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China Treats Internet Addiction Very Seriously
eldavojohn writes "China has taken new extremes in preventing internet addiction in youths and is even offering boot camps to parents who want their child weaned from the electric teat. The article notes that 'no country has gone quite as far as China in embracing the theory that heavy Internet use should be defined as a mental disorder and mounting a public crusade against Internet addiction.' The article mentions the story of Sun Jiting who 'spends his days locked behind metal bars in this military-run installation, put there by his parents. The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!"' Sun found himself spending 15 hours or straight on the internet. Thanks to his parents' intervention and the treatment, he now has life mapped out until he's 84. "
Youth engaging in self destructive addictive behavior. News at 11:00.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Old communism and new communism still have one thing in common: reeducation of deviants and defining any 'social' problem as a mental disorder that they can treat/imprison you for.
From TFA: "Sun looks forward to returning to school and getting on with his life. The first task on his agenda when he gets home: Get online. He needs to tell his worried Internet friends where he was these past few weeks." Obviously he is totally cured of his "internet addiction..."
Spending 15 hours on the internet at a time might be a normal reaction to living in an extremely oppressive society.
Seriously, I understand how internet addiction can take over your life, but being put in a penal institution is not the answer. And mapping out your life until you're 84? You've just had something else take over your life instead. Not much of an improvement in my opinion.
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And saw this article in the paper the other day. It caught my attention, and frankly, it disturbs me to my core. I won't deny that it's possible to become addicted to the internet, but the extremes to which some of this clinics go is very disturbing. I don't think that these kids should be treated like they're addicted to drugs.
Many of these internet addictions lead to suffering a bullet-related death.
This reminds me of the drug treatment programs where teens were incarcerated in the US. They were much more popular in the late 80s and early 90s. The one we had locally, "Straight, Inc." used to advertise on TV all the time. There were cases of kids getting caught with a joint once and being sent there, mixed in with hardcore addicts and becoming more addicted off stuff smuggled in. Either that, or they were just isolated and abused. These companies were scandalized and faded into the background, AFAIK they may still be there.
It's weaned. Don't use words you don't understand. Or that the slashdot "editors" don't understand.
It's also "parents'" and not "parent's". The former is plural possessive. The latter is singular possessive.
Since the slashdot editors will not edit, I guess someone else is going to have to do it. Pity we can't edit the actual story submission, and have to content ourselves with providing corrections here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Bender, what are you doing in the bathroom? Are you jacking on in there?"
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If it starts to be an actual detriment (not eating, not sleeping, etc), okay - I can see the need for intervention. Still, this one makes me queasy a bit.
Why? Well, what about the requirements to be declared "addicted"? Isn't there a danger that safeguards could be tossed, and it would eventually boil down to just someone else's subjective opinion? Hell of a way to be got rid of in a hurry by a disgruntled low-level gov't worker, a pissed-off friend, etc. Anywhere else on the planet okay - I could understand that there would be a due process. But in a country which still prosecutes (and I quote) "hooliganism" (which can mean whatever they want it to mean), and lock dissidents up for years on end? Sounds like just an updated and modernized excuse to shut up anyone who makes the gov't feel uncomfortable.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I went to treatment when I was younger (for drugs), we had five year plans and such. We had a rating system where you're level 1-3 (for outpatient, level 4 is mandatory inpatient). Then if you had a serious drug addiction to say heroin you could by rights take an option to farm pigs in Alaska as a treatment option. We considered this rather extreme and was usually scheduled for 6-12 months. My addiction at 19 was a six year addiction to pot, meth, alcohol, lsd, mushrooms, cocaine, and opium (ordered by preference). Because, I didn't have any felonies I was considered a level 3 maximum outpatient required. This kid is worse off than the pig farmers for playing video games? I don't really get it and planning out to the age of 84 seems to be a setup for failure, I seem to think he's just trying to stay off of the 3rd floor.
Reminds me of a bad acid trip where everyone was connected directly to the internet. And we were all big fat slobs scarfing down McDonalds while browsing through more pr0n, goatse and ugly media in 10 minutes than a human psyche is meant to handle in a lifetime. Hoses are all connected taking care of bodily functions, no need to move. One for piss, one for shit and one to collect and dump your DNA right into a swirling pool of filth where it belongs.
For fuck's sake. Save yourself. Go outside!
Okay, let me get this straight. "Thanks to his parent's intervention and the treatment, he now has [replaced one compulsive behavior for another]." The need to organize your life 50+ years into the future is not far from the compulsion to spend 15 hours a day on the Internet. In fact, I would maintain that it is potentially a more destructive behavior.
Would seem to fit into the PRC's pattern of taking 'deviant' thought and pathologizing it. Now, instead of re-education camps, internet 'addicted' youths are treated with all the care and compassion the Party can muster.
I'll bet my last yuan renminbi that this will be used to lock up bloggers and other people with similar internet 'addictions.' Surely you must be addicted if your jones for information has you circumventing the Great Firewall of China, right?
Saying "Internet Addiction" is like saying "Ethernet addiction". It means nothing.
What is this guy doing for 15 hours? Is he chatting with friends? Young kids spend hours on the telephone before and this wasn't telephone addiction. Sure communication is better now, but simple chat rooms existed for modem users 20+ years ago. Nothing new there either.
Is this guy playing games? Is he gambling? Is he looking at porn? Is he sending emails? What is he doing for 15 hours?
The point being, the action that this person is doing online is what they are addicted to, not the network access. If you are addicted to looking at porn or playing games, for example, then that is the issue not "the Internet".
What about kids who play their playstation for hours and hours on end? Is this and addiction?
The bottom line is "the internet made me do it" is just another excuse.
In Socialist China, boot camp programs you!
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
If the UK had controls that booted you from online games after 5 hours half the IT support workforce would actually have to work come 14h00...
Nothing witty
Pah! Lightweight! Sure, he's got to sleep four or five hours per night, but what's he doing with the rest of the time?
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That's what Amanda Tapping blow up dolls are for...
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End The FED. -
Alex: You needn't take it any further, sir. You've proved to me that all this gold farming and internets is wrong, wrong, and terribly wrong. I've learned me lesson, sir. I've seen now what I've never seen before. I'm cured! Praise god! Dr. Brodsky: You're not cured yet, boy.
RFC2119
What exactly are these "addicted" people spending their time doing? "The Internet" is a lot of things. Are they chatting all day? Writing e-mail? Reading discussion forums and posting messages? Playing online games? Reading random web pages and articles? Downloading music and software? etc. At least they were more specific than "sitting at the computer" (as in, "the computer is EVIL!!!").
Internet addiction really boils down to needing to fill a need. People are often drawn to a certain area of the internet for whatever reason(most likely a personal interest in something), and then become connected to the community that they found there(anonymity makes it easy). If it were not for the social networks and communities online, what would people really have to do to consume that much time a day? Sure, exceptions are around where people do just that, but as for your everyday John Doe, he would not be able to fill that time without the online communities.
The social aspect found online is the root of most internet addiction. Once people are able to fill the need to social interaction online, they are much more prone to addiction. Think of all the WOW addicts out there - They are almost all addicted to the social community, not the game itself.
To curb this addiction, you need to present alternative to the addicted person which would fill the void being created by unplugging. These people will have to get that social interaction offline, but that is easier said than done for many. They may be shy, sheltered, socially inept, or any combinations of things which yield a socially awkward person. If an alternative cannot be presented to fulfill the need for social contact which is inviting and easily available, these people trying to cure an internet addiction are doomed to relapse over and over again.
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- and making a career out of it through programming. Ah, also im meeting various capable professionals, colleagues, crazy gamers, noticeably high i.q. women.
And what those parents were wanting their children to do in future for a living - pottery ?
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I believe that China takes internet 'addiction', or usage of it at all, very seriously because of the access to information it provides. Information that China would rather censor. This is a perfect excuse to indoctrinate.
Love sees no species.
One political dissident in China was imprisoned for 13 years in a psychiatric hospital.
That the Chinese government imprisons an Internet addict at the request of his own parents should surprise no one. The Chinese, not merely the government, regularly abuse psychiatry to achieve social or political goals.
The Chinese entity that is psychologically ill is not the Internet addict, the political dissident, or the other victims improperly imprisoned for supposed psychological problems.
Rather, the Chinese entity that is psychologically ill is Chinese society itself.
I wonder what his 85th birthday party will be like.
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AKAImBatman's parents, in a fit of desperation, have turned to the state government for assistance in raising their kin. Hilarity expected soon. Stay tuned for details.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Keep in mind the country this is in.
This is a country where people get "disappeared" all the time for saying the wrong thing or acting the wrong way.
I never would have thought China ... CHINA, for God's sake ... would treat it's people like THAT. It's just so hard to believe ... I mean, the egg rolls are just SOOOOO good. And the fried wontons ... awesome. You have to try the Mu Shu Chicken, too ... BEST thing I've ever eaten from a cardboard box with a little metal handle on it, EVER.
Well, all I can say is Wang Chow won't be getting any tip from me next time he delivers. Take that, you Red Menace, you.
laid out in Orwell's 1984! What a coincidence!
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This is a raging debate in modern penal and support systems about whether the punishment/treatment does more harm than good. I'm sure you've heard someone say before that sending a first-time offender to prison only connects them with hardened, experienced criminals to learn from, and that's often the case. When inmates get out of prison they're not penitent for their crimes: they're smarter about how not to get caught next time.
On the other hand how can we address problems like this? Some people need monitored care, but outside of someone taking direct and personal responsibility for the individual we just can't do better than insitutionalizing someone right now.
Unless, you know, direct and personal responsibility for youth = parenting. But that's a can of worms I'm sure nobody wants to address.
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Anybody else see the article about them controling pidgeons in flight? Pull up Pidgeoto!!!
Poster wanted "wean" here, not "ween"
wean 1 |w?n| verb [ trans. ] accustom (an infant or other young mammal) to food other than its mother's milk. accustom (someone) to managing without something on which they have become dependent or of which they have become excessively fond : the doctor tried to wean her off the sleeping pills.
ween |w?n| verb [ intrans. ] archaic be of the opinion; think or suppose : he, I ween, is no sacred personage.
Perhaps it's time for a new joke.
Not everybody on the 'net that claims to be female has the prerequisite equipment to make such a claim...
This might be a little off-topic but it reminded me of a news article I read one morning when I was in China last summer.
A couple locked their teenage son in their own home to prevent him from sneaking out at night to internet cafes while the parents were out. There was a fire. The boy died. When they found him after the fire, the metal anti-burglary bars on their window were bent in the kid's attempt to escape. His body was found still clinging to those bars.
I'm reminded of Ghost In the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex (the anime series), in which a secretive group treats kids with a form of Internet addiction. The treatment actually consists of using them to create and crack security codes.
Revive the Constitution.
It isn't political psychiatry in the sense that it is used to further political power, but the basic idea of using psychiatry as an end run around law to get rid of undesirables is not just a symptom of Chinese society.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
All the stories I've seen on this have just used the vague tag "Internet Addiction," but it seems like most of the individual stories I've seen described involve addiction to an online strategy or RPG game of one sort or another. This imprecision bugs me intensely, since addiction to online gaming seems like quite a different beast from, say, /. addiction.
Has anyone seen accounts of "addiction" that weren't gaming related?
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Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks.
Yea... cause we all know the cure sounds far better than the cancer
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
Maybe this will reduce the number of "chinese farmers"
So the ruling Chinese Communists fear the internet. What else is new?
Basically the more time that people spend on the internet, the more likely they are to come across a source of unfiltered news and history about the actions of the Chinese Communist party. Since all communists and fascists rely on total control of news and information sources as part of their political control, it stands to reason that any access to an uncontrolled source of news and information would be a grounds for a diagnosis of mental disorder.
The Soviets did the same thing. The Cubans are still doing the same thing.
If someone is fanatically using the internet in China to find a way to worm through the security systems of the US Defense Department, then they can spend 24 hours a day, 365 days a year on the net without having the slightest trace of any internet-induced mental disorder.
The Chinese government is 100% full of shit. Just read the history of the 20th century for China, its Communist government, and the millions of lives that they have destroyed and tell me that this is not so.
Um, there isn't a difference between socialist state, a police state, a religious state, or an athiest communist state. All the states want their citizens to be uniform and instinctively follow the behavior the governmental model demands. Thought control is fundmental to action action. If most of your population doesn't just think, but know that crimes are impossible to commit without either the state or god watching them, then most of your population will follow your dictates. You can actually ignore the .01% of people that actually try to think. It's usually better to funnel those people into R&D universities so those ideas are all contained in an isolated environment. All scientists and those on the science career track ought to be keep away from the general citizenry for both groups own good. The scientists should never be allowed to directly communicate to the general citizens as that might give the scientists power or disrupt the general harmony of the general population. All sciencists should be treated like scared holy virgins and never allowed to be spoken to except by a special priest or governmental official. Most governmental officals actually running things and knowning the state of the things shouldn't be allowed near the general population either. They need to be isolated just as the scientists need to be isloated.
The general population needs to stay busy, stay feed, stay happy, and most importantly stay in their mental boxes. As long as you have enough entertainers or a nice safe religion to follow, most of your population will be perfectly happy. I've left out the role of teachers and education, but that's just to setup the mental boxes on the general population and ID those that need to be funneled into science or government posts.
Just because her reproductive organs are on the inside and not on the outside doesn't mean you make a blow up doll out of her! How dare you!
Abuse? Do you have any idea what Falun Gong members believe? You would HAVE to be mentally ill to believe all that crap about gaining salvation through a magic wheel turning in your stomach, implanted psychically by your human cult leader who calls himself a god and who demands your abject allegiance. Calling Falun Gong a "meditation technique" is like calling Scientology a "personality development system." It's a whole lot more insidious than that, and the Chinese government should be commended for protecting its citizens from such mind-bending evil.
Who modded this troll???
Someone who's never seen the sketch, I guess. Or someone with no sense of humour. And ruthless efficiency.
Dear Sun Jiting,
I read your story with interest. You sound like you are a fine young man. Once you are released, please see me concerning employment at my Network Operations Centre in Shanghai...
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Before sending him off to boot camp, maybe the parents could try taking away his computer. Or, here's another crazy thought, letting him go online for only 2 hours a day. If he goes to an internet cafe instead, regulate how often he can go outside the house. How did the solution to this problem become locking him up in a cage hundreds of miles from home?
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
INTERNETS: SERIOUS BUSINESS
This seems like a good enough place to comment.
I too latched onto that notion of having his life planned out far into the future. I think that it might be a cultural thing for the Chinese. I study a Chinese (Daoist) martial art. My sifu has been training the art since he was 6. A few times a year he teaches a philosophy class at the temple. One of the things that he emphasized in the last class was prioritizing and planning ahead. When he was a kid, he came up with a list of ten things that he wanted to do before he was fourty. Now he has a list of ten things that he wants to do before he dies.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that long term planning might be inherent in the culture of Chinese civilization. Conversely, that penchant for long term planning might be misunderstood here in a America, a country that hasn't even been around for three hundred years yet.
I think that the perception of the need to be organized for 50+ years into the future is a bit overblown. More than likely what happened is that it was suggested (probably pretty strongly given the sounds of things) that the "addict" in question take a long, hard look at where he wants to go in life. Then once he decided where he wanted to go, he came up with a plan on how to get there. We could debate whether or not the "choice" he made about what to do with his life was "right" or not, however I think you'd have to be a fool to debate the fact that cultivating long term thinking in children is a good thing.
Anyone know what his slashdot ID is?
Get your tagline off my lawn.
This implies that China's culture still has the strong strain of technophobia and fear of the new that has plagued it for the last 500 years. Chinese culture, with the full support of the government, is actively discouraging the development of a tinkerer culture. Anyone with the level of interest and inclination to innovate is likely to spend much of their life in a re-education camp.
In one way or another this guy needed help.
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Lucky little bastards. In my day, we had to buy our own drugs, at great risk and expense! Nowadays it's all Mommy and Daddy and the health insurance. Bah.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
15 hours is really nothing. it's easy to go 15 hours on the internet, but i work at an ISP so i kind of have to. the only breaks i get are driving to/from my place of work. aside from that, i'm quite happy to do this if it's for the better good of keeping things running smoothly. what's really so bad about spending a lot of time working? there are a lot of worse things that a internet user can be doing.
i quite agree that children/teenagers should learn to do things away from the internet, if and only if they are doing things that are not beneficial to themselves or others. i consider idle messaging/forums to be a bad use of time (/. excluded).
Why UNIX?
In the case of China, I don't believe that trying to cure people of a dubious internet "addiction" is their intent. It's probably more along the lines of having people believe that individuals who actively communicate over the net, having access to knowledge and ideas that are not controlled by the state is a sign of some sort of disease. China does everything possible to isolate its population from ideas of democracy and freedom. A google.ch search on Tianamen Square yields vastly different results than a Google search from anywhere else. Having people who have access to information that is not sanctioned by the state is a danger to a government that seeks to completely control its populace, so they brand them as being "sick", and cart them off for "treatment".
If we are going to talk about drugs that are mass marketed, we might as well go for the big one.
Caffeine?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Okay; I am so forming a band called "The Electric Teat."
Anyone want in with me?
In the immortal words of Travis from ATHF, "Thank you bitch. Suck it dry!"
If you define "tinker" and "innovate" as "sit there playing World of Warcraft all day," anyway. Which is pretty much what you see if you walk into any Internet cafe in a major Chinese city, if my experience there is typical. Occasionally I'd see someone reading email, but mostly it's WoW from one end of the cafe to the other.
If this keeps up, there will be no one to farm gold in WoW. The horror!!!!
The treatment their parents use do look a bit radical. But I can perfectly understand how these parents think. The kid is their only hope in many families and he/she is reduced to a piece of internet junk. What will you do if you're in that position?
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
And what difference does it make? Reporting this stuff is just another way to say, "The hobbits at the other end of the shire are sort of queer. i.e., Let's support our government in spending billions to create a cold war when we could otherwise get on with our lives. All this peace business is bad for the bottom line."
Oooh. And the story comes direct from the Startribune news service. How shiek. They never report biased pre-fab crap because their bosses don't want to have the IRS come knocking or have their dog vanish or their job vaporize. Thank-you, the CIA. We love you ever so cuddly very much we do!
-FL
Sorry if this is a repeat...
The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients
That's enough to make you go crazy!
The internet is not clockwork. It's a series of tubes.
Information from the internet may lead to critical thinking, this is what they are trying to stop.
So, basically, if I view too many democratically-oriented websites in China, the government can claim that I have a mental disorder and take me away. Brilliant.
Even if they don't do this, limiting people's Internet access should help avoid having lots of Chinese people being edu^H^H^Hindoctrinated by "foreigners".
http://outcampaign.org/
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Circumcision is child abuse.
I remember some places here in the US trying similar such boot camps for troubled teens, and to my knowledge they didn't work.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
A friend of mine from China told me about how video games are viewed negatively there. He told me this about 10 years ago, actually. He recalled a public service announcement where children and parents are warned about people that inject highly addictive drugs into people while they're at the arcade to get them "hooked". Apparently the arcade games over there are so intense, you wouldn't notice someone sticking a needle in you. And to think, they haven't made Go illegal.
I couldn't find that, but you might find the statistics here interesting, they have a breakdown of coffee consumption in kg per year per capita, in various countries. The USA isn't anywhere near the top of the list. Those Northern Europeans are way ahead of us.
h tm
http://www.coffeeresearch.org/market/consumption.
I suspect that their advertising budgets aren't as high, because in general coffee and other caffeine-based beverages don't have the image or PR problems that alcohol does. I doubt that alcohol producers spent much money on advertising, when anyone could buy their products, regardless of age, and there was no social stigma associated with drinking them at any time. A lot of alcohol advertising isn't necessarily the promotion of one product specifically (or isn't just the promotion of one brand or product) but is the promotion of the product in general. E.g. the Sam Adams commercial where a young guy and a few flunkies are at a business lunch with the big boss, and the young guy orders a beer, the flunkies order non-alcoholic drinks, and then the big boss decides to get a beer, too. In addition to just promoting the brand (Sam Adams), they're also promoting the whole concept of drinking beer in the middle of the day, in a business situation, which might or might not be thought of as appropriate. You don't run into that a lot with coffee. Nobody's going to get judgemental on you for drinking caffeine at any time of the day or night (well, although they might wonder about your sanity if it's 2AM). Coffee advertising is mostly about the promotion of one brand over another; it's internecine.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
She needs to open the iris on her worm hole. My team needs to go through.
There was a rash of these articles in American context recently as well.
... So tell me where young IT staff is supposed to train & practice... I know! Offline!
And wasn't it just a few stories back that we were all "more productive now that we were fully online (at work).
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Government large enough to employ censorship, indoctrination, and behavioral conditioning against its subject class does exactly that. Story at 11:30.
(D'oh, the US government is also large enough to do that! Guess what?)
Yeah I mean China has such a great track record with human rights. So why should we believe something this crazy?!
...China treats everything Seriously.
Trying to put an inherently chaotic thing (humanity) (and chaotic does not mean disorderly) in a nice square box and expecting it to work is an example of pure stupidity.
Nothing in existence that is highly orderly lasts very long. Highly ordered things decay and break down quickly.
Perhaps China is on the same place in its timeline Soviet Russia was when it diagnosed many with "Sluggishly Progressing Schizophrenia" (a 'disease' they could diagnose anyone with) and put them in "psych wards" (read: hell).
There will always be sad little kings of sad little hills claiming to know the truth and trying to force others into believing them.
In the end they are wrong
In the end I am wrong too
In the end everyone is wrong about everything. We can only hope to find a decent approximation. To claim that we know the absolute truth and moreso to force others to follow is disgusting.
This is why communism does not work
This is why socialism does not work
This is why no form of government works, ever. This is why a 'utopian' society is impossible.
Please excuse my rant.
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
A contributing factor to Chinese online addiction may be the situation with women. They now have a stastistically significant difference between number of women and number of men. Also the cultural shifts in the last 40 years or so have resulted in everything a chinese man is taught about women is wrong. Those that don't adapt or have some advantage will not get a girl friend.
In some villages your hopes of getting married withuot haveing a sister is 0. The families set up marriges of their children to each other or some arcane arrangement similiar to that.
This leaves a non trivial minority in a position where the only compainionship they can get has to be paid for. Its enough to drive anyone to addictions.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
That's not the point. The point is that China has been fascist for a very long time. The question we can benefit from asking is, "Why is China in the news now?" Five years ago, nobody cared what China did. It was a big blank spot on public perception. That's no longer the case. The spotlight of media attention doesn't swing around unless it is being pushed.
-FL
Porn?
A friend of mine once disappeared into a mental health hospital for two weeks, and nobody had any idea where he'd gone. Everyone was relieved to finally hear from him once he got out.
(IANAL)
If you want to read something scary, read through this site.
The same thing is happening right here at home. The subject matter is different, but process is the same.
It gives me nightmares knowing that this could happen to my son or daughter.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
See? The US is completely different than China. We call "political dissidents, spiritual nonconformists, trade union activists, whistleblowers, and others" liberals, and we just call them evil - perhaps sent by Satan himself, and in league with Al Queda - and most definitely, not patriotic.
Have you ever been to China? In major cities (like, the kind where they have broadband internet connections) life isn't all that much different than anywhere else.
Ignorant schmuck.
Don't fool yourself. If their parents just let them do whatever they want, they'd be trying drugs and having sex when they're 13 and dropping out of school and running away. Then they wouldn't be able to get jobs as strippers because they'd be under 18, so they'd become prostitutes instead. And they'd be doing drugs because you can't buy alcohol when you're under 21. So by forcibly keeping them out of that stuff until they're 18, the parents are protecting them until they have more options.
My other first post is car post.
They're hardcore in China!
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Where did you see a story saying that these Chinese folks were addicted to online porn?
The Humblest Mollusk on the Net
This whole 'internet addiction' is just one large double-standard pile of crap. If someone were to play a sport for 15 hours a day, they would be considered a star athelete. Someone chooses to use the computer, and it's considered a detrimental addiction. Granted, the sports may be better for you physically, but at the same time use of the computer could be providing the mental challenge you couldn't get anywhere else.
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Hey, just wanted to chime in. I've met some of the "leaders" of my WoW guild in person. Let me just say that well they all had some aspects in common, social ineptness was not among them.
They were all:Not to sound racist, but they were also all Asian (although I don't think this was a factor), and all grew up in USA.
I don't know what you want to call "addicted", but they were all doing 4 hour+ instances several times a week. It wasn't like they were junkies or anything, but the gaming schedule would be impractical with a job.
These types of places definately still exist. They are called treatement programs for "at risk teens" These places have a huge and slightly underground industry in our economy. From what I recall there are three main types of these programs, lockdown, wilderness, and boarding school. The lockdown variety basically strips the teen of everything they have and puts them in a literal "lock down" situation. I dont know alot about them other than there is alot of therapy involved. The wilderness variety takes the teen out into the wilderness with some type of crew and they are taught how to fend for themselves in the woods while learning about how their "addiction" is bad and how to overcome it. The boarding school mixes a boarding high school with treatment. With most of these programs the teen has no contact with the outside world besides their parents and the length of the programs vary. The wilderness programs can last around 10 weeks. The boarding school and lockdowns can last for years, the one I went to (more later) had a minimum stay of 18 months but i knew people that had been there for 3+ years! Each place has its own way of treating the teens such as religion, psychological therapy and even Alcoholics Anonymous's 12-Steps. These schools are so prominant that there are "educational consultants" that parents hire to find the exact match of school for their child. There is even companys called "escourts" who will sent two men in a police style vechical who are trained to forcifully take the teen to the treatment center. The escourts are often excops who didn't make enough money. An escourting can cost $4000 and the wilderness programs can cost $30,000 for 10 weeks. The boarding schools can cost $100,000 a year.
Now back to my expierience. I went to a one of the boarding school variety for 18 months. I personally needed it. At the age of 17 i was a garbage head when it came to drugs and was going end up dead soon. I was escourted to the boarding school when i was almost 18 years old. I went unwillingly and put up a fight at first but after some time that i was a drug addict and needed some kinda help. So when i turned 18 and the option came for me to leave I stayed. Now i needed it but many of the kids i saw there did not at all. Their parents sent them there because they couldn't deal with the fact that little bobbie decided to try smoking alittle weed one day and was stupid enough to get caught. poor bobbie (theoretical person) was then subjected so so many strange practices you wouldn't beleive me if i told you. people who i describe the place i went to think its a cult. BUT IT DID SAVE MY LIFE. like i said before i had tasted death so many times before i got "sent away" that it was a miracle that i was still alive. I lived through multiple ODs and being at the bad end of a gun 5 times and shots fired once. That place helped me get my life back on track and i'm now in college on my way to a new career. The school also helped me make over 100 felonies never appear on my record. BUT NOT EVERYONE NEEDS THIS TYPE OF EXTREME i did but little bobbie didn't. You were completely cut off from the outside world. No tv no phone no internet nothing. you couldn't call any of your old friends to let them know you 'd be away for awhile (loooong time for a teen) you only got a five minute phone call with your parents every week and you couldn't even make ur first call until 30 days after you got there.
Anyways point is some need them but many that are there dont. i'll end my rant bye everyone
Please. Good comment.
And are other religions any better? Or are you atheist/agnostic?
OSx86 FTW
That must be some kind of special water, btw, is much better than killing... killing enemies against Islam will gain yourself a place in the heaven.. Jihad!
Cults are just nature's way of genetically trimming out gullibility in humans.
I mean specifically. Quoting the great-grandparent for you:
"Actually, she came out very stepford like. It's a very effective program and uses a lot of cult-like techniques including complete isolation from even the parents until the kids acheive certain states. And like 1984, it's not enough for the kids to say he is holding up four fingers when he is holding up one- the people running it are wise to that and the kids have to believe it before being allowed privileges."
Alternatively:
There are four lights!
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
Knowledge is power and I would be wary of any government who would treat the pursuit of it as a "mental disorder".
The internet is a utility just like your gas or electric. Homes should have water, power, communication, and information.
Labeling something an addiction or mental disorder, because it has become part of our lives, is a thinly veiled effort to prevent the free flow of information and keep people cut off and ignorant. China is one of the most restrictive industrial nations with regards to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of information.
Is it a mental disorder to read too many books instead of too many webpages?
Is it a mental disorder to work 11 hours a day instead of learning or communicating?
Is it a mental disorder to carry a cellphone 24 hours a day instead of having IM up 24 hours a day?
If someone spends 4 hours a day commuting to work does that mean they are addicted to commuting?
An addiction is something that is un-healthy and destructive to a persons life. The internet is no more an addictive thing than your water or gas utilities. It's just an information and communication utility, two things the Chinese government doesn't want people doing is talking and sharing information.
At http://news3.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-10/08/cont ent_5176989.htm
This cite doesn't single out the recent folks that prompted this thread. The roots of it begin there. The Chinese gov't feels porn is amongst the four usual suspects responsible for 90% of juvenile delinquency.
"The statement announced that technical methods would be explored and applied to prevent teenagers from being harmed by unhealthy on-line information and help teenagers out of Internet addiction."
"The authorities would also help set up more rehabilitation and treatment agencies for addicted youth. Response centers would be established to deal with complaints and reports of unhealthy on-line behavior."
The roots of this proclamation have been set so that "unhealthy information" actually takes precedent.
Looking at naked pictures of women, when you have been raised for the past 15 years in a society that has now gotten itself in a quandry with more males than females in many towns can be just the crime tossed against you when someone has decided you have accessed other "unhealthy information".
I am on the computer 9 - 11 hrs a day, that because it is my job. By no means am I an addict, sometime I wish I could throw it out the window. You say well that's because you are not having fun, actually we are allowed to use the net at work, any online gaming I do at home. Basically it comes down to the parent waiting till the kids or teens are in-to-deep, then they decide to do something about the compulsive disorder. Maybe if they took time to spend with their kids, go to church and accept Jesus as their savior and pray daily, they could live normal lives. I am by no means a saint, but I know when I have been on the PC/net to much, well that and my wife lets me know too :)
Also I know I will likely get flammed to death for this, oh well it's just text. ;)
This quote is also more-or-less featured in Farm Sluts, a short movie by Fox searchlight. view here at their site.
Their Quicktime movies used to be a lot better in quality, too bad that flash applet is getting featured everywhere without download option...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..