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> Zoom did not respond to a request for comment. When you can't say anything that won't get you into deeper trouble, say nothing at all.
Aiding in the Chinese media's censorship is not good for China nor the world. When a government destroys the ability for it to be criticized it becomes untethered from consensus reality; megalomaniacs can take the reins and a kind of national hubris forms that can lead to devastating conflict and oppression. All governments need open dissent and criticism to keep from going down this path. Zoom should not be aiding a…
-Martin Luther King Jr.
This observation seems more immediate these days internationally than ever.
Aiding in the Chinese media's censorship is not good for China nor the world. When a government destroys the ability for it to be criticized it becomes untethered from consensus reality; megalomaniacs can take the reins and a kind of national hubris forms that can lead to devastating conflict and oppression. All governments need open dissent and criticism to keep from going down this path. Zoom should not be aiding a…
The CCP witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and instead of opening up to a peaceful transition to democracy they chose to double down on top-down authoritarian policies. At the same time, they’ve sought to leverage markets for economic growth. The result is a conundrum: how to reconcile Marxist ideology with the prosperity of markets?
This is where “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” comes in. This is an ideology of doublethink which can only be maintained through force. All of the censorship taking place, both inside and outside China, has the goal of ideological suppression for any speech the CPC deems a threat. And so here we are.
> Zoom did not respond to a request for comment. When you can't say anything that won't get you into deeper trouble, say nothing at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, this presumes that it's a government acting in good faith. Sure, something like the UK or a EU country should have dissent and criticism to keep democracy healthy. However, countries like China, Russia, and NK, have no interest in fostering a healthy dialogue and it wouldn't be very conducive to their government's interests.
> it wouldn't be very conducive to their government's interests. It depends on your timeline. If you eliminate dissent you may be able to push through short-term aims or develop a facsimile of national unity, but you will naturally eliminate nuance from your geopolitics. Even one or two generations into this experiment, you can wind up with a leader who truly "drinks the koolaid," who assumes the state propaganda to…
Usually the first thing dictators do is disarm civilians and beef up the military, so the only way out is via a military coup (which usually just trades one regime for an equivalent one). In just 2 decades, North Korea will have had a dictatorship for a century.
It is ironic how the western public generally frowns upon the silencing of dissident throught in China, and at the same time welcomes precisely the same behavior for "sensitive topics" back home.
> Zoom did not respond to a request for comment. When you can't say anything that won't get you into deeper trouble, say nothing at all.
0 - https://twitter.com/MarriottBonvoy/status/951344031405084673
It is ironic how the western public generally frowns upon the silencing of dissident throught in China, and at the same time welcomes precisely the same behavior for "sensitive topics" back home.
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GP is clearly not saying that "... therefore, Chinese oppression is okay."
My takeaway would be that we have work to do with China, and that in observing the flaws in their society from without, we can gain perspective on what's going wrong here as well and work on that too.