I have an extremely fast metabolism, and do sports 3-5 times a week. I can't sit still for more than a minute.
I have a very skinny build, but due to a relatively heavy frame, I weigh 93kg on 185cm. I'm obese according to any old-fashioned "metric". Yet, I'm skinny.
You wouldn't BELIEVE how much I eat. Yet I'm skinny.
When I was in Beijing, I tried visiting various alternative news sites and guess what, none of them were blocked.
They weren't blocked because they are not dangerous enough, and can't influence enough people.
A certain amount of dissidence is tolerated in China, they usually leave you alone unless you pose a real threat. It's not like you get shot the first time you complain about the government, as people seem to believe in the US. In fact, people bitch about their government all the time, also publically.
It's just when the said people organise to a level where they can become a real danger that they are crushed into oblivion. The BBC is influential, alternative news sites aren't.
How many people in Europe and the US want the net to be censored?
Including child pornography, illegal material, the anarchist cookbook, DeCSS, Nazi propaganda sites, etc?
The level of censorship in China is obviously leaps and bounds beyond anything else in the world, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. but I think that people overestimate the meaning of free speech to the average citizen. As long as it doesn't bother them, most people don't have any problems whatsoever when extremists, deviants, weirdos, and the like are censored, as long as it doesn't directly concern them and the stuff they're interested.
The majority of people in China are not interested in politics, both traditionally, and because it's been a bad idea to be involved in politics for the last 50 years. So if they don't read Dalai Lama's speeches, Japanese version of history, or Germany's take on political freedom in China, they don't particularly care, as they're not interested in it in the first place.
Even here, people clap happily as the FBI and similar agencies in Europe freely read our emails, search our computers, confiscate hardware, all in the name of counter-terrorism. Make a Pew poll in Europe and let's see how many average people have a problem with this?
The situation in China is obviously far worse, but instead of patting ourselves on the back and going on about evil Chinese and how much better we are, it would be wise to draw some parallels.
I think that if there were anti-American protests in Puerto Rico, US military wouldn't bomb in and outright shoot the protesters.
What if they burned 300 American businesses and killed a few dozen Americans on the streets?
Check the police response in Seattle, Genoa and Heiligendamm to see European and American police responding to much less (at least in terms of dead people).
You've been making decent arguments until now, but this is ridiculous.
So you support racially-motivated mass murder now?
Do American natives have the right to randomly kill white people? Do you support the IRA and ETA, cause Britain and Spain shouldn't have moved into their homeland? Or Mugabe's anti-white attacks?
The Han doctor and the Hui tomato shop owner are not personally responsible for Tibet's situation, and such racially motivated violence cannot be excused in any way.
Corporations will go over corpses to make profit for their shareholders, as long as they can get away with it.
Chinese government does a lot of shit that's inexcusable. But they did ultimately take a rural country with a few percent literacy and turn it into one of the world's strongest economies. They did a lot of crap on the way (The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution), but they also did a lot of good on the way. During roughly this same time, the trustworthy, people-serving IBM was manufacturing equipment for Hitler's deathcamps, Nestle was poisoning thousands of people in Africa, etc.
Everyone in China with some technical knowledge knows how to bypass the great firewall -- and does so regularly.
The problem is that this is still quite a small number. Another problem is that the average person isn't really interested in world news, or lacks the language skills necessary.
So you agree that "The suppresion of these materials is an attempt to supress this subculture, which is, in my opinion, in everybody's best interest"? No, let me repeat what I said in my last post. I agree that supressing this subculture is in everybody's best interest, and no, I don't think that the suppression of these materials is a very successful attempt at doing that. Banning the swastika won't stop Nazi violence. And stopping Nazi violence is in everybody's best interest.
Cozziewozzie believes that legislation can't solve any of these problems, so he wouldn't outlaw any of them, least of all speech.
But cozziewozzie reserves the right to oppose Nazi ideology loudly and clearly, just like he opposes any hateful ideology built on killing innocent people. And cozziewozzie will not stop drawing attention to these groupations and resisting racist violence because some people may cry about it. This is not a battle that the government can win, or that any censorship can win, we have to win it ourselves. And we don't win it by being quiet, or hugging Nazis.
So whenever there is an idiot praising Hitler, there should be 10 of us telling him to fuck off, and whenever there's an idiot beating someone because of skin colour or religion, there should be ten of us beating him. And hopefully one day, such idiotic ideologies will die off because when confronted openly, they are exposed as dumb and primitive.
Way up the thread, BrentH said "The suppresion of these materials is an attempt to supress this subculture, which is, in my opinion, in everybody's best interest" (talking about outlawing of sales of WWII Nazi paraphenalia), which I took objection to. He said that he trying to suppress the subculture was in everybody's best interest, not the censorship, at least that's how I interpreted it. And I took objection to the suggestion that suppressing Nazi gang activities somehow qualifies as "silencing those you don't like".
By that token, arresting someone for attempted murder or planning a terrorist attack is also some kind of attack on free speech. These people plan and execute and fund attacks against people with immigration background, political activists, and anyone who doesn't fit into their worldview: punks, gays, hippies... Yes, damn right I want to suppress such activity, as smashing somebody's skull in because they're black goes well beyond "speech".
But censorship is not the way to achieve this. You don't stop people from gassing Jews, killing black people, or murdering activists, you only stop people from TALKING about it.
You wouldn't get arrested for that, even if you proclaimed it publically. Austria has very similar laws as Germany in that respect, and Haider was publically saying things like that in the media, and even got elected.
There is a difference between saying "Hitler introduced mandatory breast control for women to combat breast cancer" and "I'm so sad that Hitler didn't manage to kill all the bloody XXX and YYY, we should do that again". The decision where to draw the line lies with the state in this case, obviously. There are very few convictions due to this known to me, actually.
where did you get the idea that I wanted to outlaw anything? I'm probably a far bigger free speech advocate than you.
I was just pointing out that there is a difference between disliking someone because of their hair and disliking someone because they want to kill "inferior" races. That's why I'm perfectly fine with the fact that I hate Nazis.
This isn't about whether mrudering Jews should be illegal, though that's a nice strawman. I never said anything about murdering Jews, I said murdering people, and this is what neonazis are doing TODAY, in Germany.
This is about censoring ideas. Nothing in my post was about censoring ideas, I was making a distinction between opposing somebody because he has long hair and opposing someone because they want another holocaust. There is a very significant difference here. And when the said subculture beats people to death, as is the case in Germany and many European countries, then I don't have a problem with opposing such a groupation. This is not about opposing ideas, it's about opposing violence.
And ideas aren't illegal in Germany, BTW, including Nazi ideas. So nice strawman.
Asking the state to censor an idea because you find it wrong and offensive is advocating totalitarian oppression, plain and simple. I'm not asking the state to censor anything.
As the present and unbroken line leading to the current Chinese government has, sadly during its various terrors unleashed by its still hero, Chairman Mao, killed far more than the nazis in Europe, is your position that you advocate the censorship and blocking of everything Chinese? The Chinese government recently looked like it would finally acknowledge how bad Mao was, but in the end, they concluded "he was more good than bad." Maoist groups have a similar political standing in Germany as neo-Nazi groups, as both are considered anti-constitutional.
The difference in what is banned has to do with the fact that there were dozens of millions of Nazis in Germany half a century ago, and there are still many out there right now, whereas there have been approximately 200 Mao supporters in the entire history of Germany (a slight hyperbole here). Maoists IN GERMANY don't pose any threat whatsoever, and probably never will. Just like Nazis in the States.
Once again, I don't support censorship. But I do understand why GERMAN government is censoring glorifying Nazi crimes more than glorifying other atrocious crimes, and if you don't, you need a history lesson, I'm afraid.
In the US they are allowed free speech, freedom of assembly, etc. They are allowed free speech, freedom of assembly, etc. in Germany too.
In the USA, you're not allowed to openly advocate murder of somebody or issue death threats-- it is illegal and will land you in jail. In Germany, you are not allowed to glorify the holocaust or the Nazi regime in addition to that. There are still Nazi political parties in Germany, and they are represented in some smaller local parliaments. Only they can't directly praise the third reich or the holocaust. Their programme is not that different, though.
What happens is that in every major city, there is a Nazi parade once a month. There are thousands of heavily armed police officers protecting them as they walk around and ask for foreigners to be expelled, racial laws, and all that other crap. It is their constitutional right.
Some people have a very skewed idea of how things are in Germany. Nobody gets arrested for being a Nazi, or loving Hitler, or having a swastika tattood on them. What's prohibited is public dissemination of such material. You can't publish a Hitler-loving article, or a pro-holocaust song. The reasoning of the government is that this will prevent the spread of such materials. I don't think that it's working, to be honest.
You don't hear much about them anymore. I guess they've faded away. (except maybe for prison gangs?) The US has never had a significant Nazi presence. Those were small groups.
Germany had basically 40 million Nazis one generation ago, and we all know what happened. It is a very different situation. The Nazi problem in Germany and parts of Europe is historical, not just a simple result of censorship.
Your position is that the government should act to crush and destroy subcultures that you disapprove of, no? No, actually, that's not what he was saying.
He was saying that the government should crush and destroy those subcultures that are trying to gas dozens of millions of people in gas chambers and use them as fertiliser.
And I have no problem with any such subculture being crushed and destroyed, as I think that mass genocide and world war is something completely different than "annoying freedom". Unfortunately, censorship is not the answer.
You add censorship then you add mystery, glamor and excitement of breaking a taboo. You also drive the Nazis underground and make them hard to find. I actually agree with you. You cannot ban ideas, you have to fight them in the open. The censorship is simply the admission of the government that they have no better solution. It's a desperate attempt to stop the spread of said ideologies by making sure it can't be spread publically.
It's just that some people don't understand that Nazi symbols have a very different weight in Germany than Roman or Mongol insignia, both historically and today.
Could you give me some examples of "destroying historical artifacts"?
Using Nazi symbols is explicitly allowed in Germany, if it is used for historical reasons, in documentaries, movies depicting that time, or any scholarly purpose. The museums are full of historical artifacts from that time. What "destruction" are you talking about?
What is not allowed is glorifying the Nazi regime and holocaust denial, as well as reselling Nazi symbols. Mein Kampf is not banned, or illegal, it just can't be printed. There are plenty of copies floating around. But it's illegal to take a copy to school, and then try to convince kids that it's full of great ideas and that they should try them on their colleague with immigration background. Which happens right now, in Germany.
I agree that banning things is not the way. But some people act as if Germany is doing it out of some childish spite, not real historical and political reasons. Millions of people were executed in concentration camps by the Nazi regime and there are many people still around who are trying to repeat that today. Comparing TODAY's Nazi gangs with Romans and Carthage shows complete lack of perspective.
So why aren't Roman artifacts banned as well? Because Germany doesn't have gangs of Roman youth beating up non-Aryan people and setting them on fire right now.
I'm against censorship, but some people lack any perspective whatsoever....
that doesn't promote some sort of socialist mindset? Yes, of course, the innovator is no one. He owes the work of his mind to the society and other people who made his innovation possible. Sure, sure. The individual is nothing and contributing to society is the only noble reason for living. What a bunch of nonsense! This wins the "kneejerk response of the day" award. What a totally random and misplaced rant against socialism, which wasn't even mentioned anywhere.
Nobody says that the "inventor is no one". But disregarding the importance of society on great discoveries can only be made by people who are not scientists and who have never invented anything. Because these people know how much studying of things done by other people is necessary before one can make a truly meaningful discovery.
Without the input from the society, you
- wouldn't know how to read/write - wouldn't know any math - wouldn't know about the scientific method - wouldn't know any logic, save for very elementary common sense - wouldn't know any engineering, physics, material science
Then you would expect someone to come up with an airplane or the theory of relativity in an "Eureka" moment, basically reinventing all of the above. Good luck with that. Great innovations are only possible due to the wealth of knowledge that humans have accumulated over millenia. Shoulders of giants, and all that. It's just that the genius hermit reinventing the universe on the toilet one day makes for a cooler story:)
Innovation is a by-product of research, and research is something that is almost *never* done by Open Source developers. What Open Source is really good at is applying innovations already discovered. Essentially, engineering using known techniques. Innovation is a product of research, and much research is done at universities and institutes by people who write Open Source software. A lot of research results are published with a reference implementation under an open source license.
If you look away from the standard database/webserver/desktop environment showcase projects, you will find plenty of image processing libraries, things like Boost, math libraries, learning tools, AI algorithms, etc. based on the latest research and often implemented by the very people who invented these new methods in the first place.
In my field (computer vision), many people will release open-source implementations of their algorithms, or such algorithms are implemented by popular open-source libraries by other researchers, in an attempt to make the technique more easily available and to help its spread.
The myth of the big corporation doing all the research is, for the most part, a myth. Many times they will take readily available, published research produced by universities or scientific institutes, change a few numbers, and then patent it.
I do realise that you are talking about hardware more than software here, but even in hardware, the majority of what's done in a big company is based on published research.
A lot of these Chinese students have been taught all their lives that Americans are barbarians, decadent, corrupt, etc,etc... From their point of view, they have been sent into a hostile environment to get an education, and then return to the PRC to use their knowledge to help their country get ahead of the US. Some of the Indians are that way too when they first get to the US. It's part culture shock and part xenophobia. They are the ones with the problem, not you. This hasn't been my experience at all. It seems to me that you are the one who is xenophobic.
With most Chinese people, it is a combination of finding it difficult to adjust to a very different culture, and trying really hard to finish their education, as their families probably invested their life savings into it.
Most Chinese people who come over to study are very good students who got where they are through extreme studying in a ridiculously competitive environment. The parties in China are very different, as are human relationships, and it's a huge culture shock for many of them. So they concentrate on the important thing -- their studies. Most of them are postgraduates from prestigious universities.
Some people expect students like those who have just arrived from China to join all the frat parties, get drunk, go to the NFL games and listen to nu-metal, and this is very unrealistic. Many of them are married, quiet people, with imperfect English, who enjoy the company of other people from their home country. Most of them are extremely nice if you actually approach them and put in the effort to know them better.
Why webkit over khtml ? To avoid the irony ? Most likely because KHTML uses Qt internally, and Webkit took the Qt dependency out, and is therefore probably easier to integrate with GTK.
The key thing is that they need a court to approve monitoring and have due legal process. This is what sets Germany apart from totalitarian societies like Saudi Arabia, China, the USA and Sudan.
In reality, however, one only has to claim that something you do, or something you know does, or something somebody who knows somebody who knows you does, is somehow unconstitutional, and they can listen to all your communications. You won't even know about it.
So, in practice, there is little fundamental difference, though Germany certainly treats dissidents better than China, Sudan, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
A friend of mine studying development studies cited a statistic that we produce enough food to feed the world two times over.
There's plenty of food, only it rots on the shelves of huge supermarket chains while people elsewhere is starving.
It's not even a logistic problem. It's simply a case of being spoilt.
I'm even worse.
I have an extremely fast metabolism, and do sports 3-5 times a week. I can't sit still for more than a minute.
I have a very skinny build, but due to a relatively heavy frame, I weigh 93kg on 185cm. I'm obese according to any old-fashioned "metric". Yet, I'm skinny.
You wouldn't BELIEVE how much I eat. Yet I'm skinny.
There is a similar thing, only other way around: GTK-Qt, in fact it's 5 years old.
It's good to have the option for letting Gtk users keep their look and feel with Qt options, but I wonder why it took this long?
Is it because there wasn't much interest in Qt-based apps until now? It would surprise me, given the popularity of Amarok, K3B and the like
They weren't blocked because they are not dangerous enough, and can't influence enough people.
A certain amount of dissidence is tolerated in China, they usually leave you alone unless you pose a real threat. It's not like you get shot the first time you complain about the government, as people seem to believe in the US. In fact, people bitch about their government all the time, also publically.
It's just when the said people organise to a level where they can become a real danger that they are crushed into oblivion. The BBC is influential, alternative news sites aren't.
How many people in Europe and the US want the net to be censored?
Including child pornography, illegal material, the anarchist cookbook, DeCSS, Nazi propaganda sites, etc?
The level of censorship in China is obviously leaps and bounds beyond anything else in the world, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. but I think that people overestimate the meaning of free speech to the average citizen. As long as it doesn't bother them, most people don't have any problems whatsoever when extremists, deviants, weirdos, and the like are censored, as long as it doesn't directly concern them and the stuff they're interested.
The majority of people in China are not interested in politics, both traditionally, and because it's been a bad idea to be involved in politics for the last 50 years. So if they don't read Dalai Lama's speeches, Japanese version of history, or Germany's take on political freedom in China, they don't particularly care, as they're not interested in it in the first place.
Even here, people clap happily as the FBI and similar agencies in Europe freely read our emails, search our computers, confiscate hardware, all in the name of counter-terrorism. Make a Pew poll in Europe and let's see how many average people have a problem with this?
The situation in China is obviously far worse, but instead of patting ourselves on the back and going on about evil Chinese and how much better we are, it would be wise to draw some parallels.
What if they burned 300 American businesses and killed a few dozen Americans on the streets?
Check the police response in Seattle, Genoa and Heiligendamm to see European and American police responding to much less (at least in terms of dead people).
You've been making decent arguments until now, but this is ridiculous.
So you support racially-motivated mass murder now?
Do American natives have the right to randomly kill white people? Do you support the IRA and ETA, cause Britain and Spain shouldn't have moved into their homeland? Or Mugabe's anti-white attacks?
The Han doctor and the Hui tomato shop owner are not personally responsible for Tibet's situation, and such racially motivated violence cannot be excused in any way.
Corporations will go over corpses to make profit for their shareholders, as long as they can get away with it.
Chinese government does a lot of shit that's inexcusable. But they did ultimately take a rural country with a few percent literacy and turn it into one of the world's strongest economies. They did a lot of crap on the way (The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution), but they also did a lot of good on the way. During roughly this same time, the trustworthy, people-serving IBM was manufacturing equipment for Hitler's deathcamps, Nestle was poisoning thousands of people in Africa, etc.
Only extremists see things in black and white.
Everyone in China with some technical knowledge knows how to bypass the great firewall -- and does so regularly.
The problem is that this is still quite a small number. Another problem is that the average person isn't really interested in world news, or lacks the language skills necessary.
Cozziewozzie believes that legislation can't solve any of these problems, so he wouldn't outlaw any of them, least of all speech.
But cozziewozzie reserves the right to oppose Nazi ideology loudly and clearly, just like he opposes any hateful ideology built on killing innocent people. And cozziewozzie will not stop drawing attention to these groupations and resisting racist violence because some people may cry about it. This is not a battle that the government can win, or that any censorship can win, we have to win it ourselves. And we don't win it by being quiet, or hugging Nazis.
So whenever there is an idiot praising Hitler, there should be 10 of us telling him to fuck off, and whenever there's an idiot beating someone because of skin colour or religion, there should be ten of us beating him. And hopefully one day, such idiotic ideologies will die off because when confronted openly, they are exposed as dumb and primitive.
Is that clear enough?
By that token, arresting someone for attempted murder or planning a terrorist attack is also some kind of attack on free speech. These people plan and execute and fund attacks against people with immigration background, political activists, and anyone who doesn't fit into their worldview: punks, gays, hippies... Yes, damn right I want to suppress such activity, as smashing somebody's skull in because they're black goes well beyond "speech".
But censorship is not the way to achieve this. You don't stop people from gassing Jews, killing black people, or murdering activists, you only stop people from TALKING about it.
You wouldn't get arrested for that, even if you proclaimed it publically. Austria has very similar laws as Germany in that respect, and Haider was publically saying things like that in the media, and even got elected.
There is a difference between saying "Hitler introduced mandatory breast control for women to combat breast cancer" and "I'm so sad that Hitler didn't manage to kill all the bloody XXX and YYY, we should do that again". The decision where to draw the line lies with the state in this case, obviously. There are very few convictions due to this known to me, actually.
where did you get the idea that I wanted to outlaw anything? I'm probably a far bigger free speech advocate than you.
I was just pointing out that there is a difference between disliking someone because of their hair and disliking someone because they want to kill "inferior" races. That's why I'm perfectly fine with the fact that I hate Nazis.
And ideas aren't illegal in Germany, BTW, including Nazi ideas. So nice strawman. Asking the state to censor an idea because you find it wrong and offensive is advocating totalitarian oppression, plain and simple. I'm not asking the state to censor anything.
The difference in what is banned has to do with the fact that there were dozens of millions of Nazis in Germany half a century ago, and there are still many out there right now, whereas there have been approximately 200 Mao supporters in the entire history of Germany (a slight hyperbole here). Maoists IN GERMANY don't pose any threat whatsoever, and probably never will. Just like Nazis in the States.
Once again, I don't support censorship. But I do understand why GERMAN government is censoring glorifying Nazi crimes more than glorifying other atrocious crimes, and if you don't, you need a history lesson, I'm afraid.
In the USA, you're not allowed to openly advocate murder of somebody or issue death threats-- it is illegal and will land you in jail. In Germany, you are not allowed to glorify the holocaust or the Nazi regime in addition to that. There are still Nazi political parties in Germany, and they are represented in some smaller local parliaments. Only they can't directly praise the third reich or the holocaust. Their programme is not that different, though.
What happens is that in every major city, there is a Nazi parade once a month. There are thousands of heavily armed police officers protecting them as they walk around and ask for foreigners to be expelled, racial laws, and all that other crap. It is their constitutional right.
Some people have a very skewed idea of how things are in Germany. Nobody gets arrested for being a Nazi, or loving Hitler, or having a swastika tattood on them. What's prohibited is public dissemination of such material. You can't publish a Hitler-loving article, or a pro-holocaust song. The reasoning of the government is that this will prevent the spread of such materials. I don't think that it's working, to be honest. You don't hear much about them anymore. I guess they've faded away. (except maybe for prison gangs?) The US has never had a significant Nazi presence. Those were small groups.
Germany had basically 40 million Nazis one generation ago, and we all know what happened. It is a very different situation. The Nazi problem in Germany and parts of Europe is historical, not just a simple result of censorship.
He was saying that the government should crush and destroy those subcultures that are trying to gas dozens of millions of people in gas chambers and use them as fertiliser.
And I have no problem with any such subculture being crushed and destroyed, as I think that mass genocide and world war is something completely different than "annoying freedom". Unfortunately, censorship is not the answer.
It's just that some people don't understand that Nazi symbols have a very different weight in Germany than Roman or Mongol insignia, both historically and today.
Could you give me some examples of "destroying historical artifacts"?
Using Nazi symbols is explicitly allowed in Germany, if it is used for historical reasons, in documentaries, movies depicting that time, or any scholarly purpose. The museums are full of historical artifacts from that time. What "destruction" are you talking about?
What is not allowed is glorifying the Nazi regime and holocaust denial, as well as reselling Nazi symbols. Mein Kampf is not banned, or illegal, it just can't be printed. There are plenty of copies floating around. But it's illegal to take a copy to school, and then try to convince kids that it's full of great ideas and that they should try them on their colleague with immigration background. Which happens right now, in Germany.
I agree that banning things is not the way. But some people act as if Germany is doing it out of some childish spite, not real historical and political reasons. Millions of people were executed in concentration camps by the Nazi regime and there are many people still around who are trying to repeat that today. Comparing TODAY's Nazi gangs with Romans and Carthage shows complete lack of perspective.
I'm against censorship, but some people lack any perspective whatsoever....
Nobody says that the "inventor is no one". But disregarding the importance of society on great discoveries can only be made by people who are not scientists and who have never invented anything. Because these people know how much studying of things done by other people is necessary before one can make a truly meaningful discovery.
Without the input from the society, you
- wouldn't know how to read/write
- wouldn't know any math
- wouldn't know about the scientific method
- wouldn't know any logic, save for very elementary common sense
- wouldn't know any engineering, physics, material science
Then you would expect someone to come up with an airplane or the theory of relativity in an "Eureka" moment, basically reinventing all of the above. Good luck with that. Great innovations are only possible due to the wealth of knowledge that humans have accumulated over millenia. Shoulders of giants, and all that. It's just that the genius hermit reinventing the universe on the toilet one day makes for a cooler story
If you look away from the standard database/webserver/desktop environment showcase projects, you will find plenty of image processing libraries, things like Boost, math libraries, learning tools, AI algorithms, etc. based on the latest research and often implemented by the very people who invented these new methods in the first place.
In my field (computer vision), many people will release open-source implementations of their algorithms, or such algorithms are implemented by popular open-source libraries by other researchers, in an attempt to make the technique more easily available and to help its spread.
The myth of the big corporation doing all the research is, for the most part, a myth. Many times they will take readily available, published research produced by universities or scientific institutes, change a few numbers, and then patent it.
I do realise that you are talking about hardware more than software here, but even in hardware, the majority of what's done in a big company is based on published research.
With most Chinese people, it is a combination of finding it difficult to adjust to a very different culture, and trying really hard to finish their education, as their families probably invested their life savings into it.
Most Chinese people who come over to study are very good students who got where they are through extreme studying in a ridiculously competitive environment. The parties in China are very different, as are human relationships, and it's a huge culture shock for many of them. So they concentrate on the important thing -- their studies. Most of them are postgraduates from prestigious universities.
Some people expect students like those who have just arrived from China to join all the frat parties, get drunk, go to the NFL games and listen to nu-metal, and this is very unrealistic. Many of them are married, quiet people, with imperfect English, who enjoy the company of other people from their home country. Most of them are extremely nice if you actually approach them and put in the effort to know them better.
In reality, however, one only has to claim that something you do, or something you know does, or something somebody who knows somebody who knows you does, is somehow unconstitutional, and they can listen to all your communications. You won't even know about it.
So, in practice, there is little fundamental difference, though Germany certainly treats dissidents better than China, Sudan, etc.