Slashdot Mirror
China's All-Seeing Eye
krou writes "Naomi Klein writes in Rolling Stone Magazine about China's Panopticon-like experiment called 'Golden Shield' taking place in Shenzhen using technology supplied by companies such as IBM, Honeywell, and General Electric. Klein writes: 'Chinese citizens will be watched around the clock through networked CCTV cameras and remote monitoring of computers. They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies. Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall." Their movements will be tracked through national ID cards with scannable computer chips and photos that are instantly uploaded to police databases and linked to their holder's personal data.' According to Klein, this is more than just a Chinese experiment, it's also one that holds ramifications for America and elsewhere: '...the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state... The global corporations currently earning superprofits from this social experiment are unlikely to be content if the lucrative new market remains confined to cities such as Shenzhen. Like everything else assembled in China with American parts, Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you.'"
Must be a really slow news day, as this falls below even /. editors' usual low, low bar for Eek The Sky Is Falling Big Brother Is Watching FUD.
That a Communist regime spies extensively on its own citizens is news? Hello? Did you miss the entire 20th century or what? Some reports only half-jokingly suggest that roughly a fourth of East Germans were employed in some fashion or other on spying on their friends and neighbors through the Stasi. That's what happens when most of society is directed from the top -- "the top" needs extensive information about you to make decisions. More central control always requires less privacy, duh.
Then there's the tired old 20th century Marxist crap at the end about how this is all not, as you might naively think, the result of the morally corrupt and inhuman foundations of the Chinese Communist state, a direct and obvious form of Maoism, but instead...bwa ha ha...a fiendishly clever plot by IBM and friends to develop a new market for hardware. Wow, there's an original thought. Just a weird coincidence that it looks so much like classical 1920s Marxist assertions that the First World War was the result of heavy industries (Ford, Krupps) needing to develop a new market for steel products.
Gosh, if we're to be subjected to paranoid loony ravings, I wish they were at least original ravings, and not the warmed over groupthink of 1950s pseudo-Soviet apparatchiks with zero grasp of history. Feh.
It's very important to point out that Naomi Klein is a Leftist who hates capitalism. This story isn't from a journalist who's trying to be fair. It's from a dedicated ideologue who is promoting her new book, "The Shock Doctrine." In the summary of this story, you can tell that something is amiss when you read, "...the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state." That has nothing to do with what's gone before it, so its lack of sense in context makes it jump out, because it's not supported by (or related to) anything else in the summary so far. Then you realize who the author of the piece is and you realize this isn't a technology story. It's a Leftist political piece dressed up for Slashdot. Klein is trying to take something that we all will hate (the spying and lack of freedom in communist China) and forcing it into being linked to capitalism. To see the illogic of this, all one has to do is see that the countries that are the freest also tend to be the most capitalistic. The ones that are the most politically repressive also tend to be the most anti-capitalist. The Chinese experiment in limited economic freedom stands out because it's an anomaly, not because it's typical. In fact, what the Chinese fear more than anything else is probably what will eventually happen -- people who become accustomed to making money and controlling their financial decisions eventually start wanting political freedom. There is a limited IT story here, because western companies are selling technology that's being used for bad purposes by the Chinese government. But it ultimately makes as much sense as lambasting Ford because the bank robber drove a Mustang as his getaway car. Just understand that Klein has an agenda here, and being evenhanded toward the free market certainly isn't on that agenda.
About China? Good fucking luck. But you might start by getting involved. Be your own news source, instead of settling for second-hand sensationalism.
Alternatively, just read your favorite glossy magazine, and admit to yourself and to the rest of us that you're only interested in entertainment and whatever opinions agree with your preexisting prejudices.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Urban warfare and population suppression 2.0 is ready for export from Iraq. Just in time!
With China (& Japan) loaning so much $$ to the US, eg, to fund the Iraq war, etc. (Go check it out!) ...it won't be -too- long before China (&/or Japan) will -own- the US.
:-/
If China gets the Country, then it's Great Firewall will "protect" US citizens & residents from all those troublesome ideas, that they worry will infect their own people, today.
Better learn Chinese, folks!
Ironically, mises.org is a bunch of Austrian school economists. Those guys failed to recognize fascism in the 1930's, and they're still failing to recognize fascism today.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I was ready to thank you for your link, even though I have a copy of the book and I prefer not to link to copies that violate copyright in my jurisdiction. And then I read this. Please die in a fire, or if that is not possible select the most painful way. It were better if your breed of fanaticism were not reproduced. Thanks.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The most insightful thing you guys could say is to quote a cautionary tale? Repeatedly?
Really, I don't see why the compulsive obsession with 1984. I feel it has almost attained a cult status here...
The quote isn't even right. These days in China you couldn't control information. Yes there is censorship, but with extensive communication systems there, eg. Internet, many people having mobile phones, etc. Imagine controlling the information of more than a billion people. Did you know much information about the recent earthquake in China came from Chinese users posting on Twitter? Those information got out quicker than many traditional journalist sources. You really can't control sht. As I've said, the Chinese government aren't Gods.
Wake up. This surveillance system is no good thing, but it's not 1984. If anything, with 1.3B people and a vast geographic area, China is one of the hardest country to implement TOTAL control. A high level of control had always been present in China, but total control? You'd have better luck with places like North Korea.
Of course, you may still live in your fantasy world and BELIEVE that China is Orwellian. But am I the only one who expects a bit more from fellow slashdotters who claim a certain level of intelligence?
Don't quote me on this.
I mean, it is true - we are the root of all evil after all. Even if some other nation is the culpruit, the US is to blame.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.