91–100 of 106 posts
Why do people not use SSH tunnels/OpenVPN?
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What would happen if a law was passed banning smoking in a particular area? Would ordinary Chinese be able to object to it, would they be able to petition the legislature that passed the law without fear of reprisal? What if your kid's school adopted something in the curriculum that you found objectionable - could you complain without fear? I am not being snarky, I really am curious about how bright the line is betwe…
> What would happen if a law was passed banning smoking in a particular area? Would ordinary Chinese be able to object to it, would they be able to petition the legislature that passed the law without fear of reprisal? In general, the central government tries to maintain a good popular opinion so complaining does work in some ways. It's also fairly straightforward to join the party if you are really into politics. I…
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I've heard of some "situations" involving raves and outdoor parties where weed was involved, but in each case the foreigners get a free pass while the Chinese get to spend all night in a police station getting drug tests. Anyways, we will never be Chinese and won't see the real China.
I actually heard that regular policemen in China couldn't recognize the smell of marijuana.
Aargh. I'm leaving for a vacation in China in a week and a half. I guess I'm going to have to set up my own VPN tunnel to ensure that I can still access my email, etc. I'm assuming I can set something up through my dd-wrt router at home. Off to read the docs...
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Downvoted, because "X happens in every dictatorship" does not mean "every place where X happens is a dictatorship", and also because I think there is a noticeable difference between Gmail and Wikileaks (even though I supported the latter).
Government doesn't want X to be said about it, and thus pressures/censors company Y to stop it. (X = "Anti-Communist sentiment" or "War crimes") (Y = "Google" or "Visa, Mastercard, Amazon, Wikileaks... etc") Not a huge noticeable difference. The point I was trying to make, is everyone is quick to taint a discussion on china with words like "Dictatorship", when in fact, china isn't (You know they can vote!?), and all…
Government doesn't want X to happen against its interests, and thus implements measure Y to counter-act it.
Now all governments and governmental actions are the same.
Also, people in Eastern Germany could vote, that didn't help a lot. I am not sure if dictatorship is the proper term when it's actually a one-party state / oligarchy, though.
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The Chinese government is going through a transition period at the moment, so much is undecided. But it is unfortunate (especially being Chinese) that the central government is becoming more conservative overtime (politically conservative, fiscally liberal). I do hope that this is just a phase rather than something persistent. With regard to foreign policy, the US had been playing a very interesting game of hard-soft…
"politically conservative, fiscally liberal" Fiscal politics are still politics so this doesn't make much sense, do you mean socially conservative?
My theory is that as they open up more economically, the citizens will be "enlightened", so to speak, and there will be more protests. If China officials know this, they may be trying to stop this enlightenment before they're put out of power.
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Government doesn't want X to be said about it, and thus pressures/censors company Y to stop it. (X = "Anti-Communist sentiment" or "War crimes") (Y = "Google" or "Visa, Mastercard, Amazon, Wikileaks... etc") Not a huge noticeable difference. The point I was trying to make, is everyone is quick to taint a discussion on china with words like "Dictatorship", when in fact, china isn't (You know they can vote!?), and all…
Let's take it even further then, Government doesn't want X to happen against its interests, and thus implements measure Y to counter-act it. Now all governments and governmental actions are the same. Also, people in Eastern Germany could vote, that didn't help a lot. I am not sure if dictatorship is the proper term when it's actually a one-party state / oligarchy, though.
Government is oligarchical by nature. i would not rank the US much better than china in that regard.
Chinese people are not just Americans without good internet access... The Chinese propaganda/education/censorship system is set up to accommodate all levels of disbelief of propaganda - that's built in to the propaganda, too. So there is the official line, then there's the unofficial official line - which is generated by being pessimistic relative to the official line. If the official line is that 7 people died in a…
Great little rant, but provide some citation please. Which reporters are currently in re-education camps, and It's unheard of that an entire family is sent for re-education (unless the entire family committed a crime together), which makes me doubt most of what you've said. Also which event are your referring to with the 70 (actually 7000) deaths? It's funny you are railing against propaganda by writing propaganda, p…
also, i'm not talking about re-education camps. just messing with someone's hukou is enough to ruin their life - they'd no longer be able to work in the city they want to and their kid would not be able to go to school.
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Great little rant, but provide some citation please. Which reporters are currently in re-education camps, and It's unheard of that an entire family is sent for re-education (unless the entire family committed a crime together), which makes me doubt most of what you've said. Also which event are your referring to with the 70 (actually 7000) deaths? It's funny you are railing against propaganda by writing propaganda, p…
well, tian an men is a good example. chinese people have an idea something happened, but no idea that possibly hundreds of people died. also, i'm not talking about re-education camps. just messing with someone's hukou is enough to ruin their life - they'd no longer be able to work in the city they want to and their kid would not be able to go to school.
And now you've raised messing with Hukou, I hadn't heard of that happening, and again, you still haven't provided any sources for your info. I imagine it is extremely hard to mess with Hukou as you'd have to change birth records as well, Given china doesn't have a centralised system (for either birth or Hukou) records, it would be very complicated to achieve this.
It seems they want to make an example out of Google: "If you disagree with our censorship, this is what will happen to you, too", and create chilling effects for any other company who's considering being "moral" in China. I wonder if Obama will do this to China, too: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/us-imposes-sancti...
China is producing lots of consumer goods for American companies (and global markets), and China doesn't take criticism lightly, so if they get criticised, China will cut off trade.
There was an Anti-Counterfeit goods event at London with lots of big name execs from corporations there who were trying to stop counterfeit goods. Not one of them wanted to name the perpetrators, who was responsible.