Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 280 posts

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

#41

Post by thinkpad20 »

antishatter wrote: post #22
liberte82 wrote: post #19

Unrelated, but I'm always amazed when I hear about these massive Chinese cities for the first time. Apparently Urumqi has a population of 3.5 million.

Recently went to Xian which locals had described to be as being more of a small village feel. A mere 8m population.

Xian at least has thousands of years of history. On the bullet train in China you’ll often pass by cities of millions of people which might have been mere hamlets a generation or two ago. The size of China, its economic renaissance and the fact that good jobs in China are almost exclusively found in urban areas has led to a vast migration towards city centers which is pretty much unprecedented in human history.

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

#42

Post by PricelessValue »

Haydos585x2 wrote: post #35
PricelessValue wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This post is clearly suggesting that the PEOPLE of those nations don't want that dystopian future. What people want a dystopian future? That's a pointless statement. Also, Nithin Cota is not chinese nor ughyur. How can he speak for those people. > What China is doing in Xinjiang is not something many, if any, citizens around the world want. You can say that about the same things that happened in the US, britain, eu…

We're not talking about US, Britain, Europe or any other country. It's also not a prerequisite to be Chinese or Uyghur to discuss this topic. If someone learns and becomes educated on a topic they can discuss it. He's also not saying that Uyghurs want this. He's saying nobody wants this.

> We're not talking about US, Britain, Europe or any other country.

But you said "people of those nations"? Now you are backtracking?

> It's also not a prerequisite to be Chinese or Uyghur to discuss this topic. If someone learns and becomes educated on a topic they can discuss it.

I didn't say it was a prerequisite. My point is that the assertion that "we don't want dystopian surveillance" is absurd considering the amount of surveillance we already have. Okay? Considering the guy wrote for a western news outlet, I'm assuming by "we", he meant the western world.

> He's also not saying that Uyghurs want this. He's saying nobody wants this.

Right. And my point is that we already have it.

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

#43

Post by thinkpad20 »

PricelessValue wrote: post #37
ng12 wrote: 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.

> Did you read the article? Yes. > Not sure about you but I don't have to put my government issued ID on my kitchen knives. Neither do I. But that's because I love freedom. What's the difference between ids on or for knives and ids on or for guns? It sounds ridiculous to us because our murders are by guns. But in china people kill each other with knives. https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/asia/china-railway-atta...…

> Neither do I. But that's because I love freedom.

I guess all the folks in Xinjiang just don’t love freedom as much as you do.

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

#44

Post by PricelessValue »

mtgx wrote: post #34
PricelessValue wrote: post #23

> China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants What silly clickbait. I swear the media ( or propaganda ) sure loves to scaremonger with "china". The brits want it. Europe wants it. Russia wants it. And the liberal and conservatives in the US want it. The leading surveillance systems in the world aren't in china. It's in britain. It's in the US. Edit: Holy cow, the brigade is strong here.

> The brits want it. Europe wants it. Russia wants it. And the liberal and conservatives in the US want it. Citation needed. All of those "countries" don't "want it". Perhaps some of the authoritarian leaders in some of those countries want it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/tony-porter-su...

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

#45

Post by akira2501 »

otoburb wrote: post #21
stevenjohns wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently traveled to China and went to a fairly remote area dominated by Uyghurs and didn't see anything that would indicate that level of oppression. They seemed quite free to do what they wanted to between themselves (such as buying a knife) although I imagine their political rights wouldn't be very strong.

The parent's comment was taken directly from the OP article.

Which is sourced from a New York Times _opinion_ piece without any documentation or second sourcing to back it up. I'm comfortable putting this in the "dubious" and/or "overblown anecdote" bin unless evidence shows otherwise.

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

#46

Post by PricelessValue »

thinkpad20 wrote: post #43
PricelessValue wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you read the article? Yes. > Not sure about you but I don't have to put my government issued ID on my kitchen knives. Neither do I. But that's because I love freedom. What's the difference between ids on or for knives and ids on or for guns? It sounds ridiculous to us because our murders are by guns. But in china people kill each other with knives. https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/asia/china-railway-atta...…

> Neither do I. But that's because I love freedom. I guess all the folks in Xinjiang just don’t love freedom as much as you do.

> I guess all the folks in Xinjiang just don’t love freedom as much as you do.

Of course they do. Good god you completely missed my point.

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

#47

Post by samplatt »

bilbo0s wrote: post #24
justicezyx wrote: post #10

A side note: The terrorist attacks (what the CCP states) in Xinjiang was rampant. Every years hundreds of innocent people were killed. And due to media control, those reports seldom see publicity outside of small forums in the first a few months following the events. ps1: Whether or not those attacks are done by terrorists, or oppressed minorities, I have no comments. ps2: This not a defend. Merely suggest one of the…

"...Whether or not those attacks are done by terrorists, or oppressed minorities, I have no comments...." ??? If "...oppressed minorities..." commit acts wherein "...hundreds of innocent people were killed..." aren't they "terrorists"? Or am I thinking about this whole thing wrong?

Pretty sure OP was just adding that in so that they'd avoid needless discussion regarding emotionally-charged labels like 'terrorist'. The term almost certainly applies, but lets talk about the acts and the environment itself, rather than perpetrators of horrific acts and their presumable-but-technically-unknown motivations.

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

#48

Post by jessaustin »

Haydos585x2 wrote: post #35
PricelessValue wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This post is clearly suggesting that the PEOPLE of those nations don't want that dystopian future. What people want a dystopian future? That's a pointless statement. Also, Nithin Cota is not chinese nor ughyur. How can he speak for those people. > What China is doing in Xinjiang is not something many, if any, citizens around the world want. You can say that about the same things that happened in the US, britain, eu…

We're not talking about US, Britain, Europe or any other country. It's also not a prerequisite to be Chinese or Uyghur to discuss this topic. If someone learns and becomes educated on a topic they can discuss it. He's also not saying that Uyghurs want this. He's saying nobody wants this.

Saying "nobody" is at least partially wishful thinking. Hell, lots of people on HN want it. Just look at recent discussions of encryption backdoors for FBI.

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

#49

Post by el_benhameen »

akira2501 wrote: post #45
otoburb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent's comment was taken directly from the OP article.

Which is sourced from a New York Times _opinion_ piece without any documentation or second sourcing to back it up. I'm comfortable putting this in the "dubious" and/or "overblown anecdote" bin unless evidence shows otherwise.

I was curious and found this article (https://www.fastcompany.com/40510238/in-xinjiang-china-some-...) which references this series of tweets (https://twitter.com/joshchin/status/943159015994880000/photo...).

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

#50

Post by nerfhammer »

thinkpad20 wrote: post #41
antishatter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently went to Xian which locals had described to be as being more of a small village feel. A mere 8m population.

Xian at least has thousands of years of history. On the bullet train in China you’ll often pass by cities of millions of people which might have been mere hamlets a generation or two ago. The size of China, its economic renaissance and the fact that good jobs in China are almost exclusively found in urban areas has led to a vast migration towards city centers which is pretty much unprecedented in human history.

It's almost as if growing cities are economic growth multipliers and perhaps even a key part of that whole civilization thing.

Meanwhile over here it's taken as assumed that cities cannot and/or should not grow ever again.

Post reply on HN