Slashdot Mirror
100 Million Online in China
Colin Smith writes "Rising levels of personal wealth in the nation of China means that the country now has over 100 million internet users, and the authorities are discovering just how difficult it is to place a dam against information in the digital age." From the article: "Only last week, the authorities threatened to shut down websites and blogs that failed to register with regulators in a new campaign to tighten controls on what the public can see online. The so-called Great Firewall of China is constantly being breached as citizens and the authorities play a cat and mouse game with the flow of information."
The interesting point for me is the US companies who participate in helping the Chinese government censor their internet (ie Microsoft, Cisco Systems). I understand there is heaps of money to be made, but I question the integrity of their decision. IMO ethically it is *wrong*, but does that mean these companies can be faulted?
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
I would guess slashdot is one of the sites blocked in China. Is this correct? Anyone here from China?
There goes about 80% or more of internet content.
It sounds like the Chinese are pretty much limited to looking at propaganda sites and maybe a few for online businesses, and other sites run from within China.
Nothing should stop free flow of information.
How long before they just give up and cut routing to the global network for public internet connections to make it easier to clamp down?
I think this is going to be almost identical to the "War on drugs" in the United States.
Yes, it's very difficult to 'sanitize' the internet for 100 million people, especially over TCP/IP.
However, let's not get complacent. What the network giveth, the network can taketh away, with enough tweaks and censors, from all but the most skilled computer users.
Also, the chilling effect of government censorship-- that if you post things the Chinese government does not approve of, your post may go away (at best) is hard to quantify.
With all those millions and millions online in China swapping programs, songs and such, you'd think the RIAA would go after them, if the purpose was really to prevent damage to the intellectual property holder.
What's going to be extremely interesting is watching a closed society like China start talking one-on-one to the rest of the world. I'd give it twenty years before public opinion changes in China. I can't see them sharing information freely and being as nationalistic as they currently are. If you want to stop a future war with China, help them talk to each other all you can. My two cents.
Brains! Brains! Give me Brains!
If you divide the 100 Million by the percent of the internet that gets though the Great Firewall of China, what's the real number?
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
Also, if they can't *view* certain websites, what's keeping them from using a proxy (possibly an open proxy list) within their web browser to circumvent China's methods of blocking?
One would think that they can only block items for so long until their methods are circumvented. After all, where there's a will, there's always a way. Sounds like a huge cat and mouse game indeed.
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
Now I will be getting e-mails from Mr. Lin from the Chinese government instead of Mr. Ubuntu from Nigeria.
;)
Either way, I've got my bank account ready
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
The greatest weapon the US has against oppressive regimes is our cultural, entertainment and information exports. It's hard to oppress a people when they know that there's something slightly cooler then living in China under a communist regime.
The Soviets could regulate so many aspects of their citizenry's daily life, but what they couldn't manage to get a hold on was what they thought was cool. It might be an overly simplistic view, but part of me thinks that it was Coca-Cola and Levi's jeans that brought communism to its knees in the soviet bloc. (and of course, coca-cola and levis is not much to base a government on, which is why so many countries have struggled with the concept of democracy)
I think something similar could easily happen in China.
I don't presume to think that the Chinese would try, or even want to be like the US, but I think there's a certain sense of freedom and independence embodied in American culture, and that freedom is alluring and infectious. The more the Chinese people have access to something as stupid as Slashdot or Wikipedia or...anything, the more they're going to crave more content. The more content they crave, the more content must be censored until something has to break.
:::: the insomniac's digest
With inititives like Haier (Chinese refridgerator manufacturer) building a plant in South Carolina, United States, Chinese companies are definitely expanding. An article in Time (IIRC) said that China's ecnonomy will top that of Japan by 2015, and eventually the U.S. economy. It has been said that Chinese have gotten where they are today because of discipline. Each day, Haier would gather the employees around, and have the name called of who made the most mistakes (like leaving a screw out of a refridgerator) and have them stand on designated green foot prints painted on the floor. This level of discipline will hopefully continue.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
You have to remember, with a country with a population of 1.3 Billion, with only 100million people online, that's still just over 7% penetration. While I admit it is growing by leaps and bounds, it is by no means a large percentage compared to the US, some European nations or Japan.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but controlling the flow of info really can be just a matter of locking up anyone who does anything with information you don't want them to do.
Stop internet gambling? Perhaps not stop it, but by closing down internet cafes that allow it (or have been found to be lax in stopping it) and by tracking down anyone gambling online from home and prosecuting them to the full extent of the law (chains, manacles and the like - not to mention unmentionables), you could seriously curtail the widespread use of internet gambling. All one needs to do is sacrifice a few civil liberties and you're half way there.
If you can't think of something nice to say then don't say anything at all. No, REALLY.
Didn't mean to imply it was only the US, but that China was "just another" in a long list of countries trying and failing to deal with these issues. Kind of a non-issue, almost an evergreen, just "insert country here".
Someone sitting next to a computer reading Slashdot is (parent) has their tinfoil hat on a bit too tight...
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
If China becomes a dominant presence on the internet, I wonder when Chinese tech standards will become de facto standards for the net. Much as developers design for IE currently (regardless of the "issues" with IE), I wonder if future developers will target Chinese compatibility first, and ignore other de facto or de jure standards.
Does anyone know if China is adopting/promoting DRM (perhaps for content control), open standards (to avoid U.S.-centric Microsoft technology), IPv6, or other internet-affecting standards.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they're always friendly, and they're ready to please.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They come from a long way overseas,
But they're cute and they're cuddly, and they're ready to please.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Ni hao ma; ni hao ma; ni hao ma; zaijien!
Excellent one... walls fall yet. And this one will fall too. However maybe by then it will be unclear who is behind the wall. So far China's strategy is reclusive vis à vis Internet, but they could decide soon to adopt the exact opposing strategy, have everyone go online and submerge the internet with the government point of view. I mean, there are enough people in China for Chinese's views to become mainstream ideas on Internet.
\u262D = \u5350
Yes, considering the fact that this has worked so well for the RIAA/MPAA, right? Or not....
Or to put it in a broader sense, you can stop just about anything if you make it a high enough priority. If China wants to censor the internet badly enough, then can devote significant resources to the activity, institute draconian penalties for breaking the law, offer lavish rewards for people who turn others in, etc.
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would
deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
-- Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri
So true, so very true.
the Chinese government is trying to stop a river with pebbles. What happened to the visionary leaders that opened up their market so they won't have the Soviet Union's fate? How long do they think they can buy time before information becomes utterly loose on their "kingdom"?
Damn it folks! You can not stop progress! You can only impede it but never stop it! Get over it! You should either reform or perish! Do the Chinese Party commissars have to take history lessons anymore?
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
Yeah. Fair point but it's not quite the same. The music industry people aren't actually making the laws. Attempting to influence, but there are those in power preventing a free hand.
You'll never stop it all but if you make the consequences unpleasant enough then many people will stop doing things. Just in case.
If you can't think of something nice to say then don't say anything at all. No, REALLY.
Yeah... Lock out the internet completely. Forbid the use of Computers entirely. That'd be about the only way to accomplish it on a large scale (and you can't get much larger than china).
Yup. But again, you'll never completely prevent it all. There's always a small (or not so small?) core of habitual criminals who will break the law anyway. Even, or perhaps especially in the kind of digital police-state we've envisioned here.
If you can't think of something nice to say then don't say anything at all. No, REALLY.
For the last month or so, I've been chatting with a lot of different people in China using Skype. (Nice thing about Skype, is that it's encrypted end-to-end. No JBT's listening in.)
I've found that the people I'm talking to are entirely aware that their government lies to them routinely, and they want to know about their own history.
They know that they lost some relatives in the 1960's, but they have no idea that Mao killed more Chinese than Tojo. They know that something happened in Beijing in 1989, but they don't know that thousands of unarmed protestors were slaughtered. I've been doing a lot of cutting and pasting of wikipedia pages.
I'm convinced that the internet will be the end of the Red Dynasty, and the way it will happen is that the JBT's will lose their ability to lie to the people. Once most Chinese realize that most of their countrymen are sick and tired of the Red Dynasty, then it's game over for the gerontocrats in Beijing.
I only hope that China becomes a free country with as little bloodshed as possible. Killing the Politburo would probably suffice, although justice would demand the demise of thousands of the petty thugs as well.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
How naive are you, exactly? That kind of thing is quite common everywhere (yes, even in the US, Jimmy). And, that kind of thing is desperately needed for US workers if we're even going to attempt to compete with companies around the world.
I don't respond to AC's.
Chinese Government wants to maintain full control.
I'm placing my bets on Information.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Soon the Chinese government will learn from modern democratic governments and sophisticated corporations that trying to control the flow of information is the wrong way to go about it.
It's far easier and more effective to control the public's interpretation and prioritization of information than to limit the information itself.
Are you saying that Americans are ordering these Chinese flags and fireworks and are not paying for them? Are they using credit cards?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
the "Great Firewall of China" I think we have to see more bypass technology written in chinese and targetted for the Chinese audience. Mind you there area still a lot of Chinese people who do get through (proxies, satellite internet, etc.), it would probably increase with a targeted effort at the Chinese. T
This seems very much to me like the proposed anti-p2p bill in congress. It is incredibly hard to filter the internet. Makers of internet porn filters already know this quite well, and they spend a lot of money compiling blacklists. They will never be able to filter out all porn. Same with china, they are spending loads of money keeping their citizens censored. And they will never completely get it done. And if they somehow do, there are always proxies.
Now about the p2p bill. Congress is proposing a bill to make p2p internet transactions illegal. China is doing the same thing, except they are already trying. I must also mention that finding more that 50% of p2pers is incredibly hard, and arguably impossible.
In summary, the internet cannot be filtered, at least completely, as it is impossible.
100 million of anything is hard to monitor. If what you're trying to monitor is a bunch of people who are as smart as you are, it could make for a long day.
Freedom appears to be an innate yearning in the heart of people everywhere. It does no good to suppress the yearning; that just makes it stronger.
When people learn that conditions elsewhere are more free than they have, they will eventually either move themselves to where the conditions are free or they will change the conditions where they are.
I hope, for China, that "eventually" comes sooner rather than later.
sigs, as if you care.
I agree just because someone "feels" differently then you do does not mean they are unethical, because as long as you remain in the comfortable realm of talking about "feelings" their can be no such thing as unethical, or immoral. So the real/ fist question you must answer for yourself is " Is there any such thing as right and wrong" the second question is " if there is such a thing how can we tell what that is?" Because "feelings" will never work as a way to decide that question. What if i "feel" it is unethical for anyone to prevent access to any kind of information because i value freedom of individual choice over the protection of society. Furthermore what if I "feel" that there is nothing wrong with enforcing my moral view on others nations to liberate their citizens from their governments oppression of the individual. Who's ethics should be respected? Why should i value someone else's ethics more highly then i value mine one? In other words what is the basis of the idea of respect for others? Why should we respect other peoples choices? If you can't answer these questions you have no basis for discussing the actions of ANYONE including the collections of anyones we call a corporation.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Is it ethical to censor news and information in any form? After all, was this not where the principles of hacking came from? (yes the first hackers were building computers, but they did so away from corporations, so they could share the knowledge) The free spread of information?
I can completely understand why places like China, N. Korea, and Iran want to control the information in their countries. Their entire power structure is based on controlling society. How do you accomplish control of society, through the knowledge you grant it.
This is not about pushing US values on China, but a much larger social question. What inalienable human rights do we have to seek out information? This is the question.
I personally feel this is one of the biggest global questions we should be asking ourselves right now. Along with other human rights issues, such as those plaguing Africa.
You CAN'T control what people think. You CAN'T control the urge to know. You CAN'T make people believe something is bad just because you say it is bad. You have to provide convincing evidence.
For example, over in Denmark in the 1970s they dropped most restrictions regarding pornography. After 30 years, the nation did NOT turn into a gang of rapists. They probably mentally filter out billboards featuring naked people just like they filter out any other uninteresting advertising. So, where is the evidence to support Chinese government (or any other government) claims of bad things associated with pornography? It's in the unnecessary restrictions! Forcing it underground just makes it more interesting ("I want to see what they don't want me to see, to find out why they don't want me to see it!"). Exposing it takes away that incentive, and people tend to ignore what not's immediately relevant. A curb of freedom is ALWAYS immediately relevant!
Now, you CAN influence what people do with what they know. Does the Chinese Constitution have any mechanism whereby it might be Amended, like the U.S. (and other) Constitutions? If not, then whatever curbs of freedom built into the Chinese Constitution will eventually and inevitably boil over into an ugly revolution. The leadership over there is going to find out, one way or another, just what The People can do. So, they can either plan on an England-like open system (which started with the Magna Charta), or they can keep a France-like repressive system (which ended with beheadings).
Like sitting in a car not being able to drive.
I can't think of the name of any of the programs off the top of my head, but there are programs written specifically to deal with China's censorship. The one I can clearly remember, randomly hops proxies for users there. They ask people outside of China to run a proxy on their machine, and small amounts of your bandwidth gets used to reflect Chinese users. The more reflectors they have, the harder it is to defeat.
As the free market continues to boom in China, the government becomes more powerless to retain their political hold on the people. With increased technology that only a profit motive in a free market can provide - and the access to more and better information - the government's hold over the people is substantially reduced. People will only be held under foot for so long.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
I agree with what you are saying the problem that you will experience however is that the idea that such a thing as a human right exists is not universally accepted. More over that such a right is inalienable can also be brought into question. A true atheist ( as the Chinese government promotes ) must believe human beings are a interesting chemical process and little more. Therefore why should this chemical process have any more rights then any other. Say a dog or a lake. The simple answer, from the perspective of some people, is that no such thing exists as a right either inalienable or otherwise.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
except perhaps simply executing any dissidants which
so far has not been an unuasal step for them. It is however one other governments have not tried.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
If plain text gets filtered, make it ENCRYPTED, and javascript will take care of it!
So I can't legally connect to a proxy outside of the US and browse the internet as and where I choose? If you are telling me that my freedom is illusionary then is my connection to the server I purchased in Germany also illusionary? Am I really connecting to an NSA server who just happens to be able to spoof my secret keys and has spent a lot of time keeping up with the changes I make to my operating system?
Sit and down shut up, troll.
Those companies own the computer, networks, etc. They have the right to determine how they are used. No one is forcing you to work there.
No one owns government property. Well, supposedly the everyone owns it, but that's just malarky.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
Imagine that....someone signs up for the ARMY and ends up having to engage in combat! The utter injustice. Something needs to be done. The names "ARMY" and "NAVY" and "MARINES" are so deceptive. No reasonable person could join any of them and think that the organizations had anything to do with military operations!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
With the level of censorship in China saying these folks are "on the Internet" is like saying all those AOL users are "on the Internet." To take it further, it's like saying people who eat Spam are carnivours. I mean, c'mon!
Does the Great Firewall do anything *useful*, like stopping viruses, spam, etc, or is it all just about preventing Chinese from seeing certain words and pictures?
I'm guessing that you aren't an atheist (a quick look at your comment history verifies that), which is why you feel that you are qualified to declare what a 'true atheist' would believe.
Have you ever spoken with an atheist? Tried to get to know one? Or did you just decide that you can know what atheists are like without actually having to learn about us?
Technoli
Nobody wins in the globalization game. There might be a temprorary winner, or a temporary loser, but all countries will bounce between winner and loser due to the way capitalism works. India and China may win for 30 or 40 years, but they'll lose for another couple hundred afterwards.
Also, I'd like to see China, or anyone for that matter, collect from us.
There are indeed different kinds of Atheism (it varies, like any religion). However, Chinese Atheism is less than perfectly "without a god", as it has definitely deified Mao (there's even a holy book!) and to some extent the ruling state itself.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
If the internet becomes *mostly* Chinese, that may change the nature of the internet from what we see today.
Belief in faith has absolutely nothing to do with belief in equality, morality, or ethics.
I fully understand not every politcal leader out there believes in those things. Do you think they even teach the Magna Charter in Iran or N. Korea? How could they even teach their society about it, it would be their own downfall.
The US is not a completely free society, and unfortunately, I don't think humans are capable of sustaining one. But we are pretty open, is there better ways, sure. Information brings enlightenment, so let's let it all flow.
I agree, except you should have said "There are indeed different kinds of Atheism (it varies, like religions do)"
Atheism isn't a religion any more than baldness is a hair color.
Technoli
I guess the USA must censor some stuff, or somebody in another country could give away music.
It depends. The ones who lack religion tend to be on the agnostic side: they assert no faith. However, some Atheists do assert a strong faith about the nature of deity. The ones of this type have "hair" in your example. Once someone starts asserting "facts" about these things....
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Slashdot is not blocked in China. I am a Chinese. I am visiting slashdot from China right now. any other sites are.
I just came back form a 3 week vacation in Shanghai. From my Holiday Inn hotel room I was able to access Slashdot, google mail, yahoo mail and cox mail but was not able to access MarshallBrain's main blog http://marshallbrain.blogspot.com/ nor his SadTech Blog http://sadtech.blogspot.com/. I was glad to be able to keep up with my e-mail and the state of technology when I was on vacation.
I do not know exactly how much restriction the china's government have on the people. However, it is navie to think that Chinese would tranform overnight. because they get more information. We should know that by just looking at our own nation(US in my case). We get all the information but we rarely use them. People are generally play by the big corporate companies and the government as they have the "power" to control what we see. Most of us just would not dig deep enough to find the trust. Most of the time we do not ever care about the true as it does not affect us. Let be honest, the "red china" government has made most chinese happy right now. I doubt the people want change. They are more worry about improving their living standard at the moment. They are ever people believe the government make the right move in 1989.(I know about the fact about it and I feel sad about the incident. However, I do beleive the students should share some of the blame on what happen that day). By the way, I do not believe Chinese will look at Americans more favorable if they got more information about us. It probably will lower our popularity ever more. (Consider the trade war we are going to start and we keep on talking about the danger of China's rising in power)
It is interesting to think if Chinese developer's will become better than the rest of the world in security issues because of the regulations. This is also dependant on which side of the fence they choose to climb (white or black). I think many people will care and be interest at that point.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have several friends and an uncle refer to themselves as "atheists". I also have several relatives who truly are atheists, although would not claim it if you asked them. Most of those people who apply the term atheists to themselves are actually agnostics, because they cling to some residual idea of Morality or god ... or at least spirituality. In order however to practice true atheism ( the philosophical ideal). You must reject any notion of theism-" the idea there is a god" Otherwise you are claiming a philosophy but not adhering to it, further if you claim there is a universally accessible absolute you are implying the existence of a frame of reference from which all morality can be judged. That in turn implies the existence of some kind of transcendent absolute, a type of god. It is just as illogical to call oneself an atheist and then claim their is some kind of universally accepted morality as it is to claim you are a Christian but that there is no such thing as God. That being said, I have found a very few people in this world who's beliefs actually are derived logically.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
The source is the LA Times:
http://www.aegis.com/news/lt/1988/LT881104.html
See how the "crime" of being HIV infected has had the result of a lifetime prison sentence. Note the lack of the 'usual suspects' in the source (no right-wing media, no pro-democracy activists in Florida...nothing until you get to a Republican proposing legislation at the end).
This type of oppression goes even beyond the dreams of Pat Robertson.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I don't think they have made the Tibetans very happy. They are not making the Taiwanese very happy, either, by threatening to destroy them merely for stating the obvious: that Taiwan is an independent nation.
"People are generally play by the big corporate companies and the government as they have the "power" to control what we see"
What country are you in? There is no such control in the US.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
What you are trying to imply is that you have to be an anarchist to be an atheist, and that is not true. There is an accepted definition that atheism is tied to immorality, but this is taking a lesser, but accepted definition that morality requires god.
Philisophically, I do not believe in god, I find it a silly concept. Do I believe in ethics and morals, yes. They are synonyms. I used to say I was an agnostic, and the main principle of it, is my way of viewing knowledge, show me the proof, and I'll accept it. Do I believe in god, no, nor will I ever. If you want to take it in a religious context, I have chosen my side, I don't believe in god, therefore I can no longer be an agnostic, I am an atheist.
The so-called Great Firewall of China is constantly being breached as citizens and the authorities play a cat and mouse game with the flow of information.
That's a race between weapons and armor. In such a race the weapons eventually always win.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
From the CIA World factbook:
U.S.A: purchasing power parity - $11.75 trillion (2004 est.)
China: purchasing power parity - $7.262 trillion (2004 est.)
Japan: purchasing power parity - $3.745 trillion (2004 est.)
If both the U.S. and China continue to grow at 2004 speeds, China will be the worlds largest economy in 2015. (7.262*1.091^x=11.75*1.044^x; x=10.93)
China also has the third largest military budget in the world, and is aggressively modernising it's military. The laws against Taiwanese independence and the governmentally encouraged anti-japanese sentiments make me wonder if China would be content with Taiwan, or if Taiwan will become the Austria of our times.
YAZBS (Yet Another Zonk Blogging Story)
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
I have to start out by saying you're either trying to be funny or a complete twit. Hopefully the first.
Now, Its nice to see thing kind of thing happening. Communism is one of those things that works very well on paper, but in practice it has prove over and over again to be a dismal failure. Its hard to squash personal initiative.
The next part being, how many people are in China? Last I looked it was over a billion, so 100 million means that 10% and I'm guessing since there must a lot more than a billion people by now, its less than 10% (hooray for simple math).
Its a start, and should be interesting when the Great Firewall of China does finally come down, it will be a very significant advance for the rest of the world as well as the Chinese people. This should rank somewhere around the Berlin wall coming down.
First off, just a small correction, if you will indulge me. There is no such thing as a belief in faith. You can have faith in a belief, but not the other way around. You can have faith in the belief that your car breaks will work. Your faith may or may not be reasonable, and your belief may or may not be correct. Faith is the acceptance of any belief as fact that has not been tested completely yet. Most people have extraordinary faith in the effectiveness of their breaks, if they didn't they would drive quite differently. So I have no belief in my faith. I do have faith in the fact that there is a transcendent being who created the universe. I base that faith on fact and experience, in the same way someone who puts faith in their breaks develops that faith.
In some sense I agree with you. People have many beliefs that have nothing to do with anything.
If there is truly an argument for morality without a belief in some kind of god i would like to hear it.
My intention was not to pick on anyone who applies the term "atheist" to themselves I was making a statement about the kind of atheism the Chinese government promotes, which it learned to promote from soviet Russia. It is best summed up by the statement "there is no morality outside the laws given by those who govern ".
However their atheism IS the most logical kind of atheism.
I would demonstrate it like this:
"If we start with the premise there is no god, no transcendence, no moral absolute then there is no system of absolute value either. If there is no system of absolute value then it is impossible to talk about equality, because equality implies the equivalence of values, which can only be measured within the confines of an accepted system of norms. The statement all things are equal becomes vacuously true because all things are now of no measurable value. Thus there is no basis for my treatment of a human any differently then a dog or a grapefruit because they are of equal value. If one can be sold why not the other? If one can be destroyed or eaten because of my desire or need why not the other?"
In order to refute the argument you must fault it's premise or it's logic. It's logic I believe to be irrefutable, not that I haven't been wrong before. If you find fault in it's premise then you are not a true atheist. - ie. "rejective of and/or without theistic belief" . You may not believe in the Christian God. You may not believe in a living god, but you do posses a theistic belief if you believe there are moral absolutes, because the absolute must somehow exist outside of and independent of the human brain.
A good example of a true atheist would be Pavlov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov). He is quoted in one of my college psychology books in something like ' the sooner human beings deal with the reality there is no such thing as free will and let governments go about the process of conditioning their citizens into correct behavior the better off the whole human race will be.'
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Just curious, if they can't host their blogs within China, why can't they do it elsewhere? Like perhaps in the US, Australia, or Canada?
There is a program in place which facilitates persons from around the world to adopt a Chinese blog and host it for the Chinese blogger. Pretty cool concept: people from around the world coming together and helping each other make connections and facilitate free speech.
Shouldn't You expect more from your DJ?
strictly ethics is the study of morality. It tries to answer question like: "if someone is kind to you should you kill them?" Otherwise why shouldn't one person kill and the other reward kindness dependant entirely on their own disposition? It is very much like this. Two people sit in a room and talk about a vase that may have been in a room they both came from. One of them says there was no vase it was only a shadow that made the other person think there was a vase. The other person says it was a red vase. The first person says no it was blue. There is a great deal of evidence that suggest God exist. As much or more then that there is life on other planets. If you believe in the likely hood of one you should ask yourself why you place a higher standard of evidence on the other. here is one little piece. The fact that you believe other people should believe what you believe about a situation sufficiently to make it worth your trouble to talk to them about it is evidence , not proof , but certainly evidence that you were created to believe in a morality that could be commonly accessed, because you obviously believe two people should be able to agree. The only way a morality can be expected to be commonly accessed is if it has an existence independent of those people talking about it. I.E. if the vase exists. in order truly be an atheist you must be an anarchist because you cannot believe in any COMMON morality from which law can be derived. In the context you propose law can only exist because there are those strong enough to enforce it. Since they are the ones doing the enforcing there is no reason they should not also choose what is law and no reason those who can disobey should not when it is to their advantage. the only logical motivation for any action is the self interest with which all other creatures in nature act. even that fails to be a logical reason for action , but it is at least a compelling one. The fact that you persist in believing, without logic to support it, the idea there should be some kind of agreement between people on what they should or should not do implies that concept is ingrained deep in your being. It supports the hypothesis you were designed, be evolution or god, to have this kind of belief. when you find a shoe it often implies at least a good probability there exist a foot. You betray your own principles by claiming the vase is red.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Yes, to assert a "fact" that is not in direct evidence is the best wroking definition of faith I can think of. That being said I believe athiesm requires a great deal more faith the thiesm. if for no other reason because it implies a higher level of
risk. As pascal suggested.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Schadenfreude is no philosophy to base one's life on. (Or being fat and stupid.) Particularly when you will have to worry about feeding yourself, and the electricity to watch your TV. Or when you'll have the time to watch TV. Are you content with going home to suffer and die because you cannot afford a medical remedy? You'll fit right in with the New World Order.
They'll collect the same way we collected on Argentina and the USSR. You're not fat & stupid? Then you either understand the reference, or can look it up.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Dick fcuk, Caymanisland Drug Lord,
:)
Imprisonning 2m foolonggong people for their peacefull beliefs and making them work 9/10 days at 18hr shifts to make the cheap $2 tshirts for walmart is ethical?
I hope your mexican made SUV bursts its chineese tires and crashes into the walmart truck and bursts into flames
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I have been living in China for two years and speak fluent Chinese, so I have a first hand perspective. Yes, it is true that most Chinese are aware of their government's faults. However, they never resist because in Chinese culture the word of authority is final. It doesn't matter if the authority is the government, the boss, or one's parents. Their command, no matter how misguided or unfair, must be followed without question.
Also, the Chinese tend to have a very detached attitude about the environment they live in. They would rather endure hardships than complain about them openly. For example, the street at a bus stop that I pass by everyday became flooded with sewage from a clogged sewer. The entire area, in the middle of a large city, was enveloped in putrid stench. But the crowds of people waiting for their buses just stood there pretending like they didn't notice. No one complained and the sewer spurted sewage continuously for two weeks before it was fixed.
Such attitudes are deeply ingrained in Chinese culture. I think it may take generations for them to change to the point where the Chinese are willing to resist on a large scale.
Manufacture in China
True, but because GDP is calculated by converting a yuan-based GDP to dollars, it kind of loses it's meaning, because of the yuan being artificially weak in relation to the dollar. Therefore PPP actually is a better way of calculating it, because the actual output in dollars isn't important but the relative production capacity is. Simply put, it costs 10 million (in dollars) to build a nuke in the U.S., but only 2 million (in dollars) to build one in china...
I'm perfectly happy changing jobs to feed the family that I don't have. When I have a family, I don't mind labor if it comes to that, and I happen to speak several languages. I'm not worried because I have options. Perhaps you should do some studying and open some options up for yourself.