HK with zero domestic repercussions. It's just set to unban now. While this was during covid and people were obviously distracted, your scenario had already happened, and you didn't even realize it because nobody in China cared!

The Chinese government controls the message completely. The NBA is banned? It's the NBAs fault for interfering in China's domestic affairs.

Uighers have been demonized as terrorists in Chinese society for two decades. Imagine if Texas was the ... (read more)

Reply
4willbobaggins
Thanks for taking the time to really engage with the post. This is the strongest argument against this, that'd they would just shut it off and folks really wouldn't care. They did blackout some games, upload feeds later after they could make sure materials were scrubbed of #freehongkong, etc. A think a longer-term, more comprehensive ban would make people more upset.  This idea is not even really a solution, it's more like a hail mary pass when you're down 8 with 3 minutes left. Will it work? Probably not, but it sure is higher than running the ball (essentially our collective response at the moment).  I agree that there is surprising support for current internment from otherwise normal, nice people. I think putting a face on children separated from their mothers make help this. I also agree that we are not, in a broad sense significantly more moral people (look what we did at Gitmo etc). I do, however, have a sense that bad things happen in America, but generally (at least compared to other places), once they get enough media exposure we correct them.  Perhaps this is just a naive view of mine, but it's strongly held.