Slashdot Mirror
In China, Fears That Pokemon Go May Aid Locating Military Bases (reuters.com)
The sleeper hit success title Pokemon Go is preventing many people in China from sleeping properly. Although the game isn't officially available in the world's largest smartphone market, some people fear it could become a Trojan horse for "offensive action by the United States and Japan," according to a report by Reuters. "Don't play Pokemon GO!!!" said user Pitaorenzhe on Chinese microblogging site Weibo. "It's so the U.S. and Japan can explore China's secret bases!" From the article: The conspiracy theory is that Japan's Nintendo, which part owns the Pokemon franchise, and America's Google can work out where Chinese military bases are by seeing where users can't go to capture Pokemon characters. The game relies on Google services such as Maps. The theory is that if Nintendo places rare Pokemon in areas where they see players aren't going, and nobody attempts to capture the creature, it can be deduced that the location has restricted access and could be a military zone. "Then, when war breaks out, Japan and the U.S. can easily target their guided missiles, and China will have been destroyed by the invasion of a Japanese-American game," said a social media post circulated on Weibo. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said he was unaware of reports that the game could be a security risk and that he didn't have time to play with such things. He gave no further details.
When war breaks out?! Is this a common belief in China? Or are these just the Chinese equivalent of the American-survivalist sub culture?
Just make all soldiers play Pokemon Go. Problem solved.
One single Chinese microblogger with a tin foil hat advances crackpot theory and actual Chinese official can't be bothered to even talk about, and it makes front page of Slashdot?
Shit, guys, lemme tell you 'bout some CHEMTRAILS!
> Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said he was unaware of reports that the game could be a security risk and that he didn't have time to play with such things.
Of course he doesn't, too busy trying to fight his way through the tournament and take out Shao Khan.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Is there really someone so ignorant that they think the locations of anything visible to the sky is unknown? Seriously?
Or is this just more hatemongering aimed at a game that's actually getting kids (and adults) outside and walking around? Oh, the humanity! People are actually exercising and talking to their neighbors!!!!
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
She can play all the Pokemon Go she wants.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
That wasn't said by a leader. That was said by some random loser who posts things on the Internet. You know what THOSE people are like!
The air pollution in China is an effective screen and blocks the satellites. See China, pollution is your friend. Keep belching out that crap. My kids need their plastic McDonalds crap toys.
Chinese government creates new arm of military tasked with collecting all Pokemon Go characters located in military bases.
Imagine having an army of idiots precisely mapping with their smartphone GPS's huge areas in countries, virtually for free, on their own time and with their own equipment.
If it wasn't used initially, I am sure after this huge success the black suits have surely contacted nintendo with an offer to access and use all that data. It's not conspiracy theory, it's exactly what happened with Facebook. After it became mainstream and it's potential was noticed, one of the investors is the CIA R&D arm.
It's no secret, the same people who funded face recognition technology startups, license plate recognition, mapping, and who knows what else.
I think it was called IN-Q-Tel or something.
This is a misconception. Military bases permit cell phones. When passing into SCIFs or classified briefing rooms, you are required to get rid of your cellphones into lock boxes. If you like your battery, you turn it off or put it in airplane mode before doing so.
There are some buildings that are all-classified that require you to not have a phone along, but this would be a "building", not a whole base.
In the field, most people have a cell phone on them for basic communications, and they are rarely collected - only when someone has a bug up their ass about it.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Even better, read the credits :)
"(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom and Shanghai Newsroom; Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan, Ben Blanchard, Jake Spring and Jeremy Wagstaff; Editing by Ian Geoghegan and Raju Gopalakrishnan)"
So it took 2 newsrooms and 4 additional reporters plus 2 editors to write this insightful story of the reason behind it :O ...and a microblogging site? Reuters doesn't have any other sources left?
If my morning commute is any indication, most of the Pokemon Go players would have no idea they are on a secret military base...
One of the things I very enjoyed about college was meeting people from other countries, and learning a little about them. Something that struck me was despite what TV, my liberal professors, and fellow American students were telling me, other cultures and perspectives really do exist, and few of them actually follow the school of thought that is being popularized in the U.S. We tend to take a very parochial, Euro-centric view of the world. So, while multi-culurism is preached, what is really meant is just the one that agrees with Euro-liberalism. There are other ideas, many that are in direct conflict with ours.
For example, China. China is a very conservative country, that has a value system going back thousands of years. They have withstood several invasions, and their culture proved stronger, ultimately subverting their would be conquerers. They are very proud of this. They view the West insistence that only their values matter and are correct as a profound intrusion and disgustingly arrogant. They value family. We no longer do. They value structure and order; we clearly do not. They see the collective as important, we seem fixated celebrating the rebel. They think the majority should set the tone of commerce and culture. We have....well, read the news. Most of all, they teach their kids to love their country. For some reason, we have made it cool to be self loathing
The net result is that they think of us as the enemy. As an extension, the believe war will come because the leftist philosophies of the lest simply cannot leave others alone. If you stop and think about it, this is the main driving force behind Muslim aggression and other little rebellions around the world. They do not follow the party line, and deeply understand that they are being threatened.
So, I guess I am trying to say is that the world is a tough place. There are competing ideas and ways people want to organize their societies. The views that many on these forums hold as unchallenged and sacrosanct create enemies and alienate people. Is your world view really so limited that you are surprised by this?I
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Oh, there are numerous flaws with this line of thinking. Why would the US & Japan, both of who poses advanced spy satellite technology need to get video game data to try to collect info on military bases? You think that they don't already have that info?
Moreover, why would we want to attack a country with a huge population, and massive standing land army? Isn't there some sort of old saying about land wars in Asia? I thought our plan was to just seduce them with freedom and material goods and let them toss out their own government because they think it sucks. You know, say like eastern Europe and Russia?
At this point, it should be pretty obvious that the US isn't really interested in what other countries do with their governments as long as they don't engage in wars of conquest or wholesale slaughter of their own people, so I just wonder what this person is thinking.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!