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How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

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Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#61

Post by Aloisius »

Volpe wrote: post #56
Aloisius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed". Controversial? Good lord, Mao's Great Leap Forward killed between 23 and 42 million people in just a few years.

Okay, so Mao could be argued to be a bad idea, but there was and has been a lot of communism since Mao. Could you say the same for Deng Xiaoping (also a communist)?

At the time of the Korean war, China was still in the Mao period. From any sane point of view at that time, communism was horrible for China.

Post-Mao, well... Hua was a disaster and Deng was never a good communist. Mao himself accused Deng of being a capitalist and banished him to the countryside in the 60s. Once he finally gained power and brought back mild capitalism (really, market socialism), it still took 20 years for China to really get going.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#62

Post by Pitarou »

This part shocked me:

> They also collaborated. “When an escape did occur,” wrote one of the investigators, “the Chinese usually recovered the man easily by offering a bag of rice to anyone offering to turn him in.” This was extremely rare in German and Japanese prison camps.

It seems they achieved something more than just moulding the PoWs' political views: they broke their esprit de corps.

Still, I dislike words like "brainwash" and "mind control". It significantly understates the complicated dynamic between the washer and the washed. It would be interesting to learn how the Chinese were affected by their contacted with the Americans.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#63

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Volpe wrote: post #59
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me give you a tl;dr: the North Koreans started it by rolling over into South Korea, McAuthur went too close to the Yalu in the counter attack, Chinese entered the war, Truman fires McAuthur. Stalement ensues, borders preserved, Kim Jong Un has ex-girlfriend executed. The communists of the 50s were busy starving their own people in great leaps forwards, in the 60s they innovated on that with a cultural revolution;…

Capitalism is part of the progression to communism. You have to have generated capital in order to distribute it. Marx saw communism as a progression from capitalism, not a genesis form of government in and of itself. China had the unfortunate luck of being left in ruins when it becoming "Communist". Deng rebooted the whole thing, it remains to be seen whether they will continue communism into the future. To call it…

I live in China, it is the most capatalistic country I have lived in. If there is any socialism left, it is quite hidden to me.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#64

Post by derleth »

pintglass wrote: post #60
proofofconcept wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you actually want to have a discussion of those differences then you're going to need to point them out yourself instead of dumping a homework assignment in everyone's lap since: 1) I don't read Chinese, and I doubt I'm alone here when it comes to that 2) Google translate is far from perfect, and unless the differences are clear to someone who merely gets the gist of the Chinese article they probably won't come ac…

It's amazing how easily one can translate something these days instead of complain about having to read Chinese ( http://translate.google.com/ ): People [edit] The People's Republic of China since the founding of the ruling Communist Party of China, early through art, propaganda's "no new China without the Communist Party," "stability overrides everything" and other slogans, considered by some to be "brainwashed" beh…

Automated translation of East Asian languages into English is typically a source of much unintended hilarity. People therefore don't trust it.

Aside from that, Google Translate can be downright odd sometimes. Like what it did to Lorem Ipsum:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2010/10/google-tra...

http://www.zagg.com/community/blog/lorem-ipsum-text-translat...

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#65

Post by pintglass »

pintglass wrote: post #60
proofofconcept wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you actually want to have a discussion of those differences then you're going to need to point them out yourself instead of dumping a homework assignment in everyone's lap since: 1) I don't read Chinese, and I doubt I'm alone here when it comes to that 2) Google translate is far from perfect, and unless the differences are clear to someone who merely gets the gist of the Chinese article they probably won't come ac…

It's amazing how easily one can translate something these days instead of complain about having to read Chinese ( http://translate.google.com/ ): People [edit] The People's Republic of China since the founding of the ruling Communist Party of China, early through art, propaganda's "no new China without the Communist Party," "stability overrides everything" and other slogans, considered by some to be "brainwashed" beh…

I notice the original comment was amended to say Google Translate needs work (obviously), but I think it adds value, so here's a full comparison:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_reform_in_the_People%27...

Chinese translated to English: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#66

Post by khuey »

rxin wrote: post #29
mynameishere wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also did the communists do a bad job... Compare West and East Germany. Compare North and South Korea. Compare Mainland China and Taiwan. And once you've done those comparisons ask yourself about what kind of job the communists have done. Many millions dead. Many more millions in poverty. That's the job they've done.

What about comparing mainland and Taiwan? I don't think there exists an obvious conclusion from this comparison if you look at status quo. If you are judging based on the situation before 2000s, I agree with you that there is an obvious conclusion.

Per capita GDP in terms of PPP

US: ~$50000 Taiwan: ~$39000 EU: ~$35000 China: ~$9000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#67

Post by asveikau »

gruseom wrote: post #2

Cialdini's book is one of the best and most readable pieces of popular science writing ever. It's fascinating from start to finish, frequently hilarious, and pretty hard to summarize because there's so much cool stuff in it. The brainwashing scare from the Korean War is central to at least one classic movie, The Manchurian Candidate (1962). It was unavailable for 25 years, which rumor had it was because of its simila…

For the record The Manchurian Candidate was a book before it was a movie. I read the book once long ago but don't remember much about it. In contrast the imagery of the movie is very hard to forget.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#68

Post by Volpe »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #63
Volpe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is part of the progression to communism. You have to have generated capital in order to distribute it. Marx saw communism as a progression from capitalism, not a genesis form of government in and of itself. China had the unfortunate luck of being left in ruins when it becoming "Communist". Deng rebooted the whole thing, it remains to be seen whether they will continue communism into the future. To call it…

I live in China, it is the most capatalistic country I have lived in. If there is any socialism left, it is quite hidden to me.

It's a bit of a false dichotomy (as I tried to explain earliar).

It isn't capitalism vs communism. Capitalism is a form of economy, communism is form of government. The mix of those, I believe china call it: "Socialism with chinese characteristics".

The fact primary industry and exports are state owned is a big tick for: Communism. That's true, regardless what you see living there.

(People making money and doing business is not anti-communism, it is where the money goes that makes it "communist").

Isn't the famous Deng quote: It doesn't matter what color the cat is, as long as it catches the mouse.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#69

Post by pintglass »

andyl wrote: post #13

Brainwashed? If that is brainwashing, then it seems like there's brainwashing everywhere you look. For example: - http://www.foxnews.com/ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbBfrKsVqY

I'd say most news media and many T.V. shows reinforce ideas that oppose accepting that there is an alternative viewpoint. Are you sure you haven't been brainwashed to hate Fox News and anything that shows a flag and an eagle with patriotic music in the background?

Let's try this on for size:

Is Fox News racist, elitist, sexist, and homophobic? My guess is that you just answered yes to at least 3 of those, however if I asked you for specific proof, you'd have a hard time making your argument in short order. Why is that? Perhaps because you didn't make up your mind for yourself. Someone else made it up for you.

Sure you can go Google and find whatever evidence you want to support those 4 viewpoints, but I'm 100% positive you didn't have evidence for all of the things you thought when I first asked the question.

Re: How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique

#70

Post by proofofconcept »

pintglass wrote: post #60
proofofconcept wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you actually want to have a discussion of those differences then you're going to need to point them out yourself instead of dumping a homework assignment in everyone's lap since: 1) I don't read Chinese, and I doubt I'm alone here when it comes to that 2) Google translate is far from perfect, and unless the differences are clear to someone who merely gets the gist of the Chinese article they probably won't come ac…

It's amazing how easily one can translate something these days instead of complain about having to read Chinese ( http://translate.google.com/ ): People [edit] The People's Republic of China since the founding of the ruling Communist Party of China, early through art, propaganda's "no new China without the Communist Party," "stability overrides everything" and other slogans, considered by some to be "brainwashed" beh…

All this does for me is raise the question: why, if it's so easy, wasn't the translation posted to begin with? Keep in mind that the user who dropped that untranslated brick on us has massive karma so that low-effort post is now parked at the top of the thread.
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