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Chinese Force Mass Closure Of Net Cafes
Chien Andalusia writes "According to this article from the BBC, the Chinese authorities closed 12,575 net cafes towards the end of 2004. Due to the expense of computer hardware, net cafés have become very popular in China in recent years. The laws governing such cafés are very strict, especially in relation to minimising the amount of exposure children can get to the internet. For example, no net café is allowed to open within 200 metres of a middle or elementary school. The article also briefly discusses other restrictions imposed on Chinese net cafés."
Well the point of the restrictions is not really to stop those who do their best to circumvent things. Instead the point is to keep the public at large ignorant. Every society will have it's dissidents, but it is only when a significant proportion of people get dissident that real problems occur for those ruling. That is what the government tries to stop.
The main causes given for the closures is locating a Cybercafé right next to a school and allowing minors free access to pornography. What chance do you think a Cybercafé would have to continue trading in the EU, US etc. if it was found to be a magnet for truants and/or providing unfettered access to pornography to minors? They also restrict violent games to certain age groups, which is different to the age requirements we have on our computer game boxes, how exactly? Doom 3 is rated "18" in the UK for example, and companies can be prosecuted for breaking that restriction and selling the game to a minor. The same goes for logging all outbound access - you'd be insane not to log everything if you were running a Cybercafé in the event someone launched a cracking attempt from your premises.
OK, I do have concerns that these logs are going to be "auditted" by the Chinese government for what they might see as subversive elements, disloyal behaviour or whatever. The censorship of free access to information, even if it *is* pornography, should not be blocked - immoral and illegal should not automatically be the same thing. Still, at least the Chinese appear to understand that restricting Internet content is an internal matter and are making an effort to deal with it themselves instead of trying to ram their legislation down the throats of other nations. Now if only they would let their people have a larger say in what was and was not permitted...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
...merely to point out Chomsky's politics, which are decidedly anti-capitalist, pro-socialist to begin with.
The point is acknowledged that Chomsky is far from "centrist", extremely so in fact.
To see a book written by Mr. Chomsky come to the conclusion that capitalism is bad, wealth and thatpower must be "evenly distributed" is about as surprising as hearing water is wet.
Please note that the views about Power/money/influence beginning with As far as I can tell, the nature of Power... are my own. If Mr. Chomsky has expressed similar views then I applaud him for reaching similar conclusions in his own inquiries into the state of the world.
Nowhere in my reading of Manufacturing Consent (MC) did I see any any anti-capitalist references. The only place MC comments on "even distribution of power" (that I noticed) is in discussing the 1984 elections in Guatemala. Chomsky and Herman question how meaningful elections could be in a state where power is concentrated in the hands of an authoritarian junta that has just executed or "disappeared" most of the journalists, political rivals, and judiciary in the country. I have not read any of Chomsky's other writings, so I cannot speak on them.
Nice sig: So let me ask you: are you more proud of your ignorance or your bias?
The question implies that ignorance and bias go together and encourages the reader to fix the bias by fixing the ignorance. I heartily agree with this viewpoint, which is part of why I found reading MC so interesting, even IF the the author's positions are in some way as baseless as those of Limbaugh. The important thing is to gather one's information from a variety of independent sources (including direct observation where possible) so that one can make informed opinions and choices about the world.
Though Rush pushes this limit, I do not believe that anyone can lie and misrepresent in everything that they say. Included in the deception are little scraps of truth buried in page B17, Appendix 25, or in what things one observes at events first hand, but are not said by others reporting on the event or using that event to push their agenda.
Your post induced me to read up on Mr. Chomsky as I didn't know much about the man or his views aside from reading one of his books. Wikipedia has a very in-depth article that discusses many points of view on the man and the cult of personality surrounding him. As with everything, somewhere amongst the words of critics and of followers lie small truths. That he (or any other person) is a lier and propagandist or an insightful thinker that cares more about ideals than opinion is something one must discover for one's self and is not something just to take a single source's word for.
More thoughts on capitalism, wealth, and power:
As they are by definition made up by more than one person, all societies are by definition compromises between the desires of their members. Various societies try to balance these desires by employing various economic systems. In a [completely fictional] utopia all people would be able to have anything that they want and never have to deal with fulfilling desires of others that conflict with their own. As the world is finite conflicts do arise and economic systems are employed to work these conflicts out. The general hope (I believe) is that the chosen economic system will provide a basis for supporting the other ideals of a society; be they listed in the US Bill of Rights or others such as a right to education, a right to health care, or a right to choose to garden in the nude. What ever they are, these ideals of a society provide the framework for discourse and function within it.
I have no problem with laizes-faire capitalism, regulated capitalism, socialism, communism, or any other economic system as long as the chosen one[s] allows the ideals of my society to flourish internally. The problem I have is
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers