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China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

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251–260 of 280 posts

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#251
post #172

You guys may be concerned about China today. However, in the long run, with AI the humans are building a zoo for themselves. When machines are able to complete every task better, win every strategic confrontation, and so on, there will not be any point for humans to make any significant contributions - including art. Even video and audio will be faked easily. When their every move can be scrutinized and next moves ea…

To add to the irony, we are the ones doing it.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#253
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're offering nothing but lame excuses. You have not provided a single reason why China could not be a more democratic country with more than one party, less corruption, and more reasonable laws that are applied with due process and not selectively. The idea that more freedom and less corruptions inevitably leads to unrest is a non-sequitur. It has worked out quite well for those former East Bloc countries that are…

Give me example of one single country that is not waging any war or complicit of it ? The other point is why the world should go by force for democracy? Democracy is freedom, I don't like that democracy I am happy with dictatorship why someone should cry ? ( not pointing at you). Lets say whole population is happy with their dictator and living a decent life,unless someone is arming rebels and inciting political turm…

> Give me example of one single country that is not waging any war or complicit of it ?

Almost every democratic country if you hadn't changed the topic again. We were talking about waging a war, not "being complicit" or small-scale interventions like e.g. currently in Afghanistan. For instance, sending fighter jets equipped with cameras instead of bombs is not "waging a war".

I also don't think that it is fair to portray e.g. international alliances against ISIS as evil and unjust wars.

> The other point is why the world should go by force for democracy?

We shouldn't. I said that it's in the genuine interest of all Chinese people to get rid of their one-party system, get due process and fairer application of law, and have a multi-party system.

>Democracy is freedom, I don't like that democracy I am happy with dictatorship why someone should cry ? ( not pointing at you).

Because democracy is not primarily about your personal freedom, it's about maximizing freedom for everyone and also about due process and separation of powers. Being happy about dictatorship is not a consistent political position. If you benefit from a dictatorship, then it lies in the nature of dictatorships without due process that that's a mere coincidence for you. You could just as well be sent to a Gulag and tortured in besaid dictatorship. But the fact that you're personally happy with some particular dictatorship is not a valid argument for dictatorship as a form of governance. Nobody really wants dictatorship in general, if at all you might find a dictatorship from which you benefit somewhat desirable. I am not for democracy, because I personally benefit from it.

Why crying about it? Because the dictatorship you crave will invariably be bad for many other people, and normally functioning human beings are generally capable of compassion and empathy.

Lets say whole population is happy with their dictator and living a decent life,unless someone is arming rebels and inciting political turmoil by funding innocent people. Why you should interfere in their lives ?

You should not, at least not from the outside, and I have never argued for that.

However, the whole argument is fairly academic, because the vast majority of people are simply not happy with dictatorships. It's just easy for countries without due process and lots of terror and intimidation to mask this, e.g. people in surveys will not tell you the truth. In fact, the more totalitarian the country, the less critical they will appear to be of their leaders. Of course, people under Pol Pot were afraid of making critical remarks, because they did not want to be suffocated with a plastic bag.

That being said, since you were deviating again, I have not claimed that China is a dictatorship.

Democracy should come by learning by indigenous people, for indigenous it should not be "MY" desire or someone else desire.

I believe there is ample evidence, both historical and individual, that democracy is everyone's desire upon sincere reflection. Or, at least there is a historic development towards democracy that has had positive effects that are impossible to deny. That's a mere tendency, of course, you will always find naysayers. There is also a lot of disagreement about how to get there, and that's quite reasonable.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#254
post #233
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? Not sure about you but I don't have to put my government issued ID on my kitchen knives.

Well if you start to kill people on street and doing nasty things that is not impossible to tag the knives :). If you look in to history of this particular area there have been fierce street fighting and there was a tradition or culture to hang your sword/dagger or knife around your waist (before these new laws established). I think that is for public security and peace its not oppression and the law is tailored to a…

Then why are only Uyghurs required to get the ID branded on their cutlery?

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#255
post #222

They talk about China yet still a few realize that we are as well going into that direction. CCTV are everywhere, Facebook and Google have our identities, what we like, what we look for, what will be our probable next move (also in terms of real world position) and our routines. If ever a Chinese that feel safe in his home comes to the outer world (to us) he would say "how could this nation is so undeveloped to not a…

It's pretty easy to determine that the situation in the 'west' is different.

How many times in discussions on Chinese or Russian subversion or suppression of internal debate and freedom do you see posts trying to justify it or neutralize criticism using 'whatabout' tactics, aiming to change the discussion by pointing the finger somewhere else? Every time, because the behaviour can't be justified or supported on it's own terms. Whataboutism is pretty much the only justification available.

How many times in stories on US, British, etc internet surveillance or erosion of freedoms do you see someone say 'whatabout' another country doing the same thing and trying to justify our loss of freedoms based on other country's behaviour? Never. It just doesn't happen because American, British and other democratic societies look to their own democratic institutions, processes and freedoms to resolve these issues. We might look at loss of freedom elsewhere as a warning, but never as a justification that it's ok for us to lose them too. There are actual things we can do to protect our rights, so there's no need to wring our hands and say actually it's ok because somebody else is doing it. We don't give a fig what somebody else is doing, when it comes to protecting our own right and values, and nor should anyone else.

That's an easy rule of thumb for telling if a society is generally free or not.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#256
post #71

On the plus side, I just visited China last month and never felt safer. Before you would wear your backpack on the front of your chest when taking public transportation for fear of thieves. Now, with surveillance everywhere (and random ID checks at subways), you can freely wear your backpack on your back where it belongs without fear of theft.

Sigh, another passerby tourist making a comment that is so out of touch with reality that is borderline autistic. Those surveillance are means to oppress a large number of people.

Please stop abusing this community. We ban single-purpose accounts with an agenda and we ban accounts that won't post civilly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#257

Reason for surveillance. London and Paris may do the same if there are more attacks. "Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a statement supporting Jihad in Xinjiang against Chinese, in the Caucasus against the Russians and naming Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan as places of warfare.[42] Zawahiri endorsed "jihad to liberate every span of land of the Muslims that has been usurped and violated, from Ka…

You've been violating this guideline, could you please stop?

> We ban accounts that use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle, regardless of which politics they favor.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I've been in trouble on HN (probably rightly so) once before for pointing the finger. With that in mind... The problem is that 'their' only objective is to undermine 'our' goal of having a balanced, honest discussion that arrives at some kind of valid, valuable truth. If a troll or discourse control agent can undermine that process, then they've 'won'. And it's pretty easy to do. Actually, demanding sources is a g…

I wish we had troll armies going around demanding sources everywhere. That would greatly elevate the level of discussion on most forums. If you don't have unbiased scientific sources to backup your claim, I don't see how you will convince me your ideas have merit.

You are missing the fact that science in general is vulnerable to the same pattern of disruption. Discourse quickly grows bigger than can be handled by any single human. Distrust is no basis for communication. Of course a healthy skepticism is part of the scientific method, but you can't do basic research on the internet, except in terms of mass communication, which is a young field so arguably an area of experts. So states do have a positive incentive for discourse control, too. It starts with distribution of knowledge. The same hand that feeds, might beat, if it is bitten. Divide and conquer is the basic mechanism of control. And control is a basic human need. But science in general is, as said, too big for any single individual. So you have a few exceptionally knowledgeable individuals who bare a huge load of responsibility.[1] That's just what it is, how society could grow so large in the first place. And as it keeps growing while the space is limited, the pressure increases. And the result can seem rather arbitrary, so there can't be a single closed form solution to source your truth from. Rather, you need to and need to be allowed to make up your own mind.

[1] Edit: But they can't respond to everyone and thus accountability is forsaken in the name of progress ...? OK, that doesn't sound right. There is more to the lack of accountability. Which is perhaps just a lack of proper organisation, which, given the size of the world, might be understandable

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#259
post #209

Without pointing a finger, I will say I would be really surprised if this discussion - and HN in general - was not subject to a discourse control by paid state agents (sophisticated trolls) from China and elsewhere. Assuming that it is, what can we learn or do to miting such influences? Asking for independent source to all claims is obviously the first step.

That is the real problem with the liberty now. And I think liberty is dead under the pile of fake news generated by various parties interested in any issue. From war on terror to democracy and nuclear weapons the "agents" as you called, generates such a perception that we cannot escape, let alone our psychological biases and national, political and religious affiliations -- Welcome to the age of disinformation

This problem is greatly compounded by Democracy - trolls don't have to confuse YOU - the educated rational thinking programmer - if they can confuse the lower 50% of the electorate.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#260
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me example of one single country that is not waging any war or complicit of it ? The other point is why the world should go by force for democracy? Democracy is freedom, I don't like that democracy I am happy with dictatorship why someone should cry ? ( not pointing at you). Lets say whole population is happy with their dictator and living a decent life,unless someone is arming rebels and inciting political turm…

> Give me example of one single country that is not waging any war or complicit of it ? Almost every democratic country if you hadn't changed the topic again. We were talking about waging a war, not "being complicit" or small-scale interventions like e.g. currently in Afghanistan. For instance, sending fighter jets equipped with cameras instead of bombs is not "waging a war". I also don't think that it is fair to por…

Although I agree, that democracy is preferable over dictatorship, if everything else stays equal, but many,many people would prefer to live n a low corruption/good healthcare/good education authoritarian Belarus than in freer but more poor and corrupt Ukraine or Kyrgyzstan.
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