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Battlefield 4 Banned In China
hypnosec writes "The Chinese government has officially banned Battlefield 4, stating that Electronic Arts has developed a game that not only threatens national security of the country, but is also a form of cultural invasion. The country's Ministry of Culture has issued a notice banning all material retailed to the game in any form, including the game itself, related downloads, demos, patches and even news reports. According to PCGames.com.cn [Chinese language], Battlefield 4 has been characterized as illegal game on the grounds that the game endangers national security and cultural aggression."
What are they, French?
Someone needs to tell these idiots that 1984 wasn't meant to be a manual.
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
It'll be interesting to see if anyone traveling, who is employed by, or associated with this game, is able to pass through China.
You'd think they would have banned it elsewhere until it was at least finished!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
slashdot posting a 3week old story! Not good
They also banned Reisure Suit Rarry
Well they certainly wouldn't want to endanger cultural aggression.
Banning it will only make it the #1 pirated game in china Tomorrow.,
Since something like violence is so alien to Chinese culture.
Is GTA: Chinatown Wars close enough? That one's an oldie and I don't remember a war...
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
It looks like Russia and the U.S. are also in the game, and you can play as any of them, so will it also be banned in the U.S. and Russia? Nope? Didn't think so.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
It's ok China, you can ban the game just keep in mind that millions of BF 4 players are enjoying the game on Chinese manufactured equipment.
Irony anyone?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
China SHOULD ban it, but they should have banned it because of its frequent glitches and crashing. China had a chance to be funny about this and I think they just missed it. Maybe Australia can pick up the pieces of this comedy gold.
Well, hey - realistically speaking, how many organizations do you think are capable of facing a million man army, which can draft a half billion man army on short notice? Come on, now, there aren't anywhere near a million squids and jarheads in the Department of the Navy.
On the plus side - when they've got our asses surrounded, we don't need to worry to much about target acquisition! "Target rich environments" do have their benefits!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The U.S. surrendered in an another country after a long war. The French surrendered immediately when they were invaded. Hardly the same thing.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
We stopped the communist threat
In what way? The entire country of Vietnam became communist after the end of the war.
I agree, freedom and democracy are a virus on humanity that should be stamped out of existence.
By "communist forces" do you by any chance mean people defending their own country, first from the French, then from the U.S.? That is a pretty honorable thing to do unlike, for example, invading a country and killing people that were no threat to you, any of your friends or anyone else in your country.
As for 'stopped the communist threat', you do know we lost, right? Perhaps not.
The PLA has short arms and short legs - meaning that it can't get to where it's going and once it gets there, it doesn't have the logistical tail to fight. The strength of the US Army has nothing to do with our weapons. I served with the US Army in Egypt about 10 years ago at a remote checkpoint in the middle of the Sinai desert. I watched as every day, Egyptian conscripts were given a bag of rice and vegetables as their food for the day. Their only water was from a 55 gallon oil drum which was used for cooking and bathing and the only time they got meat was when they were rotated back to their main base. Meanwhile, I'm on a FOB with satellite TV, air conditioning and more turkey sandwiches that I could possibly eat. That's when it struck me that the strength of the US Army does not come from our weapons - it comes from our ability to move more turkey sandwiches across the globe than the good guys can even move in their own country. An Army marches on its stomach. The problem with a million man army is that you have to feed it and once we cut that off, the Chinese have a million starving, trained men with guns.
Americans surrendered in Vietnam
Actually no. The US left as part of a peace agreement which the North Vietnamese violated by invading and conquering South Vietnam with tanks and infantry divisions. Just another case of communist aggression and lying.
Interestingly China invaded Vietnam several years after North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. It wasn't a pleasant experience for them.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam before the US ever got there -- not at all unlike how North Korea's invasion of the South started that war.
It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.
Perhaps the Chinese government are actually astute and realise that their ability to control the Chinese people is fragile and anything, even a fictional representation of insurrection could tip them over the edge into thinking 'hey, why not actually do this!?' ... or perhaps they're simply paranoid. Either way, it doesn't bode well for them, if this is what they consider a threat. If it's the former it will happen sooner or later. And if it's the latter, paranoia, they'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing things like this (and, of course, much worse).
Flexible democracy is the best systems for a stable society, not a brittle authoritarian regime.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Not like China was going to be a big legitimate market, anyway -- nobody fecking pays for games over there.
Don't know about BF4 in particular, but they sure are right about "cultural aggression". The most successful invasion the USA is continually running on the rest of the world isn't military.
I live in Europe. Most of the Americans view us as socialists, mostly because there used to be a cultural difference between Europe and the USA. Where in the US the basic concept is "everyone makes his own luck", Europe has a bigger focus on the social units you belong to - the family at the lowest level, the nation at the highest. That's why we have healthcare and unemployment benefits and all that, because we care for each other in addition to ourselves.
Both models have advantages and disadvantages. In the US, you can make it, there are more options for venture capital or starting your own company in general, and less obstacles. At the same time, the path is smaller and more dangerous. And if you fall, you fall alone.
But things change. With the constant battering from Hollywood, music, comics and other cultural exports, Europe is in crisis primarily because old and new social concepts are clashing, and we are the battlefield.
Now imagine Asia, where the social groups are even more important than the individual. What kind of havoc a US-spirit can wreck there.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
On the plus side - when they've got our asses surrounded, we don't need to worry to much about target acquisition! "Target rich environments" do have their benefits!
Things pretty much worked out that way the last time US and Chinese troops fought each other.
Lt. Gen. Lewis Berwell Puller
During the Korean War, the Chinese communists had overrun the Yalu River and the Marines battling them were in a running fight to reach the coast. Ten Chinese divisions surrounded Col. Lewis Berwell Puller's 1st Marines. The indomitable "Chesty" Puller saw the situation with his own brand of logic: "Those poor bastards," he said. "They've got us right where we want them. We can fire in any direction now!"
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
What the hell are you harping on about? This is all about the Communist Party banning a video game which casts them in a bad light (in this case, in a state of internal turmoil, with the entire country plunged into civil war). It's a move to preserve the public image of the party as something invulnerable and all-knowing.
The voracious supporters of democracy and freedom in the West are more radical and virulent than 20th century International Communists when it comes to spreading their ideology. China has every right to to be concerned, especially when bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to the rest of the world means bombing campaigns, land invasions, and subservience to Western central banks.
Wow, for a brief moment there, I thought that you weren't condoning censorship. Good use of the halo-effect/devil-effect in making the East's censorship look justified by calling out the West's evils. Uncensored corruption is of course bad, but censorship doesn't suddenly make the censors' intentions or methods a good thing. Let me simplify: Censorship = still bad.
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www.fairtax.org
Americans surrendered in Vietnam
Actually no. The US left as part of a peace agreement which the North Vietnamese violated by invading and conquering South Vietnam with tanks and infantry divisions. Just another case of communist aggression and lying.
Indeed... because communist aggression and lying looks so different from capitalist aggression and lying....
Really; your argument doesn't hold together. It's just another case of aggression and lying -- governing style doesn't even have to come into it.
You do make a helluva good point. But, we also saw what happened in Vietnam. I'm not old enough to be a Viet Vet, so I base all my thinking on hearsay and history books. But, the Ho Chi Minh trail proved quite effective for the opposition. They moved personnel, vehicles, weapons and equipment, food, and other material pretty freely. Ultimately, we lost that one.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
And nothing of value was lost.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Just another case of communist aggression and lying.
Sort of like how Lyndon Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tomkin incident?
In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded[7] that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:
At 1500G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first.[7]
Regarding August 4:
It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[8]
In 1965, President Johnson commented privately: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." [40]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
A peace agreement that everyone, including Kissinger, knew was a joke.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
America had promised, as part of that agreement, that we'd bring air support to Saigon if the North did invade. They did, and we didn't.
Politicians lie, intentionally or not, regardless of what party they associate with.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.
Perhaps the Chinese government are actually astute and realise that their ability to control the Chinese people is fragile and anything, even a fictional representation of insurrection could tip them over the edge into thinking 'hey, why not actually do this!?' ... or perhaps they're simply paranoid. Either way, it doesn't bode well for them, if this is what they consider a threat. If it's the former it will happen sooner or later. And if it's the latter, paranoia, they'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing things like this (and, of course, much worse).
Flexible democracy is the best systems for a stable society, not a brittle authoritarian regime.
Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.
When once asked what his one wish would be, "Chesty" Puller responded, "I would like to see the face of every Marine I served with one last time."
The streets of Heaven are supposed to be guarded by United States Marines. Maybe the general has seen his Marines again.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Battlefield 4's storyline includes a Chinese admiral attempting to overthrow the Chinese government. You're not allowed to suggest those sorts of things.
I doubt they care either. EA likely expected any potential profit in the Chinese market to be completely canceled out thanks to piracy.
And the Chinese army is much more about internal control than being able to project force 2000km away
At what cost human and materiel with the gunships roaming at will dropping a 105mm on anything that looked like a truck - the VC didn't have much success in a fight it was only after the "peace" treaty and the NVA invading in a more traditional manner.
oodaloop was comparing America's surrender in Vietnam -- after a long hard war far away from home -- to French surrender of their homes promptly upon invasion. Read carefully, try to keep up...
Everything you said is true. There's just one thing to add:
The problem with a million man army is that you have to feed it and once we cut that off, the Chinese have a million starving, trained men with guns.
Pray that they're in your enemies territory at the time.
Russia won WW2 through their burned earth strategy, but it cost them their industrial base and contributed greatly to them losing the Cold War.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The voracious supporters of democracy and freedom in the West are more radical and virulent than 20th century International Communists when it comes to spreading their ideology. China has every right to to be concerned, especially when bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to the rest of the world means bombing campaigns, land invasions, and subservience to Western central banks.
Only on Slashdot does this get +5 insightful... If this were the USA doing the censorship instead of China, the slashdot commenters would be screaming of tyranny. When China does it, censorship is cheered on as fighting the encroachment of the USA and western influence.
There was a very significant indigenous resistance force in South Vietnam in the '50s and '60s. That was not true in Korea in the '50s.
Besides, why wouldn't the North want to reunify the country after partition had been forced on them by the imperialist French and their allies.
The Vietnam War was STUPID.
The U.S. had hundreds of soldiers in the South by 1955, and thousands by 1960. The French, of course, had hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the South in the early 1950s, until a string of military defeats forced them to withdraw. It's not like the West was just minding its own business when North Vietnam suddenly invaded a previously-entirely-independent South, forcing the West to respond. The West was already there with a large military presence since the '40s, supporting a series of corrupt (not to mention incompetent and murderous) colonial-lackey dictators, from Bao Dai up through Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
That "peace agreement" was an instrument of surrender in all but name, and everyone on all sides knew it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If you're refering to WW2, they didn't surrender immediately. They were one of the first to declare war on Germany after the unprovoked German invasion of Poland. True, their government surrended soon after - but even then much of the french military defied the order and continued fighting, simply joining forces with whichever local allied power would accept their aid. Their civilian resistance effort also went down in legend - a campaign of intelligence gathering, covert communication and outright sabotage that significently hindered German efforts to transport troops and material through the country and brought vital information to the allies.
Their surrender, though quick, was not given easily: It was only forced by a series of catastropic strategic defeats. It was only when the German army was standing at the fringe of a defenceless Paris that the surrender was hastily given, with government leaders fearful of the immense loss of civilian lives (Not to mention their own) should the capital be attacked.
Communists have the unique distinction of killing approximately 100,000,000 people in the last century. Revolution, class warfare, and the extermination of class and state enemies are a pattern repeatedly demonstrated in communist rule, often followed by attempts to export the revolution to other places. It is built into the ideology.
The Soviet Story is informative. - Excerpts
When a kinder, gentler communism arises, a "socialism with a human face," the brotherly "socialist," i.e. communist, nations invade to set things straight.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.
Is there any US game where I can (gasp) bomb NY, invade Washington DC, help set up Communism or Sharia in the country? I'm not saying that censorship is acceptable, but I can understand why they're upset.
And in effect surrendered to the Chinese who were supporting the Viet Cong and forcing communism on the entire country.
There were probably times during the war when Chinese soldiers were fighting directly with US troops.
Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.
They already did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Gettysburg!
At least twice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Antietam!
Sort of like how Lyndon Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tomkin incident?
Not quite. They key part is here: "....it concluded[7] that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2 ..."
There clearly was a meaningful naval engagement on one day, but they were mistaken about events on the second day. Calk it up to the fog of war, it happens. There are many unknowns, uncertainties, and mistakes that occur in warfare. You don't have perfect knowledge, and the enemy tries to fool you. Electronic equipment is not infallible and is subject to miscalibration, spoofing, and other faults. The interpretation of results is not immune to mistakes of many kinds, including faulty judgment.
Actions in the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1964
On the afternoon of 2 August 1964, while steaming well offshore in international waters, Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats. The destroyer maneuvered to avoid torpedoes and used her guns against her fast-moving opponents, hitting them all. In turn, she was struck in the after gun director by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. Maddox called for air support from the carrier Ticonderoga, whose planes strafed the three boats, leaving one dead in the water and burning. Both sides then separated. ... more
You can't just wipe that away by claiming the mistakes that followed on another day mean it didn't happen.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
EA should have worked with the Chinese government to produce a version where you can invade Taiwan, Japan, and if you do really well, North Korea,,,
That is exactly what your communists did, invading the South. And don't say it was Vietnamese stopping US imperialism, because the fight was US vs. Soviet imperialism.
Gee, just because they've been around for almost 5 times as long?
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In 1973 the US did aid South Vietnam. In 1975 the Democrats in congress sold American allies down the river, banning even medical supplies for them. They almost did it again in Iraq in 2007. The Democratic party earned the mistrust of the American people on national security matters for a reason.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Uh, I'm pretty sure you haven't made any effort to understand the plot of Battlefield 4.
"Released in October, Battlefield 4 is available in North America, Europe, Jana, Australia, and New Zealand, and was not officially launched in China."
What is this Jana they speak of?
Assuming that it would ever have done so in the first place...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Turning Point had exactly this. In multi-player, you could be the Nazis and invade NYC. In single player, you were the defender, though. I don't recall the US government feeling particularly threatened.
It's not quite the same, but Call of Duty had Washington, DC invaded by Russians. It's a scenario, and you play as the defender only, so yeah - not quite the same. Modern Warfare 2, same thing. There are a bunch of games like this, but AFAIK they all involve the player being the defender.
I think US politicians have learned to stay away from the whole "evil videogame" angle.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
> They already did
> At least twice.
Those comparisons are not equivalent. Not even close.
During the Korean war about a 100,000 Chinese soldiers attacked 2,000 soldiers from Australia and Canada in the battle of Kapyong and were stopped. Of course that was a defensive battle not an allied invasion of China- and fighting defensively gives a huge boost. We'd not get the same result if we invaded. There is more to war than just numbers of men, aircraft, ships and tanks.
You can't just wipe that away by claiming the mistakes that followed on another day mean it didn't happen.
Considering the events of what happened were lied about, you clearly can.
It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[8]
In 1965, President Johnson commented privately: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." [40]
As for 'stopped the communist threat', you do know we lost, right?
We did?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It was "peace with honor," honor that was discarded within a few years by Congress. If the US had continued to back South Vietnam in the face of North Vietnamese aggression as it did in 1973 it might have worked out and stabilized into a situation similar to North & South Korea. Unfortunately the Democrats in Congress threw that away in 1975.
As a practical matter there is a lot to what you state.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
China is smart to do this. People are far too shut-in these days. Look how much entertainment has expanded and filtered in the niches of everyone's lives. It does not always have a positive effect on individuals (does the news even bother to cover stories of MMORPG recluses any more or is it now to be taken for granted?) and therefore nor does it always have a positive effect on populations.
Consider the effect that a film like "V for Vendetta" has had on activism itself. The iconic Guy Fawkes mask and the anonymized approach to public activism leaked directly from the film into peoples' lives, who took it seriously and decided to implement it in a fashion.
Consider the effect that video games have on what you decide to talk about with people when you're out shopping, or at work, or at school, just "hanging out", and so on. For many people, about the only people they wouldn't talk about their video games with would be their parents, who would grow weary of the subject and try to divert them to something "more productive". And that HAS to be a dwindling case, considering how many life long gamer are now parents of kids old enough to game passionately.
People fall in love with "weighted companion cubes" (despite the dead bodies inside). People spend a great deal of time meditating on whether the cake is a lie or whether there is no spoon.
When you add in a dimension of possible political opinion and conflict to an immersive game, it also adds those political opinions and conflicts to the discussion. With things in China as bad as they are right now, in many districts, it would be a bad idea to entertain people with some game depicting "the day after tomorrow" sort of mayhem that no doubt many of them wish was real today.
Because that is what they would be talking about around the water cooler, or out shopping, or while stocking the coal cellar, or while cooking, or at school. Especially the at school part, that's sort of what China's mostly concerned about. Remember it was students who were active in Tiananmen Square.
Every day, in the United States, I shake my head in shame at how many people are operating in their daily lives on a level of cinema fantasy running through their heads. It's not that they watch too many movies or that the content of the movies is wrong somehow, it's that they take what they've watched far too seriously and for whatever reason they've also adapted it to fit their self image and their perception of what their life actually is.
It's easy to defend these people as "needing heroes", and "needing to be heroes", and so on. But it's not easy to defend people who aren't aware of their surroundings and who aren't concerned with real events and real consequences in real life, no in any sense of the word "defend". And plenty of people -- who don't have self-image and self-esteem issues, or who aren't trying to take reality escapism to a whole different level -- enjoy their hero sagas and their epic struggles as things separate from real life. It's not those people that draw my concern, it's the growing number of others who get completely absorbed and proceed to live in a psychological bubble composed of entertainment imagery.
Case in point, "thug life", which is a cultural mainstream even in neighborhoods where there's no threat of actual gang activity and where there are plenty of opportunities for a better life. It's even a mainstream with little white upper class girls in grade school who obviously aren't going to cap anybody and if they wanted to count stacks they could learn accounting and investment from their millionaire parents. There's something lacking in someone's life besides monetary value and secure social networks, when they emulate being a thug ostensibly in pursuit of money and social standing, even when they have ready access to plenty of both.
It's expensive to get a rich man's money, but, it's cheap to fill a poor man's pockets.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.
Is there any US game where I can (gasp) bomb NY, invade Washington DC, help set up Communism or Sharia in the country? I'm not saying that censorship is acceptable, but I can understand why they're upset.
In The USA there is no means for interdicting any such games and many for making sure it cannot be legally interdicted. IIRC Iran has produced a number of games along these lines. If it doesn't sell in the USA it does not automatically follow that the USG stopped it. China's government is just showing that they do not trust their population.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
All Wars are STUPID
There! FIFY
There is always one side that think it is better, it is correct, it have some kind of right. Worst wars happen when both sides think that. Then there is all the lies, illusions and blindness that fuel some kind of hate that didn't existed in the past. Everyone have reasons to both LOVE and HATE the next guy, just press the right buttons to increase one over the other.
Higuita
Gettysburg and Antietam?
I think your missing the part about it being relative to our time.
The reason the US lost in Vietnam is because they fought a purely defensive war. They never invaded North Vietnam and never carpet bombed their cities. The communists historically don't care about civilian casualties, but if the Americans had poisoned the rice fields and destroyed the bridges and roads it would have made it impossible to feed their soldiers in the field. China simply didn't have the spare food to give them.
Peace agreement?
The message: a peace settlement under a Nixon presidency would be more favorable to the South Vietnamese.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
> "It's a populist screed about how America is going to help the first influential person with "dreams of democracy" make a coup d'etat against the government of China."
Really? That's not what the wikipedia page says --
"Battlefield 4's single-player Campaign takes place in 2020, six years after the events of its predecessor. Tensions between Russia and the United States have beem running at a record high. On top of this, China is also on the brink of war, as Admiral Chang, the main antagonist, plans to overthrow China's current government. If he succeeds, Chang will have full support from the Russians, bringing China to the brink of war with the United States... the player hears their commanding officer, Captain Garrison, talking over the phone about the intel: that Admiral Chang is planning a military coup d'état, and if he succeeds, he will gain full Russian support, confirming an earlier report from an asset in China.[10][11][25] Tombstone returns to the USS Valkyrie, an amphibious assault carrier en route to China's eastern coast.[25] On board, Garrison informs them of the assassination of Chinese presidential candidate Jin Jié; and how Chang convinced the Chinese that the United States was responsible." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_4#Setting_and_characters
Yeah, I think you've understood the plot of Battlfield 4 perfectly.
"Battlefield 4's single-player Campaign takes place in 2020, six years after the events of its predecessor. Tensions between Russia and the United States have been running at a record high. On top of this, China is also on the brink of war, as Admiral Chang, the main antagonist, plans to overthrow China's current government. If he succeeds, Chang will have full support from the Russians, bringing China to the brink of war with the United States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_4#Setting_and_characters
I don't think that nonviolence would have worked against Hitler. I think that war was the only option once he declared war on us. So, I don't think I can agree with you that "all wars are stupid."
The Chinese were invaded by Western powers in the recent past, so you can see why they're touchy on the subject. They're pissed about the opium wars, and they're pissed at the exploitative and heavy-handed behaviour of the West up to the point when they left. At the summer palace near Beijing there are signs everywhere showing you what it was like before it was torched by the French and the English. They don't forget this shit. The cultures gelled less in China than they did in India. At least there was some cross-cultural understanding in India (especially early on). There was fuck all understanding in China from the get-go. Literally the first thing the English did was piss of the emperor and each side looked down upon the other.
Whilst it's not a competition and there are no "winners", culturally, violence is arguably more alien to the Chinese than it is to us Westerners. Whilst both Europeans and the Chinese have had their share of internal fighting and bloody revolutions, it's only us Westerners who have a long history of violent, expansionist, imperialism. Westerners destroyed almost all of the native culture in the Americas (in the Andes almost the entire native population was wiped out) and Australia. We've also fucked up huge swathes of Africa, the English committed plenty of atrocities in India and had no qualms about getting the Chinese hooked on opium. Our meddling in the Middle East after the first world war has left a legacy of violence and social problems. We constructed the state of Isreal, which has been nothing but violence and trouble. We've been building economies and riches using slave labour for millennia. Vast quantities of wealth poured in the UK, and other European countries, from slave plantations (a lot of it sugar).
soylentnews.org
Oh come on it is not like USA is monitoring people who would do games or chat that kinda things. USA != China it has allowed always dissidents like for example communists
There never was a "communist threat." The only threat was the two sides goading each other during the cold war and risking doing something stupid. The Eastern Bloc was too busy fucking itself up to be a threat to anyone. It crumbled because it was not stable.
soylentnews.org
Even up front, though, the peace agreement was much different than the one in Korea. The one in Korea demarcated an armistice line, but crucially, the U.S. neither promised nor carried out a troop pullout, but rather maintained a huge troop presence in South Korea to enforce the armistice line.
The reason I see what Nixon signed as a capitulation even from the start is that he agreed to a total troop pullout within 60 days. That left no U.S. force in the country, and very little credible U.S. enforcement of the North-South border agreement. Yes, there was a promise that we'd bomb if the North ever invaded, but we pulled out all the ground troops, which made it a fairly weak promise (it's not even clear that a U.S. bombing campaign would've saved Saigon in 1975).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
You sound like a young person, with that post. Maybe not though - some older people think in a similar way.
The real reasons we lost in Vietnam?
1. Popular support. We were, after all, the invaders. Few people like the idea of foreign invaders coming into their country, and trying to run things.
2. Foreign support. All those war material coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail were supplied by China. Or routed through China.
3. S. Vietnam Government corruption. Out of every ten dollars value pumped into Vietnam, corruption ate six dollars. Food, weapons, ammo - everything just fell into a vast black hole. And, that corruption helped to defeat us by feeding that popular support, and the foreign support of the North.
That defensiveness you mention? Yeah, it played a part, but it really wasn't a major part. And, the reason for THAT is not exactly what you might think, either. Basically, we agreed to play a defensive game in Vietnam, because we allowed ourselves to be coerced by China. The bombing of Hanoi, for instance. China TOLD US that if we bombed downtown Hanoi, then the Chinese army would come in and kick our asses. Our politicians didn't want to face China, so they caved. China also TOLD US that if we bombed any staging areas on their side of the border, then their army would come in and kick our asses. Again, our politicians believed them. There were numerous, lesser ultimatums issued by the Chinese leadership, most of which our politicians just obeyed. Not all, but most.
It can be argued - convincingly argued if you work hard enough - that we lost the war due to politics. Our own politicians failed to support our troops properly. But, even if you fail to make that argument very convincing, the reasons stated above will suffice.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Communists have the unique distinction of killing approximately 100,000,000 people in the last century.
Quoting "The black book of communism"? Really? That books is considered a joke by many scholars, lets say that it is at least controversial. Even if you argue 100mil victims of communist regimes, you can hardly say that it is a "unique distinction". Capitalism has killed much more, fasism has had its share too. It is a mute arguement. If you want to argue against communism/capitalism/fasism, etc, at least do it with some serious arguments like the economics, liberties, their feasibility, which system is more just, etc.
in this case the bombs are imaginary... censorship is still censorship.
Communist ideology, built on the backs and necks of their own citizens is not Chinese ideology.
That same tactic is working against us in Afghanistan today. Look carefully. An entrenched political machine keeps us on the defensive, while the puppet we support tries to pretend that he is in charge. The only part of the Vietnamese equation that is missing from Afghanistan, is China. Pakistan makes a piss poor imitation of China, but Pakistan does fulfill some of the functions of China in the Vietnam war.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Trucks? Far more war material was moved on bicycles than on trucks. Bicycles, backpacks, and those ubiquitous pole things across laborer's shoulders.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Wow, what sort of imaginary Chinese history have you been reading. How do you think China gained such a large empire, if not through conquest? They've been ruthless, both historically and present day, in using whatever violence necessary to suppress any sort of cultural dissent. We take some shit in the US because we still have the death penalty, but China has purpose-built mobile execution vans, because there are just too many executions to perform from a few central locations.
Yes the British did some nasty things over a hundred years ago. That's a pathetic excuse to justify China's modern brutal oppression.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
That's not what the poster you replied to is saying. He's saying, I believe, that many of our governments in the West are now so powerful and complicated that elections are becoming a progressively less powerful means of keeping our leaders in check. Most of the political parties are the same, and the vast and powerful civil service machinery stays more or less unchanged no matter who is in power. If they want to go to war and kill thousands of innocent people, then we have no say in the matter.
In our democracy we put our trust in those in power to run the country for us and we usually have no direct say in what actually happens. It's supposed to work like that, but a lot of people don't seem to realise this. It's true that it's much easier for an individual to enter government in a Western democracy than in China, but overall I think our governments have more in common with the Chinese government than a lot of us are willing to admit.
soylentnews.org
Except this has nothing to do with American ideology. It's all about the negative depiction of the Chinese Communist party in BF4.
cold fjord: you realize that with a few word substitutions, you're talking about capitalist states, right?
This isn't an ideological issue -- it's a human issue. Look at the last century: Germany (not communist) doing an ethnic cleansing... Italy (fascist) joining in... Rwanda (definitely capitalist, to their detriment) involved in ethnic cleansing, the Congo, Somalia, Croatia, Serbia, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and more.
And then we move on to the ones that were due to American interference in the past century: Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Laos, various conflicts in the mid-east, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada (US invading gentler communism), Panama, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba (pre-communism), Honduras, Puerto Rico, Egypt (Suez crisis), Lebanon, Indonesia (over 1,000,000 killed due to US-assisted millitary coup), Chile, Angola, Sudan, Colombia.
Good reference for American interventions (both defense and pro-active intervention): http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
As you can see, people are violent, and incite violence in others. More powerful governments tend to want to export their culture to the rest of the world, and use force when that export is rejected. While political communism is obviously a failed method of governance, none of the others have fared much better, when you take into account the physical and mental health and prosperity of the average citizen.
Boo hoo, who shall we now single out as evil enemies, deserving of mindless wholesale slaughter? Poor entertainment industry!
Anyone who sets himself up as a dictator? As I understand BF4, it's not about painting some race or culture as evil, but about the notion that warmongering dictators are a bad thing and often cause wars. That's certainly not specific to any country.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
After unification by the Qin about 200 BC the country itself has remained more less the same size. If you want to call that a "large empire" then go ahead. From my perspective it's a large country. Yes, there was violence inside China for centuries: my original post says this. But there's been at least as much inside Europe and individual European countries. In China, most people speak the same language and are happy to consider themselves Chinese. They don't feel like they're part of "an empire." The obvious poo in the pie of course is Tibet, where China undoubtedly behaved in a violent and heavy-handed manner.
My post is no attempt to justify China's "modern brutal oppression." All that I'm saying is that it's no worse than what we've done to our own people or our neighbour's people. In fact, quite a lot of the very shitty stuff we've done is in living memory. Yet we seem to pretend it didn't happen and call the kettle black (as the over-rated post I replied to is doing). That is what the Chinese think when they see statements like the post I replied to.
You what I said by distilling it down to "yes the British did some nasty things over a hundred years ago. It's quite clear my post is about much more than that.
soylentnews.org
You didn't read the request, did you. He said "that takes place in our time". The first ga,e is a civil war re-enactment. The second link game also does not take place in the modern world.
What he's asking for is a game where large numbers of players are tasked with a mission to, for example, successfully capture the White House and take the President as prisoner, killing lots of US soldiers along the way. That's much harder to find, though I think in some of the Call of Duty games you can play the part of the Russians and attack the US. That's not the default mode though.
In actual fact, Chinese today are generally highly supportive of their central government, and much less so of their local governments.
Well, cruise missile democracy should indeed be stamped out of existence.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I would buy it, as would about 70% of the population based on latest polls
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
The capitalists dont tend to leave tens of millions dead of starvation in their wake. Lets please not gloss that over, its sort of a big deal.
That the French surrendered immediately is the largest bs imaginable.
They asked for an armistice the much larger Germany after over a month of brutal fighting, after they lost 360 000 soldiers (excluding prisoners) and over 2000 planes (although some of them were British).
After their army had been destroyed (for various reasons but cowardice wasn't one of them), after their logistics had been damaged beyond repair.
In that one month almost as many French soldiers were killed or wounded as the Americans during the entire ww2.
Those soldiers didn't die because of wine overdose. Those planes didn't rust on the ground.
They killed or wounded over 150000 Germans, destroyed over 1000 German planes. Just in that one month. Not bad for the first years of the WW2. They certainly were better and more effective fighters than the Soviet soldiers in the first months of Barbarossa.
During the Great War they almost single handedly hold up the Germans for years for the price of millions killed or maimed.
Please don't spread that bs, it was the staple of the Nazi propaganda in the occupied territories, and later of the Soviet propaganda in the Warsaw pact countries.
In the 1940 France was fighting as courageously as any other nation. The later defeat looked as bad as any defeat: in Philippines, at Smolensk or Stalingrad - because it was a defeat, not because they were Frenchmen.
And I'm not a Frenchman, never even been there too.
Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.
There was a game trailer a year ago that gave me some hope. :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93-gWrh-MFk
unfortunately in the real game its the other way around and you are the bad guy killing brave freedom fighters
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Yea! Remember that time when democracy starved 40 million people? And when Freedom did a mass genocide in Cambodia?
Sounds like the plots of most of the Command and Conquer series.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
The British had performed brutal actions more recently. Against the Mau Mau for instance. But they are so cunning in being at the winning side, that they can apply the "vae victis" principle over and over again. And they are morally inferior to the USA because they lack any self criticism.
I would say: "He who is without sin shall throw the first stone..."
In human history, there were many atrocities and every great empire/culture was built mostly on violence first and then became peaceful. That's what it is and that is our shared history as humans. Even China as of today is not a coherent culture.
There are a lot Mongol mixes, lots of Turc people (Uighurs), Tibetans, and may more. Many were conquered, some voluntarily joined the Middle Kingdom. So, what?
What counts is whether people are free today - wherever they are living. And in most places around the world, they are not, including, but not limited to, China. Our goal as humans should be to make sure that everybody on this planet can, at one point, have a decent, dignified and free life.
We lost the war, we won the peace. Too bad we went through the war part.
And you know what? They should get over it. Seriously. GET OVER IT.
Look at the Serbs and Albanians, carrying around that crap for , what, five hundred damn years? What good has it done?
Please don't trot out that "noble savage" nonsense about violence being "alien".
The Chinese were just as busy murdering their own dissenters way back when. The difference is: they're not around to bitch about it, as they were wiped out completely.
You know, I lived in Thailand. Land of smiles, everyone always seems happy, they're not violent, right? Wrong. They just present differently.
Hmm, according to this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll#Wars_and_armed_conflicts, if I do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, the total death total (minimum) of inner-Chinese wars was about 100m people. On the max side, we are talking about over 210m people dead (sources vary).
This is not to say that Chinese Culture is per-se violent; it is more to say that it is not per se non-violent.
Let's be careful with generalizations...
You might change your mind if you weren't trying to see the whole picture through the keyhole of a door. Start with the Viet Minh trying to free their country from the colonial French.
But imagine the sales in West Virginia!
Ezekiel 23:20
That's because the NSA is too busy trolling World of Warcraft.
Yes, they fucking should get over it. I say this to them when I hear them going on about this stuff. They're still fucking pissed at the Japanese over WWII, but none of this stuff is healthy. Another one is the Greeks who won't get over the Turks and this does them no good whatever. In both cases it's national propaganda that's the root cause of people not getting over it. I relate how the Chinese feel when hear us saying certain things because it's important we understand how our words are perceived if we wish to have the right effect. You will not get the message across if you don't know how the message is heard.
I have throughout said that the Chinese had their fair share of violence, I don't know why you attempt to pre-empt me with the "noble savage" line. All I'm saying is that we're arguably more violent than the Chinese (most of these genocides are Western, perpetrated by Westerners, or occurred because of Western meddling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history) and we should acknowledge that about ourselves rather than taking the superior, judgemental, attitude which often appears (as it did in this case with the poster I responded to) in relation to China. It sounds like hypocrisy to my ears and I'm not even Chinese.
soylentnews.org
You have a very odd way of spelling, "inspired tactical withdrawal".
Anyway, we came back. We didn't have to, y'know.
FTFY. While the written alphabet is consistent across China, my understanding is that the regional dialect groups (Mandarin, Wu/Shanghainese, Yue/Cantonese, etc.) can vary so much as to be effectively unintelligible to each other. While Mandarin may be the lingua franca of the national government, it isn't as widespread as English in the USA.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
If this were the USA doing the censorship instead of China, the slashdot commenters would be screaming of tyranny. When China does it, censorship is cheered on as fighting the encroachment of the USA and western influence.
So there are a bunch of us nihilistic fuckers on Slashdot? Who knew?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Yes, they've done a lot of internal killing. The numbers are large, but they also have a larger population. Humans are violent and the Chinese are no exception. They are probably no better or worse than we are in this regard (Catholics/Protestants, WWI, Nazis, etc, etc) , so why is the post I originally replied to labelled "insightful"? I think that says more about how we view China than China being violent.
soylentnews.org
This is deemed 'intent' under recent anti-terror laws introduced in the UK- and YES, people go to jail for this.
Curious, I hadn't seen any mention of this from reputable sources.
this is for the most part true, the only way they can all truly speak the same language is through th3 written word, although there was (is) a big push for everyone to learn, if not outright only speak, mandarin as the "official" dialect... so some of the smaller dialects know Mandarin as well as their local dialect.
Cantonese is one of the other big dialects afair (from talking with an old chinese friend of mine who loved to speak of his culture)
I want my children to live in a better world than the one that I grew up in and I don't see it happening today. [...] Candidly, I think the world is a more violent, aggressive and dangerous place to live in today than it has been in the past.
You realize this is a factual claim, not an opinion, right? Shouldn't you make a basic effort to know whether it's true or not before posting it?
Since you're talking about your own children, I'll assume you grew up in the 80s to early 90s. And since your comment focused on US culture, I'll use US crime rates since then to illustrate my point, which is that children today will grow up in a world about half as violent what you grew up with:
Violent crime, 1993-2012
Violent crime, 1973-2003
Homicide
Property crime (theft)
Even non-crime dangers are way down:
Fire deaths since 1918
Traffic deaths since 1900
Bear in mind that I'm not commenting on the rest of your post, just that one claim I quoted above. But if you care about truth more than truthiness, you should really change your tune about the violence and danger in today's (US) society.
This story reminds of the game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames which takes place in Venezuela. The game was promptly banned a it was believed to be propaganda against Hugo Chavez, the president at the time. That was in 2006. Venezuela since banned all violent video games in 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Here's a brief overview of the last 10 year just in 1 country - almost 2.5 million in iraq alone.
I hate dumb motherfuckers such as yourself who paint the west and capitalism as not as bad as communism. Has Communism killed 2.5 million people in the last 10 years in 1 country?
The kinder gentler communism you wish for was supposed to happen in iraq, instead 2.5 million people died.
I have a secret for you: Communists and Capitalists are the same thing - in the end it's whatever the bankers can play the people off each other to believe and then psy-op that concept to control people and enslave them.
You have a lot of learning to do about the nature of reality.
the point is that you could make such a game, and the game would not be banned
i'm sure some media talking head might bring it up: "outrageous!"
but this of course will just increase sales
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
3 words:
Only cowards censor.
Well, both were political decisions and nothing wrong with them.
The US left Vietnam because the fight there was more and more pointless. But certainly it wasn't a sign of weakness. After all the American intercontinental missiles were as deadly and accurate as ever.
They lost a battle but the simultaneous detente with China showed the Soviets their place.
A battle was lost but shortly afterward the Soviets were losing one political battle after another anyway.
France still existed after the armistice, and both the UK and the US were maintaining friendly relations with her.
There is nothing wrong with admitting defeat after a good fight. France asked for an armistice after the best French armies were destroyed, after the fight had become pointless, after the defence of her territory and the civilian population wasn't possible anymore.
Exactly as the American soldiers during the battle of Chosin Reservoir.
Maybe it was a mistake but it was their mistake.
But the small France (in comparison with Germany) and millions of her fallen soldiers in both wars don't deserve the "one french rifle never fired, only dropped once" treatment.
The destroyed German planes weren't available over London a few months later.
The first class, prewar trained German soldiers, the destroyed - by the French or simply by wear and tear equipment weren't available in Russia.
Among them the thirteen most modern German Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs, destroyed in minutes during the battle of Stonne by a single French tank commanded by captain Pierre Billotte - despite being hit by 140 antitank rounds.
I'm not sure if that is propaganda or just utter and total rubbish.
I actually have a good example: The pension system in my country. Yeah, the usual argument is demographics and bla bla bla.
Truth is: It was on purpose ruined by politicians who abused pension funds to fund projects that had nothing to do with pensions.
A professor of economics did the math - the old system would have been sustainable, if it had not been plundered.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
In the South it's certainly relevant, like it or not.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I think it is not quite right. Paris was declared an open city because its defence wasn't possible. The French government relocated to Bordeaux and continued the fight from there.
Germans were assisted in those catastrophic strategic defeats by lots of luck.
There were moments all the nazi nonsense could have been sent straight to hell. But the luck was with them.
I completely agree with you on the Propaganda aspects.
The noble savage thing seems to generally be when someone talks about culture other than their own, and for whatever reason tend to view them better than their own, possibly because we're all more aware of our own failings. It's like the flip side of the guy saying "My culture is ALWAYS right". I tend to have a (pessimistic) viewpoint that most cultures are equally brutal, they just may not have had the opportunity to show it. So maybe I"m pushing "We all suck equally" rather than "They suck more than us".
I would pay to play this.
I guess it's good that the serious threat of International Communism is so far off you can make that statement, and concentrate on fixing the flaws in International Capitalism...
Indeed, “legend” is the correct term. Many of the most active members of the French Resistance were Jewish, who therefore had little to lose. Their names were changed from obviously-Jewish ones to more French ones, when the history was later written.
You left out one major factor:
Nobody ever explained to the US citizenry why it was reasonable for us to be in there in the first place, so nobody wanted to go.
That was one reason the US switched to "the volunteer army". When you volunteer, you have given up the right to complain about being sent to a "war". ("War" is in quotes, because the US Senate hasn't declared war in the last century, so it can hardly be considered a war, legally. Legally I believe it's just an unjustified, probably unjustifiable, use of deadly force against foreigners.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Tell that to the people who were blacklisted during the McCarthy era for supposed communist sympathies and lost their livings in education and the arts.
Militarism propaganda violence shit.
Thank you for this. It's refreshing to see a comment that's based on, you know, actual knowledge of history rather than on somebody else's uninformed opinion.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
Erm? You know the difference between invaded and conquered, do you?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That is the most uncorrected, disrespectful nonsense I ever have seen on /.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
What we now call capitalism started perhaps roughly around 1800. Perhaps a bit later like 1850. ... from starving people where "the society" could not cope with the industrialization to slaves dying on the fields or during transportation ... ...
And yes it left dozens of millions people dead in its wake
Btw, as china shows capitalism and communism don't contradict each other
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Given the idea of making a video game where the US is the bad guy or a modern era game featuring a citizens revolt against the US government won't ever get made for pretty much the same reason, I don't think Americans can take the moral high ground on this one.
They took a page out of Infinity's book on this one. Too bad it cost them billions in potential revenue.
Hitman: Blood Money had Agent 47 infiltrating the White House and assassinating the Vice President. But then, nearly all of the targets in the HItman games are villainous in character. You could try to the guards of the White House (I assume they are soldiers), but it's tougher in this mission to come out alive doing so.
There are lots of games where you can fight against the US in campaign mode. Hell, in C&C: Generals you could even play as Muslim terrorists. Of course, there are several Civil War games where you play from the Confederate side (Civil War Generals by Sierra was one of my favorite strategy games of all time if only for the imagined challenge of reversing what was really such a one sided conflict.
it's only us Westerners who have a long history of violent, expansionist, imperialism.
How does this kind of ignorant tripe get modded insightful? Only someone with the most cursory, Eurocentric understanding of history would say this. All of your examples suggest that you passed your high school World History course by snoring through it.
Violent, Expansionist, Imperialist Powers NOT part of "the West": Achaemenid Empire, the Mauryan Empire, the (several) Mongol Empires, the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the several Caliphates, the Angkorian Empire, the Burmese Kingdoms from 1400-1800, virtually every Chinese empire ever, etc. Depending on your particular definition of "Western," add the Russian and Byzantine empires for good measure.
Of course, they all had great positive achievements as well, just as the violent, expanionist, imperialist powers of the west all had great achievements too. Except, of course (just to Godwin this whole line of conversation), the Nazis. Fuck those guys.
Again with ignorant tripe being moderated informative.
The US was involved before the partition. Vietnam never would have been split except because of US interference.
No, but that wasn't the point of contention. You see the word GGP used, "unique distinction"?
Democracy is for the people; you only vote once per season and we'll do the rest of the work for you don't have to.
Your history is a bit off. Iraq is a clear win, the US was out of Vietnam with a treaty, and the Taliban bolstered by al Qaida no longer rules Afghanistan. If you're bitter about that I suggest buying a beer to catch your tears.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
In The USA there is no means for interdicting any such games and many for making sure it cannot be legally interdicted. IIRC Iran has produced a number of games along these lines. If it doesn't sell in the USA it does not automatically follow that the USG stopped it.
But I didn't say this. My point is, that if nobody in the USA has ever done a game like that, it's because it would be considered highly offensive, by itself. There's no need for the government to declare it outlaw. Attacking the government is obviously considered more offensive than hitting people with a car (as in Carmageddon) or committing assorted crimes, killing the forces of order, and crushing people with a tank (as in the GTA series). The post I was responding to was saying that a realistic simulation game about attacking the government is not a big deal. But if nobody has ever made such a game about the USA, there must be some reason; and that reason is that most people would find such a game offensive.
About the legal means making such a ban impossible: while there's no doubt that the USA are the most free country in the world, history has also shown that they have a habit to overridde even their most sacred laws when the government feels that the country is under threat. Just to make one example, but there are others, http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/12/27/1727207/us-federal-judge-rules-nsa-data-collection-legal : isn't the right to privacy constitutionally guaranteed?
Thanks, I'd forgotten about the Mongol empire. I'd not heard of the Mauryan, Mughal, Caliphates, Angkorian Empire, and Burmese empires. I do indeed consider the Russian and Byzantine empires to be Western. The Ottoman too, for that matter.
soylentnews.org
The way this 100 million figure is computed is basically by taking every single violent death or death of starvation in any country declaring itself communist, and claiming that all such deaths are "because of communism". Of course, by the same methodology, we should count all genocides of native people of various colonies of European capitalist states as "victims of capitalism" - that would give 5 to 10 million in Congo Free State alone, for example.
Oh, and the reason why Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia? Very little to do with ideology, actually. Rather, it was because it was a buffer state, bordering Austria. The whole point of Warsaw Pact was to basically set up a bunch of buffer states in Europe between NATO countries and the USSR, so that if a conventional war were to break out, it would not be again waged on Soviet territory as happened in WW2, with all the associated devastation.
Ideologically, Prague Spring was actually very much counter to Soviet ideology. It is rather telling that neither Romania nor Albania, for example, agreed to take part, and Albania in fact left the Pact over it. Even in USSR itself, the invasion was a subject of a bitter dispute in the Politburo, which the hawks eventually won (a little known fact was that Brezhnev himself was against it - but people pushing for it were, collectively, at least as powerful).
Iraq is a clear win
Which part of it? The one where Kurdistan is all but separated (and may possibly end up in an armed conflict with Turkey eventually), and the remainder of the country is the arena for a civil war between Sunni and Shia who are massacring each other in an endless cycle of revenge attacks for revenge attacks for the last several years? The one where Iran is actively strengthening ties with the Shia-dominated government, vying for the takeover, and likely to eventually clash with Saudis and their allies over it?
and the Taliban bolstered by al Qaida no longer rules Afghanistan.
Well, Karzai has openly stated that Taliban will be invited to "negotiate" (really, to grovel before, since once Western troops leave, Taliban will be the only well-organized armed faction in the country that enjoys considerable popular support) in short order, so things are getting back to where they were.
In the meantime, what had the US-installed puppet administration achieved in Afghanistan in all these years? Well, they have put in place a new constitution, which officially declares Afghanistan an Islamic Republic where no laws can go contrary to Sharia (and people have been convicted to death for "apostasy", i.e. converting from Islam to Christianity, under this article of the constitution). They have also let the poppy industry do whatever the hell it wants (because most of the government is personally invested into it), and now Afghanistan is back to the top of the charts as the biggest supplier of raw ingredients for heroin.
At the same time, American private companies have prospered by investigating and tacitly supporting the newly revived (previously suppressed by Taliban) local customs, such as the institution of "beardless boy" companions for homosexual pedophilia, widespread among prominent figures in the Afghan community. I wonder if you have your panties in a twist over Manning leaking that bit, on the basis of "damage to diplomacy" that you had claimed for Snowden's leaks?
So yeah... epic win all around! Good job, guys!
It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.
Perhaps the Chinese government are actually astute and realise that their ability to control the Chinese people is fragile and anything, even a fictional representation of insurrection could tip them over the edge into thinking 'hey, why not actually do this!?' ... or perhaps they're simply paranoid. Either way, it doesn't bode well for them, if this is what they consider a threat. If it's the former it will happen sooner or later. And if it's the latter, paranoia, they'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing things like this (and, of course, much worse).
Flexible democracy is the best systems for a stable society, not a brittle authoritarian regime.
Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.
I have no doubt the US govt wont stop them or ban the game because they dont need to... The game also wont sell.
The western powers prefer a soft approach to their propaganda. Instead of outright banning of anything potentially subversive they start smear campaigns to alienate and disenfranchise anyone who might use the product. They would simply start to insunuate that anyone who plays the game "hates 'Murica". They'll be huge segments on all news channels about how video games are destroying the youth of today and I have no doubt a school shooting or seven will be blamed on it. This is just as effective as outright banning, sometimes even more effective. Look at how many people irrationally hate labour unionism without realising that the only thing that keeps us from the working conditions of China was the advent of labour unions earlier in our history.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Russia won WW2 through their burned earth strategy
Scorched earth had probably contributed to the victory, as part of the overall stalling tactic in the first year of the war, but I don't think it can be truly identified as the thing that won it.
but it cost them their industrial base and contributed greatly to them losing the Cold War.
The industrial base was rebuilt - in fact, expanded - by the end of the war; the necessities of the latter forced this in high gear. Soviets would have never won the war otherwise - in long term, it was the ability to outproduce the Germans that proved crucial (though Hitler's constant desire to micromanage his armies while making facepalm worthy mistakes over and over again certainly helped it along).
Wow, what sort of imaginary Chinese history have you been reading. How do you think China gained such a large empire, if not through conquest? They've been ruthless, both historically and present day, in using whatever violence necessary to suppress any sort of cultural dissent. We take some shit in the US because we still have the death penalty, but China has purpose-built mobile execution vans, because there are just too many executions to perform from a few central locations.
The one you're clearly ignoring.
The US and other western powers openly supported the Chinese Nationalist government lead by Chiang Kai-Shek against the communists. If it weren't for that little Japanese invasion the Maoists would have continued to be oppressed by Kai-Shek's forces fully backed by the US. Chiang Kai-Shek wasn't particularly gentle with his oppression of the Maoists either. However after WWII the Maoists found themselves receiving equipment and their numbers were bolstered by new recruits who joined the Maoists to fight the Japanese, so they went to war and well lets face it, Chiang Kai-Shek was a complete moron which is why the nationalists ended up having to retreat to this little island you may have heard of, Taiwan. The Chinese spent decades in cold war against the US and NATO as well. Even after the Sino-Soviet split which only served to make them feel more vulnerable than before as they'd lost the protection of the USSR against the western powers.
Yes the British did some nasty things over a hundred years ago. That's a pathetic excuse to justify China's modern brutal oppression.
And the western powers continued to do quite nasty things to them for another 50, 80 if we include the cold war. Not that I agree with China, but you have to be pretty ignorant to think that everything have been peachy between China and the US for the last 100 years.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It would be more like the Chinese invade to overthrow the corrupt US government and install a Chinese style democracy. The US citizens welcome them as liberators and all is well again.
EA kinda did it with one of the C&C games (Red Alert 2?). You could play as the Chinese, blow up the Whitehouse etc.i liked that game.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Only the Sith deal in absolutes ;)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
You clearly haven't thought your position through. China has outlawed the game because they feel threatened by a game where the player attacks the Chinese government. You say "yeah but were positions reversed, the USA would react the same way" giving as proof your ignorance of any games where the USG is attacked. I point out that there ARE games where the USG is attacked & yet the USG has never banned them proving you & your conspiracy theory wrong.
You can go on any tangents you like but your premise that China is justified in banning a game because we would too is still wrong.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
You say "yeah but were positions reversed, the USA would react the same way"
I said that they could, not that they would.
giving as proof your ignorance of any games where the USG is attacked. I point out that there ARE games where the USG is attacked
There are no such games made in the USA, would you really compare BF4 to a homegrown game made in Iran by some Iranian kid who changed some texture of Quake?
& yet the USG has never banned them
What they would do if such a game was successful and mass-marketed as Battlefield 4 is, remains to be seen.
proving you & your conspiracy theory wrong.
What conspiracy?
You can go on any tangents you like but your premise that China is justified in banning a game
You mean the premise where I said that censorship is unacceptable?
because we would too is still wrong.
They're not justified. I pointed out that they banned the game because the game content was offensive for them, which I can understand, but being my culture different from China's, I can not justify.
The first ga,e is a civil war re-enactment. The second link game also does not take place in the modern world.
It doesn't really matter. It is reasonably certain that if somebody wrote such a game it would be protected by the first amendment. The government would have a rather high hurdle to actually ban it.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You say "yeah but were positions reversed, the USA would react the same way"
I said that they could, not that they would.
Your first post was an apology for the chinese ban "because they're upset". Thus you clearly imply the US would ban "because they're upset". Your game of playing could and would is akin to my implying that because you could go out and rape a child, you would do so.
giving as proof your ignorance of any games where the USG is attacked. I point out that there ARE games where the USG is attacked
There are no such games made in the USA, would you really compare BF4 to a homegrown game made in Iran by some Iranian kid who changed some texture of Quake?
Have any games been banned for anti-USG content? No. Have games had controversial political content in the US? Yes. Were they banned? Again no. Does a game have to be highly marketed to be banned? No. Is saying that it needs to be marketed a means for moving the goalposts by pepppz? That's the only logical justification.
& yet the USG has never banned them
What they would do if such a game was successful and mass-marketed as Battlefield 4 is, remains to be seen.
Bull. Sexual content, sure, we all know that sex is the untouchable third wire in gaming, but never for political content. "Think of the Children" is the only justification that could work in the US.
proving you & your conspiracy theory wrong.
What conspiracy?
see above
You can go on any tangents you like but your premise that China is justified in banning a game
You mean the premise where I said that censorship is unacceptable?
No, the part where you were implying that the USG would ban for the same reasons the chinese did.
because we would too is still wrong.
They're not justified. I pointed out that they banned the game because the game content was offensive for them, which I can understand, but being my culture different from China's, I can not justify.
So do you still have those uncontrollable urges to rape a child or do you now realize that merely implying something distasteful when it is false is also distasteful?
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
OK, make that 50 years then. What I SHOULD have said was "in my lifetime", or actually "since I started to read". (I don't remember hearing that the US declared war during WWII, but there was certainly reason to do so. 1917 sounds about right for what I remember.)
OTOH, there are quite a few times earlier when I don't belief that war was actually declared before the US commenced fighting. Having the president also be the commander-in-chief encourages a bit of military adventurism. OTOH, it may lessen the chance of a coup d'etat.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Banging your head against a stone wall for a long time until you're bleeding from every hole in your body does not make you brave, or a hero. Just very very stupid.
Stop being insightful. Just brainlessly bash the French like any American Patriot should do.
French? We don'need no stinkin French around here!
You forgot all the Klingons and Vulcans.
I'm British. We *invented* bashing the French.
We still won't shut up about their quite humiliating defeat at Agincourt, and that was six hundred years ago. They outnumbered us substantially, and we were fighting on their own ground with an army exausted and cut off from supplies - and still managed to slaughter nine thousand of so of their soldiers, while losing little more than a hundred of our own.
And you also evacuated your Army that was stationed in France to protect them from the Nazi invasion that was coming without actually even attempting to defend France.
A evacuation which would have resulted in annihilation of the British Army in Europe had the French Army not hold a defensive line until the evacuation could be completed against the Germans.
Which part of it? The one where Kurdistan is all but separated
That is a win, for people who have been opressed for centuries by the Arabs and Turkish.
Bush did the right thing by giving the Kurds a bit of space to be comfortable in without the centuries of prosecution following them.
North Vietnam didn't exist until they managed to liberate the North of their countries from French rule in the First Indochina War.
The Viet Minh were allies with the Americans and the Nationalist Republic of China in the war against Japan. When their country was going to be forcefully reoccupied by France after the war, they turned their attention to keep the French out of it.
There was no "South Vietnam" to invade, there was just a French Puppet government.
Hitler alone could not do anything...he needed the people support.
German people fall in to the nazi hate talk due to the instability of world crisis and specially by the huge and stupid "war compensation" from WW1. Crisis make people to want to believe on new solutions, specially if the current available ones don't really solve anything... just look at Greece economical crisis and how a both a fascist party and a alternative popular party gained popularity in last elections. Extended crisis and greed are the seeds for wars. Mutual help, support and sharing helps avoid wars. It's up to the people to decide what path they want to follow (what that could do to others).
Higuita
It would be a win if that independent Kurdistan was actually separated and recognized as such. As it is, it just sets up the way for another future conflict. For example, if Iraq does become Iran's puppet, they might decide to reconsider the arrangement, prompting Kurds to push back - and Iran has some experience "dealing" with that kind of thing the hard way. Or, say, if Iraq just falls apart due to Sunni-Shia conflict, Kurds might be forced into declaring formal independence, which will likely not be tolerated by Turkey.
I also have the impression that GP thinks of "win" solely in terms of "what good is this to US", not in terms of freedom and such for other people. In that sense, given that Turkey is a prominent NATO member and a consistent ally for many decades, and that the main Kurdish resistance organization is called Kurdistan' Workers Party and officially espouses Marxist ideology, I don't think he'd consider that a win.
Try Modern Warfare 2's airport massacre scene and the controversy that erupted in the US / UK after.
China may have had their own Stangelovian incident.
From Page 5, "The Move from Qinghai to Taibai", http://www.project2049.net/documents/chinas_nuclear_warhead_storage_and_handling_system.pdf
"Another security consideration may have led to the move. During 1967, the nuclear weapons program in Qinghai became subject to Cultural Revolution strife, including attempts by rival factions to seize nuclear-related facilities in both Qinghai and Xinjiang. On March 5, 1967, Premier Zhou Enlai, at the urging of CMC Vice Chairman Gen Nie Rongzhen, declared martial law and placed Jia Qianrui in charge of enforcement. Along with Hong Youdao, Jia oversaw the relocation from Qinghai to Taibai County in 1969 and 22 Base operations until the unit’s subordination to Second Artillery in January 1979."
That was a Russian airport though.
What are you talking about? This is the Qin Dynasty's are of control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qin_empire_210_BCE.png http://www.chinatownconnection.com/images/qindynastymap.gif You can see the outline of current People's Republic of China. Now compare that to the Yuan Empire: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hekc7k3TR_c/TVVDWj_yIXI/AAAAAAAAAAM/wuJB5xwNSfk/s1600/64939-004-0AE0DF2F.gif China was primarily land based, but don't mistake that for not being imperialistic or expansionist. You need to really go back and reread the history on that region.
I'm sorry my ancestors carried infectious diseases that they weren't able to protect against? I'm not excusing certain actions that happened during early colonization and later in history; but don't try to lump the large native deaths all under those despicable actions. That majority died from diseases through incidental contact.
So you're only beef with the US towards China was that we supported the wrong bad guy? Or are you also mad we supported the democratic South Korean government and the same version in Vietnam? Because both of those seem silly on a couple levels.
If by unchanged you mean doubled/tripled in size sure...
I think you're opinion of the rate of genocide is faulty because it seems like you're looking at only a very narrow window of history. As noted by your linked wiki article, "The difficulty, as Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn pointed out in their early study, is that such historical records as exist are ambiguous and undependable. While history today is generally written with some fealty to 'objective' facts, most previous accounts aimed rather to praise the writer's patron (normally the leader) and to emphasize the superiority of one's own gods and religious beliefs." The Chinese were very big on this, and you may remember from history class the large purges of books, etc in China at varying dynastic transitions. If you've read any of the classical Chinese histories like Romance of the Three Kingdoms (not entirely historically accurate) there is a good deal of killing of enemies. It was common practice in China to kill entire families because on person was a traitor. And when I say family, I don't mean mom, dad and the kids. We're talking anyone brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents. I think your portrayal of China as "less violent" is where you got stuck with the noble savage line.
Canadian Special forces managed to hold off tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers during the Korean War. Hill 227 in the Korean War was held by 20 French Canadian special forces for three days against two Chinese divisions (roughly 14,000 men). That's what, 1:700 ratio?
Military considerations are the lowest reason why we "lost" that war. I put lost in quotes because we signed a peace treaty and two years later the NVA invaded after we had left, so technically we didn't lose. The US won pretty much ever tactical and strategic battle in that war. The problem was, the Viet Cong and great propaganda. The Tet Offensive was a huge military debacle for the Viet Cong. After that they basically lost the ability to wage any sizeable resistance. But it was an amazing media coup for them. The American public and others increasingly gained the perception that we were losing the war.
Pakistan is more like Laos or Cambodia, if you're doing analogies.
Yeah, but that was cheating. The Chinese had no idea there were TWENTY Canadians up there!
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/General_Audience/Red%20Rory%20o'%20th'%20Glen.html
Red Rory o' th' Glen
The story is told of the English Regiment marching through
the Highlands of Scotland (when English Regiments were wont to
do such). As they passed through a very narrow defile, a voice
mocked them from above.
"I'm Red Rory of the Glen," the voice called. "And I challenge you!
Send up your best man."
The Colonel of the Regiment looked up to the hilltop and beheld the
BIGGEST Scot he had ever seen. His kilt-girthed form must have stood
7 foot and the Claymore in his hand would dwarf most men.
Again the challenge echoed across the hills. "I'm Red Rory of the Glen
and I challenge you! If anyone amongst you would dare to call himself
``Champion'', then send him up!"
The Colonel, unwilling to let this challenge to the flower of English
Soldiery pass unanswered, called over his Adjunct. "Major," he seethed,
"send up the Regiment's champion. I want this Scot's head!"
And so the Champion went forth. Up the hill he strode, confidence
in every step, to do battle with this Challenger. The Challenger
roared his mirth and stepped over the crest, out of site; the Champion
followed. Soon the sounds of battle rolled over the hill and the
Regiment waited. And then, THUMP Thump thump.... A head! Rolling down
the hill came a head. And then, from the hilltop, came the rumble of
the Challenger's laughter. "I'm Red Rory of the Glen! Again I challenge
you! Send up your best Squad!"
"Major," shouted the Colonel! "This cannot be stood! Send up the best
Squad." Up the hill forged the Squad, then over the crest to face the
Challenger. Soon the sounds of battle were heard again and then THUMP
THUMP THUMP Thump Thump thump! The heads of the squad came rolling down
the hill.
"I'm Red Rory of the Glen," came the voice, "and I challenge you! Send up
your best company!"
Rage contorted the Colonel's face as he screamed, "Major! Send up
Company C. I want that man's head and I want it now!" "Yes, sir," was
the only response, and soon Company C was advancing up the hill. Again,
from over the crest, came the sounds of terrible battle but this time,
floating above them, came the sound of the Challenger's laughter!
Slowly, the sounds of battle died away but still the laughter continued.
And then, from the top of the hill, came a avalanche of heads to pile
up around the Colonel's feet.
"I'm Red Rory of the Glen, and I challenge you! I have beaten the best
you have to send, now come yourself!"
"Major," said the Colonel, his rage now turned icy cold. "Take the
Regiment up that hill and destroy him! I don't want anyone to return
without his head!"
So, in good form, the Regiment marched up the hill and out of the sight
of the Colonel waiting at the bottom of the hill. This time the battle
raged for hours. Then as the sun sank into the hills, the Adjunct came
hurtling down the hill, his uniform disarrayed and splattered with
blood. His eyes spoke books of terror. "Colonel," he screamed, his
terror edging his voice with panic, "RUN, it's a trap. There's two
of them!"
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Thank you, I shall do that.
soylentnews.org
That was pretty hilarious. But that speaks to the same point. Keeping your enemy unaware of your true force size can be a significant advantage. In fact the commander of that Canadian team is considered the sole liberator of a Dutch town and at one point captured almost 100 German soldiers on his own. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major Numbers aren't everything. ;)
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