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

Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 206 posts

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#151

Post by SamReidHughes »

akiselev wrote: post #145
SamReidHughes wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was just a slogan. They weren't going to accept taxation that came with representation in Parliament. They were happy to tax themselves -- they just didn't want to get taxed by England.

> They weren't going to accept taxation that came with representation in Parliament. Why do you think so? My reading of history is that the term 'loyalist' wasn't coined until well after the Boston tea party and several people who were later considered loyalists were participants in that event. It wasn't until it was clear that King George wouldn't respect their rights as Englishmen (three years later) that the patri…

Their representatives in England were never negotiating with a serious intent of representation. It was pretty clear at the time that colonial representation wasn't workable.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#152

Post by hailwren »

derefr wrote: post #135
frankacter wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My phone, which is satellite-tracked by the Taiwan gov to enforce quarantine, ran out of battery at 7:30 AM. By 8:15, four different units called me. By 8:20, the police were knocking at my door." https://twitter.com/MiloHsieh/status/1241540231595044864?s=1...

I meant in the case of a visitor to the country who hasn’t purchased a local SIM yet, where the only contact information on the customs form is the hotel’s front-desk number.

They'd follow you from the airport. You could maybe evade if you were a trained expert who looked like a local national, but otherwise they'd just check CCTV (Taipei is covered in it) and follow your trail. I've never taken public trans out of TPE, so they'd probably just call the cab company and track you down that way. Otherwise, they would check the public trans cameras.

Also lack of local sim doesn't mean you aren't transmitting. It just means the towers are choosing not to provide you with service. A SIM's only purpose is to link your usage to a billing account and phone number.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#153

Post by jlokier »

philliphaydon wrote: post #123
jlokier wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's terrible. PR is supposed to be "more or less a citizen, now stay for long enough and you can become a citizen". Not "we'll call it permanent but it doesn't mean anything". Rules means justice and enforcement too. You're not supposed to have a different justice system for people on PR than for citizens. They should have jailed the person, if that's what they do to citizens, or done whatever else they do to citi…

Not at all. You still need to renew your PR status over time. It's only permanent in the sense that if you are free to live in the country without needing to be sponsored by someone (company or individual). It's still a visa at the end of the day. If you're on an EP / WP which is then cancelled you have 30 days to get a new visa or leave the country. PR != Citizenship in any shape or form.

> PR != Citizenship in any shape or form.

Regular administrative renewal, yes, but aside from that, I guess my complaint is that PR should resemble citizenship better, in matters of justice and in other matters.

People live in PR status for an extraordinarily long time. Decades. Sometimes their whole life after obtaining it.

Nobody should be have to live their lives in "second-class person, second-class justice" mode for such a long time wihout being able to lay down roots. It's not good for individuals and it's not good for society, and it's not right.

The same applies to partners or spouses of citizens.

Generally if you're an immigrant partner or spouse of a citizen, you live a second-class life, with second-class justice and second-class healthcare, because you know everythig you have can be taken away by one bad domestic argument. All it takes is uncertainty about a breakdown of the relationship for you to be remainded that you can lose just arout everything you have and value in life. So suck it up and be a good wife/husband, now fetch me my dinner etc.

There should at least be reasonable time limits on such second-class status, purely on moral and natural justice grounds.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#155

Post by eloisius »

RaoulP wrote: post #52
bobbyd3 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For instance... do you need a government issued ID to get a SIM card for a cell phone?

No, you don’t. As a tourist I could get a 30 day (unlimited data) SIM card with a phone number, over the counter. I detailed my experience in another comment.

You showed them your passport. Locals have to show a national ID.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#156

Post by dang »

jarfil wrote: post #104
hanspedah wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That fear and panic really got you it seems. Should we kill other people for infecting others with the seasonal flu virus as well, which also costs many lives per year? If you are endangered it is up to YOU to stay safe not the other way around. Do you know how many people die of car accidents? Should we kill all drivers just because they are potentially threatning someone elses life?

[flagged]

Would you please stop posting these violent things to HN? It's not in the spirit of this site, at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#157

Post by jlokier »

serf wrote: post #137
jlokier wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A crashed economy is not the end of the world. We'll live, for the most part. There will be ups and downs and yes some people will suffer and die from the economy. It was a shit economy anyway, unless you were one of the lucky ones. Most people had a stressful, shitty time of it. In comparison, a few % of the entire population of Earth dying unnecessarily because the hospitals couldn't treat them all at once seems a…

>It was a shit economy anyway, unless you were one of the lucky ones. Most people had a stressful, shitty time of it. that's provably false by nearly every economic metric. Do you mean something like : "Ignore the state of the market, UBI isn't ubiquitous and we still have homeless and poor?" ? I agree with that statement; but no one with any sense and a clear conscious would say that it was "a shit economy".

I meant: "Most people had a stressful, shitty time of it."

As measured by lives lived in quiet fear and desparation over a long time.

As measured by how we treat the worst off in society.

As measured by the quality of safety nets, and whether it's applied to people by dint of inalienable fundamental rights and dignity, or if safety is kept only for a subset of people we approve of / we decide are lucky.

As hinted at by life expectancies reducing in some developed countries.

As hinted at by increasing poverty and child poverty in some developed countries.

As hinted at by the housing crises, and increasing numbers of precarious economic situations of huge numbers of people in many developed countries.

As hinted at by an enormous class of people with second-class status in many developed countries.

I'm not going to say it is worse than 20, 50, 100, 200 years prior.

It appears to be better; it looks better than ever on many metrics.

And the economy has obviously produced a great deal of wealth and benefit. Shared unevenly (see especially USA healthcare right now, and healthcare for irregular immigrants everwhere), but benefits are there. We certainly should not stop doing the good things we've been doing.

But I still think the economy we have (or had, perhaps) has been "shit" for most people compared to what it could and should be.

(I don't mean it in the more mundane way people say "shit economy" to mean "worse than usual", "in a downturn" etc.)

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#158

Post by uranusjr »

raphlinus wrote: post #147
lifeformed wrote: post #32

I'm in Taiwan in day 6 of home quarantine right now. We get a call every morning to check up on our health. I don't mind it, it's a simple and effective method and it gives me confidence in the government and society, knowing that everyone is taking the situation seriously. Once I'm out of quarantine, I can feel comfortable being outside living a normal life, knowing that all known potential carriers are contained.

Thanks for the first-hand report. I've been somewhat obsessed recently about the topic of how we might use tracking data to control the spread of the virus, including the experiences such as China, Taiwan, and Singapore, but have found not much English-language material. It seems to be slightly taboo to talk about. Off-topic, my son is a big fan. Neon Shore is one of his favorites, so I have that playing as I type.

Can’t speak for China and Singapore, but it’s most definitely not taboo to yalk about this in Taiwan. There is not much compiled information in English (for various reasons I’m not getting into, but ultimately most are just not interested), but you can piece together the picture by following local news. I found taiwannews.com.tw a pretty good source in English.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#159

Post by thatsnice »

alainchabat wrote: post #148
dmix wrote: post #68

> Quarantine violators can be fined up to T$1 million ($32,955). Today Taiwan fined a guy $33k USD for breaking quarantine by going to a nightclub (not a positive COVID case just a mandatory isolation due to travelling): https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/heavy-fine-for-taiwan-man-for-... They aren't joking about the fines.

small correction: NTD$100,000 (usd$32,955) Taiwanese Dollars isn't that shitty (yet)

US$1 ~ 30.2NT so the original numbers seem correct.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#160

Post by thatsnice »

darepublic wrote: post #154

Kind of incredulous seeing how many people are ready to forfeit all their freedoms so willingly. Simply can't wait for the government to keep us safe in our electric pens.

In Taiwan, shops / restaurants are open as normal and people are walking around freely, other than the tiny percent in quarantine. Meanwhile Europe and the US are increasingly locked down. So which one has more freedom?
Post reply on HN