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[SentientStone]

Oh don't get me wrong, aside from the privacy concerns, WeChat seems awesome. And a lot of the tech China has is great.

But I've seen quite a few people complain about Baidu and other companies that are filling the void of companies like Google and Facebook.

Yep, I still prefer Google and Youtube over Baidu and Youku, Youtube mostly due to language and content since I cannot read Chinese well I have a hard time accessing specific content. I think someday they will open it all up once they feel they are at a point where culturally they are strong enough and that the global culture is balanced enough for them to open access without fear of losing of potential civil unrest. Also when their own companies are strong enough to compete globally. ;p

 

[erragal]

There's a reason I did not phrase that as voting. These people need influence over the political system that controls their lives. What do you propose?

Make sure your children aren't being radicalized. Don't allow them to join separatist groups. Flush those people out of your community even if they're relatives and 'pillars of the community'. Islam makes that decision between betraying your family and protecting the community almost an impossible one to make.

Hui minority doesn't have the same issues compared to the Uighur groups as they aren't associated with a radical militant group. This isn't a religious pogrom by the government, and compared to how the Falun Gong were dealt with, thank goodness.

In terms of acquiring political influence in China? Become wealthy, innovate something that will make the Chinese want to call you Chinese. Study extremely well, get the highest scores on every exam, become a top mind and rise up the ranks (yes you may have to quit your religion to do this...another problem muslims struggle with coexisting in a defacto non religious society). Use journalism and acts of service to highlight positive contributions. True minority groups have no political authority in any regime; it'd be cool if I had an ancestral home to visit in the US. This anecdote is to highlight: these groups have to carve and manipulate for influence. It will never, under any system, be handed to them.

These things are drastically more difficult given the passport situations and state of overall distrust their community is perceived with. Several decades of actual organized separatist activity will fuck your community in that fashion, no doubt.

Personally I don't agree with the ' full oppression' methodology being used. even so, there's actual verifiable (non Chinese sources) evidence of Uighur people being radicalized outside of the country. Thinking from the perspective of keeping a stable society these types of threats scare keepers of authority into aggressive action. I personally believe you can combat it by rewarding the pillars of these communities with influence and setting examples of joining the civic society but the flaw with almost all human government regardless of system: we make decisions out of fear, not trust.

 

[The Technomancer]

So "play nice and maybe the police violence will stop"

Gotcha

I'm done with this conversation I think, neither of us is going to persuade the other

 

[erragal]

So "play nice and maybe the police violence will stop"

Gotcha

I'm done with this conversation I think, neither of us is going to persuade the other

Quite reductive. You asked for realistic strategies.

It's 2017, not 1017 or even 1917. Please explain the viability of violent military separatist behavior against the PRC? Even typing it out proves the absurdity of your counterfactual disgust. You'd need to convince the entire country to be dissatisfied with the current arrangement. Nearly impossible considering recency bias of violent revolution/struggle with many of those who suffered still alive, making decisions.

I'm not trying to persuade you of anything, at all. I'm stating analytical objective observations in a real world scenario. Idealism is joyful. I have it in my heart. But it's not something you can defeat a panopticon police state with. You can only win in that situation with hearts and minds. You can only win hearts and minds with better ideas and unimpeachable reputations. You can't maintain your reputation if your community harbors militant separatists because you don't want your children to be executed. Don't fight the enemy you wish you had on a battlefield of your imagination.

I fully acknowledge the bleak, desperate, obscene bullshit of their situation(Yet in terms of how most modern authoritarian states are treating dissidents I'm a bit nonplussed). Just as I feel loathing every time I think of how my (partial for accuracies sake) native american ancestors were treated, marginalized, and now aren't even a blip on the radar of a cohesive cultural group.

What's interesting is this started purely as me defending against the claim that voting and full unabrogated freedom of speech are necessary to a society with rule of law (hence my assumption that was the line you were on). Now, to play nice, I've also used intellectual energy instructing you on how an endangered minority group can properly secure their place in a society using the rule of law (as it exists in the society they find themselves underneath) in their favor.

So show me your work, show me your rebuttal. A singular line of reductive mumbo jumbo that doesn't even appropriately characterize the tone or intentions of my statements? All that serves is to reveal your tribal biases hiding deep inside, your unwillingness to detail the fundamental realities that face certain humans and how to suggest for them real solutions that don't end up with their cultural identity in shattered pieces.

 

[The Technomancer]

I'm just not sure where we go after you said that people with simple lives might just be better off if they weren't bothered with being able to play a role in their own political determination. I feel like you're saying a lot of words about how "the situation in China is terrible but there's not much we can do" but I can't really get over that, IMO quite revealing, sentiment.

I'm not trying to persuade you of anything, at all. I'm stating analytical objective observations in a real world scenario. Idealism is joyful. I have it in my heart. But it's not something you can defeat a panopticon police state with. You can only win in that situation with hearts and minds. You can only win hearts and minds with better ideas and unimpeachable reputations. You can't maintain your reputation if your community harbors militant separatists because you don't want your children to be executed. Don't fight the enemy you wish you had on a battlefield of your imagination.

I honestly don't know where to begin picking apart how historically incorrect this is. "Impeachable reputation" is never achievable, its an excuse deployed by the oppressor for "why I have to keep hitting you"

 

[erragal]

I'm just not sure where we go after you said that people with simple lives might just be better off if they weren't bothered with being able to play a role in their own political determination. I feel like you're saying a lot of words about how "the situation in China is terrible but there's not much we can do" but I can't really get over that, IMO quite revealing, sentiment.


I honestly don't know where to begin picking apart how historically incorrect this is. "Impeachable reputation" is never achievable, its an excuse deployed by the oppressor for "why I have to keep hitting you"

Unflinchingly dishonest. Or poor reading comprehension? Most humans around the globe don't give a fuck about political determination, no time for that. And many that do have their ideas and opinions spoon fed via group think and mass propaganda.

So which European micro state are you from that would give you the freedom to worry about Chinese oppression so passionately? Certainly you can't be American because fuck if we have the moral authority to be criticizing any country as to how they handle minority factions.

Reputation is everything when it comes to hearts and minds. Propaganda teflon is the certainty of your neighbors.

 

[Audioboxer]

An indefinite free society following China would not be free at all. Let's fight totalitarianism ... by creating our own regime.

It wouldn't ever need to reach 1 because it would be 1 from the start.

Everyone who wants to create their own regime tells themselves their regime will be different, it will be special and it will be the correct way to do it. Some humans are just set to repeat history on a loop.

We're edging closer to the Chinese model. Perhaps because we've realised, with the original freewheeling dream of cyberspace gone, there's not much to choose between the Chinese approach and Facebook, Google and the rest.

Both models of sovereignty - rule by an authoritarian state or rule by digital platform - rely on surveillance, whether in the service of political control or of free-market capitalism.

For a long time, the Chinese approach to the internet appeared to be a relic of a repressive past. These days, depressingly, it looks like the future.

A lot of people in the UK don't want the Conservatives fuckery around privacy, rights and freedom of expression. Speak for yourself. Digital platforms don't need to rule anyone either, have a bit of self-control. You can stop using social media platforms you can't stand to go on without saying "please take my rights away and be overly invasive of my privacy because I have no self-control".

No society is perfect, but I'll tell you the ones that are worse than most of ours. China/North Korea and any ruled by strict theocracy. Enjoy posting your "fuck politicians I don't like they're all pieces of shit" on your blogs whilst simultaneously saying God doesn't exist in some of those places. But yeah, fuck democracy because sometimes it doesn't end up going as I want it to. Instead of trying to engage, battle ideas and pursue democratic course corrections, please just dictatorship my country up. Thanks. As I mentioned, our dictatorship regime will be the right kind. A good one. Not like the others. Special. We're the good guys this time, all we're going to do is stop the other guys ever getting into power by being the only ones that can ever rule. By force. Smart. Successful. Please enjoy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China

This is partly exactly what we need, it will make all our problems go away. Us good guys will maintain the list of blocked sites with zero interference from anyone else. We won't make mistakes. We won't need to listen to feedback or correct ourselves. Yes, that's right, all of Google is banned. Google is responsible for YouTube and there is bad people on YouTube, so as your totalitarian Government we've decided instead of you choosing to absent yourself from using YouTube, we'll just ban the whole country. Problem solved. You can thank us for making your choices for you.

Let this rant be evidence for that poster than stated because I mentioned China due to loot box drop rates that meant I also wanted my country to completely turn into China. Hah, no.

 

[erragal]

Everyone who wants to create their own regime tells themselves their regime will be different, it will be special and it will be the correct way to do it. Some humans are just set to repeat history on a loop.



A lot of people in the UK don't want the Conservatives fuckery around privacy, rights and freedom of expression. Speak for yourself. Digital platforms don't need to rule anyone either, have a bit of self-control. You can stop using social media platforms you can't stand to go on without saying "please take my rights away and be overly invasive of my privacy because I have no self-control".

No society is perfect, but I'll tell you the ones that are worse than most of ours. China/North Korea and any ruled by strict theocracy. Enjoy posting your "fuck politicians I don't like they're all pieces of shit" on your blogs whilst simultaneously saying God doesn't exist in some of those places. But yeah, fuck democracy because sometimes it doesn't end up going as I want it to. Instead of trying to engage, battle ideas and pursue democratic course corrections, please just dictatorship my country up. Thanks. As I mentioned, our dictatorship regime will be the right kind. A good one. Not like the others. Special. We're the good guys this time, all we're going to do is stop the other guys ever getting into power by being the only ones that can ever rule. By force. Smart. Successful. Please enjoy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China

This is partly exactly what we need, it will make all our problems go away. Us good guys will maintain the list of blocked sites with zero interference from anyone else. We won't make mistakes. We won't need to listen to feedback or correct ourselves.

I agree with you but will add this caveat: With respect to the US there isn't even a battle of ideas anymore. We're in uncharted territory with respect to pernicious behavioral programming of humans on a mass scale. No one actually knows the resolution for this, and good luck trying to start the conversation that advertising/marketing/branding itself is inherently degrading to society.

We don't have a mutually agreeable point where persuasion begins and manipulation ends. In this type of world the ideas aren't even hitting cognition, it'd all rudimentary primal signaling.

But, yes, going backwards is the wrong idea. Even while simultaneously arguing that a sudden shift to a western model is incompatible/devastating to current Chinese society (as of 2017), it is equally necessary for various democratic republics to stay their course.

 

[TheWraith]

Hoo boy, so much wrong with this so allow me to split up your reply:

Yet for all that study you clearly didn't learn a thing.

Sorry but you only seem to have a very shallow understanding how China really works, I talk to Chinese of all walks of life. From pro-government officials to local business people as someone cooking noodles in a restaurant.

People know. People talk. In private. Public solidarity, private dissent.

Their system has its flaws, it's injustices. But it's also hierarchical to a level that makes it predictable, stable, comfortable.

The system is hierarchical, but only comfortable from mid to higher classes, the rest suffers with upward mobility chances extremely low.

What is the intent of those that seek to radically alter the predictable stability for hundreds of millions? Is it really to make their lives better? Is an under educated farmer from norther inner mongolia really someone that needs the burden of a 'vote'? That just makes them a target for manipulation, pressure, alteration.

So let em rot, great!

The engine of power and authority is not impenetrable in China. You can work your way up through the system and exert your will on society. They just don't let a random person that's not gone to the meetings, not shown their commitment to civil society suddenly become a decision maker. You need to be invested. Known.

No, you need to cosy up with CCP party members and grease many hands to get something done. Just ask Jack Ma. You're insane if you think that hard work and dedication alone will get you somewhere, corruption is everywhere. All parts of society know it and have their stories. I have mine, I helped set up factories across China, you can't do anything without bribing local officials: from government level to police to a simple tax collectors. The "anti-corruption" drive that Xi was so adamant in the last few years, has been proven a purge to take out political enemies, real corruption is still as rampant as before.

There is a rule of law. It's just not one you perceive as being conducive to freedom. Your type of freedom, your exertion of freedom.

You need to read up on the rule of law vs. rule BY law. The only law that matters is the one the CCP will cook up to get you sentenced. If they can't find anything they will coerce you into forced confessions. Rule of law you say?

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/11/china-torture-forced-confession/

On the other hand I look at the US and see how ' freedom of speech ' swiftly becomes a brick in the altar of ' freedom to exploit and manipulate' permeating the fabric of society. Notwithstanding that there is speech and political ideas in the US that will get you shot just as quickly. Did you forget to read the reports how the far left movements have been repeatedly infiltrated by the fbi for decades? Is that your idea of ' liberalism '? Kent State happened twenty years before Tiananmen.....

The US is a whole other can of worms, and a whole other discussion. I don't think anyone would think a two party government is a real democracy for starters. You also can't honestly compare Kent State with 4 deaths to Tian An Men with hundreds dead and thousands imprisoned, and scores of people "disappeared".

There's an idealistic version of human society that operates well with voting. You can see it in European micro states with culturally homogeneous populations and high education levels. Yet to suddenly spring that on a developing society honestly stinks of nefarious intent: a desire to light the powder keg on their stability.

NO one is talking about springing democracy all of a sudden, but there's a big distance between totalitarian facist regime and an open democracy. Just look at Hong Kong ( a developed society in every way) which was promised democracy, only to have it been brutally denied by Beijing.

Making arguments to the lowest points of injustice as if they definitive proof of abject failure is intellectually dishonest.

I didn't do that, I gave examples from rich, educated people all the way to lower classes and the minorities such as Xinjiang and Tibet which are slowly being eradicated to allow for Han Chinese dominance through practices such as forced sterilization of women and others as shown above in others' posts.

Should we have pointed to the robber Baron era of the US as a failure state for the representative Republic? I mean western thought brought us corporatism as a concept. No idea is more damaging to human freedom than limited liability for human decisions. To think that can be a ' legal ' concept and claim these societies operate according to rule of law is absurd.

What are you on about with your US examples? Also democracy is absolutely far from perfect, but humanity simply hasn't seen a better system so far.

You also seem to forget the way China works is by keeping it's people stupid and force feeding it a heavily altered history and view of the world, with zero room for anything but the government line. To come back on topic this is why their internet is like that, with 50% of foreign sites banned. Surely you can't be a champion of limiting free flows of knowledge and information anywhere in the world.

 

[Foolworm]

What are you on about with your US examples? Also democracy is absolutely far from perfect, but humanity simply hasn't seen a better system so far.

This has never sat well with me, because everything I read of history has taught me that democracy comes as a result of prosperity, not the other way around. Democracy is slow, cumbersome and above all expensive. That's actually a good thing in the correct contexts, but it is by no means universal.

 

[erragal]

Hoo boy, so much wrong with this so allow me to split up your reply:



Sorry but you only seem to have a very shallow understanding how China really works, I talk to Chinese of all walks of life. From pro-government officials to local business people as someone cooking noodles in a restaurant.



The system is hierarchical, but only comfortable from mid to higher classes, the rest suffers with upward mobility chances extremely low.



So let em rot, great!



No, you need to cosy up with CCP party members and grease many hands to get something done. Just ask Jack Ma. You're insane if you think that hard work and dedication alone will get you somewhere, corruption is everywhere. All parts of society know it and have their stories. I have mine, I helped set up factories across China, you can't do anything without bribing local officials: from government level to police to a simple tax collectors. The "anti-corruption" drive that Xi was so adamant in the last few years, has been proven a purge to take out political enemies, real corruption is still as rampant as before.



You need to read up on the rule of law vs. rule BY law. The only law that matters is the one the CCP will cook up to get you sentenced. If they can't find anything they will coerce you into forced confessions. Rule of law you say?

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/11/china-torture-forced-confession/




The US is a whole other can of worms, and a whole other discussion. I don't think anyone would think a two party government is a real democracy for starters. You also can't honestly compare Kent State with 4 deaths to Tian An Men with hundreds dead and thousands imprisoned, and scores of people "disappeared".



NO one is talking about springing democracy all of a sudden, but there's a big distance between totalitarian facist regime and an open democracy. Just look at Hong Kong ( a developed society in every way) which was promised democracy, only to have it been brutally denied by Beijing.



I didn't do that, I gave examples from rich, educated people all the way to lower classes and the minorities such as Xinjiang and Tibet which are slowly being eradicated to allow for Han Chinese dominance through practices such as forced sterilization of women and others as shown above in others' posts.



What are you on about with your US examples? Also democracy is absolutely far from perfect, but humanity simply hasn't seen a better system so far.

You also seem to forget the way China works is by keeping it's people stupid and force feeding it a heavily altered history and view of the world, with zero room for anything but the government line. To come back on topic this is why their internet is like that, with 50% of foreign sites banned. Surely you can't be a champion of limiting free flows of knowledge and information anywhere in the world.

I'm not a champion of anything, first off. Your fundamental flaw is you approach life ideology first, the cause first and then pigeonhole everyone that makes an argument that counteracts your point of view as if they hold the oppositional worldview. More intellectual dishonesty, because I never gave what I believe, but simply what is real, tangible, and possible

I never ' forgot ' anything. But lets talk about ' free flow of information' on the internet. How's that working for the US? I use then as the example of the most obvious point of how taking that ideology to its natural conclusions does not lead to utopia.


So say we open up the internet, today, to everyone in China and not just those with the slightly above average critical thinking it takes to bypass their ' firewall ' (Like say just buying a tmobile phone from the US). Are the masses immediately better off? In what way? They have the potential to be better off, the access to infinite information!!!! But do they know what to do with it? How to decide what's real and what's manipulation? Are they trained to ignore behavioral manipulation? Do they want to be manipulated by foreign sources instead of Chinese sources? If you are going to be behaviorally programmed by someone no matter what you do, how do we decide who to let in? Generally it's reasonable to conclude people prefer the influence of their own cultural background be more impactful. Maybe they do want more information? I know for a fact I can get almost any book I want in Beijing. I've seen it. So the real information, the hard knowledge, they have access to it. Perhaps it's possible the internet isn't what you feel like it is...maybe for you and I it represents pure freedom, but for another it's just a chain of a different substance. An addictive, toxic one for some.

Humanity hasn't seen a ' better ' system?What does this even mean? Immediate logical fallacy. Systems of government do not have value judgements attached to them. ' democracy ' does not inherently give you points. Simply the existence of one vote, one person does not immediately vault your country above all others. Humans are not a monoculture, are not neurologically identical, and certainly your insistence on ideological absolutes is the very definition of authoritarianism.

You gave examples of what? People that are unhappy with their system, people that are happy with their system, people that are oppressed and people that are thriving. Do you have factual data as to how their fortunes would actually differ in a changed set of government? All human societies devolve into hierarchical caste systems. We self divide, we self segregate. Those same people might swap places in a different societal order but the places would still exist. The misery would exist.

Oh boy. "Lower class mobility is so low!!" Astounding. Where do you live that has developed a paradise methodology of suddenly changing lower class mobility?? Lower class upward mobility is effectively the same across all societies. Modern homogeneous wealthy socialist states squish the bottom and top together effectively...but the bottom isn't moving to the top any more often. They just don't have their social station used as a weapon against them...as often.

The reason I use the US as an example, beyond just personal first hand immersion within a hyper magnified "free information' society, is that everything people lambaste China for is done tenfold by the US with a microscopic amount of criticism. This is meaningful intellectually: solve problems in your own backyard before trying to tell other people how to live. Don't come around professing the wonders of a free and open Internet to me. I'm well aware of the potential it has, but I don't delude myself into thinking it hasn't been completely mangled and twisted into a weapon to be deployed on the masses. You basically want the Chinese government to allow the entire world free access to attack and manipulate their population while hypocritically damming them for their own ' information shaping '? As for Kent state...it's relevant because it also isn't taught in all schools, it also isn't brought up, and because I've had national guardsmen call it the "Kent State Revolt". Is body count somehow the measure of injustice? Which fucking philosophical school of morality did that come from? The same one which allows you to blindly believe your ideas are perfect for all societies no matter what?

Now if you want a real futurist worldview instead of your archaic ideological garbage talk: how about you push for a division of all human settlements into equal sized autonomous polities and ban marketing,Advertising, branding entirely. You helped set up factories? Are the products they produce being advertised anywhere? If so, how do you sleep at night? Why aren't you using your energy figuring out how to convince humans to actually engage in moral behavior in your own societies? Outlaw violence, make all forms of violence a mental illness and exile them from human society, make weapons illegal, guarantee food, shelter, water, clean air for all humans. Why not have big, real fucking ideas that actually affect how people's day to day lives are instead of fighting for the ability to manipulate more people to buy useless junk and be angry. Because no matter how much you cry foul, how many people you've spoken with, if you actually explained to them what ' freedom of information ' would do to their society within ten years, if you dropped the ideology and saw what is actually happening in the world right now.

 

[Audioboxer]

I agree with you but will add this caveat: With respect to the US there isn't even a battle of ideas anymore. We're in uncharted territory with respect to pernicious behavioral programming of humans on a mass scale. No one actually knows the resolution for this, and good luck trying to start the conversation that advertising/marketing/branding itself is inherently degrading to society.

We don't have a mutually agreeable point where persuasion begins and manipulation ends. In this type of world the ideas aren't even hitting cognition, it'd all rudimentary primal signaling.

But, yes, going backwards is the wrong idea. Even while simultaneously arguing that a sudden shift to a western model is incompatible/devastating to current Chinese society (as of 2017), it is equally necessary for various democratic republics to stay their course.

There's always a battle of ideas. That is what it is to be human and living around tens/hundreds of millions in your country. You cannot get this nirvana of everyone agreeing 100%. People thinking the world is centered around their defeatist attitude is not how the world actually works. Every generation has democratic highs and lows. That's part of the parcel with the system. My country voted for Brexit, something I don't agree with, but my response isn't I'm not happy so, overthrow democracy, bring in a dictatorship and/or a violent revolution. Course-correction is always possible in a form of democracy, once you turn to a dictatorship/totalitarian force, good luck overthrowing that without serious loss of life/bloody war/real instability/etc.

I think some people seem to forget the death tolls in dictatorship regimes throughout history, because everyone just wants to use the Nazis/WW2/holocaust as their flagship loss of life talking point. Yes, it was one of the worst and lowest points in history, but there are many other low points in history and current on-going examples of why "revolutionaries" who think the answer to everything is tear it all down/use force to implement their perfect vision, is not the way we should be wanting to head. Some protections exist for the average person from the Government for a reason. There should always be a serious battle of ideas around recklessly giving up all your individual rights for the collective force under "Governmental" threat/violence/oppression.

I personally believe some Americans are going through a honeymoon period with Trump as he's one of the worst Presidents for a while, and forgetting Trump can be voted out like other bad presidents have been. Don't cut your noses off to spite your face. Just in the same way as a Brit, I'm not going to chase silly premises due to Brexit. The most radical thoughts I've had politically is Scottish independence, but done via a democratic and legally binding vote. Not taking up arms and fighting the rUK/turning Scotland into a dictatorship lol.

 

[M3d10n]

I guess China has won the future of the internet inside of China. I'm not sure how that is supposed to impact me. I highly doubt that Google is going to start censoring what Americans can see because the Chinese government says so.

I think you missed the point. It's not about China "controlling" the internet, it's about how Western countries are slowly moving towards the censorship and monitoring model pioneered by China, which once ridiculed by Western democracies and considered infeasible given the ever growing volume of internet traffic. The continued existence of the Great Firewall of China is showing power-hungry governments that it is indeed possible to rein-in the internet and create "virtual borders".