kevin_standlee | (Reply)

From:

The first rush of objections to Chengdu that I saw when the voting was still in process of happening were leaning hard on racism to try and raise an outcry so that people would ... I don't know, throw out the Chengdu votes or something. But it backfired because people reacted to that, without also addressing the actual serious issues with hosting a major international convention in a country with a totalitarian and oppressive government. I don't know if there was any way Chengdu could have been prevented from winning, given the ballots sent in, without throwing out the rules, but I doubt it. I saw a number of people who seemed to think you could just say "we don't like China!" and throw out all those nominations. And once the initial rush of emotion (and people trying to use fearmongering to break the rules) was over and it was too late to change anything, then you got sober and reasoned analysis of all the problems and potential problems.