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China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

economist.com

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Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#181

Post by Balgair »

imglorp wrote: post #157
Laforet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much doubt it is sustainable. The cost of policing is quite substantial and the productivity lost is hard to replace which adds to the cost. What we are seeing today is essentially a low intensity conflict[0] not unlike what took place in white Rhodesia/Namibia, Northern Ireland during the troubles, etc. There is a economic reason why these conflicts could not last indefinitely, no matter what ideologies drive…

Technology is making the price plummet of policing a large population. Natural language recognition, face recognition, location tracking, pattern-matching, deep packet inspection, graph traversal, and of course AI can all run unattended pointing out dissidents to the authorities who just have to go round them up and reeducate them. Oh and guess what China is making a big investment in lately?

The false-positive/negative rates are the key here. If they are not too bad, then yeah, it may 'work' in the short term. If they are sky high, like most facial recognition is today, then it's not going to work. Word will leak out very quickly that the surveillance is worthless.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#182

Post by slowburning »

robotkdick wrote: post #86
Laforet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much doubt it is sustainable. The cost of policing is quite substantial and the productivity lost is hard to replace which adds to the cost. What we are seeing today is essentially a low intensity conflict[0] not unlike what took place in white Rhodesia/Namibia, Northern Ireland during the troubles, etc. There is a economic reason why these conflicts could not last indefinitely, no matter what ideologies drive…

I totally agree. China seems to want to create a monoculture with norms that don't bend from locale to locale. I think the saying is: if it don't bend, it will break.

http://read.gov/aesop/011.html The Oak and the Reeds, Aesop 'Better to yield when it is folly to resist, than to resist stubbornly and be destroyed.'

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#183

Post by nomass »

tc wrote: post #58

In the West we have a false sense of security that totalitarianism will inevitably fail. We've seen so many examples of fallen tyrannical states. But many ideas fail the first few times they're tried. China seems committed to making totalitarianism "work." It's hard to think of any more dangerous invention. Even nuclear weapons aren't as dangerous as a sustainable model for modern tyrannical government. This is an in…

Very well put and also very true. Most people are absolutely unaware how fast big shifts happen. The invention of national-socialism with the foundation of the NSDAP happened 1920. A few years later a highly weaponized and aggressive Germany invaded Poland in 1939. 19 years from zero to war.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#184

Post by boomboomsubban »

dragonwriter wrote: post #176
siidooloo wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within a few decades of the French revolution half of the European governments were overthrown and replaced with constitutional Monarchies. The other half that resisted were forced into increasing totalitarianism and in a few more decades themselves overthrown in year zero revolutions. The one country to avoid this, Britain, learned the lesson of the French Revolution. They maed enough reforms that there was no const…

> The one country to avoid this, Britain, learned the lesson of the French Revolution. They maed enough reforms that there was no constituency for revolution. Er, Britain had been a constitutional monarchy for a long time before the French Revolution, and many of the others made reforms rather than being overthrown, and in many cases, like Britain, well before the French Revolution. Your version of history is badly d…

Both of you are somewhat right. The various events of the late seventeenth century helped prevent revolution from popping up around the French Revolution, but their political system at the time prevented most of the country from having a role in politics. This was a wide issue in Europe, and the Revolutions of 1848 were largely about that issue. Britain had addressed that issue with the Reform Acts, allowing their government to stay stable through the period.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#185

Post by pm90 »

nomass wrote: post #183
tc wrote: post #58

In the West we have a false sense of security that totalitarianism will inevitably fail. We've seen so many examples of fallen tyrannical states. But many ideas fail the first few times they're tried. China seems committed to making totalitarianism "work." It's hard to think of any more dangerous invention. Even nuclear weapons aren't as dangerous as a sustainable model for modern tyrannical government. This is an in…

Very well put and also very true. Most people are absolutely unaware how fast big shifts happen. The invention of national-socialism with the foundation of the NSDAP happened 1920. A few years later a highly weaponized and aggressive Germany invaded Poland in 1939. 19 years from zero to war.

Considering how much more technology has evolved since then, it isn't far-fetched to think that this pace of devolution into totalitarianism could happen much faster today.

In fact, this is precisely what happened with ISIS. I shudder to think what might have happened if the powers to be had not put aside their differences to fight a common foe.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#187

Post by pm90 »

siidooloo wrote: post #164
oblio wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that “totalitarianism” was the default government form for most of history. The problem is, the higher we go on the Maslow pyramid, the more likely it is for it to fail. You just can’t have a huge mass of creative, inventive people without them complaining about leadership (and wanting to improve it). And totalitarianism by definition has problems accepting criticism. The only way for totalitarianism…

Nothing is forever. The current regime in China won't be forever either. The question is how long. After Augustus Rome still had a couple of hundred years of expansion where a nationalist could argue, “hey look at that! Things are still going good.” But they couldn’t outrun the rot in the system forever. After Xi will China get another strongman? I think this is the key. If there are a series of total dictators thing…

This is a great point. Xi is a strongman dictator and has arguably harmed Communist rule a lot more than he realizes by eliminating term limits. If the next ruler is some fool who cannot handle the crises that a country inevitably faces... it could lead to the country's undoing.

Which is why I am personally a lot more alarmed at the current US Presidency than most of my peers. Inept rulers have historically been the best predictors of a civilization's downfall. The fervent opposition to the administration by ordinary US citizens gives me hope but if Republicans continue to hold on to power after November, I really do feel that all will be lost.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#188

Post by ataturk »

Laforet wrote: post #81
tc wrote: post #58

In the West we have a false sense of security that totalitarianism will inevitably fail. We've seen so many examples of fallen tyrannical states. But many ideas fail the first few times they're tried. China seems committed to making totalitarianism "work." It's hard to think of any more dangerous invention. Even nuclear weapons aren't as dangerous as a sustainable model for modern tyrannical government. This is an in…

I very much doubt it is sustainable. The cost of policing is quite substantial and the productivity lost is hard to replace which adds to the cost. What we are seeing today is essentially a low intensity conflict[0] not unlike what took place in white Rhodesia/Namibia, Northern Ireland during the troubles, etc. There is a economic reason why these conflicts could not last indefinitely, no matter what ideologies drive…

American corporations are making it a reality and they want a one-size-fits-all approach worldwide.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#189

Post by ataturk »

laretluval wrote: post #168
ajross wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if you're wrong? You have doubts, where's the evidence? There's not enough data to make predictions like that. But one very good reason for optimism is that China's current totalitarian stability is an unstable false vacuum. It's sustained by the outrageously rapid economic growth seen in the decades since the cultural revolution. Basically: if you're Chinese, your grandparents (if they were lucky) survived a…

The Chinese proletariat isn’t running around the world colecting foreign graduate degrees; they are working in factories in Shenzhen to feed their children back in the village. But you’re right in that it’s typically privileged young people who are behind liberal revolutions.

Exactly. And if you step out of line politically in China, you quickly get a bullet to the back of the head.

Re: China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other

#190

Post by boomboomsubban »

kinsomo wrote: post #154
igivanov wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other news, the US, NATO and friends in this century alone destroyed Iraq, Libya, almost destroyed Syria and Yemen and did a few other nasty things that resulted in at least a million dead. Do you have a big enough item 5 for that?

> In other news, the US, NATO and friends in this century alone destroyed Iraq, Libya, almost destroyed Syria and Yemen and did a few other nasty things that resulted in at least a million dead. Do you have a big enough item 5 for that? Destroyed? You'll need to provide some pretty strong proof to convince me those countries aren't there anymore. Also the Syria and Yemen are civil wars. Don't know how you think it's…

Proof? Libya has currently been broken into four or more warring states, each controlling some part of Libya.

>Also the Syria and Yemen are civil wars. Don't know how you think it's reasonable to pin that on the "US, NATO and friends".

By providing the various sides with arms and support. Though I think you can put much of the blame of the civil wars staring on the US, even if you disagree the wars are still dramatically different than it would be without US support.

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