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Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

nytimes.com

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Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#11

Post by boundlessdreamz »

emmett wrote: post #4
rottencupcakes wrote: post #3

First 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.

China has progressed economically tremendously. But in terms of freedom for its citizens, it looks like it hasn't progressed much and in some cases has worsened. In fact chinese govt. now uses technology to hamper free thought and expression by its citizens.

It is still an evil empire and a draconian state. Just because some (a lot?) of its citizens lives have improved in the last decades does not mean that the govt. has become any less draconian

Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#12

Post by online »

I was one of the victims of this system. Lucky me i got the hell out of the system a few years ago. I am a software engineer in Vancouver ,Canada browsing this news now.

My files has been sitting in a cabinet of a government official build over 8 years and no one just care.

The interesting part was I had to pay the government for keeping my files. I just left 8 years ago and i thought i would not need my files anymore (not looking for a job anymore in china , at least a government job ) so i just stopped paying them.

Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#14

Post by d_c »

online wrote: post #12

I was one of the victims of this system. Lucky me i got the hell out of the system a few years ago. I am a software engineer in Vancouver ,Canada browsing this news now. My files has been sitting in a cabinet of a government official build over 8 years and no one just care. The interesting part was I had to pay the government for keeping my files. I just left 8 years ago and i thought i would not need my files anymor…

Would they just throw them away if you stopped paying a 'storage fee'(?)?

Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#15

Post by eugenejen »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #10
emmett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), simp…

The world is complex. Even if Chinese manufactures are not exploiting cheap labor, the computers that we are using also includes materials from Africa, where warlords sell minerals for making our phones and computers.

We live in North America, Western Europe and Japan are all similar to ancient aristocrats in the world economy. We are spoiled to death compared to people in country side China, Africa. While we sometime sympathizes their hardships, but we are unable to break free from the way we are living now. It is a big problem and I suspect we are unable to find out solutions.

This doesn't mean we can't try to solve it. But I guess after thousands years of inequality in different economic/social class separations in the world, I suspect we can reach a peaceful solution that may against something that are deep inside our genes.

Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#16

Post by Herring »

adharmad wrote: post #6
carterschonwald wrote: post #2

I 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.

I wonder - has there ever been a case of an organization that big voluntarily giving up power? I can't think of any, & in fact the opposite situation (eg regulatory capture) is quite common.

Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#17

Post by akamaka »

papersmith wrote: post #9
rottencupcakes wrote: post #3

First 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 a…

I don't disagree overall, but I thought that China was relatively unaffected by the current crisis because of its massive currency reserves, which allowed it to ramp up spending and cheap loans.

Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#18

Post by patio11 »

jacquesm wrote: post #13
nalbyuites wrote: post #7

His files had vanished. But with his story in the NYT, how long do you think it will take for him to vanish? :(

Why do you think that will happen ?

Because China is a Communist dictatorship which routinely kills people whose continued life is an embarrassment to the regime.

Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#19

Post by Hexstream »

d_c wrote: post #14
online wrote: post #12

I was one of the victims of this system. Lucky me i got the hell out of the system a few years ago. I am a software engineer in Vancouver ,Canada browsing this news now. My files has been sitting in a cabinet of a government official build over 8 years and no one just care. The interesting part was I had to pay the government for keeping my files. I just left 8 years ago and i thought i would not need my files anymor…

Would they just throw them away if you stopped paying a 'storage fee'(?)?

After reading this article... Apparently they'd "recycle" them.

Re: Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

#20

Post by papersmith »

akamaka wrote: post #17
papersmith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I don't disagree overall, but I thought that China was relatively unaffected by the current crisis because of its massive currency reserves, which allowed it to ramp up spending and cheap loans.

That's another part of the reason. :) If the hole is too big you won't be able to bucket out the water fast enough.
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