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Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

nytimes.com

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Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#41

Post by coldtea »

jacquesm wrote: post #31
api wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered for a while if what you describe might be the next dark age. The last one was built on the use of religion in tandem with feudal power. The new dark age replaces religion with surveillance and scientific propaganda and feudalism with corporatism.

There has been a war-on-science going on for quite a while now, if there is a dark age coming I would fully expect that to be the real origin.

Perhaps this "war on science", however naive and inarticulate its proponents, is actually a war on the abuses of technology, such as the parent describes.

In which case, not only it's not the real origin of some upcoming dark age, but the last voice of freedom before it.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#42

Post by rgbrenner »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #2

The article says there are four times as many cameras in China than in the US. This means approximately the same number of cameras per citizen. Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?

Is per capita the right way to rank this? A camera covers an area. The same picture can have 1 person it or 10000 people in it.

If you're the only person on a route, and I have one camera at a point on that route.. is that really the same as 100 people on a route, with 100 cameras along that same route? I would say not. In the 2nd instance, I've taken 100 pictures of you (and 99 other people), and know in more detail what you're doing.

US and China have a similar land area.. so we can assume in China you're caught on camera more frequently. I say assume, because we don't know how much area these cameras on covering--which is the more important stat. There's a big difference between a wide area camera, and a security camera outside an entrance pointed at the ground.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#43

Post by coldtea »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #2

The article says there are four times as many cameras in China than in the US. This means approximately the same number of cameras per citizen. Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?

>Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?

Well, you don't shit where you live, or where those that pay you live.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#44

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

briandear wrote: post #27
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #2

The article says there are four times as many cameras in China than in the US. This means approximately the same number of cameras per citizen. Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?

It’s not even close. A false equivalence. Assuming a camera represents a unit of surveillance, then that comparison might hold, but it’s what China actually does with that stuff that makes the difference. There is always this knee-jerk “What about the US?” every time there is an article like this. If you haven’t lived in China and actually lived within their system, it’s easy to take for granted the freedom Americans…

But it doesn't seem unreasonable to see present-day China as a potential future state of the USA|Western Europe and want to prevent that. (Not to mention wanting to think about how change might be effected in China. Hearing about what regular Mandarin citizens face is rough enough, and the situation for the Uyghurs is of course worse.)

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#45

Post by jacquesm »

coldtea wrote: post #41
jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been a war-on-science going on for quite a while now, if there is a dark age coming I would fully expect that to be the real origin.

Perhaps this "war on science", however naive and inarticulate its proponents, is actually a war on the abuses of technology, such as the parent describes. In which case, not only it's not the real origin of some upcoming dark age, but the last voice of freedom before it.

> Perhaps this "war on science", however naive and inarticulate its proponents, is actually a war on the abuses of technology, such as the parent describes.

No, it definitely isn't.

It's the willful and deceitful spreading of lies and portraying of scientists as bogeyman rather than the bringers of bad news. It's the purposeful act of dumbing down citizens and putting lies instead of facts in their heads to use 15 years down the line when those in school today become tomorrows voters.

That has absolutely nothing to do with abuses of technology (of which there are plenty, no argument there). The biggest abusers of tech tend to be those in power, closely followed by corporations, but the second is happy as long as they make bank, the first as long as they can use it to cement their position in power.

Look no further than what has happened at the EPA to get an idea of how incredible this whole story is.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#46

Post by sharpercoder »

I understand that most western countries have societal controls grown over the past centuries. The Chinese did not, and are catching up quickly by implementing similar controls as we have. But now, it's the digital age, and as such they are using any available technology to implement these societal controls. From this perspective, it's completely normal what the Chinese do. Seen from western eyes it does look a bit scary though. We must realize however that our society also has firm societal controls setup in many things we do.

China is now the dominant world player, this year it has surpassed the US on many areas (IT and military-industrial complex are the only US-dominant areas). Much more importantly, China is full-throttle developing it's trading strategy: The silk railway to Europe, trade dominance in Africa, footholds in Greece, Poland and other EU countries, large export deficit to the US. It won't be long before China will totally dominate trading in the world market. At that point, China can set the requirements. When that happens, traders are likely to need a WeChat account, too. No good rep? No trade.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#47

Post by 21 »

mc32 wrote: post #28
jknz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dissidents and revolutionaries would hardly be able to do much. Hence the scary question: Once the technology is available (now) and complete surveillance is implemented (soon), is there a going back?

This is a good question. I think the answer is "yes" with proviso that it would most likely come from the top. The CCP, is not exactly a monolith. It has factions, some get suppressed, some come to prominence. One that saw the negative aspects as being too negative would have to come to prominence to undo the overreach.

I think you are wrong. It will be hard to roll back any system which abolishes violent crime. The people will accept it as long as it not abused that much.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#48

Post by 21 »

jacquesm wrote: post #45
coldtea wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps this "war on science", however naive and inarticulate its proponents, is actually a war on the abuses of technology, such as the parent describes. In which case, not only it's not the real origin of some upcoming dark age, but the last voice of freedom before it.

> Perhaps this "war on science", however naive and inarticulate its proponents, is actually a war on the abuses of technology, such as the parent describes. No, it definitely isn't. It's the willful and deceitful spreading of lies and portraying of scientists as bogeyman rather than the bringers of bad news. It's the purposeful act of dumbing down citizens and putting lies instead of facts in their heads to use 15 ye…

There have been quite a few cases where "science" was used for "willful and deceitful spreading of lies".

See for example how now we find out that the whole "fats are bad for you, carbs are good" scientific "fact" was manufactured by the sugar industry.

This has infested the highest level of the scientific establishment (the american dietary recomandations), so you can't say that it was only the uninformed who were deceived.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#49

Post by drvdevd »

jacquesm wrote: post #31
api wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered for a while if what you describe might be the next dark age. The last one was built on the use of religion in tandem with feudal power. The new dark age replaces religion with surveillance and scientific propaganda and feudalism with corporatism.

There has been a war-on-science going on for quite a while now, if there is a dark age coming I would fully expect that to be the real origin.

This. Science is about sharing knowledge. Any such “dark age” is the opposite of that and thus antithetical to scientific progress.
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