Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
1–10 of 32 posts
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#2I find the whole idea of the scenario this article describes horrifying, is this portrayal of highly centralized sans backup documentation true? Is there a technological solution to this that can become culturally accepted or is deeper reform needed before even this problem can be fixed?
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#3First that article on North Korea and now this. It's so sad that people live like this in the 21st century. And there's no way for us to do anything about it since their governments so actively block any real information.
"People's Republic" my ass. China's government is no government by the people for the people. It's just an evil empire. And we're supporting them with every Chinese product we buy and every attempt Obama makes to improve our relations.
After reading stuff like this, I'm not so sure we should be. I'm not advocating sanctions or anything of that sort, I just feel like we should take a harder line against such human rights violations.
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#4First that article on North Korea and now this. It's so sad that people live like this in the 21st century. And there's no way for us to do anything about it since their governments so actively block any real information. "People's Republic" my ass. China's government is no government by the people for the people. It's just an evil empire. And we're supporting them with every Chinese product we buy and every attempt…
China may not be democratic, but it's no evil empire. Boycotting Chinese products or freezing them out diplomatically won't fix corruption problems; in fact, it's likely to have the opposite effect. China has improved a great deal since Nixon went to China, and there's no reason to believe that continued engagement won't further the same process.
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#5The education system is an attempt at creating equality for over a billion people. It's implemented by people for people so there will always be corruption. It's sad that there are no checks for when these things do happen. The media would be a good check but alas, not in China where the state controls it.
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#6I find the whole idea of the scenario this article describes horrifying, is this portrayal of highly centralized sans backup documentation true? Is there a technological solution to this that can become culturally accepted or is deeper reform needed before even this problem can be fixed?
The problem itself is not technological but political. The system that has evolved is pretty bad and the only reason it has evolved is because of the government. Unless there is some third party (free press, independent justice system) that oversees the government, there is no easy solution.
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#7His files had vanished. But with his story in the NYT, how long do you think it will take for him to vanish? :(
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#8Every system like that should have checks and balances built in to the system. The fact that there is no backup of this crucial documentation is quite amazing, that there is no way to reconstruct it even more (because after all, you did live that life and there are countless people that could testify to that).
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#9First that article on North Korea and now this. It's so sad that people live like this in the 21st century. And there's no way for us to do anything about it since their governments so actively block any real information. "People's Republic" my ass. China's government is no government by the people for the people. It's just an evil empire. And we're supporting them with every Chinese product we buy and every attempt…
PRC's government is known to be relatively insensitive to external pressure, but is scared shitless of its own people. China doesn't rely on foreign aids, and contrary to popular beliefs, value from export accounts for a very small percentage of its GDP. This is part of the reason China is relatively unaffected by the current downturn.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1052429...
If there's to be any changes, it has to be from within. That's why the government is so paranoid about protests and is spending loads on censorship. Recently it has been going after public interest lawyers, but these guys are much tougher to crack than angry peasants.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_i...
Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future
#10First that article on North Korea and now this. It's so sad that people live like this in the 21st century. And there's no way for us to do anything about it since their governments so actively block any real information. "People's Republic" my ass. China's government is no government by the people for the people. It's just an evil empire. And we're supporting them with every Chinese product we buy and every attempt…
China may not be democratic, but it's no evil empire. Boycotting Chinese products or freezing them out diplomatically won't fix corruption problems; in fact, it's likely to have the opposite effect. China has improved a great deal since Nixon went to China, and there's no reason to believe that continued engagement won't further the same process.
Sorry, I guess what I said came across wrong. I'm certainly not in favor of any boycotts, sanctions, or diplomatic freezings. Economic aid in the form of buying their products can't do anything but help. But that being said, I really don't have any elegent solutions for how to fix the current problems.
Things like this and the iPhone incident (and the pressure put on the poor man because of an innocent mistake), simply make me worried, that's all. Sure, the conditions have improved, but for the huge percentage of the world's population that is, just by chance, born into these conditions, I feel like we should be doing something more to advocate for their rights.
My grandparents were lucky enough to get out of China back in the 20s and 30s to give me the fortunate life I have now. I just wish more people had that chance.