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China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

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Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#261

Post by duxup »

hopler wrote: post #179
duxup wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've even got totalitarian apps: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi... >Schools are shaming students with low app scores. Government offices are holding study sessions and forcing workers who fall behind to write reports criticizing themselves. Private companies, hoping to curry favor with party officials, are ranking employees based on their use of the app and awarding top performers the…

In the US we have diversity trainings, where employees are asked to write essays about what they learned, and fired if they voice an unapproved opinion of the latest trends in the company's view of psycho-sociology.

I've been to such training, but never heard of what you're talking about happening.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#262

Post by jccalhoun »

throwaway55244 wrote: post #217
jccalhoun wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the few times I've tried to bring it up with Chinese students at USA universities they have all been blasé about it. They have all been, "that's just the way it is." That could be because they just don't want to talk about it. Or because they are mostly from rich families and so they really don't care. Or only kids from loyal families are allowed to go to school overseas.

Or perhaps their English isn’t good enough or they think type are trying to lecture them?

At least one person I talked to was very fluent in English.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#263

Post by jccalhoun »

nitrogen wrote: post #83
jccalhoun wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the few times I've tried to bring it up with Chinese students at USA universities they have all been blasé about it. They have all been, "that's just the way it is." That could be because they just don't want to talk about it. Or because they are mostly from rich families and so they really don't care. Or only kids from loyal families are allowed to go to school overseas.

I wonder if a comparison to how US students would react to mentions of Kent State or Rodney King or OWS would be enlightening. There's obviously a big difference in severity, but given student opposition to some of the fubdamentals of freedom of speech in recent years, maybe we can learn what cultural differences and commonalities drive state- and self-censorship and thus better address the root problems.

I did not ask them about Tienanmen Square but about censorship in general so it is a little different.

I am a college professor and I think student opposition to freedom of speech is way way way overblown.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#264

Post by oefrha »

duxup wrote: post #70
apo wrote: post #40

The Chinese are innovating totalitarianism faster than any other country. Take this, for example: > ... When undergraduate students at Peking University, which was at the center of the incident, were shown copies of the iconic photograph [of Tank Man] 16 years afterwards, they were "genuinely mystified." One of the students said that the image was "artwork." It is noted in the documentary Frontline: The Tank Man that…

They've even got totalitarian apps: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi... >Schools are shaming students with low app scores. Government offices are holding study sessions and forcing workers who fall behind to write reports criticizing themselves. Private companies, hoping to curry favor with party officials, are ranking employees based on their use of the app and awarding top performers the…

And that app is only used by / required for (? not sure) CCP party members. I know this because I have confirmed with personal Chinese acquaintances, including one party member and several non-members. While many Chinese nationals are party members, the vast majority aren't, so the app has nothing to do with them. The article doesn't mention that at all.

Also, I was told by the one who actually use the app that many of the quiz questions in the app are just about general scientific/cultural knowledge and stuff; only a small percentage involves current events (censored or not) or politics. I find that pointless, but again NY Times chose to cherry-pick the content here to paint a more horrifying picture.

It's intentionally or unintentionally (I don't know which) incomplete or cherry-picked coverage like this that makes me not trust Western coverage of China, Russia, or any other "enemy" nation at all.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#265

Post by oefrha »

oefrha wrote: post #264
duxup wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've even got totalitarian apps: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi... >Schools are shaming students with low app scores. Government offices are holding study sessions and forcing workers who fall behind to write reports criticizing themselves. Private companies, hoping to curry favor with party officials, are ranking employees based on their use of the app and awarding top performers the…

And that app is only used by / required for (? not sure) CCP party members. I know this because I have confirmed with personal Chinese acquaintances, including one party member and several non-members. While many Chinese nationals are party members, the vast majority aren't, so the app has nothing to do with them. The article doesn't mention that at all. Also, I was told by the one who actually use the app that many…

Also, I find the claim "Study the Great Nation has become the most downloaded app on Apple’s digital storefront in China" in the article pretty unbelievable. No way it could beat WeChat, Weibo, etc., even if it does have 100 million users.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#266

Post by stcredzero »

chongli wrote: post #31
stcredzero wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, is it really valid to count those monarchs as different governments and not continuations of the same system?

Yes. It's completely valid, since their borders, their laws, and the identities of the people were constantly in flux. Nothing at all like the continuity of modern nation states through successive governments.

Yes. It's completely valid, since their borders, their laws, and the identities of the people were constantly in flux.

You've both made a good point and refuted the absolutist position at the same time. In general, if monarchs change and the borders, the laws, and the identities of the people remain the same, then it's really a continuation of the same regime. Really, "it depends."

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#267

Post by okmokmz »

walrus01 wrote: post #234
Gigablah wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means you’re intentionally trying to get them in trouble? This is as asinine as getting someone to say “bomb” at airport security.

Right, I got it, here in the free world we should totally avoid Winnie the Pooh, Llamas, frogs, river crabs, or other things that are seen as anti-central-authority/anti-government by the powers in Beijing. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Mud_Horse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censor...

That's not at all what he said....

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#268

Post by dragonwriter »

0815test wrote: post #12
chongli wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you go down the road of totalitarianism, the risks of turning back get worse and worse over time. The playbook of all dictatorships is the same: squeeze tighter and tighter until you can no longer hold on, then collapse. Sometimes the process is quite rapid, sometimes it drags on. It all depends how long you can keep the elite prosperous and happy and how long you can maintain economic growth.

> The playbook of all dictatorships is the same: squeeze tighter and tighter until you can no longer hold on, then collapse. While a common-enough failure mode, this is by no means universal. Many successful monarchies began as the equivalent of dictatorships, and then opened up further and further over time.

> Many successful monarchies began as the equivalent of dictatorships, and then opened up further and further over time.

And then there's the Roman Empire, which started as a dictatorship (in the literal sense to which all other uses are metaphorical allusions) and went the other direction.

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#269

Post by okmokmz »

Veen wrote: post #105
spectramax wrote: post #20

Powerful ad. My gut feeling is that there will be a day in the future where everything in China is going to boil-over just like any other totalitarian regimes in the past. It could be 20 years from now when Xi dies or some type of student uprising again, or could be from the HK/Taiwan situation. The behavior of the Chinese government and as they call it "the hand of Beijing" has a self-propelling streisand effect, th…

The West is the outlier here. Most of the world has lived under dictatorships for most of history. China is a millenia-old civilization that has never been a democracy. The current regime may fall, but it is not written in the universe that it will progress towards anything resembling a Western democracy. If I were playing the odds, I'd put money on democracy failing in the west rather than it rising in China in the…

>The current regime may fall, but it is not written in the universe that it will progress towards anything resembling a Western democracy.

Nowhere in his comment did he say it was. He simply said the situation wold "boil-over"

Re: China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media

#270

Post by okmokmz »

patcon wrote: post #197
Veen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West is the outlier here. Most of the world has lived under dictatorships for most of history. China is a millenia-old civilization that has never been a democracy. The current regime may fall, but it is not written in the universe that it will progress towards anything resembling a Western democracy. If I were playing the odds, I'd put money on democracy failing in the west rather than it rising in China in the…

Also, fwiw, the west is the one that can't stop it's out-of-control careening toward climate catastrophe. China's handling it much better.

That's completely false
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