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China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

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Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#31

Post by TeMPOraL »

pjc50 wrote: post #25
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but another way to look at it, does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? To misquote Hayek: communism is ultimately like telling every car where they should go rather than just putting up street-signs. * Please add to the debate rather than down-voting. Also Hayek wasn't musing about future autonomous cars, its a metaphor about how decidi…

> communism is ultimately like telling every car where they should go rather than just putting up street-signs. Ironically, in the capitalist future, each car will decide where to go through a computer system controlled by a single company instead.

Central control is efficient, if you can get the right signals to the controller, and do it fast enough to have a tight feedback loop. Humans alone can do none of this at scale, but modern computing can do the "feedback" part easily. It's now the "signals" and "controller" parts that need to be figured out.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#32

Post by ttflee »

anfilt wrote: post #20

Sigh and this is why plain text SNI is was not a good idea...

If SNI poisoning does not work for censoring, the whole IP range of service would be blocked instead. You cannot always count on changing IP addresses which would be a cat-and-mouse game.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#33

Post by geofft »

bloak wrote: post #22
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but another way to look at it, does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? To misquote Hayek: communism is ultimately like telling every car where they should go rather than just putting up street-signs. * Please add to the debate rather than down-voting. Also Hayek wasn't musing about future autonomous cars, its a metaphor about how decidi…

China's economy isn't by any stretch of the imagination "communist", but telling every car where to go is perhaps the right solution for the future, with computer science making it feasible and overpopulation making it desirable. However, I'm not sure that's in any way relevant to freedom of thought and freedom of information.

And Google already does it: take a look at the stories of small towns wishing Google would stop routing people through a certain surface road and not knowing how to make that request. People trust their navigation apps because in general those apps have earned their trust.

In general I am skeptical of "Communism is bad because the government will X" arguments where private industry is capable of doing X in as thorough a way for the average citizen's practical liberty and especially where private industry is already trying X.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#34

Post by NotPaidToPost »

onion2k wrote: post #29
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but another way to look at it, does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? To misquote Hayek: communism is ultimately like telling every car where they should go rather than just putting up street-signs. * Please add to the debate rather than down-voting. Also Hayek wasn't musing about future autonomous cars, its a metaphor about how decidi…

does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? The assumption you're making is that the Chinese government, or any government actually, optimizes for the prosperity of the people. Governments optimize for the prosperity of some people. In China that appears to be the ruling elite. In America it's the wealthy. Here in the UK it's the establishment (…

The Chinese government knows that peace and quiet comes partly from improving the economic well-being of the general population.

The vast majority of the Chinese population has seen dramatic improvements during the last 40 years.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#36

Post by HlessClaudesman »

onion2k wrote: post #29
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but another way to look at it, does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? To misquote Hayek: communism is ultimately like telling every car where they should go rather than just putting up street-signs. * Please add to the debate rather than down-voting. Also Hayek wasn't musing about future autonomous cars, its a metaphor about how decidi…

does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? The assumption you're making is that the Chinese government, or any government actually, optimizes for the prosperity of the people. Governments optimize for the prosperity of some people. In China that appears to be the ruling elite. In America it's the wealthy. Here in the UK it's the establishment (…

I agree, that's the central question: is a government for promoting the prosperity of it's people or perpetuating itself. Would be nice if they could do both but there are so many examples of governments choosing themselves over the greater good.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#38

Post by Mirioron »

onion2k wrote: post #29
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but another way to look at it, does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? To misquote Hayek: communism is ultimately like telling every car where they should go rather than just putting up street-signs. * Please add to the debate rather than down-voting. Also Hayek wasn't musing about future autonomous cars, its a metaphor about how decidi…

does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? The assumption you're making is that the Chinese government, or any government actually, optimizes for the prosperity of the people. Governments optimize for the prosperity of some people. In China that appears to be the ruling elite. In America it's the wealthy. Here in the UK it's the establishment (…

I think most governments do want to improve the life of the people, but it simply gets lost in the power struggle. You can't gain power without agreement from the king-makers and that agreement comes with strings attached. You also have to deal with the opposition and at least in American politics, they seem to be quite unreasonable at times. (Regardless which party is the opposition.)

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#39

Post by stupidcar »

onion2k wrote: post #29
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but another way to look at it, does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? To misquote Hayek: communism is ultimately like telling every car where they should go rather than just putting up street-signs. * Please add to the debate rather than down-voting. Also Hayek wasn't musing about future autonomous cars, its a metaphor about how decidi…

does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? The assumption you're making is that the Chinese government, or any government actually, optimizes for the prosperity of the people. Governments optimize for the prosperity of some people. In China that appears to be the ruling elite. In America it's the wealthy. Here in the UK it's the establishment (…

It's you. This kind of lazy pessimism strikes me as a peculiar privilege of people who've grown up accustomed to living under a government that, while unavoidably imperfect, does in fact give consideration to the rights and desires of ordinary citizens. They don't take notice of all the ways their government chooses not to oppress them, because they wrongly imagine this is some natural state of things.

On the other hand, immigrants I've spoken to from countries with autocratic regimes, while not starry eyed about the nature of western governments, have no problem explaining why the situation in their countries of origin is much, much worse, and why the government of their new country is much fairer and functional.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#40

Post by onion2k »

stupidcar wrote: post #39
onion2k wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does China's micromanagement of the domestic flow of information result in more or less prosperity for their people? The assumption you're making is that the Chinese government, or any government actually, optimizes for the prosperity of the people. Governments optimize for the prosperity of some people. In China that appears to be the ruling elite. In America it's the wealthy. Here in the UK it's the establishment (…

It's you. This kind of lazy pessimism strikes me as a peculiar privilege of people who've grown up accustomed to living under a government that, while unavoidably imperfect, does in fact give consideration to the rights and desires of ordinary citizens. They don't take notice of all the ways their government chooses not to oppress them, because they wrongly imagine this is some natural state of things. On the other h…

They don't take notice of all the ways their government chooses not to oppress them, because they wrongly imagine this is some natural state of things.

If you're looking for a way to describe how good your government is and you come up with "Think how much worse it could be!" then I think the government has failed in its duty.

There's a spectrum of government effectiveness that goes from "actively oppressing the people" to "genuinely helping the people". Too many governments are at the wrong end, and very few are at the right end. Most seem to be somewhere in the middle. That, in my opinion, isn't good enough.

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