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[Mael]

Did you even read what I wrote? When did I make a single mention of the US? Anyways, if you want more examples, look at Britain and the Royal Wedding.

People in first world countries are becoming more and more inundated with just the most trivial and useless things. Who cares about politics and real world problems when Charlie fucking Sheen is saying crazy shit on TV? We're getting lazy and even when we give a damn, it's absolutely disgusting.

"Oh shit guys! We need to help the Iranians gain their freedom! Let's change our twitter pics to green because and totally forget about this movement in a week because we'll be bored and digging into the new trend or hype!"

Maybe people in China don't really give a shit about the corruption and issues of free will in their country, but people in the western world aren't any better. They only give a shit these days if they don't have to leave their couches to do something about it.

Your point is myopic AND moronic, because you happen to find too many people posting on the Charlie Sheen thread doesn't mean people doesnt care about other more important events.
Even if I concceded the point that people don't give about stuffs anymore (which is false to say the least), the basis for your argumentation was moronic.
How do you know the very people posting here on trivial matters on a GAMING forum aren't part of an NGO or something?

Equating the general apathy found in 1rst world countries to the one found in China is disingenious too considering the vast difference in treatment in situations.

Seriously people in Sweden not giving a shit about local politic is not the same as people in Somalia not giving a shit whether or not their country went to hell or not.

And seriously you implied the US when you mentionned Charlie Sheen because I can tell you it's not even a footnote of a people magazine here.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

First, nobody is defending the article (if it's true) but obviously somebody is hoping to see one.

Second, you know why there's a so called China defense force? It's because most of the Chinese threads in Gaf OT are just backward retarded:

1. China is modernize their army. They are going to rape us (that's like 3 threads in a row in last 2 weeks).
2. China killed a British drug trafficker because they treat people like shit.
3. Chinese policewoman killed a bandit holding hostage on spot so she must be a crazy commie because she laughed a bit when she's interviewed.
4. Chinese people spit / fart everywhere because CCP ruined their culture.
5. House bubble in China, that country is done for ha ha ha.
6. They played anti-America theme in the white house even though I don't know what that theme is. Fuck those commies.

Seriously if you guys want to criticize China at least find something legit such as censorship or pollution or corruption, instead some of you guys are just trying to show off how ignorant and stupid you are.

You're derailing the thread way way more than Wienke did. And FYI "X defense force" is a common phrase here at GAF. Until it's ruled out by a mod you've got no business being so abrasive about it.

 

[jaxword]

You're derailing the thread way way more than Wienke did. And FYI "X defense force" is a common phrase here at GAF. Until it's ruled out by a mod you've got no business being so abrasive about it.

In fairness, memes and catchphrases do get pretty annoying. They are funny but get infantile after a while...

In any case, this really isn't fair to use it as representative of all of China simply because it's a kabillion times bigger, population-wise, than most of our little cities. So we'd PROBABLY be able to find examples of every kind of deviant power-abuse somewhere in such a large sampling group.

 

[rpmurphy]

In fairness, memes and catchphrases do get pretty annoying. They are funny but get infantile after a while...

G.A.F. threads will never go out of style. Never ever.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

In fairness, memes and catchphrases do get pretty annoying. They are funny but get infantile after a while...

Could be, but ironically his post does in fact support the notion that a China Defense Force exists. Which is not surprising since there's a defense force for pretty much anything in here.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

My version of this reply:

I was lurking this thread, and wasn't going to post, until I found wienke insulting Chinese people for defending Chinese business as if they were paid by Chinese government.

Fucking ridiculous.

He said three things:
1. That there was a defense force. There is a defense force for a lot of things. Theres even people with tags that say X defence force on it.
2. There's people on this forum that defend everything about China. Probably hyperbole.
3. That the goverment pays people to defend the country on forums. Another poster backed that up. It's apparently plausible.

You?
A. He insults everything Chinese. True or not....
B. ...In efforts to insult further insult him you also insulted everyone else that mostly talks on the OT side like there's something wrong with that.

Sorry.. but you were being more ridiculous in order to "win" your face off.

 

[HK-47]

Prisoners were forced to play wow, what does that make the average wow player?

i c wut u did ther

 

[_Xenon_]

Could be, but ironically his post does in fact support the notion that a China Defense Force exists. Which is not surprising since there's a defense force for pretty much anything in here.

Really? I believe what I was saying is there's a retarded China hating force in this forum built up by ignorant college kids and armchair global relationship / military analysts. When it comes to Chinese related topics instead of insight discussion all they do is "fuck china is a shit hole." (see post 20).

He said three things:
1. That there was a defense force. There is a defense force for a lot of things. Theres even people with tags that say X defence force on it.
2. There's people on this forum that defend everything about China. Probably hyperbole.
3. That the goverment pays people to defend the country on forums. Another poster backed that up. It's apparently plausible.

You?
A. He insults everything Chinese. True or not....
B. ...In efforts to insult further insult him you also insulted everyone else that mostly talks on the OT side like there's something wrong with that.

Sorry.. but you were being more ridiculous in order to "win" your face off.

So you took the effort to analyse who's more ridiculous instead of bringing up thoughts (even tiny one) to the topic, and now you are trying to start a totally irrelevant argument with me as if "winning" on the internet is the only goal of your life, yet you claim you are a lurker. Dude you win. Your level of logic is way beyond me I just can't catch up.

 

[numble]

Being in China for a while now and seeing what the government does doesn't really bother me. They are totalitarian and they want to keep that as long as possible and I can sort of understand where they are coming from even though it is garbage and shouldn't be done. What I don't understand is that nobody in China gives a flying fuck about anything. Mostly everyone is concerned about is making money, buying apartments and buying cars. Even talking to people who have traveled the world and have seen what it is like outside don't give a fuck if farmers and political activists are mistreated. As long as the growing middle class continues to make their money, the status quo is going to continue because they couldn't care less that other people have it hard. People in the cities see the people in the villages as garbage pretty much.

People generally care about issues that affect them more, that's true. I've bet you've encountered people complaining about the rising costs of housing or food, for example.

I think people in China still are interested though. Just ask what they think about, "My Dad is Li Gang" (the story that spread like crazy about a government official's kid that killed someone with a car and bragged to onlookers that his dad was an official), how they feel about the next president/general secretary being the son of an official, how they would compare Wen Jiabao to Hu Jintao, or the various food scandals.

And of course, if you hang around academics or activists, you'll get an entirely different level of care about current affairs.

Heck, look at chinasmack.com, ministryoftofu.com, or chinahush.com (amongst others) if you want to see non-apathetic Chinese Internet users talking about current events.

 

[CornBurrito]

So you took the effort to analyse who's more ridiculous instead of bringing up thoughts (even tiny one) to the topic.

Yeah, just like you did. Don't bitch about people not contributing to the OT when you are the one that fucking derailed the thread.

Also you are pretty angry. I think you should go ly dow.

 

[Blitz2o]

What can Blizzard do? Ban the entire country from playing the game?

That's like banning an entire country from using a forum just because of one user.

it's actually around 400 000 users. although you're right, there's no way they could ban the county however I think they could find a way to detect and ban individual gold farmers.

 

[jon bones]

The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, .

China is whack as hell.

 

[Hari Seldon]

do blizzard make a cut of these transactions? If not they're losing out of millions.

Their cut is 100,000 gold farming subscriptions.

 

[charsace]

Fuck this noise.. Breaking the law shouldn't make you a slave...

I'm a member of the Fear China Defense Force. China can do whatever they want due to the amount of people they have. Over 1billion potential soldiers means they can do things like keep countries out of the olympics.

 

[slayzz]

I'm a member of the Fear China Defense Force. China can do whatever they want due to the amount of people they have. Over 1billion potential soldiers means they can do things like keep countries out of the olympics.

really? what country did they keep out of the Olympic?

 

[Archer]

really? what country did they keep out of the Olympics?

ftfy

 

[numble]

Bill Barol at Forbes is skeptical:

http://blogs.forbes.com/billbarol/2...oners-forced-to-game-for-profit-okay-i-guess/

With scrutiny focused on the racket for at least the last two years, you have to wonder why the pseudonymous Liu — who had been at liberty for some two years by 2009 — didn’t surface sooner. It isn’t only this, though. The Vincent story has three of the hallmarks that tend to characterize made-up scare stories about the Internet: It’s splashy and weird; it’s sketchily sourced and hard to verify; and it feeds on the notion, still held in some quarters, of the Internet as Wild West, a place where dignity is cheap and the helpless are ripe for exploitation. One of the smell tests I always apply to stories like this is to ask myself how easy it would be to imagine it as the title of a Snopes entry (Chinese prison labor forced to play MMOs so guards can steal credits). Yeah, that’d work.

I hope I’m wrong about this, and please don’t misunderstand: I don’t in any way doubt the cruelty or the brutality of Chinese labor camps, or the ugly ingenuity that would spawn this kind of scheme. But the story feels a little thin in the Guardian’s telling.

My problem with the story is that it seems to take Liu's word for everything. For instance, the claim of being imprisoned for "illegally petitioning about corruption." It may be true that that was the ulterior motive behind his imprisonment, but there would be an "official" charge that the reporter should have reported about (IE "Liu was convicted of X crime, but believes he was really being punished for protesting corruption."). Also, unlike other stories, there still hasn't been another independent report of this--all articles on Google News on this are still referencing the same Guardian story.

 

[Misanthropy]

.

 

[talisayNon]

*imagines playing someone playing Eve online for more than 10 minutes*

*rope*

*ties to ceiling*

*/hangself*

 

[markot]

Bill Barol at Forbes is skeptical:

http://blogs.forbes.com/billbarol/2...oners-forced-to-game-for-profit-okay-i-guess/



My problem with the story is that it seems to take Liu's word for everything. For instance, the claim of being imprisoned for "illegally petitioning about corruption." It may be true that that was the ulterior motive behind his imprisonment, but there would be an "official" charge that the reporter should have reported about (IE "Liu was convicted of X crime, but believes he was really being punished for protesting corruption."). Also, unlike other stories, there still hasn't been another independent report of this--all articles on Google News on this are still referencing the same Guardian story.

Forbes is a freaking joke.

Quoting anything out of them is akin to looking to pravda for some balanced coverage.

 

[numble]

Forbes is a freaking joke.

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4c90c6127f8b9ada499a0a00/barack-obama-lenin-steve-forbes.png[IMG]

[IMG]http://pdfcast.org/images/s/707/forbes-obama-article.jpg[IMG]

Quoting anything out of them is akin to looking to pravda for some balanced coverage.[/QUOTE]
That's an editorial piece--what's wrong with Bill Barol, who is a reporter who has also written for The New Yorker, Time, Slate, and The Boston Globe?

Again, take a look at the Guardian's past China coverage:
[QUOTE]Here's the most famous example of The Guardian's bad reporting in China (the problematic reporting was corroborated by Reuters and the WSJ, amongst others):

Summary: [url]http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20051012_2.htm[/url]
[quote]This sensational story ... quoting Joffe-Walt: "He lay there - his eye out of its socket, his tongue cut, a stream of blood dropping from his mouth, his body limp, twisted. The ligaments in his neck were broken, so his head lay sideways as if connected to the rest of his body by a rubber band." 

However, Joffe-Walt's report would be challenged when the democracy activist Lu Banglie showed up two days later several hundred miles away in his hometown Zhijiang.  This is what Lu's sister told the VOA reporter: "He appeared physically alright.  He seemed to be able to speak and take care of everything else.  He took off his clothes and washed them himself.  He said, 'Today is market day, but I won't be able to help you.'"  Soon, Lu Banglie began giving interviews to the press about his experience.[/quote]

WSJ: [url]http://www.zonaeuropa.com/press016.htm[/url]
[quote]Mr. Soong is a media researcher and statistician by training, and he has a passion for reconciling differing viewpoints. "If you read 10 newspapers a day . . . Sometimes you simply have to wonder, what I thought was the same story, how can it be so different?" He asks. This curiosity is part of what gives the site such depth.

There's no clearer example than his coverage of the Taishi village elections in 2005. The controversy began when a reporter for the Guardian newspaper visited the village, and wrote that the Chinese activist accompanying him was beaten "lifeless." But the next day, other newspapers interviewed the fixer, who was safe and sound, at home. The outcry from Chinese citizens -- particularly democracy activists, who felt that their trust in Western media was broken -- was immediate. But much of this might never have reached the ears of the Guardian's editors if it weren't for Mr. Soong's relentless translations of Chinese commentary. "The Guardian was not responding, so I kept doing the translations," Mr. Soong says. He even went so far as to list some recommendations for the Guardian on his blog.
[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[numble]

I'm still trying to find a corroborating report on this. There are about 100 articles reporting this now, but they ALL just point to the Guardian article, without any extra journalistic legwork. The only article I've found with some semblance of extra investigation is this one from the Telegraph, and it's also very scant and based on an anonymous interview. I haven't tried looking at Chinese sources though.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...mp-prisoners-forced-to-play-online-games.html

However, an official at the central office for labour camps in Heilongjiang denied that inmates were forced to play games online. “I have never heard of this. If you want to see for yourself, come to one of our labour camps,” he said.
The official, who declined to give his name, said: “We do not allow our inmates to do high-risk occupations, such as coal-mining. We do not have large numbers of computers. And we do not allow our prisoners to have any contact with the outside world. If they were playing these online games they could easily communicate with other people. We would never allow that.”