Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 275 posts

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#211

Post by doyoulikeworms »

hackuser wrote: post #161
SCAQTony wrote: post #36

I am not a sociologist, political scientist, or an economist. It appears that China is too big to govern and has become a diseconomy of scale. China has 160 cities with over 1-million people in them (US has 10 cities) and I think it's a miracle that the lights still work and they have running water. When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier (Observe what it takes to fly a B-52). The PRC seems…

> It appears that China is too big to govern The population wasn't as big, but without modern technology the history of Chinese national governance is likely better than any other region in the world. From around 250 BC to 1911, the Chinese usually had effective national government which made China a world leader economically, culturally, and technologically. (There are many caveats: 1) During that time there were pe…

I think that Chinese history is quite remarkable. It's a bit like a Roman Empire that grew, changed, and stumbled, but never truly fell. Heck, it even has about the same amount of arable land as the EU[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#212

Post by prewett »

chrischen wrote: post #196

Any move China takes that blocks foreign competition can be seen as an extreme version of an import tariff. Instead of protecting low level industries like corn producers either subsidizing domestic production or taxing foreign imports, China focuses on higher level industries like technology companies, culture companies, etc. While China doesn't have the benefit of Google in the short term, by blocking them it gives…

This isn't about money or protectionism. This is about information control. The government states what they wish the truth were as if it were true. This is not believable if there is other evidence, or even a broad discussion. Hence, viewpoints contrary to the government's "truth" must be stamped out.

Apparently Xi's predecessors did not think this was as important, but Xi seems to be old-school.

I do not think this is a good idea for China or the government. It seems like the government only has one solution for a problem: more control. More control is like pressurizing a container. The more pressure you put, the bigger the explosion when the container eventually ruptures. I don't think this is in the interest of anyone in China, so I hope they rethink things before the pressure gets too high.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#213

Post by omegaham »

longcheng wrote: post #210
omegaham wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how I would explain it to a 5-year-old - when you make laws like this, you make everyone else not want to do business with you. This means that you only get to business with people in your own country. 7 billion people with ideas is going to be much better than just one billion people with ideas. The 7 billion people have more money, more ideas, and more people to make cool things, and you're stuck with your o…

well, with this law, you got stability and can focus on things important. With 1 billion well educated ppl, I am not too worried about shortage of talent.

But with stability, you also get stagnation. The State being able to crush upstarts to protect their own interests means a lot of those 1 billion people won't challenge the powers that be.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#214

Post by iBzOtaku »

snnn wrote: post #204
ISL wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working real hard and getting shut down is more personally-negative than doing nothing and having someone else profit. Both ways, you get no revenue, but one way, you waste a lot of time first. It's not worth compromising your principles in order to capture 18% of the world market. 82% is a lot bigger than 18%.

How do you think of Google is putting their best effort to head back to China ? They were working real hard and getting shut down.

They are? I thought they left China for good.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#215

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Outdoorsman wrote: post #120
pkaye wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selective enforcement of laws in very common in many countries. If they enforce is too harshly then people will protest. For example exceeding the speed limit while driving.

"selective enforcement" is an interesting concept... I have a neighbor (lives across the lake from me) who is a retired police officer...23 years on the job... I asked him once if there was any truth to the rumor that traffic cops had to meet a quota... He said, "Not in so many words...every now and then the Captain, during the shift briefing would say, "Boys, I need to see some paper" and we all knew what he meant."

It depends on the department. I small town America the police are under more pressure to act as revenue generators.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#216

Post by prewett »

longcheng wrote: post #210
omegaham wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how I would explain it to a 5-year-old - when you make laws like this, you make everyone else not want to do business with you. This means that you only get to business with people in your own country. 7 billion people with ideas is going to be much better than just one billion people with ideas. The 7 billion people have more money, more ideas, and more people to make cool things, and you're stuck with your o…

well, with this law, you got stability and can focus on things important. With 1 billion well educated ppl, I am not too worried about shortage of talent.

You might get stability. But if the population is already disillusioned with you, you might get less stability. The way I understand it, many people already don't believe what the government says; what happens if you have a large population of people who assume the government is not tell the truth whenever it opens its mouth? Whatever it is, I don't think it is stability.

I have heard it said that people don't need to get their way, but they do need to feel heard. The more you can't express yourself, the more things can get out of control quickly when an opportunity finally arises to vent.

A laser gets its coherence from the atoms being in an inverted population: they are all excited, so when one drops down and releases a photon, that photon triggers a chain reaction of all the other atoms to release theirs. I worry that this is what will end up happening. Someday, something will happen and maybe the censors are a little behind or something, like the high speed rail crash near Shanghai, and it triggers everyone's pent-up disillusionment and feeling unable to change anything. I don't think this would be a happy time for anyone, and, ironically, is just the sort of thing that the control is intended to prevent.

I hope the government reconsiders this idea.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#217

Post by vikiomega9 »

omegaham wrote: post #207
vikiomega9 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain to me why (like I'm 5 :D) EDIT: Context for my question is that of rule of law and how much can get away without actually having an effect at the top.

Here's how I would explain it to a 5-year-old - when you make laws like this, you make everyone else not want to do business with you. This means that you only get to business with people in your own country. 7 billion people with ideas is going to be much better than just one billion people with ideas. The 7 billion people have more money, more ideas, and more people to make cool things, and you're stuck with your o…

I feel like we don't really place any emphasis on the pragmatics of seven billion people having ideas. In reality you probably have a million truly unique ideas that should be explored. People don't really read much anyway and don't think for themselves as much as I like them to. Then there's also cultural bias and societal bias and of course all the many levels of peer pressure.

The fact that people feel good wearing "good" clothes is telling, no? Unless I'm missing something there's no real reason to wear "good" clothes and feel good about it.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#218

Post by vikiomega9 »

omegaham wrote: post #213
longcheng wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, with this law, you got stability and can focus on things important. With 1 billion well educated ppl, I am not too worried about shortage of talent.

But with stability, you also get stagnation. The State being able to crush upstarts to protect their own interests means a lot of those 1 billion people won't challenge the powers that be.

1 billion is a massively variable population in it self.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#219

Post by vikiomega9 »

prewett wrote: post #216
longcheng wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, with this law, you got stability and can focus on things important. With 1 billion well educated ppl, I am not too worried about shortage of talent.

You might get stability. But if the population is already disillusioned with you, you might get less stability. The way I understand it, many people already don't believe what the government says; what happens if you have a large population of people who assume the government is not tell the truth whenever it opens its mouth? Whatever it is, I don't think it is stability. I have heard it said that people don't need t…

> I have heard it said that people don't need to get their way, but they do need to feel heard.

But this is in itself an illusion no? It's equivalent to not being heard anyway, just that you could be heard.

Now that I think about, yes I agree that's how I would prefer to feel.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#220

Post by aianus »

pkaye wrote: post #44
jimbokun wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hadn't thought about this before your comment, but this could be a reason for continuing to drive themselves. If they are willing to exceed the speed limit, they can get to their destination faster than a self driving car with speed limit enforced by software.

Say you are driving 10 mph over the speed limit on a 60 mph highway for an hour, the maximum time savings is less than 10 minutes out of an hour. If the trip is shorter or you have stop, turns, traffic, the savings are even less. So in most cases except long distance drives, the savings are minimal. It is just that we are all impatient.

Not speeding, but breaking a similarly stupid law to split lanes on my motorcycle can save 50%+ of my commuting time.
Post reply on HN