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Chinese City Wants To Build a Censorship-Free Hub
itwbennett writes "The city of Chongqing's proposed Cloud Computing Special Zone would be home to 'a handful of state-of-the-art data centers and is designed to attract investment from multinational companies and boost China's status as a center for cloud computing,' writes the IDG News Service's Michael Kan. The part that's drawing the ire of Chinese Internet users: This censorship-free hub would only be for foreign companies."
... unless you have secrets we really, really want.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Looking at China's track record of handing the internet inside their country why would any company want to run servers in that country?
More like an oligarchy. But then, most governments really are, despite ideological trappings suggesting otherwise.
Must be we humans are wired that way.
In former Eastern Germany, their communist regime provided retail stores only for foreigners (or specially privileged East Germans with western money). This made people there very resentful of their government... and eventually, they got rid of it. China's communists should be careful not to rise the ire of their citizens too much if they want to remain in power. Then again, why not? China could really need a breath of fresh air, at least politically.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
When will people finally understand that there's a difference between communism/socialism and fascism/dictatorship.
You can have a democratic socialist system, you can have a despot ruled capitalist system.
Mix and match, bitches.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
* Ahem * As a degree holder in Political Science with a minor in International Relations, ,i>kaff-kaff,/i>, I may be able to contribute here. The suspicions above are not without foundation. However, historically whenever a totalitarian regime has tried to espouse free and independent thought in a "contained" place, they often wind up growing free thinkers that they cannot later control. Hitler tried coddling his engineers, but they wound up sending secrets to the English and Americans. Stalin tried pampering Sakarov. So while I wouldn't drop my drawers in Chongqing's proposed Cloud Computing Special Zone, but I would applaud and encourage it. It could become an incubator for a representative there who actually believes what he's promising and would be frustrated to learn he's a front... a breeding ground for future Nobel Peace Prize nominees. So polite hurrahs are warranted.
Gently reply
"I think it is rather foolish for someone to imply that all types of communism advocate this type of government
Quite the contrary, communism is all about proletarian revolutions, power to the people and elections -- yes, elections. Dictators are getting elected. They are not really democratic elections, everything being directed with fake votes from a privileged minority, mechanical smiles and applauses and all that, but they are elections nonetheless.
However, you should go and learn some systems theory -- just because a trait of a system is not advocated, it doesn't mean that it isn't going to happen, regardless of any precautions you might take. Communism itself is really natural for dictatorships. And it is not only about its predilection for dictatorships; but it contains many flaws as an economic system too, like for example the notion that profits are only generated through surplus labor; not to mention that the working class is becoming more and more obsolete.
Its most important flaw however is that it fails to take into account human nature. People do not want to be equal, they do not want to share property and in general have a strong sense of ownership, not to mention selfishness. What happened instead is that in communist countries the higher you ended up in the political party, the more privileges you had, with corruption going rampant. Hence the phrase: in communism, some people are more equal than others.
Karl Marx used to say that capitalism leads to economic crisis, making them inevitable due to internal flaws. However, communism does not solve that. I lived in an European communist country - when the country had to pay its huge external debts, the austerity measures taken in the 80-ties (that lasted for 10 years) would make today's Greece look heaven-like.
And make no mistake about it, China is communism with a twist, but their biggest source of income are external investors that come to them because of driving forces of capitalism. It also remains to be seen how China will evolve, but evolve they must, trust me ;-)
Yes. Very much like selective Capitalism.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"Communism is NOT an economic system; it's a political system!" [..] propaganda we received about "Capitalism vs. Communism"
What bizarre statements. The whole point of communism is to describe how the economy should be structured, and yes, it is fundamentally the opposite of capitalism. Of course it is a political system, too. You can't dictate terms of the economy without involving politics.
That's a very sad college education you had.
I will give this:
Communism works on a small scale. When people are known and reputations matter, communism works.
However, the system will completely break down when people start realizing that they can take more than they give and not suffer consequences for their action.
The history of the Internet shows this -- before the C&S USENET spam, people tended to behave because all it took was a call to their sysadmin and they would be tossed off the net. After C&S, where it was shown that people could get away with breaking traditions and mores to score some cash, it was only a matter of time before the system of "put a server up to help out, and other people do similar" went the way of the dodo, eclipsed by doing what it takes to earn cash.