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“Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

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Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#431

Post by throwawayaway »

vchynarov wrote: post #429
elektromekatron wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating a power vacuum with a load of weapon caches left behind and hastily trained folk guarding them, does have a pretty predictable outcome.

This is a slipper slope if I've ever seen one. Aid to Syrian rebels is already known, one of the parties to which a proxy war might be a somewhat reasonable assumption. However, given the long involvement of the US in Iraq, this is a very far-fetched conspiracy theory to say the least.

You may want to read this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-...

A lot of these guys ended up in ISIS, it would be foolish to assume otherwise. If you view America's foreign policy aim as maintaining an unstable middle east, then it's not a slippery slope argument.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#432

Post by throwawayaway »

kjs3 wrote: post #317
throwawayaway wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1, I want to compare atrocities. You need numbers for that.

You mean like "Only 10,000 of your people died. 20,000 of theirs did, so your atrocity isn't as important as theirs."? Helluva world view.

I certainly think 20,000 deaths is worse than 10,000 deaths yes.

I believe there is a much greater discrepancy than 2x, between the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and ongoing drone strikes inflicting civilian casualties, and Chinese incursions into Tibet.

That's not to say I support China in their incursions into Tibet. I am very sympathetic to those who have had atrocities committed towards them.

I do think however that the scale of a crime is important, and can be compared.

With the numbers you can make meaningful comparisons. This person committed two murders, this person committed one. To suggest all atrocities are equal is weak.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#434

Post by dreamfactory2 »

ctdonath wrote: post #422
kinofcain wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is ~20% of the world's population (1.36 billion of 7 billion). If everyone in China left China, and assuming the rest of the world is living as a family of four (play along), then every home in the world outside of China would have to take in one Chinese refugee. "Leave" is not a viable strategy at scale.

You don't need everyone to leave, just a relentlessly growing percentage. At some point the system starts to crack, and either they relent or it breaks. In the USA, there is the fundamental notion of "consent of the governed" - if enough people won't submit, the government cannot function.

That's true anywhere, and it's what governments of all stripes worry about and steer. Western ones do it with a bit more finesse, but there's little fundamental difference. It's why Chomsky talks about 'manufacturing consent', and why marketing is an important field for Western governments, as covered in some detail by Adam Curtis. The UK government even have a unit dedicated to 'nudge theory'.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#436

Post by spanishgum »

xiaq wrote: post #172
blackgear wrote: post #144

This is the end of a century. People in China had used 4 kinds of tools to skip the GFW: freegate, openvpn, goagnet, shadowsocks. freegate is a traditional http proxy or socks proxy built by Falun Gong ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong ). They built lots of software with the same technology: freegate gpass freeu dynapass... People share this kind of banned software sending to each others just like teenagers…

> That's all. The winter of China's network comes. Is there technical reason to believe that shadowsocks or similar technology is the last stand against automated censorship? I would just say this is just yet another stage in the censorship/anti-censorship cycle.

I think that is what he meant. Winter is seasonal after all.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#437

Post by tankenmate »

ctdonath wrote: post #422
kinofcain wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is ~20% of the world's population (1.36 billion of 7 billion). If everyone in China left China, and assuming the rest of the world is living as a family of four (play along), then every home in the world outside of China would have to take in one Chinese refugee. "Leave" is not a viable strategy at scale.

You don't need everyone to leave, just a relentlessly growing percentage. At some point the system starts to crack, and either they relent or it breaks. In the USA, there is the fundamental notion of "consent of the governed" - if enough people won't submit, the government cannot function.

When it comes to capital China is actively preventing people with money from leaving; and even putting pressure on family members of people who have left in order bring them and, more importantly, their money back.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#438

Post by joshYarnspinner »

geff82 wrote: post #199
radmuzom wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave to where? To a country where 1. a few rich people control the entire political process by buying out politicians. 2. where there are frequent shootings and you are never safe due to some idiotic Constitutional amendment. 3. where regularly unarmed minorities are shot dead by the police and the majority jury allow them to go unpunished. 4. where there is no mandate to give workers paid leave include those with a…

Go there, they welcome guys like you. See, I am not necessarily talking about the USA as I am from Europe. But I value the universal right of the western world for free expression very much. There is no such thing as the perfect country, but I firmly believe that you should have the right to freely discuss shortcomings and solution. This is given in the USA as well as in Europe. You will not have that possibility in…

The 'universal right of ... free expression' that you mention is not quite universal. One does not simply have the right to declare that all members of [insert group] should be [insert unpleasant fate's verb's past participle]: there happen to be hate speech laws... similar situation for slander. That's all very well, but then one finds that anti-Iraq War activists have those same provisions used upon them. What's to stop governments from extending this further and further until we find that we are in an Iran or China like situation? It's not particularly likely but it is still possible, given the situation. Not implying that situation in Iran or China or any other similar countries is comparable to that of much of Europe, though. Just suggesting that there are limits and that the question is how far these limits go, not whether these 'rights' exist at all. In Iran/China everyone is free to support the government, hence very limited free speech.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#439

Post by joshYarnspinner »

Zardoz84 wrote: post #366
andrepd wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

West != USA. Move to some European country if you dislike the US so much.

We in Europe we have problems with dumb and stupid politicians. :(

So do those poor Americans... so do all of the world, in fact. Although I will admit that having Marie Le Pen being one of the few to speak out for civil liberties in France is indicative of particular idiocy.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#440

Post by sildur »

throwawayaway wrote: post #248
sildur wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China invaded Tibet on false pretenses.

What's the bodycount? Incidentally, may I ask how far back in history you are going, is it something more recent than this: > In October 1950, the People's Liberation Army entered the Tibetan area of Chamdo, defeating sporadic resistance from the Tibetan army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tibet#1950_to_prese... This? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Tibetan_unrest#Casualties...

Using your logic, spraying a country with mustard gas is better than killing half of their citizens, as the body count is smaller.
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