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The Big [Censored] Theory

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Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#421

Post by bjourne »

koheripbal wrote: post #332
ginger2016 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the racist protrayal of Indian American Raj Kuthrapalli, I am of the opinion Indians are magnanimous in allowing this show to be aired there.

It's a bit like Jewish, Irish, Japanese, Korean, or Italian stereotypes in movies/tv - few real members of those groups get offended because we're not currently disadvantaged.

Those groups' Hollywood stereotypes aren't as "mean" as other groups' stereotypes are. A character kicking puppies and abusing little girls is Chinese, Russian, German (a Nazi) or Arab, he is not Jewish, Irish, or Italian.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#422

Post by afiori »

wizofaus wrote: post #234
alldayeveryday wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because why else would such an aversion arise? > I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures. But, you seem to think a lack of aversion to talking about sex to be a default? To your question, I've known many people whom are not practicing any religion and yet have an aversion to sexual discussion, within a population that has a lack thereof. There are many such topics that some feel are not k…

> Let's say in China there is a general aversion to sexual discussion. What will be your explanation given lack of puritanical religion? I genuinely don't know, that's why I asked. Presumably it's served some sort of purpose at some point. Or maybe, as another poster suggested, it was an trait borrowed from other cultures where puritanical religion did have an influence.

According to fan-made English translations of Chinese manhua targeted to teenage boys avoiding sexual activities is seen very similar to avoiding use of drugs, gambling, and/or alcohol.

My guess is that it is a result of valuing austerity and stoicism and resisting temptations, which I suspect are quite important in confucianism.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#423

Post by Ajedi32 »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #308
coryfklein wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Mormon neighbors tend to use VidAngel, which got in huge trouble with an absolutely hilarious payment model. 1. VidAngel purchases a bunch of Blu-ray discs and stores them in a warehouse 2. Tag all the content of a film and create filters so the user can, for example, filter out all sex and violence but leave in vulgarity 3. User "purchases" a Blu-ray for $20 (!!) and VidAngel says, "since we now know you're the o…

Leaving aside the matter of Mormons and their weird puritan sensibilities, what this company essentially did was reinvent movie rental, but because they did it on the internet instead of a brick and mortar shop we're all expected to think it obvious and self evidence that what they did was horrible. In other contexts on sites like this, "do [common thing] but on a computer" patents get mocked and derided because "but…

Taken to it's logical extreme though, such a service could easily render copyright effectively useless. Break the movie into 10 second clips, "rent out" each of those clips during the 10 seconds they're being viewed and automatically return them after. There, you can now "legally" stream 720 concurrent copies of a 2 hour movie at once in perpetuity for near zero marginal cost.

The only reason rentals worked was because of the physical constraints that limited the distribution of each copy. Take that away, what you're left with is just thinly veiled copyright abolishment.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#424

Post by shakaijin »

aero-glide2 wrote: post #23

I don't really agree with this, but consider this argument : Is it really a bad thing if different countries have different understanding of what's allowed/not allowed? If the whole world had the same system of governance, that could be dangerous too.

As long as it is mostly the will of the people that dictates the form of government. A dictatorial regime controlling what information and ideas the people are allowed to be exposed to is a different story.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#425

Post by no_where »

neither_color wrote: post #416
Animats wrote: post #394

What's more striking is what comes out of China's domestic entertainment industry. There are far too many historical costume dramas. Those aren't as heavily censored as modern ones. More modern content looks like it was censored in accordance with the US Television Code of the 1950s. ("The code prohibited the use of profanity, the negative portrayal of family life, irreverence for God and religion, illicit sex, drunk…

What's interesting is in the US that kind of censorship is attributed to the most mainstream religion but China is officially atheist and does the same. Whenever people tell me that it's only one religion standing in the way of equal rights for disadvantaged groups I remind them that there's an atheist superpower that's even less permissive except for on reproductive issues(although, in their case they do regulate it…

Also that the self imposed censorship in America was a response by the studios to their customers. Where was Chinese government is furthering its Communist briefs.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#426

Post by mensetmanusman »

coryfklein wrote: post #277
wrs wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a home version of this called ClearPlay that auto-redacts movies and TV. It actually started with DVD players (!) but now does streaming. Ref: https://amazon.clearplay.com/

My Mormon neighbors tend to use VidAngel, which got in huge trouble with an absolutely hilarious payment model. 1. VidAngel purchases a bunch of Blu-ray discs and stores them in a warehouse 2. Tag all the content of a film and create filters so the user can, for example, filter out all sex and violence but leave in vulgarity 3. User "purchases" a Blu-ray for $20 (!!) and VidAngel says, "since we now know you're the o…

VidAngel had a brilliant business model, it should not be illegal. They are essentially acting as a public library that’s actually convenient.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#427

Post by Dylan16807 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #423
MichaelCollins wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside the matter of Mormons and their weird puritan sensibilities, what this company essentially did was reinvent movie rental, but because they did it on the internet instead of a brick and mortar shop we're all expected to think it obvious and self evidence that what they did was horrible. In other contexts on sites like this, "do [common thing] but on a computer" patents get mocked and derided because "but…

Taken to it's logical extreme though, such a service could easily render copyright effectively useless. Break the movie into 10 second clips, "rent out" each of those clips during the 10 seconds they're being viewed and automatically return them after. There, you can now "legally" stream 720 concurrent copies of a 2 hour movie at once in perpetuity for near zero marginal cost. The only reason rentals worked was becau…

So put a minimum rental time on things. Banning online rental is a bad solution.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#428

Post by lettergram »

andruby wrote: post #123
ALittleLight wrote: post #10

I can see how this might backfire. You notice a censored jump and start to feel the itch of curiosity as to what it concealed. I had to watch several of the censored scenes whereas I would have never just randomly watched clips of the show. Also, love the presentation on this page.

We (the HN crowd, often living in less-censored societies) would be very curious. I’d like to know how curious this would make non-HN people, and those living in more censored places. My assumption is that they take it for granted and just continue to watch the show. It might be hard for them to even find the uncensored clips.

[flagged]

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#429

Post by Dylan16807 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #372
isk517 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even during the video rental days you weren't allowed to just go out and purchase a bunch of videos at Walmart and start renting them out, you need to have purchased the rights to rent out the video.

You are completely wrong. There's no such thing as "right to rent video." You could 100% buy a bunch of videos and start renting them out today, and it would be completely legal. Netflix does this today for their DVD rental business. This is also why libraries are legal. You can't buy a DVD and charge tickets to see the DVD played by you. You can't stream the DVD's contents over the Internet. But you can absolutely r…

The problem isn't that you can't stream the contents to other people. The current legal situation also roughly states that a viewer is allowed to stream the contents of copies they own, but you can't help them. (See also Aereo, where all data was permanently owned by a single user, no resale shenanigans whatsoever.) The law shouldn't work like that. Users should be able to outsource without causing a violation of copyright law.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#430

Post by no_where »

politician wrote: post #135
paxys wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Communist Party is the reason China is in this mess in the first place, and further control and oppression by them isn't going to magically fix it.

That's a fair observation. I'm curious though, do you have any ideas to improve the situation? What would you do if you were responsible for 1.5B people and were facing a situation where the labor force participation drops by half over the next ten years and continues to drop every year since? Will you be able to arrange for the population to be able to be fed, clothed, housed, and given medical care? It's not possib…

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