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China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

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

#51

Post by samplatt »

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...…

>It sounds ridiculous to us

Not sure if calling your own example ridiculous is a good argumentative tactic in short-form debates like this...

>because our murders are by guns

Sure, but a cleavers' main manufactured purpose isn't killing other human beings. The guns involved in mass shootings are made specifically for shooting people en mass.

>If people in china are killing each other with knives, doesn't "smart" knives or knife registry make sense just like a gun registry?

No. Even though the barrier for entry for making guns is getting lower and lower, they'll never ever approach the barrier for entry for making an edged weapon.

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

#52

Post by gurkendoktor »

stevenjohns wrote: post #20
monocasa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uighers may be the first population to sign up for satellite subscriptions If they can at all. Uighers can't even buy a knife without it being engraved with a QR code of their national ID number.

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.

On a meta-note, this seems to apply to every aspect of Chinese surveillance/repression. Every time someone here reports that a website is blocked in China, someone else will reply that it works for them.

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

#53

Post by colemannugent »

analyst74 wrote: post #6
otoburb wrote: post #3

>> For the next 10 months, web access would be almost nonexistent in Xinjiang, a vast region larger than Texas with a population of more than 20 million. It was one of the most widespread, longest internet shutdowns ever. SpaceX's plans to launch their first set of satellites for their Starlink broadband constellation[1]. Uighers may be the first population to sign up for satellite subscriptions, although the Chinese…

This is exciting news! I wonder if this will trigger space warfare, which might push nations to invest more into space, and maybe we'll finally become space-faring species in my lifetime!

Well, that's one way to do it lol. Hurry up Musk!

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

#54

Post by thinkpad20 »

nerfhammer wrote: post #50
thinkpad20 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

How do you mean?

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

#55

Post by [deleted] »

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...…

[deleted]

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

#56

Post by dang »

PricelessValue wrote: post #46
thinkpad20 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Flamewars aren't welcome here. We ban accounts that post like this, so we'd appreciate it if you'd read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and abide by the rules from now on.

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

#57

Post by justicezyx »

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.

I have chatted with people providing tech support for this. The level of monitoring is beyond your wildest imagination.

The anecdotal number says Xinjiang spent 30B RMB on the security and surveillance. I have no details about the exact expense items.

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

#58

Post by mlindner »

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.

Bullshit. Britain and the US don't do anywhere near the scale of this collection. Also we have cases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States which are set to (likely) outlaw ability for warrantless surveillance of position, which they do in China.

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

#59

Post by jtmcmc »

thinkpad20 wrote: post #54
nerfhammer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Meanwhile over here it's taken as assumed that cities cannot and/or should not grow ever again. How do you mean?

entrenched building zoning and building restrictions that mop up massive amounts of economic potential in rent (see the housing crises throughout the major cities of the US)

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

#60

Post by testvox »

thinkpad20 wrote: post #54
nerfhammer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Meanwhile over here it's taken as assumed that cities cannot and/or should not grow ever again. How do you mean?

Probably referring to the hatred many in the United States have towards urban development. In pretty much every city in the United States development has been slowed to a crawl due to zoning restrictions, despite increasing huge demand. People love to use SF as a prime example but I will point to my city, Somerville MA where rents have been soaring, yet there are only 22 lots that meet the residential zoning requirements. All other lots are over the density requirement. So practically any future development has to decrease the number of people who can live in the city, rather then increase it. http://cityobservatory.org/the-illegal-city-of-somerville/
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