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.'"

Comments

Will Police State 2.0...

[Shturmovik]

...suck as much as Web 2.0?

Bla bla bla

[susano_otter]

"Bla bla bla... capitalist this... panopticon that... bla bla bla."

Rolling Stone magazine? Give me a break.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bla bla bla... capitalist this... panopticon that... bla bla bla." Rolling Stone magazine? Give me a break. Excellent argument, so good that it does not and have to touch any of the issues raised by rolling stone magazine. (Even rolling stone magazine have published many good and informative article with regards to politics). Truely blah blah blah

Re:Bla bla bla

[commodoresloat]

Rolling Stone magazine? Give me a break. Despite its counterculture reputation and its focus as a music/gossip magazine, Rolling Stone is consistently one of the better sources of news analysis available. This article is an excellent example of that, if you actually bother to read it (and it has already generated quite a bit of attention outside of slashdot, whether or not you agree with Klein's political leanings). An even finer example, IMHO, is Wallace-Wells' critique of the war on drugs.

Re:Bla bla bla

[susano_otter]

Despite its counterculture reputation and its focus as a music/gossip magazine, Rolling Stone is consistently one of the better sources of news analysis available.

Sure it is. Unless you're both more reputable than Rolling Stone, and conducting your own independent research to validate RS's claims, your opinion is worthless. But hey, pray to your glossy magazines, if that's what lets you sleep at night.

Re:Bla bla bla

[susano_otter]

Why should I touch on any of the points raised by Rolling Stone? It's a glossy magazine. It prints sensational stories to get money from entertainment-hungry westerners. The real question is, why should I trust it?

Re:Bla bla bla

[Anonymous Coward]

haha good one there.

Also this is OLD FUCKING NEWS!

not to mention extremely boring and not really worthy of /.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Concerned Onlooker]

It has been a while since I've read Rolling Stone, but hey, it gave us the likes of Hunter Thompson and P.J. O'Rourke. All that is shiny is not shallow.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at least the Chinese government will be accurate when they claim that the bourgeois and corporations are oppressing the people. The Chinese implementation of communism is certainly novel.

Re:Bla bla bla

[susano_otter]

Thompson was a sensationalist. O'Rourke is an opinion writer. If you like crazy narratives, the former is excellent. If you agree with a certain kind of worldview, the latter is likewise excellent. But don't confuse either for the facts on the ground. And don't confuse either with Naomi Klein.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Davemania]

I am a bit dumbfounded by your approach to reading article. You need trust to read something ? What happened to critical anaylsis. I think most "reasonable" people will read an article and analysis the content of the article rather than taking the content on blind faith. You've basically judged an article simply by the publisher without even considering any of the issues brought up from the article. It seems the question isn't whether you should trust it or not, its whether you can make an informed judgment, and it doesn't seem you can.

Re:Bla bla bla

[niktemadur]

I agree that Rolling Stone is mostly padded with disposable fluff. But they always take their journalism seriously, so it's a great, subversive starting point for a good chunk of young people: buy the issue for their article on Panic At The Disco, then when you're bored, end up reading the article on how the Bush government has deregulated industrial pollution. And suddenly, shazam! A spark has gone off in your mind and your curiosity is piqued, and you've begun your life's journey as a conscious citizen.

You know what the Greek term is for the citizen who does not participate in public affairs? Idiotis. Rolling Stone has planted the seed to obliterate the idiotis for a huge amount of people.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Concerned Onlooker]

When you reduce Thompson to "a sensationalist" I suddenly take you far less seriously. Yes, he had outrageous style but he was a trenchant observer.

Re:Bla bla bla

[WindowlessView]

and it has already generated quite a bit of attention outside of slashdot

I read the article earlier in the week and it is indeed thought provoking. It's a shame it was posted on Slashdot at this hour on a weekend. At the time I post this at least 50 other people have posted and if a single person actually read the article they have chosen to hide that fact. It's a damn shame because there is much in it that would interest people here if they took the time.

And before someone asks - no, I am not new here.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Anonymous Coward]

Bla bla blah.

susano_otter? Give me a break.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Anonymous Coward]

Expecting serious journalism from Rolling Stone magazine is like expecting a minnow swimming in a millpond to deliver a university-class lecture on differential calculus.

Re:Bla bla bla

[MrHanky]

Yes, why develop critical reading skills when you can rather lay your trust in known authority. If a source is good, the information will be good, if a source is bad, the information will be wrong. I know this because everything I read confirms my worldview.

Re:Bla bla bla

[s4m7]

Thompson was a sensationalist. O'Rourke is an opinion writer...And don't confuse either with Naomi Klein. wait, you mean this publication actually serves different viepoints and reader needs? They must be up to something nefarous. Trusty old fox news serves only one set of interests and we can sure rely on them!

Re:Bla bla bla

[niktemadur]

Refuting a point I've just refuted, within the same argument I'm refuting.

Illustrative. Typical. Boring. An0nymous.

Re:Bla bla bla

[shanen]

I thought he was joking, but you really are impressively clueless.

I bet you still think the anti-Saddam war was a great idea. Not great enough for you to participate, but almost that great, right?

Re:Bla bla bla

[DigiShaman]

You've basically judged an article simply by the publisher without even considering any of the issues brought up from the article.

I do that all the time with Time Magazine. I mean sure, I'll pick one up twice a year and read the main article (at the dentist, or waiting for a new set of tires to be installed...etc). But hey, it's not *my* fault they have a political leftist agenda at the root of their premises. When a publisher has a bias, I will have a biased attitude toward them. Funny how that works, eh?

Re:Bla bla bla

[Fred_A]

It's a damn shame because there is much in it that would interest people here if they took the time. For one thing it tells us all that we should invest in IBM, Honeywell, and General Electric as soon as possible. You want to be on the corporate overlord's good side.

Re:Bla bla bla

[shawb]

And before someone asks - no, I am not new here.

You aren't new here? Sorry... your high UID tells me otherwise.

Re:Bla bla bla

[ghyd]

Well obviously it isn't since there was already interesting posts on /., weeks ago, that mostly destroyed the idea that the Chinese state could monitor a sizable part of its population. Because the Chinese government is not as all powerful that the anti-Chinese occidental liberals (the kind that live in San Fransisco or Paris, I know quite a few of them here we call them "bo-bo", as "bohemian bourgois", young people who live comfortably who can buy Chinese and slam China over Tibet in the same breath.. in short, hypocrites.)

So yeah, if you're a bobo, of course you will like such articles a lot and find them great journalism. It's just that it actually isn't.

"High tech polic state ready for export," wow, not sensationalist at all.. and so true! exept it's mostly wrong, because a police state would have to... actually work. And China is nowhere as closed as the politically correct people would want us to believe.

This article is so poor it hurts.

Re:Bla bla bla

[arstchnca]

As it's "in vogue" in this country to throw those terms around (bias, etc.), you've revealed your identity as an American citizen.

gg

did you read a single thing in Davemania's post? I can't believe you're replying to what he said, with what you said.

I want to mod you funny, but I'd rather get this out there.
BR What happened to critical analysis. indeed.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Admiral Ag]

I can't think of anything intrinsically wrong with glossy magazines other than when you're reading one in the toilet and you notice you're out of lavatory paper. At that point, they are evil.

Do you actually read Rolling Stone? Sensationalist? More like soporific a lot of the time.

Re:Bla bla bla

[cduffy]

Yes, but what you're doing to the article here is called ad hominem, and it's a fallacy. If you want to ignore it on account of the publisher, feel free to do so -- but if you're going to speak regarding the article's merits, it behooves you to read it first.

It's a heckuvalot more informative than your post, and raises legitimate issues (ie. mechanisms in use to circumvent laws specifically forbidding export of law enforcement equipment to China) even should you choose to ignore the editorializing.

Re:Bla bla bla

[cjsm]

You think Time Magazine has a political leftist agenda? You must be to the right of Bush to see Time magazine as leftist. On international politics it is right wing.

The mainstream American Press as a whole is very right wing. The publishers are right wing. If a news source prints .00001% of the crimes the U.S. Government does in the world, the Right Wing accuse it of being leftist.

That's why such a large percentage of the American people are so ignorant. They've been fed propaganda all their lives about how America is some goody two shoes trying to help the world. The millions of innocent people killed directly and indirectly by the U.S. Government around the world since WW II is not reported on.

This is similar to what happened to the Native Americans. The Presidents slaughtered them and stole their land, but almost none of it makes it into the mainstream histories taught in schools. Of course, people like you would accuse any such accounts of being left wing.

Re:Bla bla bla

[ATMAvatar]

Truthfully, the hand-holding reporting when it comes to the U.S. Government from U.S. media is less about right/left bias and more about access. To get the juicy stories out in time to "scoop" or at least keep-up with competitors, a news outlet must fall within the good graces of the government.

Sure, you can print an article outlining all the gross incompetence and criminal behavior of the current administration, but then you can kiss any hope of being invited to a presidential press conference ever again. And, when you start becoming the last news outlet to print stories about politics, your readers switch to another news station that gets the stories faster, even if the other station consistently has a pro-administration slant.

The problem with U.S. media isn't one of bias - it's one of business needs trumping journalistic integrity.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Captain Splendid]

Time magazine leftist? BWAHAHAHA!

You've been Punk'd.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Tanktalus]

What you're doing is ad latinum - the fallacy of throwing out a fancy latin term and thinking that it refutes a point. What the GP is doing is no different from watching a few episodes of Mythbusters, noting its decided lack of a love story (well, other than a love for blowing things up), and deciding not to watch the rest of the series. The fact that the GP used an ad hominem attack against the article does not make the article right. (Just like this post doesn't make you wrong.)

The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. If you don't like a magazine due to its political slant (left, right, lack there-of, or any other slant for that matter), why should you continue reading new articles? If you see a large number of articles with which you find fault, why would you expect the next one to be better? That's not to say that the next one won't be better, just that there's no expectation of it from you and you probably shouldn't waste your time reading it.

If a colleague continually spouted conspiracy theories to your face, you'd be much less likely to listen to him on another conspiracy-sounding thoery that may actually raise legitimate issues. And that's really all the GP is doing. So relax. It's natural, it's normal, and it's the mind's defense against going crazy by listening to things that are a waste of mental energies.

Re:Bla bla bla

[WindowlessView]

You aren't new here? Sorry... your high UID tells me otherwise.

Reminds me of some New England neighborhoods where after 6 years they still refer to you as "the new family down the block"! :)

Re:Bla bla bla

[Kismet]

Ok, so here we have an article about Big-Brother-style government in China. It seems pretty important, right? This is a big deal.

But actually, the more interesting thing, in my opinion, is the Slashdot commentary about it:

An article in Rolling Stone? The pop-culture rag? How important can it be? Why haven't I heard of this before? Can this source be trusted?

Let's consider the article itself, found on RollingStone.com. There, next to the boring black-and-white text (that you actually have to read) are lovely full-color ads. Meet the Spartans! The all-new VW Tiguan! Caffeinated liquer! Come to the dark side of Toyota! More than 1000 smileys and emoticons... FREE!! Meet sexy singles!

What am I to make of all this? Does China's all-seeing eye matter? Does it matter as much as sexy singles or sleek new cars? Flashy emoticons? Pop culture? Or is it just another maybe-factoid to file away in my data-bank of useless knowledge?

At least a handful of Slashdot commentaries don't buy it. But others seem almost frantic: the sky is falling!

So we'll argue about it. But what does it mean? Is there something to be done? Not likely: we'll forget this bit of news shortly. There are a million other stories ready to inundate us with something new to get momentarily impassioned about.

So, while we're fretting about Orwellian nightmares, something else equally interesting is happening.

The social critic, Neil Postman, picked up on it. So did Aldus Huxley and even Ray Bradbury. Their dystopias look very much like Orwell's, except for one critical point: There is no Big Brother, no bogeyman or coercive external agent to suppress information.

How can people be manipulated to act as cogs in a great machine? Not a communist machine, but as agents of the Invisible Hand? How can we make servants to a mass-production economy?

Too much information, it turns out, is just as mind-numbing as too little. Stories of great importance in a pop-culture magazine? How does one discern what matters and what doesn't? What is real, and what is fake? All information is now equal: the ravings of True Believers, the theories of scientists, the saccarin glurge of advertising, the maudlin patriotism of politicians, this post on slashdot... It's all carries the same weight.

Choose your preferred information opiate and plug in. You'll forget, soon enough, what really matters. It's the non-thought of received ideas now. There is no time to own thoughts anymore. Even the skeptics have their own preferred formulas for labeling things as useful or not. Besides, after 6.5 hours in front of Tivo, GTA IV, iPod and StumbleUpon, who has time sit and think?

We mostly live, like Dilbert, in 4x6 cloth-covered cubicles, and in small automobile cabs. Our human relationships consist of attaching little machines to our ears and fingertips as we zoom about, alone. Our world-view is shaped by an electronic fire-hose, where everything is made irrelevant by sheer volume.

How will things be different when we are spied on and brainwashed? Whose dystopia is the preferred one? Maybe that is something to argue about, but it seems silly.

Re:Bla bla bla

[cduffy]

What you're doing is ad latinum - the fallacy of throwing out a fancy latin term and thinking that it refutes a point.

Using appropriate terms to discuss forms of logical argument and the fallacies which are used in place of them is useful in discussion of whether an argument is valid, just as a discussion on software development would be hampered if people couldn't use acronyms. Whether it's latin or not is moot; the point is that the parent is using a method of argument which is recognized as wrong: Fault on the part of an individual making an argument does not make their argument any less valid.

If you've found fault with arguments made by an individual or organization in the past, that may legitimately make you less likely to want to spend your time listening to and considering their current argument -- but an argument you're choosing not to listen to is not necessarily bogus, it's merely something you choose not to consider; that distinction is important. Assuming that everyone you don't like is wrong (or that every position espoused by an individual with whom you strongly disagree on some things is wrong) is the kind of mistake that gets wars started; people generally hold positions that make some kind of sense, once you understand their assumptions and perspectives.

What the GP is doing is no different from watching a few episodes of Mythbusters, noting its decided lack of a love story (well, other than a love for blowing things up), and deciding not to watch the rest of the series.

But the GP didn't just decide not to watch; rather, the GP publicly attacked a specific segment which other folks (by submitting the article to /. and voting it up to the front page) recommended as having merit, without viewing it himself. If you trust the wisdom of crowds, that may be a good enough reason to RTFA and give this article individual consideration. If you don't, what are you doing here?

If a colleague continually spouted conspiracy theories to your face, you'd be much less likely to listen to him on another conspiracy-sounding thoery that may actually raise legitimate issues.

The GP isn't just refusing to listen to the article, but actively criticizing it in public, and encouraging others to avoid giving it their consideration. Without considering the article's merits (or even reviewing its content), taking this kind of public position is irresponsible.

Re:Bla bla bla

[xappax]

This article is so poor it hurts.
Then please, waste no time explaining why. I'm eager to hear you rebut the observations made in the article, if you have anything to say other than "I disagree with critics of the Chinese government, therefore this article sucks".

Re:Bla bla bla

[afabbro]

You've basically judged an article simply by the publisher without even considering any of the issues brought up from the article.

That's why I read WorldNetDaily, Spotlight, National Enquirer, and the Maoist International Movement's MIMnotes. I mean, no point in judging by the publisher or anything.

Re:Bla bla bla

[neomunk]

Looks like someone has a case of the Mondays.

Seriously though, which publications do you find to be more accurate in their reporting? And doesn't the last little dig about being more reputable and conducting independent research make you feel like a giant definitive example of 'hypocrite', being that you STARTED this whole thread with a prime example of running off at the keyboard without a drop of real information in your post?

Re:Bla bla bla

[sjames]

The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. If you don't like a magazine due to its political slant (left, right, lack there-of, or any other slant for that matter), why should you continue reading new articles? If you see a large number of articles with which you find fault, why would you expect the next one to be better? That's not to say that the next one won't be better, just that there's no expectation of it from you and you probably shouldn't waste your time reading it.

That's all well and good, but in that case you are dis-qualified from commenting on the unread articles. The only possible exception would be to comment that you have found the source to be lacking in the past and why. A sneer does not constitute a valuable contribution to any discussion.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Tanktalus]

To that, I agree wholeheartedly. The original sneer was unhelpful (and so I don't argue its flamebait mod). That the original note was ad hominem doesn't mean it was wrong, just illogical, i.e., the conclusion does not follow from the predicates. My only point was that calling it ad hominem was just as unhelpful and illogical.

Re:Bla bla bla

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the leftist nation of /.

Re:Bla bla bla

[mrraven]

That is a real recipe for intellectual laziness. Although I consider myself a hard leftist (left of the Green party) I often read Pat Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative and find it very thought provoking. If we can't judge articles solely based on the cogency of the article itself and not it's publisher we wind up in an echo chamber incapable of learning anything. See commondreams.org and freerepulic.com for the left and right wing examples respectively.

Oh wait did I say echo chamber I am on slashdot, never mind... :)

Re:Bla bla bla

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with US (and other) media is NOT the media itself. It's the readers who'd rather read false and fresh, than true and timely. They'd rather read gossip and speculation than what is really going on.

The consumers are that: consumers. They consume, and to do that, you need 'a lot' and 'fast'. That's no environment for decent media to grow.

uh oh

[the brown guy]

Anonymous Coward? Not for long...

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward? Not for long...

More like "the brown guy (1235418)"? Not for long citizen Jason Miller of 1238 Pine Street, Mesa Arizona, who just committed a serious Economic crime against The State by overhearing his sister's tollPOD playing 3 notes of Prince and the New Turds sigining "Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left to License" without having pre-paid. The Restitution and Punishment Agents have been dispatched to your home.

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

How many chinese citizens are there? Around 1.3 billion. -Billion. That's a lot of data to process. Information overload. They could hire half the population to watch the other half. My guess is that the average joe will remain pretty anonymous.

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Naomi Klein seems to make a living out of blaming statism in all of its various manifestations: communism, fascism, etc. ...on capitalism. People's rights are protected by 1) the rule of law, 2) a bill of rights, and 3) something called multi-party democracy, none of which China has. Capitalism is simply the right to make your own way in the world, and that means property rights, freedom of association, freedom to enter into contracts with whomever you please. You can harp all you want about supposedly altruistic corporations, Google and Yahoo and their dealings with the Chinese regime. Or Henry Ford's cozy business relationship with Nazi Germany. But in both cases, the reason the autocracy was there in the first place was because the people in those countries were taken in by liars like Mao, Lenin, Hitler, and Naomi Klein. Henry Ford and Google stock holders aren't responsible for all the political plagues in the world any more than Jews/Israel/Mexicans/Indians are.

Re:uh oh

[the brown guy]

I am not kidding, my first name is Jason. Creepy.

heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[coolsnowmen]

"using technology supplied by companies such as IBM, Honeywell, and General Electric."

IBM making money at the expense of morality; nothing new here.

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/articles/auschwitz.html

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[upside]

On this vein, there is nothing communist about China anymore, it's a National Socialist system. Just like with the NSDAP (Nazi party), the "socialism" is there only in name.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[m0n5t3r]

On this vein, there is nothing communist about China anymore, it's a National Socialist system. Just like with the NSDAP (Nazi party), the "socialism" is there only in name. actually, some people think that they are not that different

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[codeButcher]

I think what the original submitter tried to insinuate is that *American* companies (you know, the land of the free, defender of democracy, etc. etc.) would participate in such "oppressive" schemes. But America has become a lot less free post-9/11, as I assume most would agree, and is moving into the same direction (courtesy of tech probably even supplied by the same companies).

What disturbs me is that many other countries are implementing similar Big-Brotherish measures than America is. Since some of them (e.g. China) seem not to be ideologically aligned with the USA on things like The War on Terror, I have to conclude that the Twin Towers-disaster and the WOT are handy excuses, the REAL motivation seems to be more control over the world's populations in general. Yeah, and why all at the same time?

Seems the world will become a much more interesting place in future....

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and we call those people "intellectually lazy".

Take the time to understand the nuances of the subject at hand instead of just shouting 'OMG Nazis!' whenever you don't like something.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Profane MuthaFucka]

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.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Anonymous Coward]

The next camera I see that wasn't manufactured in Asia, often China, will be the first in 20 years. China's totalitarian rule isn't IBM's fault. Krupp, Porsche et al. weren't outlawed after WW2 for the same reason.

Anti-US self-loathing dilutes the argument.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Opportunist]

From a purely economic point of view, the borders between fascism (of which national socialism is a variant, mixed in with some chauvinism) and capitalism are blurry. Or rather, capitalism as we know it.

In a fascist economy, everything is secondary to industrial growth. It's an "ask what you can do for your country" world. You better not ask what your country can do for you, since you don't count. The strength of your country and its economy does. This goes hand in hand with laws that prefer the interests of industry and commerce, while ignoring the needs of the people.

Bluntly, this is closer to what China is like today than any socialist or communist model. And thinking about it, we're moving there, too.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[JasterBobaMereel]

The Chinese have a curse "may you live in interesting times".....

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Anonymous Coward]

umm, actually the line between fascism and communism is even blurrier than the line between fascism and capitalism. Mussolini started out as a socialist. The Nazi's were the National Socialist Party. The key element of both of these systems is central planning. Capitalism as an economic system rejects central planning. Ultimately, any proposal for central planning of the economy is the anti-thesis of capitalism. Large corporations tend to like central planning because it makes it easier for them to hang onto what they've got. Capitalist economies tend to be dominated by many small businesses.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[hanshotfirst]

Computers don't oppress people. People oppress people. (No, I'm not an NRA member).

In other news, a masked man wearing sneakers supplied by Nike robbed a Quickie-Mart.

Sensationalist summary - move along.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[alexgieg]

It's even more complicated than this. Historically, things worked more or less thus:

First, you had the Old Regime, where society is divided into hierarchical castes, each with its own social role. The Enlightenment went against this with a proposal of dismissing the whole notion of social hierarchy. So, you had on one hand the "pro-hierarchy", and on the other "anti-hierarchy".

The "anti-hierarchy" guys, the left of the time, were united around the slogan "equality, fraternity, liberty" (from French Revolution fame). But as things happen, once you obliterate your opposition, the internal divergences rise to the foreground and things get messy again.

So, inside the Enlightenment guys a new division developed: on one side, you had the guys who believed in a non-hierarchical way of organizing society around the notion of everyone being "a citizen". On the other, the guys who believed in a non-hierarchical way of organizing society around the notion of everyone being "an individual". You could say that from the three-pole "equality, fraternity, freedom", the first group went with the "equality and fraternity", while the second went with the "freedom".

The "freedom first" group called themselves liberals. The other went by a lot of names, but both were clearly opposed to the old regime "conservatives". But as the conservatives disappeared, the liberals, who were already thought of as the right of the left, were more and more seen as the de new right. And somehow the term "conservatives" ended up applied to them, what it shouldn't.

Anyway, as time went by, another split happened, this time among the folks of the "equality and fraternity", a.k.a. "citizens, not individuals" field. On one side, the communists, anarchists and other groups that went against the whole of social structure in pursuit of complete "equality". On the other, the "fraternity" guys, who preached a society built around some kind of shared quality as a means of integration and driving force, who later become the fascists.

That's why we find so many similarities between, first, fascism and communism. And second, fascism/communism and "capitalism" (classical liberalism). It because they are all sons of the same father.

A radical divergence from the three can only be observed when you insert the old regime conservatism in the equation. That's where you find something in clear contra-distinction with them all.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[dunkelfalke]

national socialist party was socialist in name only so stupid workers fall for it and won't join the actual socialist parties. nazis (and especially hitler) were fiercely antisocialist and because of that they were backed by the big businesses which were scared of socialist and communist parties.

decades later people still fall for the name and ignore the substance.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Opportunist]

So what we have today isn't a capitalist economy? Last time I checked small businesses were far from dominating the market.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[rtb61]

Lest no forget corporation are just business facades behind which individuals hide. It really makes you wonder about the peole that lined up to the trough to feed on these abuses of the individual. People who are selling out their own children and future grandchildren, feeding upon the freedom of the next generations to bloat their own self indulgences.

They know the abuses that this technology will be put to, they know that people will suffer terribly as a result of their actions and, they know nothing but their own greed and contempt for the rest of humanity.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Dark Aerow]

You've got everythig completely backward.

A truly capitalist society would be free from government regulation of the economy. Fascism and communism are one in the same. Both fascism and communism promotes a system of strong government control. Capitalism if anything is the ideoligical opposite, this is because capitalism would ideally need zero government.

We do not have capitalism (I wish we did), instead we have a mixed economy in which companies lobby for special privleges from the government in order to limit competition in the market-place. Big corporation LOVE government intervention, they love nothing more than the government to pass a huge regulation on their industry. It doesn't hinder them, it helps them.

Furthermore we have a centrally planned monetary system based on credit expansion, this is the anti-thesis to free market capitalism. Our current monetaryessentially steals from the poor to feed the rich.

"A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank." ...therefore... "Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism." - Ron Paul

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[snowwrestler]

In the U.S. at least, there are way more small businesses than large businesses. It's incredibly easy to start a business here, and the majority of businesses have no employees (i.e. the owner is the business themselves). Most new job growth in the U.S. is driven by small businesses.

Large businesses make a lot more money, but today much of that revenue actually comes from overseas operations.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Anonymous Coward]

Blurry my ass.

Fascism = Government Leadership Working With Business Leadership

You can't have the Government work with Business and have Capitalism.

As Calvin used to say, "The business of America is Americas business". Meaning Government has no business in business because that would be Fascist like the U.S. and China are mainly today. With pretend Socialism and Communism mixed in.

The U.S. and China also fail the Adam Smith requirement for Capitalism. Which is competitive advantage AKA free trade. Meaning no false scales /exchange rates.

Both countries and most of the world have adopted Fascism with transfers of wealth in the name of Communism or Socialism.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your choice of a Kennedy quote to illustrate fascism is interesting. Is that the day freedom died in your opinion?

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what the original submitter tried to insinuate is that *American* companies (you know, the land of the free, defender of democracy, etc. etc.) would participate in such "oppressive" schemes

In the 80s, Capitalism triumphed over Communism. In the 90s, it triumphed over Democracy.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[mrraven]

AC said:

"Capitalist economies tend to be dominated by many small businesses."

Then outside of a third world village a capitalist economy hasn't existed anywhere in the west since about 1880 or so then when Standard Oil and AT & T started becoming big enough to squash their competitor by using shady techniques like selling below cost in markets with other competitors, false national advertising, buying up small competitors, etc. It leads to terrible outcomes like the crapulance of Microsoft, etc.

As I say in my sig question Libertarianism their fantasies about the market are as ungrounded in reality as any intelligent design proponent, where the market equals God and The Wealth of Nations the bible and don't be asking any questions son.

Until we learn to question BOTH concentrated public and private concentrated power and wealth we will just be bent over and f*cked by another set of dominators whether they call themselves the Communist inner party, the fortune 500, or the Federal Reserve.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Virtual_Raider]

What disturbs me is that many other countries are implementing similar Big-Brotherish measures than [ed]USA[ed] is. Since some of them (e.g. China) seem not to be ideologically aligned with the USA on things like The War on Terror, I have to conclude that the Twin Towers-disaster and the WOT are handy excuses, the REAL motivation seems to be more control over the world's populations in general. Yeah, and why all at the same time?

Seems the world will become a much more interesting place in future....

My pet theory is that all these people in power not only are preparing for the aftershocks of peak oil but also for the water shortages. World's population is far too large and resources are waning.

So, from all the possible paths to choose from in front of these two events, they are choosing damage control and then simply 'control', rather than some other more humanitarian and illuminated courses of action.

Sad, really. I for one do not welcome our new totalitarian overlords.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Profane MuthaFucka]

It's so blurry. Under communism, business is owned by the state. Under capitalism, business is owned by individuals. I can hardly tell the difference between them! It's like they're almost the same, except for that one huge difference! It's blurry!

Moron.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Moron, fascism is the opposite of communism. Read some wikipedia and get the bullet points.

Communism owns all the businesses. Fascism owns all the government. The business in fascism is owned by individuals and corporations.

One and the same? That describes YOU and MORON.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Dark Aerow]

Whoa, no need to name call.

When I say one in the same I refer to the size of government, because as far as I'm concerned thats the only reasonable thing to compare. That is... ...the difference between collectivism and individualism. ...the difference between a democracy and a republic. ...the difference between 100% government and 0% government. ...the difference between tyranny and freedom.

Both fascism and communism promote close to 100% government, only the methods for achieving their "perfect society" differ; the basic concepts are very similar.

Communism and Fascism are both forms of collectivism. All collectivist societies share the same basic concepts:

- Greater good for the greater number
- Promotion of group rights over individual rights.
- Use of coercion and/or force to bring about desireable changes to society
- Rights granted to them (and possibly denied) by the government.
- Government provides for the people
- etc...

"Communism owns all the businesses. Fascism owns all the government. The business in fascism is owned by individuals and corporations."
Fascism has very strict regulation, control and central planning of the economy. It might as well be a government function because it sure as hell doesn't represent a purely capitalist society.

Re:heh, well ibm helped nazis too, so why not

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Both fascism and communism promote close to 100% government, only the methods for achieving their "perfect society" differ; the basic concepts are very similar.

You said they were the same. They are not. When you say they are the same, educated people like me put you into the category of MORON and we ignore you.

If you had said that both are totalitarian, then we could talk, because they are totalitarian at least some of the time. Because they are both totalitarian does not mean they are the same.

And save your lectures on what each -ism is. I know what they are, and that's why I'm pointing out the morons in this thread who think fascism is the same as communism.

1984 Quote

[EEPROMS]

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed--if all records told the same tale--then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

Re:1984 Quote

[EEPROMS]

Sorry a bit got cut off

who controls the present controls the past - Page 32

Re:1984 Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck this. Of all the times to be born it had to be during the rise of a fascism nightmare.

George Orwell, anyone?

[niktemadur]

Fortunately, somebody had the vision to warn us about this sort of thing, sixty years ago. I'm willing to bet that in China, a land where the government censors almost everything in sight, Orwell is banned.

BTW, has 1984 ever been translated into Mandarin? If so, whoever did it, that person should have a statue erected in every Chinatown in the western world, just like Dr Sun Yat-Sen eventually in Shanghai and Beijing.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[niktemadur]

Oops, missed a comma between "Dr Sun Yat-Sen" and "eventually".

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[joshuaes]

"I'm willing to bet that in China, a land where the government censors almost everything in sight, Orwell is banned."

I mentioned 1984 to a friend that lives in China and she has never heard of that book, or Orwell. So, yes, it is banned.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mentioned 1984 to a friend that lives in China and she has never heard of that book, or Orwell. So, yes, it is banned.

Wow, somebody give this guy a Nobel Prize for his exhaustive research and well-reasoned conclusion.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

okay, i am from china.

i think many slashdotters have an incomplete information about the current status of internet freedom in china. i saw many threads on great firewall in slashdot. but hardly any discussion on the free speech on china's internet. presumably, i think, nobody reads chinese internet forum.

if you look at some largest internet forums: tianyaclub.com, netease.com, sina.com. you will be very surprised to find out the freedom of speech.
taking tianyaclub.com for example, it has 270,000 online readers (statistical data @ moment of writing this comment). old bbs-style threads are full of criticisms to the government. the official propaganda TV/newspapers are frequently derided. china's internet is not entirely as free as in the states. but freedom of speech is not entirely suppressed either. as long as the language doesn't
cross the line, i.e., overthrowing the government, nobody cares. polices are busy at keeping the social unrest at poor rural areas under control.

i had read rolling stone's article. frankly, i am quite surprised by the reaction. there are little discussion on the internet here. it is not that it is a tabooed topic. pretty much every thing could be openly debated on internet here. (of course, not including getting ride of ruling party). as far as i can tell, people are more concerned about corruption, rising house price, inflation.

btw, George Orwell's books are available here in english book store. 1984, animal farm,etc...

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

SEND MORE NOODLES. I can't get enough of those noodles.

And how about that Falun Gong? They sure are enjoying their freedom of speech, the problem is that they were dumb enough to actually try it.

You can't have just a little freedom of speech. If it's restricted even a little bit, it isn't free.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[niktemadur]

And how about that Falun Gong? The problem is that they were dumb enough to actually try it.

Profane MothaFucka, anybody who knows The Clash, quotes their lyrics in any form and/or anyplace, is OK in my book:

This is a public service announcement
With guitar
Know your rights all three of them

Number 1
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a crime!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat
Know your rights

And number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Dont mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Know your rights
These are your rights
Wang

Know these rights

Number 3
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

Know your rights
These are your rights
All three of em
It has been suggested
In some quarters that this is not enough!

Get off the streets
Get off the streets
Run

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, somebody give this guy a Nobel Prize for his exhaustive research and well-reasoned conclusion. Alright then, I'll just tell you about my experience with this. Back in 2006 I tried to find a copy of it and scrounged all the foreign language bookstores in Shanghai (I wanted to read 1984 to see what everyone on /. was talking about =P) and in the end the only Orwell book I found was Animal Farm. Finding these sorts of publications in English is much easier as they're not as restrictive about it, so I figured that if they banned the English version, I seriously doubt there's a Chinese one (at least on the mainland).

I also remember reading in Mr Muo's Traveling Couch by Dai Sijie that Freud's books are banned in China as well (though as it's fiction I'm not sure about its accuracy).

Does anyone else have experience with this?

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[mppm]

I was in SZ a few months ago and will go back in the Fall. My girlfriend is there and she just got her new ID card. For the casual visitor the last thing anyone thinks of is that one is in a police state. There are security and police everywhere, but they mostly look bored and, as far as I could tell, they didn't have much to do. One is very safe walking around, even late at night. Try that in Philly, or Miami, or any large American city. Of course the population is mostly homogenous--they are all Chinese and, as such, have a common ground. The only thing keeping the Chinese from taking over the world is the communist party. The red tape (no pun) makes doing business very awkward. If they can kick the CCP we will all be speaking Mandarin in a few generations. I'd much rather live in SZ than, say, the Middle East or even Europe, now. My impression was that, in general, they really like Americans. Not many places in the world can say that. I'd suggest people go there and spend a month or two. Get your own ideas and make up your own mind.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[justkeeper]

Fortunately, somebody had the vision to warn us about this sort of thing, sixty years ago. I'm willing to bet that in China, a land where the government censors almost everything in sight, Orwell is banned. BTW, has 1984 ever been translated into Mandarin? If so, whoever did it, that person should have a statue erected in every Chinatown in the western world, just like Dr Sun Yat-Sen eventually in Shanghai and Beijing. How much are you going to bet?I'm waiting for the money to roll in. See the link here: http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=8804309 You don't need to read Chinese to recognize this cover.And anyone living in China knows dangdang is the biggest book e-seller here.Dozens of my friends have read or are reading his book.I'm surprised to find out that how many people are talking out of their ignorance even in Slashdot.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Squeeze Truck]

The bookseller in front of my apartment (Dalian, China) has about twenty titles in English. 1984 is three of them.
Hell, I picked up a copy of the Federalist Papers at the Xinhua state-controlled bookstore.

You guys need to calm down and stop jumping to conclusions. Very little is banned, and that not very well.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mentioned 1984 to a friend that lives in China and she has never heard of that book, or Orwell. So, yes, it is banned.

Wow, somebody give this guy a Nobel Prize for his exhaustive research and well-reasoned conclusion. That's not the truth!

In fact, Orwell's book was published in Mainland of China early in 1980s.

This site is the biggest chinese online-reading and comment community:

http://www.douban.com/subject_search?search_submit=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&search_text=%E4%B8%80%E4%B9%9D%E5%85%AB%E5%9B%9B

as you see, different versions of this book listed here.

I'm a Chinese.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Froomb]

This is the link you want:

http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=8839076

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's been translated and is for sale.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not translated, but in the original English language:
http://www.amazon.cn/mn/detailApp?qid=1212405763&ref=SR&sr=1-1&uid=168-1725088-1372224&prodid=enbk608737

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[sydneyfong]

And how about that Falun Gong? They sure are enjoying their freedom of speech, the problem is that they were dumb enough to actually try it. The Falun Gong are (at least currently) openly advocating the *overthrow* of the Chinese Communist Party. Which corroborates the GP's claims that "unless you're trying to overthrow the government criticisms are tolerated to some extent"

You can't have just a little freedom of speech. If it's restricted even a little bit, it isn't free. Then no place in the world has freedom of speech.

Hate speech?
Calling fire in a crowded room?
Slander?
Inciting commission of offense? (eg. hey let's kill that guy)
Providing vocal support for terrorist groups?

Of course, the restrictions in China are more severe than in many western democratic countries, but if you're going that far to say that ANY restriction to speech implies a lack of free speech, then no country in the world has free speech in your definition... thus the definition is not helpful.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[sydneyfong]

Somehow you seem to be losing your bet. I don't live in mainland China, and never really investigated book stores much, so I won't comment on that.

However, the you seem to have a disillusion of the importance of a single book. Is 1984 the only book that teaches the importance of free information, free speech and free thinking? No. Is 1984 the only way to teach people to be wary of government surveillance, oppressive techniques, and totalitarian control? No. Is Orwell the only person who has the insight to be wary of these things? No.

Sun Yat-sen's status in China is basically equivalent to that of George Washington in USA. A mere translator compared with him? heh. I mean, if I had the time I could easily translate 1984 into Chinese... are you going to build me a statue in your nearest Chinatown?

Besides, a nit pick: no written text is translated to "Mandarin". Written Chinese is rather "standardized", whereas spoken Chinese has numerous dialects. It happens that the standard spoken dialect (officially called "Putonghua", which is basically "Mandarin"), is rather close to the written language, but it's not exactly the same thing. The correct way to put it would be simply "translated to Chinese".

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mentioned 1984 to a friend that lives in China and she has never heard of that book, or Orwell. So, yes, it is banned.

Wow, somebody give this guy a Nobel Prize for his exhaustive research and well-reasoned conclusion. I asked a friend in US about the book "Yi Ge Xiao Hua", and she never heard of that book. So yes, it is banned.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Darundal]

Out of curiosity, do you know if those releases of the books are edited in interesting ways?

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Um I don't think so. I've been those forums. If you write anything critical and have facts to back it up, often times it'll be closed/deleted. Just because someone is able to voice their opinion for a few minutes doesn't mean it will stick.

There indeed is a lot of censorship. When was the last time you heard the media criticize the government? Like never. And what does 99% of the people see? Internet forum postings or television/newspaper?

So to say that China is "almost" as free as other democratic countries is just as ludicrous as saying a mouse is as big as an elephant.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[gzipped_tar]

I'm a Chinese and I can tell you Orwell is not banned here. I have a Chinese translation of "1984" bought from a local bookstore, as well a biography of him. Other works such as "Animal Farm" are also available in Chinese. Also I can read the English text on the Web which is not filtered by the Great Firewall. In fact, George Orwell is quite popular here because of his theme of anti-totalitarianism.

In modern Chinese language, especially in Chinese Internet culture, there are equivalents of "big brother", "Room 101" and "crimethink" in Chinese.

Back to the topic: of course I hate the Party guys and I wish I could fsck them to death, but in China every Yang has its Yin. Ever heard of the Stockholm syndrome ? That's what quite a few of my fellow Chinese have got. Long days of suppression has formed a malicious intimacy between the Party and the people, even if the evidence of human right abuse is everywhere to see. The current president Hu, once conducted genocide in Tibet, is even respected by some for just that.

Last Friday I met Richard Stallman in Beijing with an audience of programmers and FOSS users. In his speech RMS briefly mentioned the Tibet issue (in comparison with Bush's invasion of Iraq) and the human right issues, and he got protest (but in general he was welcomed by the audience, anyway). In China if a foreigner make critical comments about the Chinese regime, he would find himself surrounded by flames and sheer insults, no matter his idea is reasonable or not.

I guess there will be comments like this from a Chinese (read: Chinese Joe Smith, not the govn't): "This perfectly demonstrates our growing power in economy and technology, as well as our increasing ability to defend our nation. You American slashdotters don't know a thing."

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't remember my password but I remembered I could post as an AC. I'm an expat working in Beijing China, and I agree with bits of the parent poster. No one here really cares about internet freedom, and everyone goes about their merry lives (oh yes, people here can be happy). More traditional issues like inflation, politics (the Olympics & Tibet) and corruption are at the fore.

On being monitored; I'm not sure. It feels like I'm free to do whatever I want online, and my local friends and colleagues never complain about it. However, in the wake of the recent Sichuan earthquake a local 17 year old filmed herself mouthing bullshit about the Sichuan earthquake victims (i.e. they deserved it etc.) and put it up on one of the Chinese Youtube imitators. I didn't keep track of the issue closely but she was arrested by the police within 2 or 3 days. Whether this occured through IP tracking and monitoring or whether it was one of her neighbours/friends who reported her to the authorities, I have no idea.

Having come from the Western bubble and reading years of Western press coverage of China, actually living in Beijing is a suprising experience. There are some remnants of Communism like middle aged stars singing patriotic songs on media channels broadcast on the subway, or first year University students having to go through a two week training camp marching to old Communist march tunes.. but in general, the social face of China is as capitalist as it can get. The amount of activity is ruthless and unbelievable. Many of the modern-age people are cold and urban. It's such a different beast from what the Western mainstream caricaturize it as. As for police in China, I've never met any ruder in my life across 4, 5 countries.

In all, I don't see the 1984 thing happening anytime soon. If it does, it would have to be extremely impressive to operate in stealth.. and given the general work attitude, efficiency and skill of China's current workforce (government or otherwise), I would say it would be amazing if they could achieve that level of control.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[VendettaMF]

Yeah... One person here in China hasn't heard of Orwell. Hence he is obviously a banned author. Your logical deduction lacks logic. And deduction.

Here in China the only western authors (of the last 200 years) reliably known are David Beckham and Margaret Mitchell. There is no reason to expect more than one in ten thousand Chinese citizens to have ever considered the possibility that they might be interested in reading a book written outside of China (Translated Manga excepted).

The culture censors its reading and viewing choices far more effectively than the government ever could. Not by prohibiting material, but simply by not acknowledging its existence.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read "Animal Farm" from newspaper back to 1986 or 1987, and as a book around 1991, both in Chinese. So tell me, how many Chinese books have you read, even in English?

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[CodeBuster]

as long as the language doesn't cross the line, i.e., overthrowing the government, nobody cares. Nobody cares as long as the person saying it is a nobody and remains obscure. However, it is convenient for those in power to have the ability to go back and dig up dirt on anyone who becomes a "trouble maker" or problem to somebody in power in the future. The fact that governments have these powers is dangerous, whether or not the actually use them, because they *could* use them if they wanted to against their political opponents. The mere suggestion or threat that the powers could be used or abused is enough to create fear and control. In fact, this was part of the original theory behind the Panopticon, it was not necessary to actually monitor the prisoners at all times because the prisoners could not tell when they were being monitored or when a previously made recording (once recording and database technology became practical) might be reviewed. The mere threat or possibility of monitoring created fear and control.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[CodeBuster]

One is very safe walking around, even late at night. Try that in Philly, or Miami, or any large American city. There are probably very few people who would take the position that a Police State is completely devoid of any possible benefits, fringe or otherwise. However, most of us who live in Europe and the United States are of the opinion that those benefits, which are probably few and far between, are not worth the costs of giving up what we regard as essential rights and freedoms. I for one will take a little crime any day if the alternative is effectively unlimited secret police powers to search, seize, and detain at will. I would rather have my freedoms and take my chances with those other people who might abuse theirs than see everyone stripped of their freedoms in the name of public safety.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've walked around at night in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Denver and San Antonio - during most of those times as a white male that lived in the poor part of town. Plus two years as the night clerk at a VP.

Blunt fact - according to the news, there's no good reason I'm still alive.

According to, y'know, actual Crime Statistics, although it would be a tragedy for me to be shot, I was pretty safe the entire time.

Sure - I can gain the illusion of more safety by having a camera on every corner. I'd rather gain actual (albeit quiet, unadvertised) safety by making sure the kids in the area had a good school, good hopes of graduating to a good college, paint, play the violin, football, become a doctor . . .

Or you can live in a police state, with bored police. I'm sure you can trust that live feed from the camera to the police station to have no 'technical difficulty' when *you* get pulled over.

Pug

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Let's go down your examples:

Hate speech? Absolutely protected. The Klan can talk all they want.

Calling fire in a crowded room? Legal. I did it at work today. Nobody laughed, but it's not illegal to use that word around a lot of people.

Slander? Slander is not speech, slander is a verbal attack. We're at a boundary case here, where speech comes up against other rights, and saying true things about people is always protected. Saying false things simply to corrupt their reputation is not protected speech. It's also not illegal. I can talk about how Britney Spears rides my cock with her stink hole all day long and nobody will arrest me. I might get into trouble if she brings a civil case for defamation against me though. Defamation is not the same as speech.

Inciting commission of offense? (eg. hey let's kill that guy) I said that in a meeting today too! That time everybody laughed, but nobody was arrested.

Providing vocal support for terrorist groups? VIVA AL QUAIDA. OK, I'm waiting for the cops to arrive. I don't think they will though.

None of the examples you gave are actually instances of illegal speech. All those things are legal today.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Jesus IS the Devil]

That's the total opposite of what the average Chinese citizen has been taught to believe. To them, it's perfectly ok to give up one's rights in order to have order in society. When you ask them for their thoughts about freedom of speech, the overwhelming response is that the Chinese aren't ready for that yet, because too many people still lack the integrity/education/manners/state of mind to be able to handle such a thing.

Imagine that... telling yourself that your people are sub-par human beings not worthy of a voice.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[ReedYoung]

One is very safe walking around, even late at night. Try that in Philly, or Miami, or any large American city. Admirable, but I don't believe that you've put the danger of a US city at night into its proper context. I believe you skipped a more fundamental logical fallacy lurking in the comparison [which you nevertheless rejected for other, perfectly valid reasons]. I agree with you that "safe walking around, even late at night" is not the only measure of the value of any theory or practice of government, but more basically, it is also false to argue any merit for one police state by comparison to the mayhem caused by partial implementation of another police state.

The cost of the pursuit of happiness, for an arbitrary set of chemical intoxicants, has been increased astronomically by our elected government as a matter of policy for nearly 40 years. To borrow from Ron Paul, the enforcement of drug laws has directly increased crime by inflating the retail price of addictive substances far above "their pharmaceutical value." [YouTube, original program unknown -- sorry] The reason it's no longer safe to walk around any large American city at night is not because we have too little police state. It's because we have too much. That police states are safer than free states is not a conclusion that can be logically supported by the comparison of Chinese to American cities. A reasoned argument might be made that China's all-out police state is safer than our namby-pamby, half-assed police state where "liberty" is the cornerstone of the propaganda for wars of aggression and rights are still recognized by the supreme law of the land, but inconsistently upheld. That argument might be made consistent, but I won't do it.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[ReedYoung]

Excellent!

Is 1984 the only book that teaches the importance of free information, free speech and free thinking? No. Is 1984 the only way to teach people to be wary of government surveillance, oppressive techniques, and totalitarian control? No. Is Orwell the only person who has the insight to be wary of these things? No. No, and the hegemony of references to that work of fiction as the first, last and only commentary on abuse of privacy rights indicates that most Americans are more than sufficiently brainwashed that when they are relieved of their rights officially, they won't notice.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[sydneyfong]

Not getting yourself arrested does not mean they are legal.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Which ones are illegal? Can you name the law that prohibits the specific act of speech?

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[sydneyfong]

Hmm, originally I sought to find the relevant sources to show that inciting commission of an offense is illegal. But then most sources I've found are related to UK law.

I have no idea how to look into detailed similar provisions in the USA, and it seems I wouldn't be able to find any, so I'll give you the benefit of doubt.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Inciting commission of an offense IS illegal. I never said it wasn't. But if I tell you to Kill Commander Taco right now that's not illegal. If you don't actually Kill Commander Taco, then nothing illegal has happened.

It's a subtle distinction, but it's there.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[sydneyfong]

Interesting.

So you mean, speech is free as long as it doesn't make any (illegal) impact? I find it hard to draw a line...

Say if I said "I think Santa Claus is the devil!", and some religious nuts go out and kill every person in a Santa costume, should be my speech be protected?

By the way, I think I do see a subtle distinction, and appreciate your points... but somehow to me the subtlety sounds kind of like "speech is free as long as it doesn't make any real impact".... which somehow defeats the purpose.... (I'm seriously suspecting I'm wrong on this one, but I really can't think of a better way to look at it)

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

That's pretty much right. Let's look at it another way. If I passed a law which said "no person shall utter the word 'fire' in a room filled with more than 30 people" that would be illegal. Suppose it's a physics laboratory, and the professor is very excited about the lesson? Suppose I yell fire in a theater and everybody says "STFU and watch the movie" but nothing else happens?

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. You're not liable for uttering syllables, you're liable for getting people killed. Inciting a riot makes you responsible for the riot, if it occurs. You're still completely free to say those same things in non-riot situations, such as the editorial pages of a newspaper, or whatever calmer situation.

These ideas are not my own. I'm just reporting on the law as it currently stands.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

These ideas are not my own. I'm just reporting on the law as it currently stands. Try reporting the contents of a national security letter. Also, if you told somebody else to commit murder, that would be conspiracy to commit murder, regardless of whether the murder was actually committed.

And what about "obscenity" laws? That's got to be the biggest slap in the face of freedom of speech there is. The Supreme Court has ruled that "obscenity" is not protected under the First Amendment.

There's no such thing as 100% free speech. Not in the United States, not anywhere.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The national security letter gag exactly what I'm talking about. Those are infringements on the First Amendment.

And what about "obscenity" laws?

Another good one, an example of a real infringement against the First. Obscenity is practically obsolete these days. Even a movie about a woman and her dog is protected speech if there's a plot somewhere. So, the laws are truly infringing to the First Amendment, but their impact has been lessened over the years. I'd take them off the books.

Also, if you told somebody else to commit murder, that would be conspiracy to commit murder, regardless of whether the murder was actually committed.

No, conspiracy is an agreement to perform the act together, not merely "telling" someone to do it. If I am encouraging you to kill someone, and you refuse to do it, there's no agreement, and no conspiracy.

There's no such thing as 100% free speech. Not in the United States, not anywhere.

I agree. That was my original point. If speech is infringed even a little bit, it's not really free, is it?

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

I agree. That was my original point. If speech is infringed even a little bit, it's not really free, is it? But you seemed to be arguing that we had "free speech", as you defined it, in the United States. Whereas sydneyfong's original point was that it's not black and white, and in practice people have varying degrees of free speech.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

No, to be clear, I was arguing that if free speech is infringed in the slightest, then there's not really any free speech at all. Some things that limit free speech (because other rights must also not be infrindged) are not actually infringing free speech. There's a difference.

If I make speech 'A' in the context of a riot and it makes the riot worse, that can be limited. But those exact same words in the context of a calm assembly must not ever be restricted. Those were the examples we discussed earlier.

But if we outlaw the speech 'A' no matter what the circumstances (obscenity laws, etc.) that's an unjustified restriction. It's a blanket ban on words.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

I was arguing that if free speech is infringed in the slightest, then there's not really any free speech at all. But the world is not black and white, and clearly some places have more free speech than others. Since no place has free speech as you define it, it's important to talk about how much or how little of it we have, what is allowed, and what the consequences are.

If I make speech 'A' in the context of a riot and it makes the riot worse, that can be limited. Even in this case there are people who say (not me, but extreme Libertarian types) that the speech should not be limited, and any negative consequences are ultimately the fault of those who took action. It's a defensible argument, and merely goes to show that there are tradeoffs involved, and the 100% absolute ideal is never obtained or can even be agreed on what it means.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

But the world is not black and white,

I never said the world is black and white, and there's no way to construe that from my statements. It is true that speech is either completely free, or it's not free at all.

But I did NOT say that free speech is the same as unrestricted speech. I pointed out quite clearly that when speech would harm another right that may be a place for a reasonable restriction. If you can't see that's a huge gray area then I don't know what to tell you.

Also, I have not implied that having some unrestricted speech is not useful. Obviously if you can't have free speech, then coming as close to that as possible is very desirable. But coming close is not the same as having free speech.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

But I did NOT say that free speech is the same as unrestricted speech. Try re-reading your original post that started this thread. You said: "You can't have just a little freedom of speech. If it's restricted even a little bit, it isn't free."

Also, I have not implied that having some unrestricted speech is not useful. Yes you did, when you responded to the original Chinese poster. His only point was that speech isn't as restricted as some make it out to be. He never claimed the ideal "free speech", which no country has anyways. So what was the point of your reply?

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

OK, I read it, so what? Are you going to bust my balls over an inconsistent use of the word "restricted"? OK, fine, but if you read what I wrote you can understand what I'm talking about. If you go through the thread, you find where I've outlined places where free speech has legitimate restrictions placed on it because it comes up against other rights. These are gray areas and decided by courts for the most part.

Yes you did, when you responded to the original Chinese poster. His only point was that speech isn't as restricted as some make it out to be. He never claimed the ideal "free speech", which no country has anyways. So what was the point of your reply?

My point I am making is that free speech is a Platonic ideal, and nowhere is it achieved. Yet, that Platonic ideal should be the ultimate goal, and nothing less should be tolerated. Even though free speech is a Platonic perfect thing, because of the nature of the universe, there are gray areas when it comes to deciding free speech, because it's not the only right that we hold to be valuable. I think I made that perfectly clear, and if you had read the thread with even a little understanding, you could hardly come to the conclusion that I believed it to be black and white.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

Are you going to bust my balls over an inconsistent use of the word "restricted"? Yeah, how terrible of me to point out blatant inconsistencies in your statements that are central to the argument. You should run for office.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

If you read the comments that I wrote to you directly there would be absolutely no way for you to conclude that I think about this in black and white. And now, you resort to personal attacks. I guess you don't have anything to add.

I quote:
If I make speech 'A' in the context of a riot and it makes the riot worse, that can be limited.

I wrote that, to you. If you had read that and understood it, you'd have understood that it's a nuanced point about a restriction on the first that has a justification, but nevertheless it still is a restriction. I'm not saying that restriction is bad, I'm saying that the restriction necessarily means that speech cannot be completely 100% unrestricted. Yet, completely unrestricted Platonically idealistic speech should always be our goal. And no, I never said that something close to but not quite free speech wasn't useful.

If you accuse me of black and white thinking, then there is only one conclusion. You have a problem with thinking somewhere.

Go learn some math. You'll get an education in all kinds of things that are defined in black and white, yet nevertheless are full of undecidability and incompleteness.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

Your arguments are inconsistent. Your initial comment was shallow and binary, completely dismissive of the point the Chinese pointer was making. Since then you have waffled considerably, to the point where your statements from the first comment to the last comment were in direct contradiction with each other. This is not an accident.

That is why I say you should run for office. You aren't accountable.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Once again, if you read the discussion, you'll see that several different things were discussed throughout. My opinion on all aspects of the first amendment is not the same. There are some cases where restrictions on speech are justified, and some cases where it is not. Any restriction means that free speech isn't really free, and thus those restrictions should only be made when some other right might be compromised.

If you can't understand that, then you're just a pendantic moron. Should I go through your posting history and troll you with every inconsistency, regardless of what your actual beliefs are, or what the context of the comments were?

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

You were asked to explain the shallow and binary comment you made to the Chinese poster. in the course of that explanation you managed to completely contradict yourself -- no ifs, ands, or buts.

If you caught a politician making these kinds of statements you'd have a field day with it.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

No, I didn't. If you think so, you don't understand what I wrote, and you're ignoring the context of the actual discussion that the statements were made in.

You wrote this:

"People know they are taking a risk when they copy, so for a lot of people it just isn't worth it."

And then later you wrote:

"or many the perceived risk is not worth it, and that's what counts."

Is it risk or not? A perceived risk? You said people were taking a risk and then you waffled and said that it's not a risk - it's a fake risk. Obviously, when you were questioned further, you changed your tune. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

I wasn't making an extreme statement about absolute risk like you were about absolute freedom of speech.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Look at the motherfucker parse. Parse like a little girl. First you said there was a real risk, then you said it was a fake risk. See how that works?

My statement about freedom of speech isn't extreme. It's the definition of the ideal. You're not even smart enough to use philosophical arguments concerning the existence of Platonic ideals. If you did use those, we might have a conversation. But instead, you resorted to extreme semantic parsing. That's the sign of an idiot, and when I do it to you, you aren't even smart enough to recognize it. That's proof you're an idiot.

Maybe you're one of Pudge's sock puppets. Actually, I doubt that because you don't have the same annoying smugness that he has. I apologize for that accusation.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Raenex]

Whether the risk was actual or perceived was not central to my argument. In context, I was explaining why copyright still survives as a business based on individual actions. Sometimes semantic differences matter greatly, sometimes not.

In the context of this thread, you were replying to a Chinese poster who was correcting the perceived level of free speech allowed. Your statement was shallow, binary, and extreme, completely dismissive of the point the Chinese poster was making.

The Chinese poster never claimed the ideal, and explicitly placed the level as nowhere near as bad as 1984, though not as good as the United States. You turned it into an all or nothing proposition, which is completely useless. This is the central argument. That your argument was bracketing by the following statements:

"If it's restricted even a little bit, it isn't free."

"But I did NOT say that free speech is the same as unrestricted speech."

shows just how much you ended up waffling and backpedaling to explain yourself. I'm tired of going in circles, so this is my last reply.

Re:George Orwell, anyone?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

That's not what you said. You said there was a real risk, and in your very next comment you said the risk was not real.

Your ridiculous parsing is amusing to me. I've pointed out your own words, and you're wiggling around like a worm. You bring up some kind of lame context argument to defend yourself. It's shit, and so is your hypocrisy. What a little baby.

Is it April 1, 2009?

[darkmeridian]

I am amazed. This has to be a joke, right? China is currently a largely agricultural society where a majority of citizens still live in the mountains. The money spent on bugging the population could be better spent on feeding the poor. I am surprised at how short-sighted the Communists are, and I already hold them in pretty low esteem.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[NoobixCube]

It's nothing to do with them being Communists. Actually, if they were to do something with Communist motivation, it would be feeding the poor. This is more about stamping out sedition. Something any government could do, completely separate from their political style.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[graft]

Why don't you RTFA? There you will find discussion of, for example, China's 130 million-strong population of migrants and how they are the underclass forming the backbone of cities like Shenzen.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[sir fer]

No joke, just old news. China's majority is also extremely poor and the party would have everyone believe that a better life is to be found in the city, where they can keep an eye on you.

The communists are not as short sighted as you are, politicians sometimes appear to be stupid or incompetent when the outcome they get is what they really wanted. Just look at the "war" in Iraq and the "war on terrorism/drugs/illiteracy" etc

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[niktemadur]

These are Communists in name only, on two fronts:

- Stalinism wasn't Communist, it was Stalinism. In that regard, whatever China's government practices, it's not Communism.
- Communism on paper was never about putting antifreeze in toothpaste or lead in child toy's paint. That's the exact opposite, Xtreme Capitalism.

It's heartbreaking how the least enlightened people end up running so many countries, and that goes for China present and past, too.

Ever heard about The Great Sparrow Campaign? In the late fifties, the Mao government decided that sparrows, who ate seeds, were a public menace and implemented a nationwide campaign to kill the sparrows. They succeded, by having the population bang pots and pans in the streets, keeping the sparrows in the air until they dropped dead from exhaustion.

As a result, locusts flourished, with their natural predator virtually gone, devastating the countryside, generating a famine that killed, by most estimates, between 35 and 40 million Chinese. All of it covered up, of course, there is not a single photograph that documents this massive catastrophe, even in the second half of the XX Century.

Another fine example of unthinkably ignorant and incompetent government at work, in full effect, and never mind the symbolic Communist tag.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[niktemadur]

I just remembered what the proper term is: Totalitarianism. Whether Capitalist, Communist or whatever, it's always bad news for everyone.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Anonymous Coward]

China's various rulers have practiced quite extreme forms of population control for thousands of years. In a sense, this is just the continuation of old customs and traditions.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[niktemadur]

Absolutely right, and extreme old habits die extremely hard. The old Chinese curse is "May your children live in interesting times", which translates to "May your children live when the government is actively engaged".

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[the brown guy]

I am surprised at how short-sighted the Communists are, and I already hold them in pretty low esteem.
Don't paint all communists with one brush, the Chinese are hardly communists, more fascists (see the post "China is not commie" in this discussion.)
Its not because they are communists, it's because they are nuts. Plain and simple. When the government wants to track all communication between citizens and access to the internet etc rather than feeding the hungry, and seismically upgrading schools, then something is fucked up.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Xonstantine]

Yeah, because the communists were all about feeding the poor. Funny though, how countries like the USSR, China, and Cambodia had famines shortly after going Communist. Those damn kulaks, just sabotaging the people's revolution.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Xonstantine]

So how many non-totalitarian Communist governments have there been?

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[jandersen]

And I'm amazed that anybody takes this crap serious enough to give it the time it takes to read the headline. Of course it's a joke - it's called "propaganda" and it's a game to see just how far one can string along a bunch of gullible teenagers.

China is a huge country with a huge population, and implementing something like what Ms Klein describes would require just over 3 persons to watch every ordinary Chinese; it can't be done, not even in the US, certainly not in a country that still hasn't quite got all the resources it needs for just the basic needs.

But I can see from your comments that you obviously think this is true; have you even thought about how Ms Klein can know exactly what the Chinese government is going to do and what they intend? Is she an insider? Does she take part in planning meetings without them noticing? This has nothing to do with the real world, let alone Communism, but Ms Klein has realised that her stories sell for a better price if they are spiced with this kind of nonsensical prejudice that everybody knows can't be verified, but everyone wants to believe in.

Apart from that - seeing that you probably don't see yourself as a communist - why would you expect the state to feed the poor? Isn't your philosophy that they are poor simply because they are lazy and stupid, and that they don't deserve any better?

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Opportunist]

Communism has never been communism. I bet if Marx could see what became of his idea, he'd rotate in his grave fast enough that we could use him to solve our energy problem.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does this idea come from that China's a communist state, anyway?

Just because they say so? Come on, even North Korea claims that they're a democracy. Does that make it so? Not in the slightest.

China's not a communist state, it's just your average fascist dictatorship.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[kvezach]

How about Dubcek's Czechoslovakia? The Soviets thought it was too free to tolerate, at least, and crushed it with military might.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Asic Eng]

Well, is the Pope catholic? Seriously - is he? That would depend on whether he really believes in the religion he preaches - some Popes in the past did not, but in modern times that's not actually a problem for the catholic church. I'd say the same criteria would have to be applied to any ideology: if you believe in an ideology and base your policy on it - then your reference to it is not just symbolic. Was the Mao regime (and that does not just include himself, but the vast numbers actually running the country) communist? Did they read Marx and believe in his ideas? Who can claim that their claim to be communists is less valid then their own? Is real communism only defined by people who are "theoretical communists" - i.e. people who never actually attempt to run a country on their own? I think Mao has a much better claim.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apart from that - seeing that you probably don't see yourself as a communist - why would you expect the state to feed the poor? Isn't your philosophy that they are poor simply because they are lazy and stupid, and that they don't deserve any better?"

My philosophy is that they (the poor Chinese) are poor because they have been deprived of the most basic freedom rights, the most important probably being property rights. It is well established that socialised farmland is producing far less than privately owned farm land. Since you cannot own land in rural China you are bound to be poor if you are a farmer.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[istartedi]

Communism on paper was never about putting antifreeze in toothpaste or lead in child toy's paint

And yet somehow, it always seems to end up that way.

Point taken about how China is not communist, however. It seems more fascist to me. The nice thing about the USSR was that you could always count on them to cling closely to their attempt at communism, right up until it all fell apart. Not so with the Chinese. They achieved what many suspect Gorbachev wanted, and failed to achieve: the harnessing of market economics to further the objectives of the existing power structure.

In doing so, they've set up a system that would make any 19th century robber baron proud. I like to say, "If the Chinese aren't careful, they're going to have a communist revolution on their hands".

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Squeeze Truck]

This is being implemented in one city, Shenzhen, which also happens to be the richest city in China.
Also the poor in China eat pretty well, FYI.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Admiral Ag]

You don't have to be a communist country to engage in collectively insane behaviour. They didn't do the sparrow thing because they were communists, but because they were human.

And before anyone says that capitalist countries don't suffer from collective stupidity, how about that housing bubble and banking crisis.

Poor countries (like China in 1950 or Cambodia) tend to suffer more from such nuttiness.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[frank-sun-319]

That's not the truth! I'm a Chinese. Most of Orwell's book, which includes 1984, were published in mainland of China early in 1980s. This site list all of them: http://www.douban.com/subject_search?search_text=%E4%B8%80%E4%B9%9D%E5%85%AB%E5%9B%9B&search_submit=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2 and this site is the biggest and the most influential online-reading & comment forum.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[sydneyfong]

It's heartbreaking how the least enlightened people end up running so many countries, and that goes for China present and past, too. The guys at the top these days are pretty competent.

Mao was a charismatic leader who's probably much better leading troops than governing a country. There's no doubt that however you hold him as a person, he did blunder quite a bit with his economic policies. The leaders today are better. The economy is growing, people are *generally* getting richer, and say what you will about China's human rights situation, it's *slowly* getting better, and at least not getting worse. Then look around and see many other countries regressing, and given the complexities of running the world's largest (most populous) country, I'd say that they can't be too incompetent.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[sydneyfong]

Indeed. I'll extend your argument a bit more.

China is a huge country with a huge population, and implementing something like what Ms Klein describes would require just over 3 persons to watch every ordinary Chinese; it can't be done, not even in the US, certainly not in a country that still hasn't quite got all the resources it needs for just the basic needs. Total population in China is roughly 1/5 world population. So if 3 people were required to watch over an ordinary Chinese, you'd almost need the WHOLE WORLD watching over China. Wow. I'd love the attention ;-p

But I can see from your comments that you obviously think this is true; have you even thought about how Ms Klein can know exactly what the Chinese government is going to do and what they intend? Is she an insider? Does she take part in planning meetings without them noticing? This has nothing to do with the real world, let alone Communism, but Ms Klein has realised that her stories sell for a better price if they are spiced with this kind of nonsensical prejudice that everybody knows can't be verified, but everyone wants to believe in. How could they know what the Chinese government is up to? Without being an insider? Easy. Here's the commonly accepted logic around here...:

1. Chinese Communists are evil
2. Evil governments work just like 1984
3. Hence, Chinese Communists are implementing 1984

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[gweihir]

It's heartbreaking how the least enlightened people end up running so many countries, and that goes for China present and past, too.

Not a surprise. Those with drive to power, but very low skills in other areas usually are not aware of their incompetence at all. Part of the human tragedy. Typicall all critical voices also get eleminated, as they are seen as competition (even if they are not).

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Tungbo]

"Communism on paper was never about putting antifreeze in toothpaste or lead in child toy's paint

And yet somehow, it always seems to end up that way."

Really? It seems that Capitalism got there first.
Try Reading "UNsafe at Any Speed" or "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair.

It's all to do with Greed, not so much with political system...

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Dripdry]

"I am amazed. This has to be a joke, right? America is currently a largely consumerist society where a majority of citizens still live in denial of how coddled they are. The money spent on blowing things up in foreign countries could be better spent on education, infrastructure, and research. I am surprised at how short-sighted the Americanss are, and I already hold them in pretty low esteem." Fixed that for ya.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[fbjon]

China is a huge country with a huge population, and implementing something like what Ms Klein describes would require just over 3 persons to watch every ordinary Chinese; That just means you need a population of at least 4. People can be brought to watch each other.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[doktr thunder]

i would wager they'd argue this helps feed the poor. indirectly of course.

a. prevent social unrest(through whatever means necessary).* unrest->downturn/collapse of local/national/international economies
b. grow economy
c. keep population growth = replacement
d. more poor people can eat**

*not saying I agree with (a).
**i've heard many (urban)chinese accept their current govt. because of recent improvements in (d)

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[dave87656]

China is a huge country with a huge population, and implementing something like what Ms Klein describes would require just over 3 persons to watch every ordinary Chinese; it can't be done, not even in the US

You don't really understand the technology. You don't need 3 people to watch one person. The data is captured and stored. It is automatically scanned for indications of anti-state or criminal activity.

Once you have gotten on their radar screen, then they watch your every move, or they arrest you.

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Rich0]

As somebody else pointed out with the sparrow bit this isn't really a communist problem per-se.

However, I would add that communism does tend to lead to very powerful and centralized governments, whose mandate is anything that might serve the public good. That does tend to lead to stuff like this - the government is inherently interventionalist in all kinds of domains. Contrast that with something like libertarianism where in an idealized implementation the government probably wouldn't even kill a sparrow nest to build a highway, since they wouldn't build highways at all (on the other hand, the government would be less inclined to act when a corporation dumps toxic waste in a local river - leaving matters up to the civil tort system).

I recall in freshman biology learning about parasitic cycles, and China was used as an example. Schistosomiasis is a serious problem in the developing world, and part of the fluke's life cycle takes place in snails. The Chinese government undertook an effort to eliminate the snails, and consequently the disease rate dropped tremendously.

Strong central governments can accomplish all kinds of good - but they can also wreak all kinds of havoc. Panopticon technology could be used to capture kidnapers, terrorists, and other criminals that are a detriment to society. It can also be used to ensure that political dissidents are suppressed. It isn't the power that is inherently bad - it is people that are inherently prone to corruption (which I believe makes too much government power a bad thing).

Re:Is it April 1, 2009?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want an equivalent comparison, the real question there would not be whether Pope is Catholic, but whether Catholicism is Christianity.

Let the battle begin

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash crowds, encrypted communications and decentralised communications vs. the (almost) all seeing police state. We will see this battle everywhere, not just in China. First casualties will be the geeks of the world, the ones who have the ability to put the people in control of their own communications.

Re:Let the battle begin

[Hal_Porter]

Dude, this is China. In a democracy you use flash crowds and encryption to disrupt things like this. In China they'd break up flash crowds with paramilitary police and trace encrypted connections inside the routers and send gangs of thugs to disappear the person that set them up at 5am.

Goodness, what trash

[Quadraginta]

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.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[squidinkcalligraphy]

With due respect, this article isn't about a totalitarian state that watches it's citizens; it's about the fact that US companies are the one's who are making it possible.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[canecubo]

Boy, a lot of rhetoric flying around here ("loony", "paranoid"), but let's take a look at these comments in detail.

1) The story is not about the fact that a communist state is spying on its citizens; that's not the news. It's about the use of new technologies that provide the regime with a huge amount of integrated information, using technologies that are also being deployed in the West.

2) The claim isn't that the adoption of new surveillance techniques is caused by IBM et al. They are the enablers. The connection to capitalism is actually at another level: that modern China represents a form of authoritarian capitalism whose efficiency is quite remarkable. This point unhinges the tired old 20th century right-wing crap that tried hard to present capitalism and democracy as necessarily intertwined. In fact, as we know from Napoleon III's regime, there are historical counter-examples to this notion, and modern China is a shocking refutation.

I wouldn't be so sure you understand history much -- remember, all that TV watching is bad for you.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[demachina]

"that modern China represents a form of authoritarian capitalism whose efficiency is quite remarkable"

I think its open to debate if China is remarkable for its "efficiency". It mostly just has lots of cheap labor, no labor unions and very weak pollution and safety regulation which means its a cheap place to do things like manufacturing. There are quite a few things working against its economic efficiency.

A. The party officials that run the place are extremely corrupt. Corruption is good for business only if it swings your way. If it swings against you, or for your competition it is quite bad for business, and the unpredictability of corruption is especially bad for business.

B. The legal frameworks in the country are extremely poor. This is a plus if you ware a bootlegger ripping off your competition's product, its not so good if your IP and products are the ones being ripped off.

C. Not sure exactly why but China did apparently pass new labor laws around the first of the year and they undid some of the slave labor aspects of being a worker in China. Workers did actually get some rights under the new laws and it appears they are going to cause a significant spike in the cost of labor, along with the simple fact labor isn't as abundant in China as it once was. This along with a number of other factors is causing wage inflation and making China less and less attractive to Capitalism. The factors that made China boom can also work against it and lead to a bust and for the boom to move elsewhere.

D. China's one child policy is starting to cause a severe shortage of young workers since it began in 1979. Their population is going to start become senior citizen heavy like Japan and the U.S. which has a lot of negative economic consequences. Most older workers can't stand the dormitories and 6-7 day work weeks in China's factories so as the young labor pool drops its going to hammer their sweat shop manufacturing industries.

E. Censorship might have its positives in that it helps eliminate dissent but it also means you can do some incredibly stupid stuff and get away with it because you can suppress knowledge of your stupidity. A free press and a free Internet can server a useful purpose in that it can eventually expose corruption, incompetence and stupidity and led to corrective action if the press and freedom of speech works. For example in the U.S. the free press went dysfunctional after 9/11 and untold stupidity was perpetrated by the Bush administration like the war in Iraq, torture and domestic spying. The press still isn't very healthy but America has started to throw the Republican's out of power for their incompetence, though the Democrats are much of an improvement. In China is if the ruling party turns bad, there are no alternatives except for changing one set of Communist party leaders for another in an internal power struggle.

F. The spiking cost of oil is suddenly starting to work against globalization. Not sure how accurate it is but someone on CNBC said the cost to ship a container from China to the U.S. has quadrupled recently from $2K to $8K and if oil prices continue to spike its going to be less and less attractive to ship goods half way around the world. Its already working against heavy goods with a low labor component like steel. The more expensive fuel gets the less likely you are going to offshore manufacturing for the U.S. and Europe to China. Mexico may become increasingly attractive again for the U.S. labor pool.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[demachina]

I'd have to agree the submission is a little breathless, but it is interesting to and important to think about the consequences of a pervasive police state in the digital age. East Germany's police state was extremely labor intensive. You pretty much had to have people to eavesdrop on phone calls, lots and lots of magnetic tape, and lots and lots of people spying on their neighbors.

In the digital age its increasingly possible to actually listen to everything and let computers sort out the keywords and red flag people for closer scrutiny. As everything has moved in to a databases it is much easier to correlate data from multiple databases and look at, for example, all your bank records, your taxes filings, what you buy, your travel plans, the books and movies you read and watch, and get an extremely good picture of any individuals thoughts. Eliot Spitzer is a recent case study of someone who was destroyed by the increasingly pervasive spying on banking activities.

The down side of the Internet is it has created a mechanism to allow the police state to digitally monitor what people are saying, thinking, doing and wanting to do, far more than ever before.

Not sure I would get so excited about China doing this, they are after all a totalitarian state and being doing these things quite blatantly for 60 plus years, they are just going to be a lot better at it in the digital age, and its fairly new that Western companies get to help in their oppression.

I think we should be somewhat more concerned about the fact the governments of U.S. and Great Britain are doing many of these same things, just somewhat more subtly and almost no one seems to notice or care. They are countries that are supposed to have things like civil liberties, like freedom of speech and habeas corpus, but the free societies we so fond of bragging about are being dismantled before our eyes using Islamic terrorism as the excuse. You could blame it all Bush and Blair but I'm pretty sure the espionage state will continue to expand unabated, no matter which party is in power, because:

A. The fear of a new terrorist attach can be used to justify every excess.

B. People in power almost inevitably want more power and more control of their domain, not less. Its a somewhat rare individual who achieves great power and then doesn't use it, abuse it and expand it. It rare indeed to find people that actually relinquish power they already have. Almost the only time it happens is when gross excesses of someone abusing their power lead to scandal, for example Watergate, Vietnam and the abuses of the CIA in the 1960's. Executive power was reigned in, in the 1970's by things like the Church Committee though the Republicans hated everything that happened in the 70's to reign in abuse of power and managed to undo all the check and balances in the last 7 years and push America even further in to a police state than was the case under Nixon and Hoover.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatsoever for any cause
seeketh to take or give
power above or beyond the laws,
suffer it not to live!

Holy state, or holy king, or holy people's will
have no truck with the senseless thing,
order the guns and kill!

I just want to remind you all that whether your tyrany comes slowly or quickly, with swords or on an empty dinner plate, under a shield of security or in a cornucopia of promises you each have a duty to protect your freedom.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[Jesrad]

"It's rare indeed to find people that actually relinquish power they already have."

And they can be certain someone will be there to collect such power when they do. As long as people insist on believing in power, and giving it to someone (anyone at all), they'll suffer the consequences.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how easy people are to stereotype. When I first saw this post, my eyes focused for whatever reason on "Feh". It's a word I've only seen typed by self-absorbed American geeks after pronouncing some blowhard opinion to which they've put very little of their own thought.

From that and the context, I expected some pompous, sophomoric straw man rant about the evils of Communism.

I was satisfied.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[aproposofwhat]

B. The legal frameworks in the country are extremely poor. This is a plus if you ware a bootlegger ripping off your competition's product, its not so good if your IP and products are the ones being ripped off.

There you have it, my friend - the reason, in a nutshell, why the American (and to a lesser extent European) belief in Invisible Property is doomed to failure.

While the Occident continues to believe that IP laws protect their corporations, we have in China a striking example of why, with a large enough and scary enough scofflaw, those laws act against the countries that implement them.

Nationally, the US would be far better off with every invention being public domain, and US companies being able to get the jump on the Chinese copyists.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[demachina]

"Nationally, the US would be far better off with every invention being public domain, and US companies being able to get the jump on the Chinese copyists."

Excepting that with out any return on investment no one has any incentive to invent anything, or if they do they have no incentive to make the often substantial investment necessary to commercialize one. IP laws are pretty dubious in things like software but they were a pretty important factor in driving innovation in physical inventions in the last couple centuries in America.

I think in the case of China its just a case of extreme stupidity on the part of the West to do any business at all there as long as they are blatantly ripping off everyone's IP, which they most definitely are, by cloning and copying just about everything in site.

Re:Goodness, what trash

[haleyeah]

I hadn't thought of the oil spikes affecting global distribution networks. Could this along with weak growth in the largest importing countries stall out the boom in the emerging markets? Starvation is a key motivator in political unrest. There is already unrest in some areas of China and India from those left out of the boom(80 or 90% of the populace). It won't be just there, in the US negative real wage growth and higher food and energy prices are squeezing the life out of the majority of the labor pool. Capital is increasingly being concentrated unto a new class of the hyper-rich. I see a threat of instability and chaos emerging along with the threat of an Orwellian totalitarian regime. Interesting times indeed.

How are we any different?

[sweet_petunias_full_]

This is how this Golden Shield will work: 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. This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see nothing in the above that we're not already doing here or have announced that we will be doing soon. And the amazing thing is this really big giant coincidence that it's also happening everywhere else. What gives? It's like a world government has been instituted or something.

Re:How are we any different?

[elnico]

I see nothing in the above that we're not already doing here or have announced that we will be doing soon. You clearly didn't look very hard.

Correct me if I'm wrong Alright then...

They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies. Sorry bud, we don't do that. There are a few wiretaps flying around, some illegal; but they comprise an absolutely tiny percentage of calls made, generally those made by Very Bad Men. We very definitely don't do this for all citizens. Want proof? Try calling yourself and talking about how you're going to overthrow the government and assassinate some officials. You'll be presently surprised as to how no one else will ever know about that phone call.

Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall." Yeah, we don't do this, nor will we ever.

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. National ID cards certainly come up every once in a while, but they get shot down consistently.

7 years ago, we didn't even have a centralized database for ENEMIES OF THE STATE. What makes you think we have one now for all citizens?

Re:How are we any different?

[Anonymous Coward]

> What makes you think we have one now for all citizens?

Because all citizens have been classified as potential enemies of the state and the principle of innocent until proven guilty is gasping for air.

Re:How are we any different?

[sweet_petunias_full_]

They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies.

Sorry bud, we don't do that. There are a few wiretaps flying around, some illegal; but they comprise an absolutely tiny percentage of calls made, generally those made by Very Bad Men.

What are the NSA secret rooms at phone companies for then? Coffee breaks? Why do the phone companies want immunity if they're not being asked to do blatantly illegal things?

Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall."

Yeah, we don't do this, nor will we ever.

Their system is the most notorious for the moment, but don't assume that all of your search queries aren't being watched and recorded, and don't assume the search results are always going to show everything found. Failing that, there are also more extreme measures to watch you.

National ID cards certainly come up every once in a while, but they get shot down consistently.

Some states have already implemented fingerprint cards, after trying to place tracking devices in cars unsuccessfully. Note that we have satellites to track people now, making such cards less important. UK has ubiquitous street cams + databases, we have redlight cameras + satellites, China has black dome cameras on streetlights. I don't see the satellites getting shot down any time soon.

7 years ago, we didn't even have a centralized database for ENEMIES OF THE STATE. What makes you think we have one now for all citizens?

Try reading about about the plans for this unprecedented biometric database.

So, once again, how are we any different except in terms of the degree of policestaticity? (Or is that policestatishness? Perhaps policestatoriality? ...Ugh.)

Re:How are we any different?

[Plutonite]

All countries of the world have governments are on a spectrum of totalitarianism ("policestatetness"). In fact, much of the world is grey in all respects, so you're saying nothing new here. The ethical universe is made of slippery slopes.

What is different about "us" is that when these things come to light(wiretapping..etc), they are considered as a scandal because they go against the values "we" build our nations on. When they happen in China, the state may or may not publish the information itself, usually with a smile. Education in the free world has the effect of getting you to be shocked when you hear this stuff; education by totalitarian states has the effect of habituating you to it. We are not China.

Re:How are we any different?

[madia]

ATF has tried for years to make a central federal database of US gun owners which is in violation of the gun control act of 1968 and they've been caught at it. Traffic cameras are popping up all over the country like in the UK. Black boxes in your car tell what speed you are going when you crash. The most recent debacle is the RFID in US passports (which the Chinese have allegedly had something to do with because of the outsourcing of the job to an EU company who outsourced it to China). You figure out the ramifications of that one ..... IBM and others are hot on the prospect of RFIDs which can be placed in your clothing and maybe even you (someday) - on the surface this all looks good and in many cases this stuff is good but like anything else could lead to abuse if the wrong folks get into power. Not that our government or global corporations would do anything to abuse anyone's rights ..... http://www.madnamerica.com/

Re:How are we any different?

[sweet_petunias_full_]

"What is different about "us" is that when these things come to light(wiretapping..etc), they are considered as a scandal because they go against the values "we" build our nations on. When they happen in China, the state may or may not publish the information itself, usually with a smile."

Even though we have lived in what has traditionally been viewed as a more open society, that doesn't mean that we are still being adequately informed about everything being done under our noses or over our heads. If some poor devil is being tasered in Canada we might not hear about it unless someone took video footage. I think we have our own gaps which are not completely being filled in by FOIA requests and the like. Combine that with the decline in investigative journalism and it looks like we're headed into some sort of Dark Age.

You are right that this sort of oppression doesn't cause the same sort of shock in other countries that it causes the U.S. or the U.K., but notice that one of the things we're not being told about is of the coping mechanisms that the subjects of other countries have developed to deal with the lack of freedoms. That is, they not only don't expect certain freedoms, they have workarounds for those situations that you don't know about and are not likely to develop until after decades of living under a regime like that.

The article (a good piece of investigative journalism) makes a very, very important point: the security industry is building up its own momentum internationally, is worth 300 billion already (IIRC) and that means it has its own lobby in Washington, and that means it's self-sustaining and... it isn't likely to go away any time soon. That doesn't portend very nicely for our open society and its values of personal freedom.

Oh fuck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Police state 2.0!

If it were 1.4 or 1.5 we might have had a chance. But 2.0, theres no hope.

Re:Oh fuck.

[beakerMeep]

If it's anything like web 2.0, we'll be fine.

Re:Oh fuck.

[enoz]

Just disable Javascript on your face and you'll be free to do what you want.

VOTE OBAMA

[kir]

If you agree with this sort of thing, you should vote Obama. Get your brown shirts out! You'll need them.

Re:VOTE OBAMA

[niktemadur]

I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say. It's nonsensical, if anything you're describing the Bush administration, and your post should read If you agree with this sort of thing, you should vote Bush. Get your brown shirts out! You'll need them.

But then again, political effervescence brings out the irrational in people, even some true Slashdot veterans, and within minutes your post was modded Troll.

Re:VOTE OBAMA

[kir]

It's OK. Just take your soma and have a nice holiday. Everything will be alright.

BTW - I will be modded troll as I do not agree with the enlightened /. masses. Uni was quite a while ago for me. I've lived a bit and have experienced our world for what it really is.

All hail our supposititious messiah... or else!

Re:VOTE OBAMA

[niktemadur]

It's OK. Just take your soma and have a nice holiday. Everything will be alright.

Funny, last time I checked, I've been resisting soma for the last seven years.

I've lived a bit and have experienced our world for what it really is.

All hail our supposititious messiah... or else! I guess Obama is my pick for prez because I'm looking for a fresh approach, at the risk of being obvious and maybe even stereotypical. At this point, gimme the youngest Baby Boomer available, maybe he/she will be closer to enlightenment! So far, the post-war kids (Bushes and Clintons) have been declaring the throne theirs, for the last twenty years, by divine choosing in one way or another.

American government urgently needs to get weird again. When he gets to the White House, Obama gets no pass from me, the highest tribute a paid official can get from an educated citizen: I'm looking at you.

Re:VOTE OBAMA

[MrHanky]

No, you'll bo modded a troll because you promote moonbat insanity.

I'm being entirely serious.

[Grym]

Sure it is. Unless you're both more reputable than Rolling Stone, and conducting your own independent research to validate RS's claims, your opinion is worthless. But hey, pray to your glossy magazines, if that's what lets you sleep at night.

What news sources and/or publications would you suggest to stay informed?

-Grym

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[susano_otter]

What news sources and/or publications would you suggest to stay informed?

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.

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[ushering05401]

"Be your own news source, instead of settling for second-hand sensationalism."

So you are suggesting that once we succeed at being our own news source we keep that info to ourselves? If I chose Rolling Stone to disseminate the information I gathered firsthand it would immediately be devalued?

The RS article is old news, all of which I have seen reported elsewhere in recent weeks, but I fail to see how it is counterproductive to publicize the evolution of surveillance states.

On a side note, Rolling Stone being a glossy mag came about as a nod to the power of photojournalism in popular culture. There are anthologies published of RS photos and they hold significant historical and artistic value. As a disclaimer, I haven't been interested enough in pop culture to actually pick up an issue in years, but that doesn't mean the value isn't still there for others.

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[theheadlessrabbit]

But you might start by getting involved. Be your own news source, instead of settling for second-hand sensationalism. great idea!
how can we trust these lousy reporters, 'burn the lot of them' I say.

Lets have everyone, all 300 million of you Americans go and pack up all your bags, move to China, walk up to a chinese government official, and ask them "what's going on?"

thats a brilliant idea! you should go and get right on that.

or, for the sake of efficiency, we can have a small number of people go into an area and report on things for the rest of us!
yea!
We could even give those people special training!
Maybe they could even make a career out of going to these far away places on our behalf and reporting on events, situations and politics! what a brilliant idea!

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[onefriedrice]

Maybe they could even make a career out of going to these far away places on our behalf and reporting on events, situations and politics! what a brilliant idea! I think you're onto something....

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[Ethanol-fueled]

I think Fox News beat 'ya to it :)

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[Omestes]

So... not being a glossy magazine, or, as far as I can see, involved, what does your opinion matter? You can't seem to verify, or disprove Rolling Stone's information, you haven't posted any proof that you are actually in China, or have witnessed anything there, you provide no credentials, and so by your own criteria why should anyone listen to you?

Basically your response is to tell people to discredit a source because you don't like them. This isn't even weak proof, since your subjective opinion is worth less than even Rolling Stone's. Any moron can get a /. account, get good karma, and post. At least the RS there is an editorial board, hiring procedures, and I'm guessing some degree of journalistic standard.

Yes, I won't take the spin as fact since spin is opinion. but the actual events seem worth further examination, and are easily verifiable.

The same goes for the "spin" you yourself are projecting...

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Special training" was probably intended to refer to a degree in journalism, not learning how to give Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney blowjobs.

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[Christoph]

Be your own news source...

I have visited Shenzhen twice and posted my photos of Shenzhen. I took photos in public with a large camera/lens with no trouble from the authorities. I was hassled by the shoe-shine scammers and massage parlor hawkers near the Shangri-La hotel in Luohu, but my photos were not sensored by customs and my gear was not stolen/confiscated.

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[widmerpool]

I'd mod the post "informative," and I know it's just a slip of the ear, but:

"sensored" is way too good a word to have no meaning. I call upon slashdotters to define this new verb so we can use it.

(And I am being entirely serious. Sort of.)

Re:I'm being entirely serious.

[xappax]

Yeah! And we could have companies that do the work of collecting all the reports from these people (let's call them "reporters"), packaging them up in easy-to-read or -watch installments, and distributing them to the public.

Of course, that kind of work would require a lot of money to do well. So small companies would have trouble.

Oh, hey, I know! All the little companies that distribute news could be purchased and merged together by extremely rich investors. That way we'd only have a few news sources to worry about, and they'd be really good at what they do.

Big Brother

[jonfr]

Welcome to big brother state, one wrong move and your history, literally.

1984 is just a minor joke compared to what China is going to do in the future.

I guess we are going to see new breed of crackers and hackers soon.

It is also going to get really messy when this falls in on it self.

Re:Big Brother

[Urkki]

Welcome to big brother state, one wrong move and your history, literally. No, literally you will be the exact opposite of "being history", you will be "erased", no historical record of your existence will remain...

No problem

[mark72005]

Put MediaDefender on it!

Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journalist

[DavidinAla]

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.

Dewd!!!

[TheRealMindChild]

Does China's All-Seeing Eye work better than Yahoo's? Maybe I can finally find a Quake2 jailbreak server!

1982 Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Up here in space / I'm looking down on you,
My lasers trace / everything you do,
You think you've private lives / think nothing of the kind,
There is no true escape / I'm watching all the time!

CHORUS:
I'm made of metal, my circuits gleam
I am perpetual, I keep the country clean.
I'm elected, electric spy,
I'm protected, electric eye.

Always in focus / you can't feel my stare,
I zoom into you / you dont know I'm there.
I take a pride in probing / all your secret moves,
My tearless retina takes / pictures that can prove...

(Chorus)

Electric eye (in the sky)
Feel my stare (always there)
There's nothing you can do about it, develop and expose,
I feed upon your every thought, and so my power grows!

(Chorus)

I'm Elected -
Protected -
Detective -
Electric -
Eye.

- Judas Priest, Electric Eye, 1982.

Orwell's 1984 isn't the only functional specification out there, after all.

Germany was the proof-of-concept. Stalin's Russia and the Cold War Warsaw Pact countries were the alpha, which failed due to scaling concerns. China is the beta test site and release-candidate. Unistat goes live in 2009.

Re:1982 Quote

[chainLynx]

How about Death's '1,000 eyes'? Sweet song. http://www.lyricsbook.net/lyrics/6799.html

Re:1982 Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be December 22, 2012. Don't you read Nostradamus?

Re:1982 Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Weve taken too much for granted
And all the time it had grown
From techno seeds we first planted
Evolved a mind of its own

Marching in the streets
Dragging iron feet
Laser beaming hearts
Ripping men apart

From off Ive seen my perfection
Where we could do as we please
In secrecy this infection
Was spreading like a disease

Hiding underground
Knowing wed be found
Fearing for our lives
Reaped by robots scythes

Metal gods
Metal gods

(solo glenn)

Metal gods
Metal gods

Machines are taking all over
With mankind in their command
In time theyd like to discover
How they can make their demand

Better be the slaves
To their wicked ways
But meeting with our death
Engulfed in molten breath

US + China connected?

[Junkyboy55]

With the US government stealing their citizens' privacy, I think the eye on the dollar bill is more than just some print now. I wonder if China will add the eye to their bills too?

Big Brother is watching!

Re:US + China connected?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

And that's why I draw an eye patch on every dollar I get. Plus I give the pyramid an old timey mustache. Cause it looks cool.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[neuromancer23]

>> "the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state"

Someone is in serious need of medication. Communism is the polar opposite of capitalism.

What a coincidence!

[greg_barton]

Urban warfare and population suppression 2.0 is ready for export from Iraq. Just in time!

Naomi Klein?

[whiskey6]

good lord I thought she ceased to exist after no logo. 2000 called, they want their author back.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Concerned Onlooker]

Free market. Heh.

China is not commie

[gregbot9000]

And it's not Capitalist, it's a wonderful halfway point called fascist.

From TFA: "Remember how we've always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state"

Free markets require the freedom to chose without coercion in order to be efficient for everyone involved. China does not have a free market. The transactions are not efficient for the low man on the totem pole, namely the worker. China is fascist, and the country is a giant form of monopoly that has huge profit margins by manipulating the labor supply and the rights afforded to individuals to drive down costs. Just because China is having huge profits does not mean they are more efficient.

A lot of people will go on about the horrible violation to civil liberties all of these things China does are, but no one ever talks about the horrible damage these things do to the economic well being of the country.
China IS going to undergo serious reform or revolution. It won't be possible to maintain any level of efficiency without the proper rule of law or a Meritocracy. China WILL become more efficient once more people start demanding a larger share, and the only way they can do this is through greater representation and markets, markets that need informed consumers who are not being forced to act against their best interests.
All successful revolutions have come from the middle to upper class capitalists who are feed up with kings and lords ruling by mandate cutting into their bottom line. China is no different.
From TFA "With political unrest on the rise across China, the government hopes to use the surveillance shield to identify and counteract dissent before it explodes into a mass movement"
If someone is dissenting that means there is something that needs to be changed. That is the best example of why china, like the USSR, will hit a standard of living wall. Efficiency requires freedom.

Re:China is not commie

[martin-boundary]

Efficiency requires freedom.

Is this a quote from 1984 Redux? Sounds like it. In reality, efficiency does not require freedom so much as coercion and a clear chain of command, like in the military. Freedom actually breaks efficiency.

It would be unbelievably inefficient for an army if every soldier during a war had the freedom to second guess or change his orders, and maybe go have a snack or watch a movie when he should be guarding the pass. That's freedom, and it's NOT efficient.

The truth is that authoritarian systems are better adapted economically at producing goods cheaply and efficiently. It doesn't help if they don't also have smart people at the top, just like the most efficient army can still make mistakes with bad generals.

The other issue about economic efficiency is that it's a silly goal in itself. People want to live their lives according to their own wishes, not according to the place that economic efficiency has in store for them. You might be extremely good at washing dishes, yet still prefer to be a poet at half the pay. If the goal is economic efficiency, then you'll be employed as a dish washer to maximize profit, instead of writing for a literary magazine. So the side effect of making efficiency the "goal" for a country is to make more people miserable than if the goal was something else.

Re:China is not commie

[Anonymous Coward]

"The truth is that authoritarian systems are better adapted economically at producing goods cheaply and efficiently."

You mean the Soviet Union was more efficient at producing the goods and services the population at large wanted than the U.S.

You really think that?

Discovering, designing, and producing the consumer goods and services that people want cheaply is a much harder problem than the sort of ditch digging or dam building projects that authortarian organizations (armies and bureaucracies) are famously efficient at.

Countries with free markets are so much better at producing consumer goods and services than authoritarian countries that it isn't even funny.

Re:China is not commie

[gregbot9000]

efficiency does not require freedom so much as coercion and a clear chain of command, like in the military. Army's are not efficient at all, from what little I have seen living near an air force base, SO much is wasted for no reason. The military chain of command is effective at achieving a goal, but it is not efficient.

Authoritarian systems are not efficient for all party's involved, the worker who is being forced to make shoes is being shafted, as is the soldier, which is why they make the shoe for so cheap, and can take a pill box. Its not efficient over all, only at one end goal. The USSR did this all the time, using the fact that they made more X than America as proof they were more effective, while in reality the average Russian was about 1.5-2 times less productive than Americans. Which showed in their standard of living.

You may think economic efficiency is a silly goal in itself, but to several billion people world wide it doesn't seem to be, including the guy in your example. Economic efficiency means a higher standard of living. Your poet friend is exercising economic freedom efficiently, he gets to maximize his own profits, and do what he feels is most effective. The market says he would be most effective at dish washing and they offer a cash premium to change, if the amount of money offered was higher than the satisfaction of being a poet he would change jobs. Free People live their lives according to their own wishes, those wishes, mostly, are for a higher standard of living, which is usually gained by being more efficient.

Re:China is not commie

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the natural result of unregulated capitalism huge monopolies? What could be more capitalist than an entire nation that's one big company?

Naomi's right...

[ivi]

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! :-/

Re:Naomi's right...

[the brown guy]

Better learn Chinese, folks
Yeah, I already know Indian, Mexican and Netherlandian, :P
From what I understand, Chinese refers to the written text, either simplified or traditional chinese. There are many different spoken languages that use written chinese characters, like Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and other dialects that are so different that a Cantonese speaking person from Taiwan will not be understood (fully) by a Cantonese speaking person from Schezuan province etc.

That's like people asking me if I speak Hindu...fucking insulting that they are so stupid.

Re:Naomi's right...

[marxmarv]

If Americans learned Chinese, or frankly any foreign language, Americans could have prevented better than half the trouble they're in now.

The science of getting people to buy useless crap was born, raised, and battle-hardened in the US. China's fat wad of dollars (and Euros and rupees and dinars) is due to consumerism. Why would they want our culture to change as long as dollars still buy liquid energy?

Re:Naomi's right...

[pudro]

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.
Try again. Saudi Arabia owns far more of the USA than China and especially Japan.

Re:Naomi's right...

[sydneyfong]

Most people calling themselves "Chinese" without qualifications (e.g. not "Chinese American", etc) at least understands the official spoken language called "Putonghua" (essentially "Mandarin").

So you can't go wrong with learning Mandarin. In school they officially have to use Mandarin, so anybody who's gone through school should be able to understand you, although a number of people still speak with influence of their local dialect.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Beetle B.]

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. Interesting assertion, but somewhat meaningless until you can quantify freedom.

Oceans Cannot Protect Us

[Doc Ruby]

After the planebombs of 9/11/2001, Bush made a big deal about how suddenly, "oceans cannot protect us anymore". As if oceans had made us immune to ICBMs in the 50 year Cold War, or to air and sea raids in either WWII or any of the other wars (like 1812, or the Revolution) we'd survived without throwing away liberty. It was true, but it wasn't new.

We're going to find out a lot more about blowback when the government Bush installed these past 7.5 years, built mostly on his Republican Congress (and not reformed by the Democratic Congress of the past year and a half), is the foundation for all these invasive technologies we're "beta testing" in China.

If the 2009 Democratic Congress and White House doesn't spend most of its time ripping out Bush's Unitary Executive by the roots, a bigger reform than Bush's 8 years of catastrophes, this country is going to make China look like a cheap, ignorant backwater. By making this country into cheap, ignorant backwater central.

Re:Oceans Cannot Protect Us

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation -1
    100% Overrated

TrollModding cannot protect you Republican coverup sissies from the truth about blowback from your Bush Era nightmares.

Ah the joys of watching the ants roam around

[Ron Bennett]

More and more our society is becoming little more than a glorified ant farm for the government's voyeurist enjoyment - manipulating and watching us little ants roam around in our daily routines, while every so often throwing some monkey wrench into the works for some excitement.

I've met numerous security folks over the years who have acknowledged often using security cameras for their personal pleasure, such as stalking and voyeurism.

Ron

Could happen here. Watch this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Naomi Wolf paths towards fascism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[DavidinAla]

I think you mean "define" instead of "quantify," because surely you're not looking to put a number on it. And it's not especially hard to do. To be free is to be able to make your own decision insofar as you're not infringing on others' rights or property. The difficult part for some people (especially those on the Left) is that so many of them don't believe that people truly have the right to make their own decisions and they don't believe that private ownership of property is moral. Of course, those on the repressive Right don't believe in freedom, either, but they want control in different areas. Typically, a Leftist is willing to give you social freedom, but wants control of your economic life, while a Rightist is willing to give you economic freedom, but wants to control your social life. Someone who really believes in individual freedom doesn't want to control either your social or your economic life.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[canecubo]

"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."

Sadly, you're so blinded by your ideology you don't even see the lack of factual accuracy in this statement. There is a long tradition of authoritarian capitalism, here are just a few, for your reflection:

• Tsarist Russia
• The Second Empire (Napoleon III)
• Prussia, later Germany
• Nazi Germany
• The authoritarian/fascist states of central and eastern Europe between the wars and during WWII
• Spain under Franco
• Greece under the Colonels
• Iran under the Shah -- a violent and repressive regime if ever there was one
• Chile under Pinochet
• Brazil under authoritarian military rule
• for that matter, all other Latin American dictatorships: Mexico, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, etc. etc.
• Indonesia under Suharto
• South Africa under Apartheid
• The Philippines under Marcos
• South Korea under Military Rule

So as you see, the correlation between capitalism and true democracy is actually quite weak. I don't think the facts can be accused of being "illogical".

Re:Bla bla bla ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you not mind invasions of privacy becuase you are a Chink, or are you a Chink because you don't mind invasions of privacy?

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[DavidinAla]

You're talking about governments which exercised huge control the economy (in addition to repressing their people in other ways). If you want to call that capitalism, that's fine. But it's not what a free market really is. Even to take your definition, you could have a far more statistically significant correlation between capitalism and freedom than between capitalism and authoritarianism. For you to call Nazi Germany a capitalist country (when the economy was quite controlled in a top-down fashion) shows who is truly "blinded by your ideology."

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[marxmarv]

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. Would they have built their network as fast if

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. Does this account for political repression performed by proxy? Is a country still considered "free" if its barons do the oppressing with the blessing of the state? e.g. substance use screening (US funding being the most reliable determinant of the conclusions of scientific work in this area), background checks combined with gag clauses being common conditions of employment (employers can spy on and gossip about me with indemnity and impunity but industrial espionage is a crime and posting true accounts about employers puts one at risk of punitive damages), churches promoting discriminatory morality laws with tax-free money, the general selling-off and destruction of the public trust,...

Doesn't look so free anymore in the US, does it?

But maybe your analysis is right -- the US is home to massive corporate subsidies for Big Ag, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the Big Three automakers, the Big Five record companies, just about any big business. I guess the Big People don't need strong character when they can pay the little people to build and maintain character for them, or something.

But it ultimately makes as much sense as lambasting Ford because the bank robber drove a Mustang as his getaway car. Cars aren't purpose-built to rob banks, duh. High-speed facial recognition systems and content filters are purpose-built to quickly recognize individuals and hide content. There are very few legitimate businesses that have a legitimate need for such systems, casinos and child-friendly ISPs being the only ones that come to mind.

Just understand that Klein has an agenda here, and being evenhanded toward the free market certainly isn't on that agenda. The free market doesn't work without transparency. Recent laws in the US have enabled and in some cases mandated opacity for business. Waving a copy of Reason around isn't going to make that go away.

oops, damn mouse button, what I meant to say was:

[marxmarv]

Would they have built out their surveillance network as fast if they had to build it themselves? Reference Godwin's Law and IBM.

If it hasn't worked for England, why anywhere?

[SuperKendall]

Despite the presence of many centralized CCD cameras in London, crime levels have yet to be reduced.

If police cannot effectively track and follow criminals, what makes anyone think China can do any better tracking and following dissidents? It's a lot more obvious on a camera when a real crime is being committed, far less so when a thought crime is...

What makes anyone think we should not laugh at the Chinese for attempting this? Let them waste their money on this fruitless pursuit of technology that someone with a square of cloth or a bit of paint can work around.

People would be wise to remember that China has done a lot worse things than point cameras at people in the past. It seems like dissidents would be better off with a China that has fewer actual agents on the streets to collect and track people, and more worthless cameras collecting so much data they are unusable.

Re:If it hasn't worked for England, why anywhere?

[Free the Cowards]

I believe that the unspoken opinion on Slashdot is that cameras are only useless in free societies, and that totalitarian societies are much better able to make use of them. This is how people are simultaneously able to hold the opinion that 1984 warned us about all of this and these cameras aren't all that useful anyway.

I'm not even sure that this unspoken opinion is wrong. If cameras can be sufficiently automated, or even just enough people can be put on duty watching them, then they can be used to compile behavior habits which don't pass the threshold of crime but which can be used for other oppressive purposes. The big worry with the proliferation of cameras in free societies is that the push to make use of the cameras will result in those societies becoming much less free.

Re:If it hasn't worked for England, why anywhere?

[Urkki]

The thing that matters is, what can they do with the things they see with the cameras. If they can come and take you with impunity because you smiled the wrong way, then it's a big deal if they can track your smiles with automatic camera system.

Re:If it hasn't worked for England, why anywhere?

[sabrex15]

It seems that the world's countries, (at least the majority) have come to some sort of realization. The fact that the population is growing almost beyond what the earth can support. Why do all these countries want to surveil the populace? With the guise that it is for our own protection and just to catch the criminals, it seems there is something grave to hide from us, /. included. I, for one ... do NOT welcome our "new overlords". For a long time the laws have been against our free speech (in the US). With each little step we can say less and less, oh sure you can say anything that is on your mind, unless it offends joe blow in XXXXX state. That's amendment #1, and they ARE attacking #2 as I write this. (Obama I am speaking about now) Oh sure they will start with only 1 gun per month... needless to say the national guard/army/us forces and the populace are NOT evenly matched, so even if we do decide to have a militia, we cannot defend ourselves. It has been brought up I believe 3 times at a United Nations meeting to de-arm the United States (thankfully it has been voted down every time). I am neither a republican nor a democrat, but if we get someone in office who wants to sweet talk every nation in the world we will lose our ability to defend ourselves, and there goes #2 off the list.

I say to all, (this is my take on a dire situation) IF we lose the right to bear arms... will the National Guard be the ones to take our firearms away?.. no.. I don't believe so. For example, if you and joe blow from XXXXX have been hunting all your life, and there is an order to remove weapons from your household, he might just "not see" your weapons. I do think however, since the UN has been prevalent in most countries that are a part, the "UN" will come to your house and take your firearms. Swedish, French, etc, etc troops will the be ones coming to your door. My friends I only say this now because I am worried about the state of our Nation. I'm an avid /.'er and I care about the state of our country. I bring the second amendment up because without it we are no more protected from our government than any other nation in this post 9/11, global economy.

Re:If it hasn't worked for England, why anywhere?

[SuperKendall]

The point I am trying to make, is that surveillance itself is not the same as tyranny. It does not matter why they *want* to do it, as in action it is ineffectual at *doing* anything to (or for) you.

I am with you on the right to own firearms being key, and as much as the UN would like to so they are so ineffectual at all else I can't see them taking away anything - certainly not without American backing, and we can see gun control is essentially a lost cause here for now as even Hillary and Obama must profess something of a delight in firearms (or at least not disdain).

Basically, Douglas Adams was right - Don't Panic.

Re:If it hasn't worked for England, why anywhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dirty fucking sacks of cow guts like you should just shut the fuck up and leave the internet to the grown ups. Quit polluting the gene pool of fish with your endless masturbation.

Welcome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our Chinese brothers into the secure world of police surveillance!

From Austin, TX:
Sixth Street is only one of four "high-crime" areas in which Chief Acevedo plans to install "Big Brother"-style surveillance cameras. Other targets include the intersection of North Lamar and Rundberg; 12th Street and Chicon in East Austin; and along Montopolis Blvd. on the Southeast side of town. The particular neighborhoods have ostensibly been chosen because they have "high crime rates." Chief Acevedo believes he can get "federal funds" to pay surveillance equipment manufacturers and installers, and for maintenance of the system. It is likely these monies would be allocated from the Department of Homeland Security as an âoeanti-terrorismâ measure. The Statesman raised questions over some important details yet to be arranged in the Chiefâ(TM)s camera proposal. Tony Plohetski reported (1/24/08)

Redundant? Modtard!

[symbolset]

I just finished rereading this book. Interesting that it's not entered the public domain yet in the US, even though it was written sixty years ago.

Your post deserved better than this moderation. The all-seeing eye of Big Brother is a tyranny to be avoided. Next time cite the author though, ok?

I remember

[solidot]

this:China's All-Seeing Eye

You are confused

[symbolset]

You are confusing communism in theory with communism in practice. It's a common error and your reeducation team will be around presently to correct the error.

Re:You are confused

[Kharny]

And you are confusing maoism with communism.

There is no such thing as practical communism, it's a theoretical model with no real-life application due to human nature. The chinese state is a semi-feudal society.

Re:You are confused

[symbolset]

And you are confusing maoism with communism.

There is no such thing as practical communism, it's a theoretical model with no real-life application due to human nature. The chinese state is a semi-feudal society

And... an economic theory with no practical applications is ... what?

I'm grasping for a definition that is not [null]. Throw me a bone here.

Re:You are confused

[Anonymous Coward]

And... an economic theory with no practical applications is ... what?

A bit shit?

Re:You are confused

[Anonymous Coward]

The very word, Communism (spelled with capital C is "communism in theory"). Look it up if you don't believe me.

The former poster is not confused, because he is hinting this sort of abuse can come from any government, and the story too points to how commercial entities can pressure this sort of thing into our existence. This is why we need to be vigilant and never allow people to forget.

Re:You are confused

[Anonymous Coward]

"You are confusing communism in theory with communism in practice. It's a common error and your reeducation team will be around presently to correct the error."

Sorry I just have to comment on this, why is this is a pet peeve of mine because in the west. Whenever something bad or detrimental as a results of markets in practice gets rationalized away as not being "real capitalism" or a "real free market". How is this different from you rationalizing the formers statement away? The most capitalist country in the world (USA) is also the most at war with other countries, captialism just externalizes it's costs onto others via wars rather and let problems lay fallow until they blow up (sub prime crisis).

Whenever something bad in the market happens like sub-prime fiasco, or the great depression, the free market fundies are quick to remind us it's not 'real captialism' or 'the market is working'. To these people they are not seen somehow as failures of capitalism or free markets. I think the problem is that people backwards rationalize a reason why their ideals are superior to others, through prejudice and personal preference rather then 'reason' there is not one human nature, there are many, and the steretype "thats human nature" one could say the of slavery "slavery will never end, thats human nature" or "fuedalism will never end thats human nature", history has again and again shown idealogues to be wrong nad I would expect the same with both capitalist, socialist and communist models since these are mere words that do not describe reality as it is and the problems people face.

And this is the reason why I am non-idealogical, since the world is more complex then any idealogy, since the real world is about geometry and the configuraiton of matter and energy, most idealogy is merely prejudice wrapped in bluster with criticisms (some valid, some not) of alternative ways of arranging and living.

Re:You are confused

[symbolset]

The former poster is not confused, because he is hinting this sort of abuse can come from any government, and the story too points to how commercial entities can pressure this sort of thing into our existence. This is why we need to be vigilant and never allow people to forget.

But... we have arms. And if we did not, the most oppressive government on earth cannot abolish the laws of chemistry. It would be foolish to try. Tyrants can be foolish briefly, but I won't worry myself about such transient foolishness. It would cost a patriot only his life to safe his heirs from this nonsense. It's a small price for such a great reward. I refuse to believe there are not a million fellow citizens that would leap to their duty among our 300 millions.

the irony

[blad3runn69]

how - ironic capitalists helping communists to screw themseleves, heh go figure

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Anonymous Coward]

"Iran under the Shah" was due to the UK and USA.

Same for Chile, and a few of the rest you listed (and many you didn't :) ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_U.S._regime_change_actions

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[DavidinAla]

Your assumptions are so ill-founded that it makes the rest of your rant worthless. I don't defend the United States as free, as you seem to think. We've been slowing losing our economic freedom since at least the late 19th century. (The only positive things insofar as freedom in this country is that we've gained a bit in some areas of social freedom.) Most companies are so "in bed" with big government today that we have Facism Lite, not capitalism. You can't declare support of the current U.S. economic system to be my position and then try to make me defend it. In addition to making unsupported assumptions about my point of view, you don't seem to understand that free people can do evil things, but that doesn't make the system under which they exist evil. Do some free people help evil people do evil? Sure, but that has nothing to do with making real freedom evil.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wait....

[crhylove]

You mean it's going to be just like the US and UK already are?!? I agree that is horrifying!!!

If you are concerned about human rights and the right to privacy in any country, please feel free to spread this image around:

http://a819.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/8/l_16c58f4c82c1b2155b841ff67aeb02ba.jpg

just following the UK's lead

[speculatrix]

well, China wants to be like the west, so it's only copying the English government.

sadly, whilst this is a vague attempt at humour, it's also mostly true.

I did have a longer response but the stupid new slashdot posting mechanism caused me to lose it when I accidentally clicked on something using my overly sensitive touch pad, had to click back and of course its gone.

Feeding the poor

[TapeCutter]

"I am amazed. This has to be a joke, right? China is currently a largely agricultural society where a majority of citizens still live in the mountains. The money spent on bugging the population could be better spent on feeding the poor. I am surprised at how short-sighted the Communists are, and I already hold them in pretty low esteem."

China has dragged more people out of poverty in the last 30yrs than the rest of the planet combined and it has done so on a fraction of the resources available to the west.

Sure, Mao's 'cultural revolution' was a state managed famine that killed millions at the stroke of an ideological pen, however the 'gang of four' and their genocidal ideology were kicked out of power a long time ago.

Re:Feeding the poor

[ipX]

They managed this partly by limiting their population to having one child per family. This is a policy that is coming under heavy scrutiny in the aftermath of the quake.

Oblig. Max Headroom reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like I'll be changing my name to Blank Reg now.

This exact same article,

[dmm1285]

same title and all, was on the front page a couple of weeks ago: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/18/1630208 [slashdot.org]

Job creation...

[flyingfsck]

It sounds like a way to provide work - have a few billion people watch a few billion other people. A totally pointless exercise, but it will keep them busy...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[demachina]

A key point about canecubo's list is that many of these regimes were at least condoned by the U.S. while many were puppet regimes out right installed by the U.S. just because they were anti communist, anti union and pro big business. Nazi Germany was openly embraced by the elites in the U.S. right up to 1939 and sometimes after. George W. Bush's grandfather, for example, was the American banker for the Thiessen family who bankrolled Hitler's rise to power.

If the United States is the guiding light to Capitalism and Freedom around the world, how come the U.S. is so closely aligned with so many repressive regimes. The answer is because capitalism has no real correlation to freedom. Capitalism is just as much at home in repressive right wing states as it is in liberal democracies. There is no real correlation between economic system and governmental model.

Capitalism does in fact flourish in right wing states, often very oppressive ones. Unbridled Capitalism has a nasty tendency towards wealth concentration in the hands of an elite few and the people with all the money almost inevitably seek to control all the levers of political power because it protects, supports and nourishes their economic interests. This is a cocktail which often leads to right wing dictatorial governments which are no friends to freedom. In particular they often are extremely fond of breaking up labor unions, because labor unions are good for workers but bad for profitability. They are also fond of rigging elections or getting rid of them all together because ruling elites are small and easily outvoted if you let all the poor unwashed masses have an actual say in their government. In the U.S. this has been accomplished by a two party system where both parties are controlled by the ruling elites and which never offer an actual choice to ordinary people.

The U.S. being a free society can mostly be attributed to the immense wisdom of our founding fathers who did create a remarkable framework for a free society. Unfortunately, its been slowly unraveling ever since. I think if the founding fathers saw the horror that is the Federal government, the state of civil liberties, and our two party system today, they would no doubt launch a second revolution to topple it and restore the government outlined in the Constitution which has been almost completely obliterated by our two political parties and the corporations and ruling elites which own them.

Capitalism is about profit, pure and simple. Freedom doesn't really have anything at all to do with profitability and often gets in its way. Capitalism and Freedom can coexist, in fact Capitalism is a helpful ingredient for freedom since it is extremely beneficial to control your own wealth rather than letting a bureaucratic state do it for you. Unfortunately Capitalism can and does flourish in repressive right wing states, always has and probably always will.

Catching up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. So the Chinese are watching their citizens as much as the UK and the US watches theirs?

Is the complaint that it has taken the Chinese so long to catch up on the level of snooping?

Steven.

Yeah, sure that'll work,

[Duncan Blackthorne]

It's always worked in the past, right? What a bunch of fucking bullshit. Know what else? We won't have to fire a single shot against China, ever, because they continue to perpetrate crap like this, there's eventually going to be a civil war over it. Human beings don't like being treated this way, and they can't jail the whole billion-plus of them -- not even by making the whole country into a prison -- which is essentially what they're trying to do. I don't care WHAT culture you're from, you can't make me believe that you LIKE being treated like a prisoner.

Re:Yeah, sure that'll work,

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you didn't know any better? What if you were so destitute, so ignorant, that everything you believed in was a lie? What if that lie was perpetrated by the ruling elite, who, as you've been told since childhood, are descended directly from God, and are therefore deserved of their position and power in society?

There is an ancient "religion" with billions of "followers" that is exactly as described above. Those "believers" have never revolted.

Don't be so quick to believe people won't stand for being subjugated for eternity. If your basic belief system teaches that you deserve your "fate", and worse still, you are incapable of questioning it, there will never be an escape for you. Ever.

Re:Yeah, sure that'll work,

[Duncan Blackthorne]

I don't know who the hell modded me up as "funny", but let me assure you all: I'M NOT BEING FUNNY, I'M DEAD SERIOUS. :-/

Re:Yeah, sure that'll work,

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Are you saying that makes it OK? If so then I can't agree with that, won't agree with that, will fight against that.

Re:Yeah, sure that'll work,

[Remus Shepherd]

You're confusing the terms 'Human Beings' and 'Americans'.

Americans riot and revolt when their government screws them over, because we've been steeped in the whole 'revolution is a good thing' bullshit since we were toddlers. We're taught that bad guys want power and good guys always win, and that's a recipe for a society that views its government as transient and replaceable -- as long as you replace it with something even more attuned to the ideals of freedom and justice and whatnot.

People from other countries and other times don't see things the american way. There is plenty of historical evidence that oppressed serfs will endure under hundreds of years of totalitarian rule. Maybe they feel it's God's law, or just the way of things, or that resistance is futile. I don't know -- I'm american, I don't understand it. But history shows us that a totalitarian regime can effectively imprison a populace for long periods of time, until the status quo is shaken by outside influences. And if these fascist measures go global, there will be no outside influences.

So yes, it can work, and they can do it in a way that avoids civil war if they get the system set up correctly. Which is why we should prevent them from doing so.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[DavidinAla]

Thanks for pointing this out. I was too disgusted by someone trying to claim that those countries represent capitalism to notice his unstated assumption that freedom and democracy are the same thing. You can ask 1,000 people today to define those two terms, and most of them will give synonymous definitions, at least one of which has to be incorrect. It's nice that there are still a few people who understand that democracy really means "dictatorship by the majority."

Posting from China

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a lot of the comments in this thread would be cause for Slashdot to be banned - but here I am, reading and posting with no probl~~~~ [NO CARRIER]

--

But seriously, I am in China, and the whole censorship thing is total BS. I can read all about Tiannenmen Square, and indeed anything else I like (including stuff that The Party may not), and no, I'm not using a proxy or any other workaround.

So put that in your FUD pipe and smoke it. Or paint your little red wagon with it, or whatever...

Re:Posting from China

[yt8znu35]

Restrictions have been relaxed in anticipation of the Olympics. This has been been widely reported. Once the Olympics are over, any semblance of electronic freedom will be as well.

Re:Posting from China

[sdsucks]

I just returned from China, and the censorship is not total BS. It's not very effective at all, but it is definitely in place and functioning.

Trying to get news during the early days of the earthquake proved interesting especially.

Practical communism exists

[symbolset]

I could not explain my family life otherwise.

It just doesn't scale up.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, if I ever need a good example of what an ad hominem attack is I'll just refer to this post.

Where is the communism?

[Anonymous Coward]

China is the most capitalist place I've ever been. Censorship has become more relaxed over the last few years with only extreme political and pornographic websites currently blocked. As for setting up a police state take a look at Britain, there have put up a lot of new cameras in Beijing but its still no where near as serious as Britain (Most seem to be aimed at the traffic anyway). Most people with extreme views on China have usually never been here.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[m0n5t3r]

Communism is the polar opposite of capitalism. ... unless, like a lot of Americans, one equates capitalism with corporatism (a.k.a. oligarchy), which is not that far away from communism: both mean the economical and political power are concentrated in the hands of a small number of people, which dispose of it as they please and can't be held accountable for their actions; in other words, communism is man exploiting man, corporatism (American implementation of capitalism) is the other way around.

note about the nosy chinese

[Anonymous Coward]

i think the main reason the chinese are so infatuated with snooping on each other is because they are just basically a very nosy people. this is just how they are, they are always wanting to know what everybody else is doing all the time. this is a cultural thing with them, and if you read back over their history you will notice a pattern that no matter who is in charge or what is going on their basic tendency is simply to be nosy. its so ingrained with them that i don't even think they really realize that others can see it quite clearly and i don't think they even realize they are actually just very nosy chinese. this will just be another way of them being nosy with each other. while other cultures wouldn't permit nosiness to the chinese degree, chinese can't get enough of it. they just want to be nosy. the nosy chinese will always be doing these things and we are just interpreting it without realizing its just how the nosy chinese are. these nosy chinese tendencies are just them being how they please to be, nosy chinese.

One year...

[Yvanhoe]

...and China will finally be on the same level as some Western countries !

Jokes aside, it is good to have a handy counter-example of what "not to do" with privacy laws. Too bad it harbors 1/5th of the planet population...

What capitalism is

[Jesrad]

There are lots of comments using big words like "capitalism" and "communism" and "totalitarianism", and as expected on /. the actual economics knowledge is very poor.

Capitalism is not industrialism, nor is it corporatism. It is the inclusion of the passing of time in economic calculations, which means three things: connecting markets of different time periods as in connecting present offer with future demand (speculation), integrating time preferences (interest in loans), and anticipating risks in your costs (insurance). The first two features have been in extensive use since at least the 1st century B.C., as is evident in the Roman Empire's banking system. The last one was invented in the 13th century by a monk and has, too, been in extensive use from then on. Capitalism has been in full use ever since. It's not to be conflated with any political system in particular - no political system can abolish capitalism since they can't abolish the passing of time and its effects on people's trading habits, they can only suppress trade directly.

I think its open to debate if China is remarkable for its "efficiency". It mostly just has lots of cheap labor, no labor unions and very weak pollution and safety regulation which means its a cheap place to do things like manufacturing. There are quite a few things working against its economic efficiency.

You hit the nail on the head here. The very particular ownership regulations of China, which are still very communistic in both spirit and letter, prevent the integration of a great many costs in the economic calculations. For example the land is owned by the state and cannot be owned and traded by the people making use of it: the owners have no incentive to increase or protect its value, so instead they milk it off as fast as they can for immediate gains in influence, renting it out as cheap dumping ground for industries that employ the citizens. The value lost here is monumental, and it does not make it to the GNP because there is no market for it - no valuation, no losses recorded. Same goes for homes, which are still extremely regulated, and a million other things they Chinese are not permitted to have and trade on their own.

Re:What capitalism is

[demachina]

"For example the land is owned by the state and cannot be owned and traded by the people making use of it: the owners have no incentive to increase or protect its value, so instead they milk it off as fast as they can for immediate gains in influence, renting it out as cheap dumping ground for industries that employ the citizens."

I recall reading recently that there is a substantial grass roots movement in rural China for land reform and privatization of farm land so farmers can start benefiting from Capitalism like the rest of the country. It seems China's massive rural population has started to notice that sum "lucky" people are getting massively rich off of Capitalism especially in the free economic zone in the south eastern coast. I imagine they've also noticed many of the nouveau riche in China are communist party boss who've abandoned Communist ideology so they can line their own pockets, often to the tune of billions of dollars.

It remains to be seen if the movement goes any where or if it is crushed like a bug by the Communist party, but at least some within China are waking up to the hypocrisy. You also have to wonder how you can equitably privatize farm land sixty years in to Communism.

Capitalism quote

[kvezach]

"I am not the first to point out that capitalism, having defeated Communism, now seems about to do the same to democracy. The market is doing splendidly, yet we are not, somehow." - Ian Frazier.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Opportunist]

Capitalism has about as much to do with free market as Communism with planned economy. They can be linked, but there is no immediate requirement for that.

I am sure we can agree that we "western" people live in a capitalist system. But is it a free market system? Well, it used to be for a while, to some extent, but this is getting eliminated. More and more laws are passed that eliminate the freedom of the market, shifting power towards corporations. Still, it's a capitalist world, even true to the definition.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Anonymous Coward]

To be free is to be able to make your own decision insofar as you're not infringing on others' rights or property.

Lol, remember your freshman logic classes?

When you're typing "rights or property", you're thinking of "rights and property as defined by capitalism". So, essentially, you're defining freedom as a capitalist society. In which case, yes, of course, freedom iff capitalism.

I could believe that private ownership of property is moral while believing that capitalist methods of acquiring property are not moral. For example, I could believe that no second home owner has the right to police protection against squatters (no-one's using my tax money to protect someone who's making profit from such little effort, thanks), essentially destroying the private property rental industry.

Incidentally, adding up all the taxation in the average Western nation, over 50% of our productivity goes to the government, wealth which is redistributed as the government sees fit to favor particular corporations, organizations and individuals. Given what'd happen if you were to suddenly try to stop the government from taking its slice of the pie at every stage of creation of some particular good or service, you'd be an idiot to call the US capitalist.

Huh?

[ScrewMaster]

...the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state...

Can somebody please explain what the Hell that means?

Re:Huh?

[SpinyNorman]

It's referring to the staggering success of Shenzhen - a centrally planned capitalist city (an ecomonic enclave within a communist state) that didn't even exist 30 years ago, and now, per the article, probably produces HALF of everything you own. It's hard to imagine the meandering forces of democracy or the free market coming up with something so successful - rather like an optimal designed solution vs an evolutionary sub-optimal one.

Re:Redundant? Modtard!

[aproposofwhat]

If you're interested, you can read it here.

I'd especially recommend the essays - Politics and the English Language is a classic, and as a rabid anti-Zionist, AntiSemitism in Britain always helps to bring a sense of proportion to any outrage I feel when Israeli misdemeanours~ are reported on the news.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[daliman]

Your assessment of Right vs Left seems reasonably accurate; we really need a slightly more complex way to specify these things, specifying social left/right and economic left/right.

Basically, all of the bastards seem to want to control something, normally as much as possible.

The GP was saying "quantify", because without some sort of quantification it's difficult to say one is more free than the other. While the countries that are currently more capitalistic may be currently more "free", the old slashdot adage applies; correlation is not causation. Perhaps the increased freedom simply allows capitalism to flourish more easily, not the other way around.

I thought Slashdot was better than Digg,

[smitingpurpleemu]

then why is sensationalist garbage like this being posted? This is garbage that gets dugg up because of the douchebags at digg but has absolutely no place in a respectable forum.

My 2d amendment. Let me show you it.

[symbolset]

Let me prefix this comment with a personal note of concern for your personal welfare. Your dosage. Check it. If your English is good you have issues requiring immediate medical attention.

Communism works in intimate settings but doesn't work in wide practice. It's been tried numerous times in various ways and noone has found a way to make it work. Even the best intentioned communist societies succumb to oligarchy and personality tyranny in short periods of time. The common man is too easily swayed for communism to work well. Bread and circuses.

Pure Capitalism also doesn't work in practice, but it takes much longer for the failures to be apparent. Ultimately those with capital discover their best result is to enslave (in practice if not in name) those without capital to preserve their comfortable positions.

Pure democracy was also tried - in Germany in 1933. They only had one election though. It didn't end well. Quite a mess getting quit of that one.

A noble experiment involving a mix of federal democracy and capitalism is under way in North America. It's only been 230 years. That's not as old as a good house in most of Europe. A good oak tree is older by far. It's not going well. Apparently vox populi is not the voice of reason. I'm participating in it and the consensus among my friends is "a pox on all their houses." We're engaged in a cyclic divestment of our national wealth to airlines, banks, mortgage banks, auto manufacturers, oil companies, insurance companies, doctors, lawyers, oil nations, China and the aged. That list may expand based on groups supporting this year's presidential election. Apparently it costs half a billion dollars to be elected president of the US. Bill Gates? Where are you when we need you most? This is pocket change for you. You've retired from Microsoft. Get in the real game.

But we have a constitutional right to bear arms, so if it gets too bad... well, you know. We'll fix it. Those founding fathers were brilliant.

poor people cant buy shit

[poptones]

Jeezus, where do you people get this nonsense? You sound like one of those NWO conspiracy nuts who watch that nutcase on youtube with his "they want to rule us all and repress us" claptrap.

Simple fact: poor people can't buy shit. If these are capitalists then they know its in their best interest to foster a society of wealth. Why does the US foster oppressive regimes? Because they buy things like fighter jets and tanks to help them oppress their people - just like china buying computers and routers. It has nothing to do with some mad scientist conspiracy of an "elite few" to rule the world and everything to do with simple human nature - greed.

Re:poor people cant buy shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor people can buy a lot. Obviously, if the unwashed masses are in complete poverty, then it doesn't work, but poor people can most certainly buy things -- they need to buy things in order to survive in many cases (food, shelter, clothes, power, etc). Of course, using this method, you need to sell to a lot of people, which makes whoever does the selling part of the "few".

It's no conspiracy -- it's often the way it's been. It's just that these days, there are so many of us that that "few" is actually quite a lot.

Re:poor people cant buy shit

[demachina]

"Why does the US foster oppressive regimes?"

The U.S. fosters repressive regimes just because they are anti communist, anti worker, anti socialism and pro big business and Capitalism.

Some of the big historical reasons for U.S. sponsored coups are control of natural resources in countries when the population realizes they are being exploited by foreign multinationals. In the case of Iran the U.S. and Britain ran Operation Ajax to overthrew Mohammed Mosaddeq because he was nationalizing Iran's oil fields because Britain and the U.S. were taking Iran's wealth and giving Iran chump change for it. Certainly the oil companies deserved compensation for their substantial investments to find and develop those oil fields but the deals given the host countries were often bad and still are today. As I recall in the oil fields being developed off the west coast of Africa, the oil companies are still cutting deals that lined the pockets of the corrupt people running the host countries but are largely screwing the people of those countries out of much needed wealth. That Iranian coup installed the Shah of Iran, who was despised by his people en masse and lead to an Islamic revolution we are still dealing with today. The U.S. very much wants to topple Chavez in Venezuela for the same reason today because he nationalized oil fields controlled by the likes of Exxon Mobile.

The term "Banana Republic" refers to the tendency of the U.S. to send Marines in to Central and South America to protect the interest of United Fruit company(now Dole) which acquired ownership of vast plantations in those countries, manipulated the governments of said countries, and did its best to profit at the expense of the indigenous people in places like Honduras.

"Simple fact: poor people can't buy shit."

You do have a point here. There is certainly a big motivation in the mutinationals to get the Chinese and Indians rich enough to buy cars, TV's and all the other things they want to sell, and for which markets have peaked in the west. They want them to get just rich enough to afford these things, but not so rich that they turn in to "expensive" labor though. They are doing quite a good job of it appears since these markets are growing in China and India. Unfortunately its kind of a bad at a point in which there isn't enough oil to run all those cars, and where China in particular is going to burn massive amounts of coal to run all those appliances and global warming is going to snow ball.

It should be pointed out that Capitalists have divided loyalties. They do want affluent consumers to buy their goods. But they also want dirt cheap poor people to work in their factories for nothing. Globalization has been working perfectly for this because Capitalsts can just move the factories to where all the dirt poor people are and sell to where the affluent are. Unfortunately the affluent U.S. the economy is cratering since it doesn't produce anything of value any more. In China the cheap labor is starting to inflate so its not as desirable a place as it was to off shore.

Capitalism is all about a delicate balance of stratifying society. It doesn't want everyone to be rich because that results in expensive labor which is pure poison to capitalism. Unregulated it has always created a very wealthy elite because once you have a lot of money its very easy to make a lot more. If you don't have any money its very hard to ever get any. You live from paycheck to paycheck spending everything you make and you fill the role of cheap labor.

It will be interesting to see how many more iterations of moving the factories to the dirt poor countries can be done before there are no dirt poor third world countries to move to. Its possible by then the U.S. will be the dirt poor third world country and they can start offshoring work from China and India to the U.S.

If the robber barons of the late 19th century U.S. are any guide I seriously don't Capitalism goal is to enrich everyone. Their goal is to squeeze

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Admiral Ag]

Please use paragraphs.

You know, for all the accusations of communist wingnuttery that abound on the internet, the substance just isn't there. Apparently, Daily Kos is supposed to be a far left hate site, but when I go there, all I find are disaffected liberals and social democrats. I'd love to believe that there are authoritarian leftists just waiting to turn Western countries into police states, but I just can't find them.

Klein is a slightly cute Canadian lefty liberal. That's about it.

On the other hand, you cannot go anywhere on the internet without finding an endless supply of free market nutcases who are obvious fanatics, and who continue to pontificate on about Austrian Economics, an economic doctrine that no reputable economist endorses and which has never been shown to work. For all their problems, at least the communists managed to keep a society together for longer than ten minutes, and sometimes actually achieved stuff (like putting a guy in orbit).

The vast conspiracy of leftwing nutcases is in fact a conspiracy imagined by the vast actual conspiracy of rightwing market fundamentalist nutcases projecting their nuttiness on others.

Re:My 2d amendment. Let me show you it.

[Anonymous Coward]

But we have a constitutional right to bear arms, so if it gets too bad... well, you know. We'll fix it. Those founding fathers were brilliant.

Yeah. Let us know how you get on with your hand-guns and rifles against the US army's tanks, rocket launchers, (insert list of virtually all modern weapons systems) etc. Good luck!

Sort of Patriot Act

[Anonymous Coward]

But at least they don't pretend they believe in democracy (or am I soft on terrorism ?)

Re:Redundant? Modtard!

[symbolset]

and as a rabid anti-Zionist

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.

You dont have to jail a billion

[Viol8]

You just shoot the first few hundred who try anything then the other 999.9999 million suddenly find that keeping their heads down and tending their crops or working in a sweat shop suddenly seems that whole lot more appealing. Works everywhere in the world - look at Zimbabwe for another example.

The link to the summary in Solidot

[justkeeper]

Which is China's version of Slashdot:http://society.solidot.org/society/08/06/02/0955249.shtml,,the title reads:China 2084.

Someone mod parent UP for god's sake!

[Anonymous Coward]

+Insightful someone?

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the USA, "free" markets are often not controlled by corporations? Many of the big corporations have more power than some 3rd world dictatorships do.

Yeah, I guess it's free in that it's theoretically open to competition.

Dupe

[SpinyNorman]

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/18/1630208

Simply: I am a citizen for surveillance

[evil_arrival_of_good]

I want detection of crimes, and apprehension of criminals, to be fundamentally rooted in machine automation. I am for these machines being implemented by both government and private citizens. Using populist cloud technologies ( e,g, some variation of Youtube and real time chat rooms) citizens could make this type of law enforcement a design of the community rather than design of distant bureaucratic experts working for a specific political regime ( e.g. the Bush Administration). We have entered an age in which privacy and anonymity lend more to vulnerability and non-representation in the economic system -and police protection is part of that economic system. 1984 is a great book, and was about Stalin's 1948 Russia, a powerless peasant class owned by an elite. But citizens in the 2008 G8 countries have access to technologies and sophisticated communications that render 1984's metaphors less meaningful. We have entered an era in which a happy and secure human is enabled by assistance from machine automation in domains considered sociological.

come on guys...

[sydneyfong]

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?

Re:come on guys...

[IndustrialComplex]

The government doesn't have to HAVE total control. The people just need to think that the government is close enough for it to work. Self-censorship then takes care of the rest.

Re:come on guys...

[Paul server guy]

Mod Parent up! The only rights you have are the rights you /think/ you have!

Re:Redundant? Modtard!

[aproposofwhat]

And how is being anti-Zionist wrong, exactly?

I have (had - he died in 1979) a great uncle that served as an intelligence officer in Palestine during the Mandate, and heard from him first hand about the terrorism conducted by Irgun, Rosh Haganah and their like.

Funnily enough, he was quite complimentary about the Arabs.

I think that may have coloured my opinion somewhat.

Thanks for your solicitude, though - if I fancy a warm death I will certainly consider your advice.

Make Big Brother work *FOR* you

[redelm]

Many people do not realize it, but the United States exerts very strong jurisdiction and control over all exports. This dates back to the 1790s when export of certain pine logs was prohibited because the British Navy could use them in warships.

So lobby your congresscritter to have the relevant technologies added to the Commerce Control List. Ty-Raps large enough to be used as handcuffs are already there for exactly this reason. It might not stop the Chinesee, but it will stop American facilitation. The penalties are hefty.

Question?

[PortHaven]

How is this different than all the CCTV cameras on every new stoplight post?

Or carnivore checking emails. Or all of our cell phones being monitored?

China's just trying to catch up to the U.S.A. & U.K.

It is ridiculous to bash companies for doing this

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. You can't really blame companies such as IBM, Cisco, etc. If they do not move into the market, some else will. It is hypocritical of us to criticize them. Why? Because our government has established the legal framework that allows us to trade with China. If you are unhappy with the way China behaves, you should ask our government to issue an embargo against them. Heck... we have an embargo against Cuba because they are a regime much like the Chinese one. Why don't we have an embargo against China as well? An embargo would level the field because no competitor would be able to jump ahead of each other when it comes to taking over the Chinese market. So if you are not happy with the brutal dictatorship in China, write to your congressman and ask for an embargo. It does not make sense to blame the companies. They are doing what they are supposed to do.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S. this has been accomplished by a two party system where both parties are controlled by the ruling elites and which never offer an actual choice to ordinary people. Interesting post, but I have to disagree with this point. I see no evidence in the US of the masses striving to find a third party to overturn the major two. I see people who care more about fluff issues than real matters of governance. I see people who choose their leader based on meaningless symbolism or affiliation. Finally, I see people who have been convinced that a government's proper role is to be a ruling elite. Elections are therefore a matter of marketing. Convince the people that your (immaterial) stance on issue A is a moral imperative. Convince them that you're one of them. Convince them that you deserve unchecked authority by divine right. If you have a big enough marketing budget (and an extraordinary lack of principle) then you will be elected.

China bashing article of the day

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta have to satiate the /. and diggers appetite for China bashing. Too bad you have to recycle, you guys should dig up some new sensationalized garbage or write your own.

Re:Redundant? Modtard!

[Count Fenring]

Given the choice of reading material you put up, I'm assuming this is not the case, but on the internetwebitrons, "rabid anti-zionist" links in to a particular brand of conspiracy-whackjobbed anti-semitism. I think you're identifying with non-support of Israeli policy coupled with non-belief in "the Holy land belongs to Jews on religious grounds," as opposed to "Ah'm a skinhead but don' lahk to let on, then the gummint will take mah kids and guns away."

Assuming you're not looking to identify with that definition, explicit definition of what you mean by anti-zionist might avoid some grief based on the median (perhaps also mode) anti-zionist.

Band, er, banned

[Megane]

I guess they're not going to let you make a music video using the footage from this, then?

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[Aceticon]

Actually the sweet spot for Capitalism seems to be when people are not free but believe they are free.

The right balance between keeping the rift-raft under control and keeping them motivated and working hard = maximum profit.

This goes a long way to explain why the memes of "America land of the free", "America the greatest country in the world" and "In the US everybody has a chance to make it big-time" are constantly being pushed by US media, even though nowadays they are all false:

• Guantanamo, snooping laws, one of the highest incarceration rates in the world
• Highest Human Development Index - Ireland, Highest Life Expectancy - Japan, Highest GDP per-capita - Luxembourg (source http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_ISL.html)
• Social mobility in the US at the lower end of the scale (source http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/IntergenerationalMobility.pdf)

But hey, it's still better than North Korea.

Signed: One European that has been exposed to one too many ignorant American.

PS: In my experience, most Americans I've met that actually spent some time living and working in a country other than the US - vacations do not count - are usually much more well informed and realist about the US itself and the rest of the world than most of those who didn't.

Hysterical, anti-US slanted drivel - typical

[argStyopa]

Naomi Klein is an idiot, and her editors at Rolling Stone are likewise idiots for printing this crap.

1) The subtitling: 'With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export.'...well, yeah, but let's phrase it more accurately and a little less hysterically: China is building a high tech police state, US megacorps are helping. First, why would we call it the 'prototype' for a police state? China IS, WAS, & WILL BE a police state, not some tentative experiment into police statery. And all the players in this article are giant international megacorps - I'm guessing that there are probably other megacorps from other countries that are also involved wherever they can be. It's a BILLION-consumer market...any publicly held company would be ROASTED by its shareholders for not jumping in where they can. I'm not making a judgment on the morality of the companies involved, but Ms. Klein's phrasing and approach is so (anti)US-centric, it borders on mendacity. Ironically, Klein herself has railed against the US embargo against Cuba. So which is it, Ms Klein? I don't want to make you sound like simply an anti-American hypocrite, but when we are confronted with a socialist, anti-democratic state, are we supposed to deal with them or not?

2) "Remember how we've always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American "homeland security" technologies, pumped up with "war on terror" rhetoric." What? How in the hell does one connect Adam Smith's capitalism - which requires free information to consumers, and consumers that are able to choose freely - with a communist-style police state?

Naomi Klein may be staggeringly well-connected, and seems to have come from one of those 'classic' affluent Socialist families (ironic?) in which she would have been fed the creed that capitalism=oppression to the point where it's simply a bedrock assertion, I guess. Wealth, privilege, education, and access to the corridors of a media that likes your message doesn't intrinsically increase the wattage of a low-candlepower bulb, apparently.

Re:Hysterical, anti-US slanted drivel - typical

[piemcfly]

I agree that Klein is a little over-the-top on a lot of issues, but you're making a few silly assumptions yourself there.

1 - note that she calls it a prototype of a HIGH TECH police state. that's an important distinction there. wether you agree with her general position or not, this technology is in fact a new thing that makes an old, standard police state high tech. so yes, it would be alright to call it a prototype. If you disagree with her general thesis, that's fine, but if you're going to complain about her phrasing, at least read the phrasing right.

1b - 'to deal or not deal' with socialist states? The question is not about dealing, the question is about dealing ethically. The embargo on cuba is bad and unethical, punishing a people for its (unelected) dictator, in fact allowing that dude to stay in power. Just like american companies doing dirty jobs for dirty governments is bad and unethical. Also, you can't compare governments and multinationals one-on-one. Here Klein talks about companies doing unethical trade in China. With Cuba, she talks about the US government not allowing any companies to do any trade in/with Cuba. Big difference.

2 - 'classic affluent socialist families'. Yeah, go ahead and pull that one out of the big magic hat again. Somebody can't be socially concerned and 'affluent' on the same time? A classic ad hominem that never grows old, innit?

2b - how do you connect capitalism with a police state? Well, very simple. Let's take china. A maoist-communist state in its political sphere, with a capitalist, freemarket economical sphere. She's not linking (economical) communism and capitalism here, she's linking the opressive-totalitarian tendencies of post-communist regimes with capitalism, which really is not all that strange. Ask Deng Xiaoping, it's been working out pretty well for his comrades.
I agree that her article is full of loaded language and silly rethorics, but this comparison really isn't so strange.

Klein is silly in a lot of aspects, but ignoring the rethorics for a second, it is important to keep pointing out the misconduct of multinational companies. It seems people are entirely ignoring the subject at hand just to complain about Klein, 'socialism' (or at least the misguided american conception of it) and 'those leftwing radicals' here.

Workers Unite!

[yt8znu35]

"But while China's cities need these displaced laborers to work in factories and on construction sites, they are unwilling to offer them the same benefits as permanent residents: highly subsidized education and health care, as well as other public services. While migrants can live for decades in big cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou, their residency remains fixed to the rural community where they were born, a fact encoded on their national ID cards. As one young migrant in Guangzhou put it to me, 'The local people want to make money from migrant workers, but they don't want to give them rights. But why are the local people so rich? Because of the migrant workers!'"

Sounds like the place is ripe for a communist revoluion.

This is a cultural thing

[RobinH]

I'm glad people are aware of what's going on and are leery of it. We need to talk about it. But I just don't see the public in North America allowing it to happen here, not in this scale. Our culture values personal freedoms much more than the Chinese culture. No matter how much the government tries to scare us into these kinds of things for our own protection, our cultural heritage provides a certain amount of immunity to this kind of thing.

What's needed her is a good rational reminder of why our people value personal freedoms. It's not so that you can download music for free, it's to prevent individuals from gaining too much power over the masses. Too bad we can't enlist a good influencer like Michael Moore to explain it in prole speak for us... It seems that big brother always has the best orators.

Re:This is a cultural thing

[alexborges]

Here is the scary part.

The way I see it, the powers that be read all of huntington and recon that the new era is an era not unlike the cold war.

Its Asia Vs. Occident all over again, but with lots of nukes lying around and the muslim crowd stuck in the middle.

The powers that be in occident, the way I see it, have already decided to copy china's totalitarian success. You see it in the neocons stance about the war, especially when you confront that stance with the way they admire China and their new system.

It is a future where only fascism (occidental classic fascism or oriental commie-painted fascism) will prevail. After that, its a full blown corporatocracy that will be proposed as the natural evolution of men.

SnowCrash is finaly here.

History widely recongnizes this differently....

[rahvin112]

...the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state...

History widely recognizes Facism as the best system for Capitalism. Facism by it's nature is almost uniformly a corporate government where key industrialists make most of the decisions and raw production become paramount above any other economic fact. Communism faces a number of key differences with Facism, such as worker rights (Unions and their leaders are uniformly wiped out under facism because they present a challenge to those in power) which by their very nature are the antithesis of capitalism. Only a fool would say Communism or any socialism where worker rights are the number one political issue (even if ignored by the government, unions are almost mandatory in China) is the best delivery system for Capitalism.

Have truly fascist governments been gone so long that everyone forgets what they are like?

Also in Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Sweden we're about to get almost the same kind of surveillance. Last year the EU approved a directive forcing ISPs to store information about connections made by their clients for at least 6 months. Sweden went ahead and made it at least 1 year.

On June 17th the parliament will pass a law forcing ISPs to send a copy to FRA (Swedish SIGINT) of everything that passes Swedish borders for analysis. This also goes for phone calls and makes no exception for traffic going to newspapers or the police, thus making it impossible to make anonymous tips or protecting the identity of information givers.
What is even more scary is the way it is implemented. FRA used to only be allowed to look for foreign military threats in the air (something which has been unveiled as illegal now) for the Swedish defensive forces. Now they will be allowed to read both cable and air and look for immigration waves, monetary speculation as well as terrorist and military threats.
On top of that though, they will also be allowed to take assignments from Swedish police and foreign department which does not have any restrictions, basically giving them a sort of NSL that doesn't require a court order.

All this intelligence gathering is also done without any suspicion of crime in case someone commits a crime later on.

Re:Redundant? Modtard!

[aproposofwhat]

OK - my anti-Zionism is rooted in my upbringing (my great uncle lost numerous friends to Zionist terrorists - you can call them freedom fighters if I can call Hamas the same).

But I'm not antisemitic - hell, I went to a school that was about 1/4 Jewish, and had a lot of non-Zionist Jewish friends.

I love how this is America's fault somehow

[gatkinso]

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.

Re:I love how this is America's fault somehow

[alexborges]

Well... America's answer to eastern totalitarianism is occidental totalitarianism, unilateral warmongering and a continuous erosion of the international legal system.

Its not that the US is "to blame" for anything. Its that the contry leading occident should start seeing itself as one, and accepting responsibility for what she does or does'nt do when confronting her actions with her leadership status.

Most of occident would follow the US if the US was accountable for her actions in the international system.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[neuromancer23]

Of course people in the U.S. have been taught to believe that by the public school system which furthers a communist agenda.

Corporatism is a form of communism (i.e. the violent robbery and suppression of one group of people for the benefit of an other group) not capitalism. The fact is that the United States is not now, nor has it ever been a capitalist country. The very term "capitalist country" is itself an oxymoron. Capitalism (i.e. the individuals right to engage in economic self-determination) is fundamentally incompatible with the concept of government.

America is and always has been a communist country:

http://www.criminalgovernment.com/docs/planks.html

exported? Yeah, by us

[Anonymous Coward]

'Chinese citizens will be watched around the clock through networked CCTV cameras"

Australia and the UK also have extensive CCTV camera networks. No idea about the USA but I wouldn't be surprised.

  and remote monitoring of computers."

And ISPs are forced to keep logs and respond to law enforcement requests by identifying users and offering those logs. In the USA you have the patriot act which lets them do it free from press or reporting scrutiny.

"They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies."

An idea given to them, no doubt, by the USA who routinely tap phone calls. Australia and the UK are no saints here either.

"Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall."

Fair point. Although Australia's government has repeatedly attempted to push similar Great Firewall technology "to protect our children". They have failed a few times, but they only need to succeed once.

"Their movements will be tracked through national ID card"

You think yours aren't? Not that it matters, since you're far more easily tracked through your credit cards.

"with scannable computer chips"

Australia are trying to push through national ID cards with RFID chips in them. China may be ahead of the curve here, but make no mistake that USA, UK and Australia will follow suit fairly soon.

"photos that are instantly uploaded to police databases and linked to their holder's personal data.'"

Just as with passports, drivers' licenses, and other ID cards. That is, databases which police and other government agencies have access to.

  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.'"

ready for export? Please. It already exists and is being exported by us.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[demachina]

"In my experience, most Americans I've met that actually spent some time living and working in a country other than the US"

I'm American but I've lived in Canada for years. I have to agree the luster does quickly wear off the U.S. as soon as you see it from outside, and especially get away from the saturation coverage of the American media, schools and government telling everyone in America how wonderful America is. It simply isn't that great a country any more if ever it was. It sure has never really promoted freedom around the world like the propaganda says it did. It was mostly just a huge beneficiary of being one of the the last great untapped frontiers and it benefited mightily from being protected from the ravages of two world wars by two big oceans. Now that all of those edges are exhausted its becoming more and more apparent that the America system and the American people are pretty much morally, intellectually and economically bankrupt. It hasn't helped that recent American governments were completely incompetent and drove America off a cliff.

Relax and have a Coke

[^_^x]

Come on now... let's just forget about that boring stuff and enjoy the Olympics! Those people who gathered around to welcome the torchbearer sure seemed excited so it must be a good one! ...or we could boycott them and their sponsors. The IOC won't care, but if the sponsors wind up digging themselves into a pit with bad PR they might think twice before signing on again. Wishful thinking, I know, but why help them?

Damn The Torpedoes

[Damn The Torpedoes]

One name comes to mind: George Orwell

Re:Bla bla bla ???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all about the money apart from Western values. The current geopolitical view is that Western values were nothing more than a tolerated byproduct where world history is concerned. Once the associated values could be successfully divorced from the money, everywhere else in the world has more than welcoming.

Troll -n- a statement of uncomfortable and irrefutable truth.

Insecurity Theater

[SuperKendall]

I believe that the unspoken opinion on Slashdot is that cameras are only useless in free societies, and that totalitarian societies are much better able to make use of them. This is how people are simultaneously able to hold the opinion that 1984 warned us about all of this and these cameras aren't all that useful anyway.

As I noted in my original post, the goals of both police and fascist would seem to be the same when using cameras. Police would be looking for behavior patterns (and actual crime) just as the chinese government would. It has not worked in England despite best efforts, and quite a lot of technology deployed.

This is Slashdot - we are supposed to be able to look at these things from a technologically informed view. Well then, as a technologist I realize the practical reality that you cannot put up a million cameras and have anything of value come from them without so much manpower, you might as well have patrolled the streets to start with. Facial recognition cannot help you, for anyone seeking to thwart the cameras can simply partially obscure themselves so automated tracking is useless. The cameras themselves are easily tampered with, as England has seen with widespread traffic camera damage (in protests against unfair speeding cameras). You can never have so many cameras that people cannot simply slip away from them if they wish, or simply move to a less covered region and travel in to the covered area from time to time taking precautions as I said.

1984 is a good cautionary tale, but too many people take it as stright-up reality instead of a story, which did not have to go into great detail to explain just how massive wide-spread monitoring really helps oppress people all that much and how in fact it technically works at all. Again I say we are better off letting fascist pursue a pipe dream rather than spending money on more effective tools of oppression, which always ends up being people on the streets watching everyone. That in the end is what you have to have for true oppression to exist, monitoring is but one half of the equation.

Let's say airports everywhere put cameras in every corner of every airport (which is probably the case today anyway) and then declared it impossible for crime to pass undetected. All of Slashdot would chortle in uproarious laughter at the thought that the cameras could truly stop or even meaningfully deter criminals, and come up with a million ways to bypass them. They would rightfully label this as another aspect of security theater.

Well then how is the Chinese attaching cameras to every lamp-post not equally insecurity theater of the most absurd sort? Using reason we know it simply cannot work, for the same reasons we laugh at examples of security theater here.

It's not even like we have a choice in the matter, the Chinese government will do as it wishes. But people need to stop freaking out so much and think instead, about the practical realities of such a thing and what it really means. I guarantee you real Chinese dissidents are doing so as we speak and are a lot more level headed than most Slashdot posters.

Re:Insecurity Theater

[Free the Cowards]

I tend to agree, but I still think that a government such as China's will be able to make more use of such a system than, say, the UK's.

One reason is because China can probably hire more people to integrate with such a system, both to watch the cameras and to respond on the street, simply because Chinese people work so cheap and they spend much less money on social programs and other such things.

Another reason is that Chinese police may be more willing to act on vague activities, and be more willing to carry through those actions further. For example, if a group of people get together at an odd time of day and talk for a while but do nothing else, I assume (hope?) that British police will just shrug it off. Chinese police may start keeping track of them or pay them a visit, and this could lead to worse.

And lastly, oppressive countries have more public crimes. Think about participating in an unsanctioned demonstration, for example. In the UK mostly nobody cares, but if you do this in China then bad things happen soon. An extensive camera network significantly reduces your chances of being able to get away from something like that without punishment, and thus having such an extensive camera network will cut down on such demonstrations in the first place, even if it doesn't help with what Westerners would consider to be "real" crime.

Re:Insecurity Theater

[SuperKendall]

It doesn't matter how many people you have behind a camera, because camera views are so easy to thwart.

Thus cameras or no, the Chinese are just back to men on the street - which they do already anyway, only now they've wasted a ton of resources on cameras and have men that could be out monitoring people instead working video screens out of harms way. There simply is no downside in letting a fascist government engage in boondoggles, it's not like they'd spend the money saved on the people after all.

She's coming

[alexborges]

Whilst there was naught to see beyond the mist of his bedroom, he knew the computer was there, watching.

"Up you go", he said to himself. Into the shower, into his polo shirt, into his fucking docker kakhis. Out the door, neighbors in their own fucking kakis. Neighbor wives into their own fucking kakis.

A fucking brown golden retreiver got him to think about the color kaki and to wonder about why does it contrive such peacefullness to him. He disregards that thought. He moves on.

He gets in the brown bus, heading to the brown office of Brown-Red Hat food division. He does not stop for lunch: its waiting for him in the cafeteria the exact momento his meal time comes up.

"Just in time, is how the japs did it, just in time is how i like it", its eleven o'clock, he finishes lunch. He goes back to the office. He gets no calls. He only codes two lines, and hits the green button, then the machine tells him what to do next. If he does not hit the green button every exactly one minute, a big red buzzer comes up, and that lady from up there will come and look down on him, she will tell him how he is endangering the possibilities of their kids, he is telling him about the new legal provissions that provides for the automatic inheritance of both credit and work records to his children.

She will drop a final line about the war, about how the red-chinks are going to "get us" because we do not know how to work for a common goal, as a team, and they can. Theyve learned to sacrifice for the lot. Theyve learned to trust their leaders.

Theyve learned that the gene-fight the cultural-fight is for the long run, and while we, a young occident, were fighting about whats the right ammount of freedom, they were building the mega-machine-economic-behemot covering from Moscow to Tokio, from Siberia to Malasya. And we are loosing this war because of selfish people that do not understand the importance of the green button. It allows us to plan on the long run, to calculate mistakes, to get ahead of them, to be more productive.

"You should feel fortunate", she would say, turning on her heels and moving away, gesturing as if she were crying, just like the Corporate Human Resources IT Coach Management Manual says she should gesture.

Re:My 2d amendment. Let me show you it.

[dunkelfalke]

please get your facts straight.
weimarer republic was not a pure democracy and the election in march 1933 was not the only one, it was just the last one. the first one was on january 1919.

btw most u.s. americans who actually bear arms tend to care about that single constitutional right only.

Re:My 2d amendment. Let me show you it.

[Jozef Nagy]

Apparently you're not familiar with insurgencies? First of all, relating to our own war for independence, the colonists won against a world-class, superior fighting force. Another example would be the War in Iraq. Our soldiers are getting taken out one by one by inferior weapons. In Vietnam, we *technically* (in a narrow sense) "won the war". We tried attrition, but even then the opposing force was endless in numbers.

Remember, not all warfare is traditional, land based, who-has-the-best-toys warfare.

And no, I'm not advocating the violent overthrow of the US government.

IBM's "blood libel"

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting (if little known) fact about the guy (Edwin Black) who wrote that book is that he was a major proponent of OS/2 back in the 90's. At the time, he had absolutely NO PROBLEM with IBM's history, which IBM has always owned up to, and was more than happy to do a lot of business with the company. Around the time that Lou Gerstner announced that OS/2 was a "dead end", he started making noise about getting back at IBM for ruining his publishing business (he published books and magazines around OS/2). Shortly thereafter he wrote that book and launched a lot of high publicity lawsuits (all of which got thrown out almost immediately for lack of evidence and relevance). The guy made a LOT of money hyping a thin connection between modern IBM and the german nationalized subsidiaries that were involved with the Nazi's, and it is well known that he got a lot of the basic facts wrong. Still, because there is a lot of pent up anger at IBM for various reasons (you name it, the failure of OS/2, their previous domination of the computer industry, etc) this IBM-Nazi connection gets thrown around a lot as a sort of blood libel against the company.

Thanks for running this story

[posys]

very important story, THANKS !!

Re:My 2d amendment. Let me show you it.

[Iowan41]

It is plainly the case from history and the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers that the citizenry is to own and practice with standard infantry weapons and each lawful militia (under the autority of duly-elected constitutional officers, not political factions) having control of artillery (which is what the Brits were trying to grab in April of '75) It isn't about hunting. It is about who will watch the watchmen - which is why the gun control people are so opposed to it, they uniformly favor the totalist State.

Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal

[marxmarv]

Busted. Mod grandparent to -1 please.

Nonsense

[slysithesuperspy]

Unbridled Capitalism has a nasty tendency towards wealth concentration in the hands of an elite few and the people with all the money almost inevitably seek to control all the levers of political power because it protects, supports and nourishes their economic interests.

I might be arguing semantics, but that's the existence of the state doing that, not capitalism. Under real capitalism people can only get rich by either someone giving them money (perhaps inheritance) or by making a better product than other people that customers are willing to buy (or being lucky with a lottery ticket ;P .) Any other ways such stealing and fraud are, by definition, not capitalism because stealing and fraud is obviously not respecting private property. Private property I would think of as the foundation for capitalism. Of course, some people find it easier to use the state to regulate their line of business to shut out competition, or even to lobby for a monopoly etc. Using the state to steal and put barriers in front of other people is not exactly respect of private property, so I would find it pretty difficult to put that under the category of 'capitalism.'

Re:Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

The State with the help of capitalism because money talks. If you think of all the countries the USA invaded since the end of WWII (covertly or not), and where puppets were installed, then you can simply say 'well that was the US government' but why whom were they backed up? Major corporations. The money isn't even there tho... follow the money and the faces in power and you will understand. demachina gives an example of IBM & Prescott Bush.

looks like...

[my_left_nut]

this

You're living in the 90's

[doctorfaustus]

"Like everything else, assembled in China with American parts.... "
 
That's the way it used to be. Now everything is manufactured in China with Chinese parts. And while we in the US have been arguing with backwoods Muslims, China has stolen the world, with the acquiescence of our government. (When was the last time you heard of a major party candidate being believably anti-globalization?)

and

[my_left_nut]

this

Efficiency requires freedom

[snowwrestler]

It's worth repeating.

In reality, efficiency does not require freedom so much as coercion and a clear chain of command, like in the military. Freedom actually breaks efficiency. First of all, at least in the U.S. I have never heard the military referred to as efficient. Effective? Yes, very much so. But also bureaucratic and expensive.

I thinking you're looking at this from a sort of top-down fallacy, which is that we actually know what efficiency looks like, and all we need is the best way to impose that vision.

But the secret to the success of free societies is that "efficiency" is an unknown and highly mobile target. This is partly because new knowledge and technologies can be disruptive, so that what was efficient yesterday is not so today. A free market system allows for more quick adaptation because individuals and small parts of the society can try many different new things all the time. If it is a better direction, the rest will follow. This is analogous to why a school of small fish, which can collectively outweigh a whale by many times over, can be much more agile.

It is also partly because human talent is often hidden until it has a chance to be exercised. A dishwasher may be capable of being a very successful professional poet, or they might not be. In your vision of economic efficiency, this is known ahead of time, and they're locked into their proper place. In reality though, there's no way to know if the dishwasher could become a successful poet until they actually try. If they can, it's most economically efficient for them to do so. If not, it might be more economically efficient for them to do something related (be an editor perhaps). And if all else fails they can work as a dishwasher. A free market system does a better job of allowing people to rise to their maximum level of economic contribution--a sort of Peter Principle.

China's a police state, boo-frikity-hoo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Boo hoo... China, for all their top-down government control, is basically benevolent, especially towards their own people and their history. Yes, they've got a vise-like grip on media and are torturing a lot of poor people, but if you look at the country as a whole, it doesn't seem to be an inefficient system. Importantly, China makes decisions and get things done in ways a real democracy could only dream of.

In 100 years, thanks to their means of development and system of governance, China will be settling Mars, while I suspect the rest of us will be up in the trees, flinging our crap at each other.

Grammar police

[Simonetta]

Ok, I understand that you are from China. And you have mastered the English language, which is a significant acomplishment.

    Nevertheless, I encourage you to actually use the spell checker on your PC. In our language, the first letter of each sentence is always capitalized. The first person singular noun, "I", is always capitalized.

    This is not a little thing. We don't read individual letters in English. We read phrases, groups of words. If the rules of grammar are not followed, then our ability to read printed text is significantly slowed. I am not insulting you or making a trivial observation. Please continue to use the spelling checker. And don't let the dumb Americans tell you that this doesn't matter.

    Imagine if I were to add another random stroke or draw a 'happy face' in every Chinese character. It would be a major irritant to reading. Worse than reading and writing the traditional Chinese characters still used in Taiwan.
The same is true for the capitalization rules in English. And, the other European languages have completely different capitalization grammar rules than English does.

    Plus if these grammar rules aren't followed, it is usually impossible to use language-translation programs.

Thank you.

Re:uh oh, from same anon coward...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd log in, but I'm at work... it's a government job where I do nothing all day long but where what I do on the internet is still censored to keep me from being unproductive... you wanna talk about inefficiency? Hoboy.... ...which is why I'm outta here in two days.

China is becoming more like Britain

[director_mr]

So it seems China is trying to become Britain.

I just responded!

[LaoziSailor]

OK /., the following looks like sh*t on the site, you should be able to display chinese! åé"(TM)æ-é-- é"(TM)èç±åzï¼s å...å®é"(TM)è é"(TM)åå-- å¾çé"(TM)è é"¾æZ¥é"(TM)è èè®çoeYåå(TM)ä½çsè"çæ-å¼ï¼s å"å é®ä BTW, http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html really helped me a lot! ...kudos to make another site (http://suggestion.beijing2008.cn/Correction/send-error.sohu?method=init&skin=2&title=Technology%20and%20Equipment%20-%20The%20Official%20Website%20of%20the%20Beijing%202008%20Paralympic%20Games&url=http%3A//en.paralympic.beijing2008.cn/news/sports/sailing/n214355251.shtml&sourceid=0) better. Cheers!

Re:My 2d amendment. Let me show you it.

[Rich0]

First of all, relating to our own war for independence, the colonists won against a world-class, superior fighting force.

I'm actually not convinced that the USA isn't a bit of an anomaly in this regard. There are a number of factors involved that tend to be overlooked:

1. The oppressor in this case was Britain - which was itself a democracy. I'd say the sentiment in parliament was paternalistic and looked at Americans as people who just needed some strong guidance. They didn't particularly want to give up their major trading partner, but on the other hand they weren't out to dominate them either.

2. The US revolution consisted almost entirely of military failures. Several blunders could have ended the whole thing if the British had properly exploited them (the Brits made several blunders of their own - but they were in such a strong position that it didn't cost them as much).

3. The effect of US resistance was basically to drive up the body count. Lexington and Concord were clear British victories, but the cost of those victories was so high as to challenge British resolve.

4. The British generally practiced the kinds of restrained warfare usually associated with Western democracies. Americans caught by the British were not treated in the same way as Chinese were in Japanese-occupied territory in WWII. The British people would not have tolerated atrocities.

5. The US victory at Yorktown was only possible with the aid of the French. In fact, the French contributed strongly to the success of the revolution. If Yorktown were not blockaded the British would simply have retreated and fought on at another place - British seapower was used to great effect when it was necessary to outmaneuver the Revolutionary Army.

6. Ultimately America wasn't THAT important to the British. Sure, it was important, but not so important that the British would sacrifice everything just to say that they owned it.

In the end, the US basically had more resolve to be independant than the British had to dominate them.

If, on the other hand, Britain were a true monarchy or other non-representative form of government I think we'd have seen several differences:

1. British power would have been employed much more freely. Revolutionary sympathizers would be killed outright and hunted down. Tories would have been encouraged to turn in anybody who was suspected of rebel sympathies. Nobody back home would be offended by such heavy-handed activities.

2. There would have been no ultimate surrender - the loss of a few thousand soldiers would result in just deploying a few thousand more.

3. The Americans could have killed as many Red Coats as they liked - they would just keep getting replaced. The democratic British government had to stay popular with the people and a million-man army that suffers a few tens of thousands of casualties is a major political defeat - even if militarily only a small loss. In order to defeat the occupying army the Revolutionaries would actually need to deplete it on a strategic level.

4. If America were a substantial part of a tyrant's power base they would be inclined to fight on until the very end - they would gain no benefit from surrender.

I think that the American Revolution is not a very good model of revolutions in general - I can't point to too many countries that have successfully employed it. It certainly hasn't turned out as well in other countries either - probably due to the nobility of the US Founding Fathers and their Western heritage. America was a western colony dominated by another western colony. India was fairly Westernized as well when it gained independence - again from a Western nation. You don't generally see these kinds of tactics successfully employed when one African nation wants to gain independence from another - and the results are generally far worse.

new world order....

[gzuckier]

The late 20th century saw capitalism triumph over communism. The early 21st century is seeing capitalism triumph over democracy.

he did rebut them

[commodoresloat]

he said they were disproven by slashdot comments a few weeks ago. Heck, if it was in a slashdot comment it must be true!