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China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

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Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#241

Post by idra »

FabHK wrote: post #153
idra wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lies. Fights are very common, especially in the north-east. Foreigners are often assaulted for being foreigners. Last year, a foreigner-Chinese couple was attacked by a sword-wielding man for being a foreigner-Chinese couple in one of the busiest areas of Beijing, rife with police. The woman died [1]. Roads are very friendly to pedestrians indeed, where the driver will most likely try to run you over again to kill yo…

No. Citing one anecdote does not change the facts: China and HK have about the same homicide rate as Germany (namely less than 1 per 100,000 per year), that's about a quarter of the US rate. As for healthcare, if I were to get seriously ill, I would frankly not want to be in mainland China or the US. Similarly for litigation, in fact. Lamentably, while Chinese used to be rather friendly and curious towards foreigners…

China and HK are completely different entities and cannot be compared. I was also talking about fights, not homicides.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#242

Post by smallnamespace »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #167
smallnamespace wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because getting something to happen in a large country is much much harder than in a smaller country. China is literally 20 times the size of Korea AND Taiwan. To achieve growth in a small country, you can be nimble and find relatively small market opportunities and then exploit them relentlessly. That simply doesn't scale to 1bn+ people.

> To achieve growth in a small country, you can be nimble and find relatively small market opportunities and then exploit them relentlessly. That simply doesn't scale to 1bn+ people. Economic reality is actually the opposite of what you state. A big country represents a big domestic market - you don't need export niches or even good products, but can just build to service the internal markets, with massive economics…

All countries with the highest GDP per capita are small:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

You need to get to Norway before you see a reasonably sized country.

If what you claimed was true, the US would be on top.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#243

Post by tim333 »

loeber wrote: post #56
dcposch wrote: post #35

China is fascinating. On one hand... - China has done better than any other country on Earth at poverty reduction. Chinese policy since Deng Xiaoping lifted hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence poverty. Free markets were a big part of this, but so were Special Economic Zones starting with Shenzhen, a culture of sharing IP, massive govt investments in infrastructure, research and education. - China are al…

> China has done better than any other country on Earth at poverty reduction This is only true if you're applying a ludicrous double standard. China has done better than most other countries at this because China was extremely poor just a few decades back. Nowadays, much of China is still very poor. Of course it's much easier for China to slash its poverty rates than for an already-developed nation. The real thing to…

China was the world's largest economy before about 1900. They have done an impressive job at screwing that up and then recovering a bit. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/06/23/article-2163610-13...

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#244

Post by monksy »

rconti wrote: post #151
dirktheman wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From June 2017 there will be no extra dataroaming charges in the EU. So you could buy a non-registered SIM card in The Netherlands (you can even buy them at the checkout counter at the supermarket) and use it all over EU member states. Strange situation...

The world can't wait -- but I'd not call it strange. I hadn't been to Europe since 2004, and on my subsequent visit in 2011, I just casually told my wife "we'll just buy SIMs at the first country we go to, surely they've sorted out this stupid roaming-when-you-travel-a-few-hundred-miles thing by now." WRONG. So glad this is coming to an end. I've wasted far too much time and money country-hopping and having to spend…

Depends on where you are.

London just get it at arrivals of Heathrow.

Ireland theres a metro sim shop at arrivals.

Germany: go to your nearest netto

France: just find a shop.. but don't expect to get anything that works.

Carribean.. Never even tried.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#245

Post by nunez »

As if this system didn't exist within the US. Credit and bank account spending records have long been a treasure trove of analytics on how people go about their day to day. Social media extends on this even further since there are many people who post EVERYTHING about them on these platforms.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#247

Post by iklos55 »

idra wrote: post #165
iklos55 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is amazing - you're saying that Wechat has privacy issues but advertise Whatsapp.

I knew this would come up, but Whatsapp is still miles ahead of Wechat regarding privacy. And especially regarding invasions of privacy where the Chinese government is involved, which I am pretty sure Whatsapp is safe from. First, Whatsapp advertises to have end-to-end encryption, which Wechat doesn't have. Second, your private Wechat conversations can be used against you as evidence in court, while any evidence coll…

Guess you read this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13389935

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#248

Post by idra »

iklos55 wrote: post #247
idra wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew this would come up, but Whatsapp is still miles ahead of Wechat regarding privacy. And especially regarding invasions of privacy where the Chinese government is involved, which I am pretty sure Whatsapp is safe from. First, Whatsapp advertises to have end-to-end encryption, which Wechat doesn't have. Second, your private Wechat conversations can be used against you as evidence in court, while any evidence coll…

Guess you read this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13389935

I did... too bad. Nice timing though

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#249

Post by ommunist »

kobeya wrote: post #84
ommunist wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you check that you have been opted out and government really has no access to your private data? Think of government data stored permanently. Wnen you are opted out it is you who is opted out from access to your data, not the government. If you do not have effective means of control, your privacy most prodably will be abused without you knowing. There was quite a thread here last year about software engineer…

You can't opt out of government tracking. The GP was talking about commercial tracking.

I got no means to check that either. What stops Google from opting me out of my data, but continue to sell or use it in the background?

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#250

Post by throwaway91111 »

simonh wrote: post #168
wfunction wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds almost unbelievable. How sure are you that it wasn't suggested for some other reason? And how did they know WHAT you bought, given credit card companies don't get that info?

Agreed, I don't see how that's possible given the strict controls over personally identifiable card purchase data. Somebody would have to be breaking the law.

It's entirely possible they were going off of browsing history + where I bought from, but I've 100% had experiences where I appeared to see retargeted ads for same day purchases in brick and mortar stores. Perhaps they were joining through my credit card number only, which is also associated with my online profile?
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