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WeChat and the Surveillance State

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Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#221

Post by tombh »

sho wrote: post #187
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many native Chinese do you know who drink tap water? Almost all I know either drink bottled water or only hot, boiled tap water. As for pollution, only 84 out of 338 cities reached the national standard for air quality [1]. That's not exactly "a few bad cities". The government has been working on improving it, but they still have a long way to go. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China#Air_polluti..…

> Almost all I know either drink bottled water or only hot, boiled tap water 100% of them drink boiled tap water. But isn't this proving my point? Not like it's poisoned with heavy metals? As for pollution, of course they have a long way to go, but the dystopian picture you paint is hardly fair. It's not perfect but you make it sound like Blade Runner 2049. It's not. I live in Bangkok right now and it is WAY worse th…

Well put. It's true a lot of the negative stuff here isn't technically incorrect, but the hyperbole certainly has a distorting effect on the conversation. Clearly, discovering negative aspects about China serves some kind of convenient narrative. I suspect it's something to do with China's growing power, which is threatening to the hegemony the so-called West has exploited for the last few centuries. Reading between the lines the story is something like, "yeah China is growing but it's not real because pollution, human rights, surveillance, etc - anybody could grow like that if they took shortcuts like them". Which I suppose ultimately is a subconscious projection of the guilt the West feels about the shortcuts it took.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#222

Post by arpa »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #218
lame88 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no objection to that fine. I had an objection to the an automatic mechanism to do it, or to perfectly enforce any law, no matter how trivial, Simply because these kinds of things don't happen in a vacuum; the mechanisms built toward these ends will not be limited to being used toward that one end. For example maybe there's cameras everywhere to enforce this law. But then there's cameras everywhere. I highly rec…

What if someone were to devise a mechanism to detect and prosecute people changing lanes without indicating, with the following properties? - perfect accuracy (no FP; no FN) - automated enforcement via a fine, without knowing the identity of the perpetrator (just assume it's possible; I know it's hard) - no potential for the device or underlying technology to be used or repurposed for any other form of surveillance o…

No. It would only be ok if we rework the whole idea of law, base it not in tradition, but perfect rationality and objectiveness. Consider this: i change lanes at 2 a.m. on an empty road. There's no objective need to signal. I get fined for not signalling. I do 50 in a 30 zone (because there's a school nearby) at the same time. I get fined even though there's no objective reason for it. And these are simple examples, if we get to complex cases of, let's say, self defense, it opens up a major can of worms.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#223

Post by magpi3 »

ephemeralism wrote: post #200
magpi3 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still not even close. The U.S. has a constitution that gives its citizens legal recourse when they feel the government has gone too far and gives them some basic rights. The U.S. has elections to hold leaders accountable. China has none of these things. I admit the U.S. govt probably envies the system China is putting in place and would love to emulate it, but the system of checks and balances built into the American…

How does elections hold leaders accountable?

Leaders always know they have to answer to voters. So They cannot just do whatever they want. The communist party in China does not have to answer to voters. So they can do whatever they want.

I concede that perhaps there are internal checks and balances in the communist party that I am unaware of.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#224

Post by tempguy9999 »

sho wrote: post #187
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many native Chinese do you know who drink tap water? Almost all I know either drink bottled water or only hot, boiled tap water. As for pollution, only 84 out of 338 cities reached the national standard for air quality [1]. That's not exactly "a few bad cities". The government has been working on improving it, but they still have a long way to go. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China#Air_polluti..…

> Almost all I know either drink bottled water or only hot, boiled tap water 100% of them drink boiled tap water. But isn't this proving my point? Not like it's poisoned with heavy metals? As for pollution, of course they have a long way to go, but the dystopian picture you paint is hardly fair. It's not perfect but you make it sound like Blade Runner 2049. It's not. I live in Bangkok right now and it is WAY worse th…

> 100% of them drink boiled tap water. But isn't this proving my point?

No, it's exactly disproving your point, or at least strong evidence against it. To be explicit: if 100% drink boiled tapwater then 100% feel pollution is present which strongly suggests pollution isn't localised.

As for introducting heavy metals, you're trying to fudge the issue: pollution may include, but is not limited to, heavy metals.

> I always come across as defending China or something

I take your point and will accept you're arguing in good faith, but a sloppy post like this simply undermines yourself.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#225

Post by NicoJuicy »

theseadroid wrote: post #113
NicoJuicy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that's what I wanted to know. And when we talk about China = all the stuff that has been going on lately, comments here are not pro Xi mostly.

Thank you for being curious. What I found offending on HN is people who are cool-headed within their own domain can be irrational and quick to conclusions when it comes to issues related to China. We all know the project management tree swing cartoon[1]. We can almost replace the project with China within this cartoon lol. 1. http://www.zentao.pm/file.php?f=201712/f_2a1ca764ce384a33d05... edit: I read some of your ot…

I'm from Belgium and heard the news. It's an accident, yes.

But it's not endolged by anyone here. That's a pretty big difference.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#226

Post by commentzorro »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #218
lame88 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no objection to that fine. I had an objection to the an automatic mechanism to do it, or to perfectly enforce any law, no matter how trivial, Simply because these kinds of things don't happen in a vacuum; the mechanisms built toward these ends will not be limited to being used toward that one end. For example maybe there's cameras everywhere to enforce this law. But then there's cameras everywhere. I highly rec…

What if someone were to devise a mechanism to detect and prosecute people changing lanes without indicating, with the following properties? - perfect accuracy (no FP; no FN) - automated enforcement via a fine, without knowing the identity of the perpetrator (just assume it's possible; I know it's hard) - no potential for the device or underlying technology to be used or repurposed for any other form of surveillance o…

What about unique circumstances? Say a child or an animal ran out in the road and you changed lanes to avoid them but didn't have time to signal. Or any one of a hundred of these unique but not uncommon situations.

Would there be a mechanism in place to remove your fines and points? Would that system be automated? Would it be susceptible to lying? How long would it take to get the record corrected? Would the effort cost more than the fine?

Just from a technical/automated point of view, removing the moral and societal aspects, the real world is currently just way to complex and ambiguous to automate things like this.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#227

Post by repolfx »

theseadroid wrote: post #110
komali2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could not fantastic education provide an intelligent enough population to handle democracy within a single generation? I.e.... exactly what happened in Taiwan upon the removal of martial law? The USA managed it swaths of the country spread across a frontier.

But you have to admit there are risks for the switching, i.e. there are countries that become worse after the switching. Personally, I dont think democracy is the cure to the current problems. Education probably is. And I haven't been presented with enough evidence to think otherwise. Like, did Taiwan become drastic better after removal of martial laws? Or is Taiwan at a better position today mainly because of the he…

Which democracy are you thinking of that 'became worse after switching'? I can't think of any, though I can think of a few countries that mostly botched the switch and ended up in a sort of pseudo-democracy.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#228

Post by repolfx »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #101
theseadroid wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there's a third option aside from continue the state quo or convert fully into a democracy? Maybe the party can evolve into something that's more and more benevolent to the people it governs? As a Chinese who emigrated because of the many social problems of China, I'm not sure switching to democracy right now will be beneficial for regular Chinese. You've all heard stories about how bad mannered Chinese tourist…

> Maybe there's a third option aside from continue the state quo or convert fully into a democracy? Maybe the party can evolve into something that's more and more benevolent to the people it governs? As one raised in a democracy (the UK) and thankful for that, taking a big step back I don't know if democracy is a more stable system than others. Or even better in terms of long-term results. I wonder if our democracy i…

taking a big step back I don't know if democracy is a more stable system than others. Or even better in terms of long-term results

I wonder what sort of education you've had? I can easily and quickly think of dictatorships that killed or enslaved millions of their own citizens - it's practically a requirement to be a really good dictatorship, it seems. It's a struggle to think of any democracies which do that. Perhaps the Israel/Palestine conflict has shades of that, perhaps internment of Japanese in America during WW2 counts a bit, but it ended pretty fast and was due to a war.

I'm gonna take a wild guess that your current lack of faith in democracy is caused by Brexit. Am I right?

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#229

Post by repolfx »

jdietrich wrote: post #175
komali2 wrote: post #38

I used to hold a kind of naive hope that the ham fisted Party would eventually be replaced with democracy. I remember back in 2011 my friends that were placed in moderately distinguished positions were sending their kids to Canada to collect foreign dual citizenship, fully expecting the collapse of the PRC in their lifetime. But now I think the Party is too good at maintaining itself. It's augmented by technology lik…

Maybe one day, if China embraces democracy, it might hope to become as prosperous as India. /s In all seriousness, "democracy" is at this point almost meaningless as a barometer of good governance. There are a lot of spectacularly successful autocracies and a lot of dismally awful democracies. In the broad scheme of things, the CPC has done a damned good job of advancing the interests of the Chinese people. China mig…

[flagged]

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#230

Post by repolfx »

komali2 wrote: post #30
Cypher wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder how long it's going to be before we see WhatsApp and the surveillance state articles.

I dunno. We're not anywhere near the level of China (here in the USA). To achieve that, we'd need 1. The fourth estate to become a government agency (functionally) 2. Facebook to have government agents on-site that employees have to follow the orders of 3. The existence of a "department of cultural well-being" with total authority to regulate art, media, news, etc 4. Laws on the books outlawing esoteric orwellian con…

I agree there's a long way between the USA and China for the reasons you mention.

Still, something nags at me. The USA has all those things in some less government-oriented sense, not organised by a totalitarian party but by a vaguely defined group of powerful people who all live in the same few cities, who all share the same worldview, who all work extraordinarily hard to keep people they disagree with away from the levers of power and who share this same basic mindset:

1. The press is incredibly uniform in America; all papers take explicit political positions despite their role supposedly being to neutrally inform their readers, and they all supported Clinton in the last election. As a foreigner I frequently encounter astonishing falsehoods about my country in supposedly respectable and internationalist papers like the New York Times.

2. Facebook doesn't need government agents to team up with the press in support of an agenda - activists in its employee and management base will ensure it does that anyway.

3. There's no formal department of cultural well-being, but there is nonetheless an exceptionally strong set of beliefs amongst a tiny group of people (the elites/the establishment/the swamp/whatever you want to call them) which do relentlessly impose on news, art, media, etc. Witness how every superhero movie now contains explicitly woke and feminist storylines.

4. "Distributing harmful rumours" and "disrupting the cultural wellbeing" exists in the west too, we just call it hate speech / trolling. Different terms for the same thing and our social networks have WeChat like policies towards them.

Whilst the driving force for this doesn't come from government, and there's no formal party per se, the end results are surprisingly similar on a less extreme scale. And if Clinton had won the policy alignment between the government, Hollywood, Big Tech and newspaper owners would be nearly total: you don't need a totalitarian state when those who have power over information or culture all agree with each other on what must be done anyway.

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