131–140 of 170 posts
and all it takes to be in this thought prison is to be unlucky to be pushed out of your mothers vagina on that particular plot of land. even if you don't want to have anything with the gov that essentially owns you...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's really interesting about this is how unstable it makes the country. Clamp down and eventually you end up in a USSR situation where the government suddenly disintegrates with little real warning because there is no feedback loop to maintain stability. Things seem ok because everyone ends up walking around pretending things are good even the people enforcing the rules. Untill you get a little spark and suddenly…
Eh... I see the opposite. China knows better than the west what powers can be exercised on the net. They've been testing it for a long while and all the old assumptions "the net treats censorship as damage and routes around iT" etc. have been found wanting in China. As the power of the nation state returns to ascendancy, now with IT firmly under its yoke, I suspect that China will do much better and succeed. Instead…
If you really want to know what happened at Tiananmen in 1989, you can find a way to "jump the wall" and find out. It's just that most users aren't actively looking for alternatives to the propaganda statements, so their opinion on the state will be formed by enthusiastic reporting on the "belt and road" program or some other party-led initiative.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dictators can't wave a wand and cause such things they need people and institutions to enforce their rule. More importantly they need accurate information information about what is and is not working. So, sure in 1960 in theory they could have changed things and kept the system running, but that's not nessisarily true of say 1985. And I my expectation is they did not really grasp how close to failure they where in 19…
(forgive me but this short comment gave me quite a bit to think about :P) It's definitely necessary to have accurate information to keep things running, but there are certain aspects of the notion of 'accurate information' when it serves an ideological purpose that are pretty unexpected. For instance, Stalin believed his doctors were part of a conspiracy to kill him, so he would have his doctors and those of all top…
Another lesson seems to be, that historys smallest revolutionary cell can be bribed into neutrality by economic success.
India beat China in this. Since more than 1yr Whatsapp admins are responsible for posts in their groups.
"beat"? Is there a competition to become the most Orwellian state before the other?
The regulations also demand that all chat room users in mainland China verify their real identity... Effective 8 October, the following types of content will be prohibited in chat groups on China-based messaging platforms: 1. Sensitive political content 2. Rumors 3... Holy shit. What is this going to do to the Chinese tech scene? The liability being created here is crazy to consider. Lets all hope these practices are…
I'm no expert on China, but this fits the pattern of them making extreme laws (ie death penalty for corruption) and then selectively enforcing them. Laws are tools for the party to use when it feels it might benefit, not universal rules.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh... I see the opposite. China knows better than the west what powers can be exercised on the net. They've been testing it for a long while and all the old assumptions "the net treats censorship as damage and routes around iT" etc. have been found wanting in China. As the power of the nation state returns to ascendancy, now with IT firmly under its yoke, I suspect that China will do much better and succeed. Instead…
The net does route around censorship; why do you think China keeps passing laws to outlaw VPNs that are already illegal? What the net doesn't handle as well are the armies of paid commentators the state uses to inflate it's preferred opinions. If you really want to know what happened at Tiananmen in 1989, you can find a way to "jump the wall" and find out. It's just that most users aren't actively looking for alterna…
When that statement gained currency it was about being free to finally be outside of the cage that governments and large organizations made.
Today the old guard have built new tools - mass online commenting - to combat the signal itself.
So while the network may well reroute around censorship - the good censors just use the network to change the signal.
I've been on forums long enough now, and helped moderate enough To know the old naive version of free speech doesn't lead to the exchange of ideas.
It leads to the exhchange of whichever mind virus or meme is most capable of building reactions and structures in brains.
So it's definitely the era of subverting people and mass subversive speech/propaganda.
If I can press the right buttons in a person before you reach them with your facts/truth - what will you do?
That's the question I don't have an answer for just yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm no expert on China, but this fits the pattern of them making extreme laws (ie death penalty for corruption) and then selectively enforcing them. Laws are tools for the party to use when it feels it might benefit, not universal rules.
That's pretty much how it was in the USSR as well. The rules don't apply, they're applied by who deems necessary to whom is deemed necessary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So much said in so few words.
Even in democracies, the law is abused by those in power. I distinctly remember one party here in germany, slowing down criminal processes of member of the oppossing parties, so that there trials could be held during the election campaigns.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm no expert on China, but this fits the pattern of them making extreme laws (ie death penalty for corruption) and then selectively enforcing them. Laws are tools for the party to use when it feels it might benefit, not universal rules.
What's really interesting about this is how unstable it makes the country. Clamp down and eventually you end up in a USSR situation where the government suddenly disintegrates with little real warning because there is no feedback loop to maintain stability. Things seem ok because everyone ends up walking around pretending things are good even the people enforcing the rules. Untill you get a little spark and suddenly…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In china central governance can be measured in milenia
Milenia of failure. None of their dinasty's lasted even 1,000 years and many where very short. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdHkY3XYHKA
No civil war destroyed all records. No civil war spanning more then three generations. No locked in against foreigners syndrom.