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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."
While total control is a bad thing the general argument on slahdot seems to be that if it was uncensored the Chinese would revolt. I know two people working in china my dad and one of my friends dad they both went over as supervisors to monitor mine safty in china and help them improve the working conditions. I get to talk to my dad every few days and he comes home every few months or we go to Japan to meet him ( Travel expenses are covered by the Chinese goverment for 1 trip every 2 months) Anyway, the people they work with know there goverment is not the best but they still generly support that and thats the view I have heard from many others that have been over there and students at my school which has a large chinese grad student population. Many can't wait to get back to China even after spending time in the US. There goverment may not be the best but it does have the support from many people even after they are exposed to western views. China has always had a strong goverment the people there are used to it and accept it. sorry im tired its almost 2am and im writing a paper from class ugg I will probly fail it since it looks like this post hahaha
I just returned from China, where I travelled with my PowerBook and used both dial-up and ethernet connections at many places, including internet cafes and people's homes. After hearing all about the authoritarian firewall and net filtering I was a little surprised to see absolutely no firewall or filtering of any kind in effect. I was able to connect back to my home using SSH, use https to web sites in the U.S. and get to arbitrary places, news sites, and web based email every where I tried.
I could find no evidence of a firewall of any kind. I read about the google results, but what else are people talking about?
Pat
"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."
Welcome to North Korea.
Vote libertarian, then. Badnarick is about as different from the two major parties as Nader, and he's shown he's willing to stand up for his beliefs.
I am glad to these guys getting busted. Let's hope that law enforcement doesn't lose their momentum.
Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
In Saudi, all Web traffic from all ISPs are forwarded through central array of proxy servers, which is then censored to "preserve their Islamic values" by "filtering the Internet content to prevent the materials that contradict with our beliefs or may influence our culture."
Never underestimate the will of the people in stifling themselves.
The CCP isn't doing this because they care, they're doing it because they are afraid if they don't the people will get upset, and it will undermine them.
"Morality" has always been an important aspect of Chinese culture, as much as in early puritan America, earlier Europe, and the modern middle east (complete with killing adulterers)
Think of a society like a living organism. Cells can only take so many "insults" before becoming cancerous. Similarly, individuals can only become so annoyed before they revolt. We tend to think of those insults as oppression, but they can also be in the form of not being able to oppress others enough. Just look at the US civil war.
The internet is not a magic bullet that routs around all 'censorship'. It's a constant battle, and requires education. Unfortunately in "communist" China the government has decided to try to stamp out porn rather then try to err on the side of freedom (not particularly suprising).
Anyway, I'm off to China for my new bussness venture of anonymously setting up porn sites and then turning them in for a reward. Zai Zhen, bai bai le~.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
According to Chapter II, Article 35 of the People's Republic of China constitution -- Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. -- pornography should be legal. Hmmph.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Part of our system of voting requires us to think about the candidates that we think has a chance. It is a clear side-effect of a first-past-the-post voting system. As explained there:
...
First-past-the-post encourages the tactical voting technique known as "compromising": voters are encouraged to vote for one of the two options most likely to win, even if it is not their most preferred option.
If enough voters vote using this tactic, the first-past-the-post system becomes a form of runoff voting where the first round is held in the court of public opinion. This can give substantial power to the media as voters will tend to believe their viewpoint on who the leading contenders are likely to be in the election and use that viewpoint to decide where a "tactical" vote would be (in the voter's opinion) best used. This can also become a system promoting votes against more so than votes for.
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.
I just read some of these articles yesterday trying to learn about the British election system. It's very interesting stuff. Sometimes I wish I was a political science major...
The space unintentionally left unblank.
Isn't it true that the percentage of votes a candidate's party gets determines their likelyhood of getting taken somewhat more seriously in the next election? I remember hearing that somewhere. If this is true, it's something to think about, especially in the longer term, as your 3rd party might benefit, even if they lose this time around.
this isn't a sig. i type this (including the two dashes), every time i post, just to make it look like a sig.
I'd have to say that that seems like a clear view. I admit that murder as an example of an immoral act that is also a crime lends itself to a critique of comparing crimes that affect the rights of others versus crimes that are "victimless." And yet the line is not so clear.
Adultery is a moral offence that is a crime in some countries, but not in the US. The fact that it is not a crime in the US is part of the proof that US law is not, in fact, based on the Ten Commandments. So, the question would be if committing adultery is a "victimless" crime of the type you characterized as a "self-regarding action" or is it an offence that harms the person being cheated on? Clearly adultery affects more than the person who commits it. My point is not to argue that adultery should be illegal, but that there isn't a sharp line drawn that can demark all offences that one might call moral transgressions that should not be codified into law.
PS,
John Ashcroft is an example of someone who believes that his personal morality should literally be the law of the land.
>Note that the UN decalration says "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."
Doesn't the ability to read whatever one chooses fall under "liberty"?
Actually, in the UN declaration, what exactly is "liberty" referring to? It's one of those words with many different meanings.
Guys. This is/was never about porn. China is starting it's Jin Dun (Golden Shield) Project, which gives National Security Bureau sweeping powers to track every internet cafe, every connection, every dial-up call. The porn blocking is just a ruse to take down bbses and public forums.
Already, popular forums such as ytht.net are taken down, machines confiscated and scanned for violations of thought-crimes. Porn sites are still alive and well; but the forums are gone. The timing? The finalization on the grasp of power by the new leadership. Jiang Ze-min just handed over his chair on the Party's Military Comittee on the 16th Congress.
Long live Big Brother folks.
And am I the only one worried that the Chinese cracked MD5?
I don't agree with your laughing at their "outdated sense of morality." Their morality may have been around for a long time, but that doesn't mean that it is outdated. Many Christians share a similar sense of morality. What should be laughed at is the attempts by the Chinese Communists to impart their own morality on the rest of the Chinese people which are astoundingly futile.
All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
Before Bush, trucks were a small part of the American fleet, so their emissions exemptions weren't as big a problem for the environment. Under Bush, their use has exploded, helped by the tax deduction of their purchase, as well as the extremely low interest on Federal loans to car companies that they pass on to consumers buying them. All these issues are questions of management as conditions change. Bush is a miserable manager, who sticks to his guns when conditions change. We can blame him for not rebalancing the finance and pollution systems when SUV pollution started to become a problem on his watch. But of course we're not surprised that he protects double the gas consumption per mile while oil costs twice as much per gallon, because he's a Texas oil baron cowboy. Lack of surprise doesn't excuse his mismanagement, it underscores it.
--
make install -not war
Morality is actually important to most Chinese, though I suspect that as an American you are not able to recognise it as such; the way you jeer at the notion suggests that you don't really have much idea about what morality is.
I didn't read the parent post as jeering. Early puritan America, earlier Europe, and the middle East are all examples of societies with a genuine respect for moral behaviour, and likening China to them struck me as not meant as a slight. Likewise, he said nothing about religion -- why do you bring it up?
That said, I agree that he's full of bullshit re the main gist -- oppression as a means of societal release isn't a concept I'm willing to buy.
Trucks didn't just explode under Bush. They've been exploding since the 80's. And it's because the goverment tried to force everyone to drive tiny plastic boxes. Most people don't want to drive tiny plastic boxes and no amount of legislation is going to change that. The only thing you could do is tax gas until it's $3 a gallon which is extremely regressive, and pretty much guaranteed to get you voted out.
Actually, this is a key difference between Christianity and both Islam and Communism. Both of the latter two religions (yes, Communism is a religion) promise world peace once the entire world is subjugated and morality externally imposed. The word 'Islam' is the name for the promised peace that will result once all the earth is subject to Sharia law. The word 'Communism' is the name of that state of peace and well being that is promised once all of the old capitalist systems have been overthrown and replaced with a world wide commune.
Christianity, on the other hand, while sharing the goal of promoting morality, dismisses the possibility of achieving true morality by external control as impossible. Consider the strong willed child whose parents make him sit down: "I'm may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside." For Christians, true morality begins when God changes the heart, and transforms from the inside, and finally manifests itself in external behaviour. World peace will never be achieved until Christ returns to destroy this universe and move all those who have been internally transformed to a new heavens and a new earth. (In some interpretations, there is first a period of 1000 years of externally enforced peace on this Earth with Christ as the ruler - which ultimately fails, proving the need to destroy this world and start over).
Christians who think that true morality can be externally imposed are heretics. The heresy is called "legalism" or "phariseeism" after the Jewish sect prominent in the New Testament. A more subtle mistake Christians make is to think that they, as an individual, can transform their own lives by imposing a set of rules on themselves. This is no more effective than having the government do it - the result is an annoying "holier than thou" attitude. In Christian doctrine, the process of becoming truly righteous must begin with a supernatural internal change initiated by God Himself.
The use of external force is reserved for Secular Government. The specific example Paul points to was the secular Roman government - but this does not mean that officials of the government cannot be religious. The purpose of government is to externally impose morality - for example, "do not murder" is a moral principle which the government attempts to enforce. ("Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.") It is supposed to be understood, however, that this external enforcement does not produce true righteousness, but only enables the society to survive.
Attempts to externally enforce sexual morality are similarly founded on the survival of society. The healthy growth and development of children is best promoted by a stable two parent family. This principle is the basis on which the government claims the authority to take children away from a clearly disfunctional family (locking kids in closets, etc). It used to be the principle on which our government implemented sanctions against adultery. 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. It is one thing for people who will never raise children to fool around and cut their own lives short. It is a more serious matter to bring children (e.g. adopted) into that environment.
Bush has been trying to do #4 since the "Mission Accomplished" banner was hung. As a matter of fact, that seems to have been his entire strategy: rebuild it so the population will welcome us as rescuers from the Evil Saddam. But I know people on the ground in Iraq (as I'm sure we all do) that have been involved in reconstruction projects. They repair or rebuild a generator plant, and it's attacked by insurgents. They repair pipelines, and other pumping stations are sabotaged. A year and a half of rebuilding, and Iraq is currently in exactly the same poor state of disrepair it was in after the fall of Saddam. The average citizen of Baghdad still has electricity maybe 4-8 hours a day. Water service is sporadic, and is only available by truck in many parts of the cities. There has literally been no improvement whatsoever in the lives of the Iraqi people.
What I'm saying is that all the reconstruction projects are just pissing away money as fast as they can spend it. There is no actual progress being made, and the insurgents are determined to keep the population miserable. Without a functioning free press (American provided news is seen as biased propaganda in much the same way we view Al Jazeera,) more information is interpreted and distributed by sympathetic local leaders, who find it easy to blame the American occupiers as the cause of the misery. The general population has pretty much had it with the Americans, even though they're vaguely aware the insurgents are causing the small bits of damage.
The solutions I've heard are all tough:
- Walk away and let Iraqis duke it out amongst themselves. With all the weapons available in that country, hundreds of thousands will perish, and they'll end up with three constantly warring factions as the "most stable" result.
- We could also keep doing what we're doing, which is accomplishing absolutely nothing except adding the deaths of more kids to this quagmire.
- We could drop our "U.S.A. Only" signs, invite the U.N. to share in the pacification and see if the Iraqi insurgents respect the blue helmets any more than they respect the U.S. Army. That's assuming the U.N. doesn't tell us to go fornicate ourselves under the Pottery Barn rules: "you broke it, you pay for it." (They might not; being as corrupt as they are, I can imagine many of their member states wanting to get involved for a share of the spOILs of war.)
- We can ship in two or three times as many troops as we already have, and see if we can violently but dramatically put down the insurgents (at an unknown cost of U.S. lives.)
Those are all pretty crappy solutions to a war we were lied into starting. And yes, what Bush says about Kerry is absolutely true: we (the U.S.) would have been far safer leaving Saddam in power. We would have lost 1000 fewer soldiers lives, and we would not have pissed away every last drop of goodwill that Americans have been building up internationally for the last 80 years. Saddam was no threat to us or anyone, as the UN sanctions had been working remarkably well. He would have fallen sooner or later, probably from within, leaving Iraq in a much more stable state than they are today.John
It is a slippery slope.
Slippery slope arguments are, by default, considered to be fallacious. By introducing your argument this way, you're effectively prefacing your comment with the statement "What I'm about to say is misleading and probably wrong".
Why would you do that?
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