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Adopt a [Chinese] Blog
malorkus writes "Here's a great way for bloggers and others with decent web hosting to help fight internet censorship in China and other restrictive countries. Adopt a Chinese Blog aims to match up censored bloggers with volunteer hosts."
Wouldn't their government then just block access to certain servers / sites / blogs?
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
What's to stop the government from arresting people who are trying to get around their censorship?
"Leave China alone for Christ's sake. You're not going to change things, especially if you are NOT IN CHINA!"
No way. This has gone way too far.
If there is truth to these accusations that the Chinese government is intimidating citizens of my country in any way for something such as practicing Falun Gong, then we have a serious problem that need s addressing.
I'm in no way in favour of military action, but this is clearly and act of war on their part if it is true.
Is there some law in China against circumventing the censorship laws? Like.... What is the potential punishment that you are probably incurring upon whatever China-person you "help out"?
I'd be scared shitless to visit China if I let some dissident bloggers use some of my hosting space. The Chinese govt. is probably paranoid enough to start putting together a list of individuals who have helped these "dangerous" individuals.
Another concern I'd have is that a blogger might have lots of harsh words about some local official, but how do I know it isn't simply slander? And what would my liabilities be in such a case?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
China is a safe haven for all sorts of internet activity which is illegal and reprehensible here, I guess it's only fair that we return the favor.
Nothing really stops them except the filtering that the adoption agency does. Since they're probably not trained in intelligence procedures, I'd guess they can't stop this from happening.
But if you're Chinese intelligence, the better method is to prevent people from getting to the adoption service in the first place. They don't want to throw people in lonely prisons after they publish damaging things, they want to prevent damaging things from being published. The best way to do that is to use the Great Chinese Internet Filter (AYB) to block the adoption service, and to block known sites that choose to adopt Chinese blogs. It's easier to make the blogger irrelevant or unheard than it is to throw them in prison.
Things like freenet have been developed to really help the Chinese out in this situation. And this is really sad to say, but true: sometimes you need someone to be made an example of, because it's the recognition of the injustice towards them that spurs others to really consider the issue critically and do something about it, since the same could happen to them.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I've read hundreds of posts on slashdot that were wrongly modded down (censored) as trolls because people didn't like what they had to say, and others modded up as 'insightful' with content like 'MS SUCKS' and nothing else to say. Now this community is bitching about China?!! The looking glass is a mirror.
BTW, -1 as a troll. To hell with my karma.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll wipe out the species.
The democratic or republican forms of government are not designed to be the best form of government: a benevolent, wise, dictator/king is a far better system. What they are designed for is to limit the downside. While a good dictator/king is the probably the best form of government, a bad dictator/king is probably the worst.
The point of a democratic or representative system is that the worst case is limited, because no one person has the power to totally screw everything up. Presumably, therefore, at least some people will be decent, keeping the system from total failure.
So, yes, a planned economy can outperform a non planned one, if the planners are very good. A controlled political system can out perform a non planned one, if the planners are good.
But you have to have good planners. And they have to stay good, and operate in the interest of the system, not themselves.
An uplanned system, where everyone operates in their own best intrest, works fairly well, and does not depend on finding exeptional people to run it.
(My personal feeling, by the way, is that their economic growth has been more the result of technology upgrades than anything else. The US/Europe leads the world in productivity-enhancing tech, and a country that can jump a few grades closer to us will grow a lot faster than we will because we have to develop the next steps.)
'Sensible' is a curse word.
They should consider themselves lucky that the US gives them billions of dollars of weapons to fight enemies that are equiped with rocks and primitive explosives.
WTF? Do you think they use all of those weapons on the Palestinians? The best thing that can happen for Israel is for he world to acknowledge that it *IS* a war. The fact is, if they used those weapons in an all out war, the Palestinians wouldn't have a fucking change.
And to describe palestinian as poor enemies with only rocks and primitive explosives is nothing short of fuckign ignorant. A suicide bomber who can disguise himself, walk into a nightclub and blow himself up is far more dangerous than the restricted actions of the IDF. Especially since it creates a situtation where liberties (including those of Palestinians) have to be exchanged for security.
Enemies that they imposed upon, and enemies that they threaten and steal from when they attempt to expand their borders.
I invite you to read some history and get damn a clue.
A country like Israel, despite being attacked repeatedly by its neighbours, being built up of people who have had their lands stolen off them (in both Europe and Arabia) has managed to develop into the only multi-cultural, multi-ethnic democracy in the middle east. Israel is responsible for inventions ranging from the MRI to ICQ to the Pentium-M.
When was the last time you saw a Jew blowing himself up in Saudi Arabia or Germany demanding their land back? Nope, they just get on with their fucking lives and contribute to humanity instead of becoming career refugees like a certain group of people.
In short, no.
Economic growth: growing from zero (china) has a better percentage gain than growth from peak (US). No news here. On the other hand, things that grow quickly have a higher risk. Put another way, a startup grows faster than GE or Microsoft. But they can also overheat/crash/fail for a lot of reasons that won't kill a stable diversified giant corporation.
Your posting also interchanges economic and political concepts. They're not the same thing, and untangling them is necessary to talk effectively.
Bottom line: In theory, maximum political efficiency comes from despotic or dictatorial control. In practice, no economically optimized dictatorship has ever existed. To paraphrase Gilmore's law, that's why regulation inevitably creates a black market: capitalism treats control as damage and routes around it.
What country/world do you live in?? You're really contemplating the possibility that the Chinese government is going to hunt you down, "snatch" you away, and do horrible things to you?
Listen, America has a number of problems, but keeping its citizens safe from foreign aggression while on their own soil is not one of them. And I'm including "terrorism", even though that's not remotely the point here.
Furthermore, "...the United States (US) lacks extradition treaties with over fifty nations, including the People's Republic of China and North Korea." So even if they asked the US politely to hand you over, our government would just laugh at them.
How paranoid do you have to be to think that not only is the government of China going to notice you, but send somebody over to get you? Wow.
Doug