Slashdot Mirror
With Olympics Over, China Re-Censors Internet
eldavojohn writes "We last left the story of Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China when the IOC had reached a deal with the Chinese government whereby some of the press restrictions were lifted. With the 2008 Olympics now but a memory, China has began censoring foreign news sources again. Maybe the West is making too big of a deal over this, as many Chinese citizens seem to like it that way."
Hey cats! I just picked up the tape recorder I hid in Rob Malda's bedroom last night. Here are excerpts from the conversation it picked up:
[sheets ruffling]
Neal: "mmmmm...you're so warm."
Rob: "[abrupt snort] dear...did you clean yourself today?"
Neal: "Robert, you know I'm still leaking from last night"
Rob: "I know that, I was talking about the other thing."
Neal: "What other thing?"
Rob: "Um...you know...wiping yourself in the back."
Neal: "What?!"
Rob: "I'm sorry, babe, its' just that it's hard for me to be stiff when..."
Neal: "I used the restroom today! Is that abnormal?"
Rob: "Well, couldn't you do a little better than that?"
Neal: "Robert, I hate it when you drink..."
Rob: "What the hell? It was only a six-pack..."
Neal: "A six-pack of barley wine! Don't even tell me that shit's like Coors or Budweiser..."
Rob: "Look dear...when I call you "cinnamon girl" I'm referring to the Neil Young song, not to your smell tonight..."
Neal: "UGH. Why do I fall for dickheads?"
Rob: "Assholes, honey, we're talking about assholes, not dickheads!"
Neal: "That's it! I'm sleeping at my mother's tonight! You and your real mistress Kathleen can go fuck yourselves!"
[grunts followed by glass breaking, then a door slam]
Rob: "At last! all alone with my one true love..."
[keyboard clicking sounds interspersed with heavy breathing, then a long sigh and the ruffling of bedsheets]
See that, GNAA? Now THAT's a troll.
I struggle to understand the counter perspective, but I think it has something to do with survival. You can choose the path of easiest survival - the least effort, or you can choose the path that might be harder for you. Given the conditions in rural China, it seems that any internet access at all is a luxury.
We have our own problems here in the states though. We constantly don't abide by our Constitution, preferring to look the other way for an easier time. Like Obama citizenship was never tested. Also 3 senators are being appointed to the senate without meeting minimum age requirements. We tax rather than cut back. Our problem is not with the control of information, but rather what we choose to listen to.
I might actually like not having more than one view. It'll avoid the annoying cognitive dissonance. It'll keep me ignorantly and blissfully happy, not knowing what we're doing is wrong. Its easier to close our mind than pursue the truth.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
After RTFA, I think the Chinese people are voicing legitimate concerns, it is very typical of /. to skew the study. The great firewall of China is like our government's "Do not call" registry in here, and there're no exception cases. Instead of requiring each and every operator to filter unsavory things, phishing, spam, and defamation, it is done by the government. The government on the other hand also added a big list of speech it considers illegal, but it seems the participants of the study wasn't really focused on those. The Chinese people wants the government to be the guardian of morals and civility as well as being a reliable source of information on the net. That's what that 85% means. It has little to do with censors that quiets down political speech.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
The bible also tells people to kill non Christians, but the majority of Christians don't follow that tenant.
> Let's take something that we can all agree on: murder (as in, killing another human being for no reason or for a purely selfish reason (rough definition, I think you get my point though)). Is murder not wrong under any and all circumstances?
So you're picking a relatively straight-forward black-and-white example and use that to 'prove' that there are no shades of grey?
You'll have to come up with a better definiton. Surely to kill someone to preserve ones life is selfish, therefore by your definition, if you kill someone in self-defense, you are a murderer (and therefor a bad person, since ethics are absolute and we all agree mudred is wrong). Protecting your own interests is always selfish.
Personally, would not support a law that allows people to shoot burglars unless they are trying to physically harm people. I don't believe a tv and some money are worth killing for, and doing so makes you a murderer IMHO. It appears there are places on this planet where people disagree with me. But it seems you know the absolute universal ethics, so please enlighten me and tell me, am I right or wrong on this matter?
Extremists like you are exactly the same as muslim extremists.
The term "muslim extremist" is a postmodern redundancy invented by Islamic apologists in western academia.
Islam itself is pretty violently extremist by civilized modern standards. Nobody considers it "moderate" to get beheaded (Normative Islamic Sharia Law in Saudi Arabia) or let rapists of women walk free (Normative Islamic Huddood Laws in Pakistan), or ethnically cleanse Jewish minorities from the Maghreb (some of them were poets, philosophers, artists and Nobel Laureates).
The "vast majority of Muslims" who don't give a damn about the batshit crazy stuff aren't Muslims. If you don't adhere to the batshit crazy stuff in the Muslim world you are, for all intents and purposes, a murtadd (apostate) and are emphatically NOT a Muslim.
Take the example of the very moderate Ahmadiyyas of Pakistan. They don't believe in violent Jihad or oppression of non-Muslims and women, so Pakistani Islamofascist theocrats declared them as non-Muslim heretics and massacred them in vast numbers (Lahore Massacre of Ahmadiyyas in 1984), same with many Ismaili "Muslims" (actually apostates) as well.
Does that mean that the Muslim world is full of effective non-Muslims? I would argue that it may serve to do us Kaffir-Harbis a lot of good to look at it in this way.