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China Rewards Porn Snitches
MinimeMongo writes that the "Associated Press reports that China's police ministry on Sunday handed out rewards of up to $240 to people who reported pornographic Web sites in a campaign to stamp out online smut...The online crackdown is part of a sweeping official morality campaign launched this year on orders from communist leaders."
Thanks to the net, as an American am acutely aware of some heinous problems with our government and our economy. The worst of the dangers (govt spin pro-war 1984-style, Patriot Act, outsourcing, horrific public education system) are largely ignored or spinfully reported by mainstream media and these crooks, but I can see for myself online. Hopefully there is a trend here towards more awareness, even though so much is still hidden from us.
What the Chinese govt seems to understand, and what I fear most for their subjects, is that sniffing, blocking, filtering, and controlling the Internet is the most important means of keeping power from the people in the future. How will they do it? Is it possible? I fear that it IS possible. If you control all the fiber coming into the country, and you control everything published inside the country, then you can just keep on governing the old-fashioned way.
You can't legislate morality. As long as there's a demand, it'll be there. It's like "The War on Drugs" in the US.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
Porn is an accessory to masturbation, the safest sex: no STDs, no conception. With China facing ongoing crises in both those human conditions, isn't porn the State's best comrade?
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make install -not war
But the fact that this story contains the magic words porn, internet, & communist is likely to generate 1,000 responses. Sigh.
For something truly fun and interesting along the same lines, recently the Chinese had a brilliant spin on "citizen crime busters", offering bounties for people with camcorders who caught drivers breaking the law! Now there is a great idea!
... what authority do they have? Is all pornography illegal for everyone in China? While they might be disagreeable to some, most porn sites are legitimate businesses. Is the Chinese government so far-reaching?
...because as history has shown us, the best way to keep people from doing the things they want has been to make those things illegal.
This'll work out great in the long run, I'm sure.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Could be a good thing if it ultimately puts another thorn in the side of spammers who promote those pr0n web sites. Could be a bad thing if it is nothing but pure censorship.
A government that excuses its actions by acting as a sort of parental figure, is a corrupt government indeed. Human beings are critical thinkers, thank you very much, and it is an insult to the intelligence of a Billion+ Chinese if China's government thinks it should "protect" them from "harmful content" so that they don't "harm" themselves.
I know that's not the real reason, but seriously, who does China think it's fooling?
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
Just because a society is different, don't necessarily mean that its peoples are oppressed (and need 'liberating'). It's a big planet, there's nothing wrong with a little diversity.
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
Abstaining, or voting for a certain-to-lose candidate, means tacitly accepting whichever crook the rest of the electorate chooses for you.
It is precisely that line of thinking that kept Ross Perot from winning. If we thought he had a chance, it would have been a landslide! Don't waste your vote. Vote for the right candidate, whether R/D/whatever. Even if your guy only gets 0.001%, at least you've made a statement. Simply picking the lesser of two evils does a grave disservice to democracy IMHO.
You cannot legislate morality
If people want smut, they'll get smut, despite the legal framework attempting to prevent it.
Same with any other behaviour deemed 'antisocial' whether it's porn, drugs, prostitution or [laughs] fireworks, people will find a way to do what they want to do, hence the emergence of black markets. Governments could be profiting from taxing the crap out of this stuff, but instead they drive it underground.
As for rewarding snitches, well, I think you can guess what I think of that too. One big waste of money.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, you can legislate morality. The question is how effective is that legislation? Murder is immoral, and we have laws against it. Yet murder still occurs. That doesn't mean that laws against murder are wrong or completely useless. So, just because a law doesn't stop all occurrences of an offence doesn't mean we should get rid of the law.
So, what does you can't legislate morality mean? It would seem that it means you shouldn't pass laws that are designed to suppress behaviors that should be personal choices or are part of an individual religious doctrine and don't rise to the level that should be considered a crime
However, we are supposed to be the people in a free society so I hope that John Ashcroft is currently prosecuting people for distributing sexually explicit adult only material and has promised that nobody is safe from prosecution, not even cable companies, I hope Ashcroft doesn't get any ideas...
Forcing porn to go underground (anybody who thinks that outlawing it is going to stop it needs to be less naive) will certainly improve conditions for porn industry workers, in much the same way that forbidding drugs and prostitution has made life so much better for junkies and whores. Making it so a porn actress can't go to the police when something happens will certainly make her life so much better.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
You know, the stereotypical politician is meant to be a Used-Car salesman. And frankly, I'd rather have a whore for president than somebody who is as naive as Bush...yes you heard me correctly - I'd rather have a sell-out like Kerry than somebody who actually stands for what they believe in - like Bush. I believe that ruling the most powerful country in the world means that you have demonstrate some flexibility. This is isn't frikkin' Little League, where there is Good and Bad, Right & Wrong. There are lots of shades of grey, and they all need to be dealt with in their own way. Most Americans don't want to look into the causes behind the 9/11 butchers, but the fact is that they were idealists too - true believers to their cause and look what they accomplished. The same goes for Lenin, Mao, e.t.c. When your politicians are selling out to the highest bidder, that's when you know everything's ok in the world. If they start taking up causes, and preaching The Right Way & The Wrong Way or With Us or Against Us policies, that's when it's time to be afraid.
My Favourite Meme
...China is probably moving toward a capitalist republic at a slow pace. Having had the chance to observe the mistakes made by the Soviets, they may be trying to convert slowly to avoid some of the hardships.
Or, I could be wrong.
It is precisely that line of thinking that kept Ross Perot from winning. If we thought he had a chance, it would have been a landslide!
That, and the fact that he's a psycho. Would you really have prefered Perot to Bill Clinton?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Is anybody worried about looking at voilence and death? Is anybody worried about public brain-washing propaganda?
We live in strange times! War and soldiers and stylised to glory and heros, while sex and other fun and is somehow dirty and should be avoided. A strange so called "Morality", indeed!
In Body Pleasure And The Originbs Of Violence James W. Prescott relates the tendency towards violence to general sexual opression. It's worth a read.
(James W. Prescott was employed at the US Public Health Department and layed off five years after he published this document (in 1980), because he wanted to conduct more studies in the area of child abuse and neglect.)
I don't get it.
Here's a reality check just a few weeks before we have possibly our last chance to keep our republic from descending into an unsustainable empire. Bush has actually lied us into war, through the recession, into the Patriot Act, the Medicare Prescription Drug Industry Welfare Act, the destruction of the environment through oil, coal, nuclear and every other lucrative pollution, has divided the nation more than since the Civil War... the list just goes on and on. And in every case, he has lied throughout - from his 2000 campaign, through his continuous spin, through his coverups, rigging investigations, and even through the debates. Kerry has been telling the hard truth, and has even risked alienating millions of denial addicts with his truth.
Bush Sr had a lot of faults, including backing Saddam in the 1980s, and apparently (to Saddam, at least) giving Saddam the go-ahead for invading Kuwait without resistance in 1990. But he at least understood that if we crushed Saddam's regime in 1991, we'd have to keep that frankencountry (created to be unstable by the retreating British) under control, a task so far manageable only under Saddam's intolerable tyranny. Bush was loathe to upset the Turks by backing Kurds in a revolt that would have not only created a federal Iraqi state full of Shi'ites ripe for annexation by Iran, but also a momentum towards greater Kurdistan. Including not only SE Turkey, but also eastern Syria and NW Iran, guaranteeing war in the region on shifting fronts much like the "Vietnam" war through Southeast Asia, which consumed Laos and Cambodia (and several million people), without even the threat of nuclear war from neighboring Israel and Iran, to say nothing of the oil, gas and pipelines. Bush Sr chickened out, leaving that unsolvable puzzle for someone else. Perhaps someone might have unraveled it, but now Bush Jr has burned every bridge, and is burning out every chance at any stability at all. We'll need years, decades, generations, just to get back to equilibrium, let alone justice or democracy.
As for JFK, his refusal to cut a deal with the Soviets has been shown, in 20/20 hindsight, to have been the right call. If only some of these Republicans could gamble with the same steel balls as the most famous liberal Democrat of the 20th Century.
Vote for Kerry. Don't let the past 4 years of fearmongering and devastation extinguish your capacity for hope. One step at a time, starting with removing the malignant cancer from the White House. Then, if you're still unhappy with Kerry, at least you'll have a chance to choose something else. With Bush, democracy itself is on the outsource list.
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make install -not war
Want 2 Gmail Invites? [freeflatscreens.com]
What kind of retarded referrer link is that?
It's not contrary to Communist ideology, but China has additional concerns. Mao built the popularity of his government in large measure through a campaign extolling the "rustic virtues" of his people -- since peasants lead the most virtuous lives, they're the true People, and so they deserve socioeconomic equality, etc etc. The interests of the common people (at least as articulated by Mao) should guide the country and legitimate its leadership.
I guess those "virtues" are what's being "offended" by pornography.
Under Lenin's communist theory, by contrast, Russia believed in having an elite intellectual vanguard making all policy decisions. The Russian peasants couldn't matter less.
That's one reason why America's fears about Russia and China conspiring during the Cold War were never really well-founded. Two totally different flavors of Communism.
If you go on and read about tactical voting, you'll see it says that "Duverger's law suggests that, for this reason, first-past-the-post election systems will lead to two party systems in most cases." Quite discouraging if you ask me; I'd love to see more parties involved.
You could say Perot cost Bush the election, or that Nader's votes came right out of a Gore's pocket - that's hard to refute if you look at how those voters would otherwise have leaned. But would we have been that much worse off, in either case, had it gone the other way between the two leading candidates?
I suspect the tactical voting phenomenon becomes less certain to prevail as the two leading candiates become less distinguishable from each other. It seems to me that with every passing election, the "middle" becomes more clearly defined by those two.
This relieves voters from worrying if tweedle-dee|dum will "accidentally" win if they "waste" their vote.
How would regulating sexual morality be more useful to a dictator, than say, regulating political speech?
It's useful as a premise upon which you incarcerate your opposition. It's rather like the USA's war on some drugs in that respect: if anyone sasses the cops, you can plant some porn or some pot on him, and throw him in the clink.
Dictators are often careful about preserving the appearance of law and order.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Because sometimes good ideas pop up in unexpected places, perhaps? If Hitler himself were to utter words of wisdom (actually good wisdom), would you turn away just to spite him? How very foolish.
You cannot legislate morality: morality, honor, ethics, and law are distinct. Legislation is law: it is a list of punishments for actions. The rest are things you can try to teach people in your home, school, or church. Law is about changing the cost/benefit ratio associated with an action; the rest are about changing your motivations, your conscience, appealing to your wish to "belong", etc. Law may punish that which your morality believes to be wrong, morality/ethics/honor may inform the legislative body, but you cannot legislate morality itself.
Seems to me that that's what many politicians are working towards in the US. When they complain about China, are they perhaps just jealous that the Chinese leadership has achieved what they haven't (yet)?
[Grandparent Message]: "Morality" has always been an important aspect of Chinese culture
[Parent Message]: Wow, what a fat lot you know about China and the CCP. I think what you say is mostly bullshit. Morality is actually important to most Chinese
Can I point out the bleeding obvious, which is that this is what he actually said?
Anyway, in response to the rest of your message: I didn't see Autopr0n extol the virtues of Christianity in his post.
In addition, I should point out that most fanatical (relatively speaking) Christians would support the censorship and supression of porn (whilst probably jerking off to it in private); you seem to have made the mistake of assuming Autopr0n shared the views of all fellow Americans, and (to some extent) that all Americans shared his views.
(*) IIRC Autopr0n *seemed* to be American, but I wouldn't bet my life on this.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
This sort of thinking was exposed during the whole Janet Jackson thing, anyway. People claimed that free speech was threatened, but it's fairly obvious that that sort of thing has never been acceptable. Despite that we've maintained a thriving democracy with some of the best free speech protection in the world for more than 300 years nevertheless.
Only on slashdot could a story about the chinese communists cracking down on porn turn into a condemnation of american democracy.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
China is simply an example of a country that is dying slower than the USA.
You cannot successfully restrict man's base nature. While not advocating legalized violence, I am a proponent of adopting mature views of sex and drugs.
Has Holland descended into anarchy because prostitution and drugs are legal? No. Remember, you can only plug the dike for so long before cracks cause the wall to fall.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
America is a nation where killing can be shown on any broadcast television, but nudity is banned.
...I agree with your nuclear solution with one addition. As we find out the names of the people involved, we hunt down and kill every son, daughter, aunt, uncle, and every other relative they have on the entire planet right on out to the 8th cousin.
America is a nation where a thirteen-year-old schoolchild can be let in to watch a movie starring action hero becoming a vigilante and gunning down and knifing all the bad guys that have been trying to get in his way, but where that same thirteen-year-old cannot watch a movie where two people are making love.
America is a nation where exchanging money for sex is illegal everywhere but in parts of a single state of the fifty, but exchanging money to kill, becoming a corporate mercenary working in Iraq, is considered laudable and encouraged.
America is a nation where up until one year ago, thirteen states had laws banning consentual anal sex. Forty years ago, *every* state made consentual anal sex illegal. Fifty years ago, sodomy could widely be (and was) punished by "corrective actions", such as forced lobotomies. For those of you unfamiliar with lobotomies, they are commonly performed by inserting an ice pick through a patient's skull and swirling it around in certain areas of the brain in hopes of destroying portions of the brain that induce "deviant behavior".
America is a nation where (well, with the exception of San Francisco), being in public showing bare breasts (unless one is nursing an infant), genitalia, or one's rear end is grounds for lewdness arrest, but carrying a loaded gun visibily on one's hip is legal and acceptable.
America is a nation where a seventeen-year-old who convinces his seventeen-year-old girlfriend to send him a nude picture of herself has committed a felony (United States Code Title 18, Part I, 2251).
America is a nation where it is perfectly legal for an Olympic swimmer and lifeguard to stand by a pool and point, yelling insults and mocking, as someone drowns.
America is a nation where we cannot expose nipples, but we cheer on invading Afghanistan to "free women from the burka" and promote other human rights.
America is a nation that values free political speech, as long as it isn't:
(a) in Iraq and in opposition to the invasion (freedom of press was one of the first things removed from Iraqis, and newspapers and the only available television station were shut down for being critical of the invasion).
(b) Involving presidential candidates debating other than Bush or Kerry.
(c) Involve any Islamic advocacy. A student volunteer forum webmaster visiting the United States was charged with terrorist activities for running Islamic websites. The other side is well represented and permitted to operate, however -- consider the following quotes from this single forum thread:
My vote is that if they nuke us, we don't bother asking exactly where the bomb came from. Instead we turn ALL the likely sponsor nations into radioactive parking lots. The we tell the rest of the Islamic nations that if they don't get rid of their own terrorists, they will face the same thing.
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Payback isn't payback unless they continue to hurt for a long, long time. As each father, mother, and child is assasinated, it will be very hard for anyone to celebrate the conspirators as martyrs.
The message would be, "We won't only roast your damned nation. We will kill every last person on earth you ever cared about."
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I take it one step further - desroy Mecca and Media. That's right nuke their holy lands - get rid of them and than start destroying the mosques. Sprinkle their lands with pig blood. We might as well face it - this is a holy war against us supported by Muslims (look at the
May we never see th
It never ceases to amuse me how people try to derive pre-arranged moral conclusions from "reasonable" arguments. Take this one:
Attempts to externally enforce sexual morality are similarly founded on the survival of society.
What is society? Either it's just a bunch of people together, in which case its "survival" just kinda happens; or it's "the Society" of people who adhere to a rigid set of moral laws and tend to exclude people who don't - in which case, why give a hoot about its survival? Bring it down!
It used to be the principle on which premarital sex was sanctioned - it tends to create children in need of a home. It is also the principle on which gay marriage should not be allowed.
Excuse me? Gay marriage tends to create children in need of a home? Or do you mean that gay couples adopting children tend to create children in need of a home?