Are you saying that the Chinese government, which is capable of censorship on that vast a scale, is incapable of helping me? If you're not Chinese and not in China, then "incapable" should be changed to "not obliged";-p
That aside, censorship isn't the same as rescue missions in dangerous terrain. Besides, as I've (and some others) mentioned here before, the Chinese government are not Gods, they might wish to be able to control everything, but in fact they can't.
And when we do care for each other, it is real, not because we were forced into it with propaganda at every turn. It's the difference between making love and being a rape victim. If you can't see that difference, you're the one to pity. Just to tell you that most people who went along with the mourning really cared. If watching the Twin Towers burn to the ground on TV was shocking, actually feeling the shock thousands of miles away from the epicenter [1] is ground breaking (no pun intended, really...). And I already feel like a jerk for not giving much of a damn to the mourning. Not because of the propaganda, but because I see that some people actually care much more than I do.
And if you allow me, the sentimentalism of 911 was as "propaganda"-ish as the news about the quake in China, if not more. The fact that the media is controlled by the state doesn't mean that the Chinese people don't have the ability of empathy and sympathy.
Would arguments like this please stop? It's getting old.
I'm not *justifying* the actions of the Chinese government (of declaring a national mourning). I'm saying that by YOUR standards, this is acceptable, and is simply the right thing to do. Unless you're proposing to hold China to a higher standard, and in which case I'm asking what standards.
The "War on Terror" is another thing entirely. Please don't mix up the issues. Until China decides to have a War on Earthquakes, or begins circulating conspiracies about some evil country causing the quake, this mourning is simply the equivalent of people mourning for the loss in 911.
Also (this is unrelated to my main point above) I don't see how "However, we have the freedom to criticize it through free press and we have the freedom to change it through free elections." helps. Yes, you have a more free press, free speech, and democratic government. But even with all that you elected a government who's waging a stupid war, people still believing that Saddam was involved in 911, and had WMDs. Sometimes I wonder whether I should say that you're justifying your wrongs with "free speech and democracy" -- yes we've done bad things, but we have free speech!! Hah!
I mean, if free speech and democracy doesn't lead to an accountable and sane government, why even bother? I sometimes wonder why Americans are so proud of their "freedoms"... they should be ashamed for electing a crap government despite having these freedoms. How many Iraqis have you killed because of your vote (or lack thereof)? And don't think you're entirely off the blame if you didn't vote for Bush -- did you use your freedom of speech to warn others about the problems of Bush? Did you use it to debunk the lies that the Bush administration has propagated (eg. WMDs)? Did you vote for the Senators who approved the war? (Did you even vote?)
PS: Pardon if you're not an American. "You" basically refers to all Americans who's using the same line of arguments as you.
I can't speak for the 1.3B Chinese, but people I know aren't really interested in the idea of sending an army across the pacific just to prove a point.
In fact, personally I wonder why Americans find this idea acceptable. I don't know whether I'm biased, but most Americans seem to be more comfortable with the idea of invading other countries than the Chinese that I know. Even to "enemies" like Japan, the sentiment of Chinese is more like "apologize for your past crimes or we will hate you!" (note: hate != invade). Americans are like "oh they have a bad, oppressive government, maybe we should invade them to punish them?" (well, maybe you don't believe in this but enough do that it this concept has made an impression on me, and tell me what the Iraq war, the Korean war, the Vietnam war was about, and even if you don't approve of those wars why a significant number of Americans did)
The cultural ideals is different too. Most westerners want to see things like "freedom" and "justice" be implemented in the world. Most Chinese just want to get rich and live a life without foreign interference (and thus, aren't as interested in interfering with things in other parts of the world as long as those things don't affect them). I mean, frankly, if you ask me what I think of Al Queda/Bin Laden, I'd say as long as they're not targeting China or Chinese and won't be doing so, I personally couldn't care less. I certainly wouldn't be asking my government to scorch the Middle East to find him, even if he's the most evil man on earth.
My conjecture is that most Americans are simply more war-happy than Chinese, and yet since they perceive the Chinese to be "worse" than them, they delude themselves to think that the Chinese are actually MORE likely to initiate military actions, and thus paranoia ensues. But if you look at the history of the Chinese since time immemorial, all "wars" they've waged are on or within their borders. (And which country hasn't had border conflicts?) And when you compare that with the colonialism of the European powers (and also the Japanese), and the militarism of USA in the past few decades, you'll see that China is actually very "peaceful".
The rest of the world really hopes that China will get its act together on e.g. human rights. Some, but I don't really think this is the case generally.
Most people are just afraid of China, for whatever reasons. Some think if China grows strong they'll invade other countries (as mentioned, the risk is minimal except maybe for Taiwan). Some think that the "bad ideas" will spread. Some are have more ulterior motives seeing it as a tool to weaken China by painting it in a bad light, etc.
Uh, so no, I personally don't think China will be doing a Tibet on you. And if one day some insane Chinese government comes to power and decides to invade other countries you have my word that I'd be as vocal as possible in opposing it.
Oh and back to the original question. If you don't shut up, I'll start calling you names or something like that.:-) [?]
Can you give me some examples of this? I'm very curious as to what exactly you consider irrational, China-hating, and bashing? Basically, look around. There is some rational bashing, and then some totally ridiculous ones. Most of them basically goes like this: "I know the Chinese government is evil. So anything they do must be evil, and any positive things they do MUST have some ulterior motive. Therefore the Chinese government is evil." Example? You don't need to look far. Interpreting a national mourning (well justified, just look at the death toll) as an act of censorship or oppression.
Who has ever said anything like that? Please, if you're going to make ludicrous arguments, back it up. That's one of the bonuses of having freedom of information! Could I turn your argument on itself?;-p
Basically, a lot of people (whether on slashdot or not) bash China (and government) based on unconfirmed ludicrous arguments. A lot of "what if they did this?", "they're bad guys, so they must have done something evil" kind of thinking/reasoning. Why do they have to resort to this instead of basing their criticisms on actual facts? "They can't accept the fact that the situation in China is improving" is my conclusion.
Sorry that I can't point you to people saying explicitly "Oh no China can't be improving". Most people aren't stupid enough to say this. But then, may I refer you to the famous (in Chinese circles) comment by Jack Cafferty: "I think they're (the Chinese) basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years".
If you know what China is like 50 years ago, and the fact that it has unarguably improved a lot (though still a long way to go), you'll see how my statement could be valid.
Btw, my statement is not too ludicrous to Chinese or those who actually have a clue about China, but I admit I should have given a bit more evidence here;-p
From a comment from TFA:
I also received confirmation from one of the CN human rights reps that the internet and television shut down is VOLUNTARY and OPTIONAL as part of the the three day mourning period, some that was lost in translation earlier.:) If you have somebody to translate: this is the original notice from the Chinese government. The relevant part basically says "all public entertainment activities shall be ceased". I'm not familiar with how much direct control over websites the Chinese government has, and whether "public" means "public as in government/state owned" or "public as in publicly accessible", but it seems that they won't pull you into jail if a website owner doesn't comply. Besides, most Chinese sites are more than willing to participate.
Compare with Slashdot title: "China Cuts Access to Entertainment Web Sites". And then people start bitching about how China is getting more oppressive etc and crackdown on entertainment sites... wtf.
Not lies? Willful ignorance?
And I admit I was a bit too sarcastic. I usually don't buy into the "lies" thing, but sometimes you just can't help but have that conclusion. Did you read about that Nepal "Chinese police" somewhere in the discussion? There are numerous other such examples, which sound perfectly "right" to westerners because most aren't familiar with issues in China, but are simply outright ridiculous when viewed by anybody with a clue about China. This one is simply a bit over the top. I mean, we all know that slashdot doesn't have any journalistic standards, but slashdot frontpage "news" linking to a site that comments on some rumors on Twitter?
Sometimes I feel that the western attitude towards China related reporting is like this: anything that paints China in a bad light "sounds" right, so it goes through without much scrutiny. Anything that paints China is a positive light "sounds" wrong, and people just have to twist it to sound like there's some ulterior motive. If you look and read carefully with an unbiased eye, you might see it yourself (just put your tinfoil hat on, the Chinese "nationalists" exaggerates things too).
I'm all for freedom of information and I personally think the great firewall of China is stupid (especially the wiki ban), but one should base criticisms on fact and not false rumors from people who have an anti-China agenda.
I note with interest, over the past 6 months, the noticiable uninformed anti chinese bias of the articles on Slashdot. I note with disinterest, that the situation has been going on for as long as I remember being on slashdot. It's just that perhaps in the past 6 months, the irrational China-haters have gotten less real issues to bash China, and the bias and absurdity is finally surfacing.
You didn't need to dig very far to find out that China is in 3 days of mourning. Blame that on the editors. They think that a comment on some twitter messages are "news", despite that there's no report from more authoritative news sources, which TFA responsibly notes.
You guys appear intellegent but incapable of independent thought when it comes to China. People here think they're smart yet I simply see that they're brainwashed with western propaganda. Yes, brainwashed. They can't accept the fact that the situation in China is improving, and they resort to pseudo-journalism (if even that) to reinforce their beliefs, so that they don't have to acknowledge that they've been BS-ing all along.
Huh? I pardon you that you probably don't read Chinese, but a LOT of news and information about the quake came from Chinese forums, and lots of people communicated with their families through the internet or SMS or other means of communication.
And, the story isn't accurate. They declared a 3 day mourning, they didn't cut off the Internet.
cutting access to entertainment RIGHT at the time when their country totally needs it. Wow the Earth's shaking! Let's party!! eh?
And what do you say to the people here claiming that net access is just fine, and they could, *gasp*, actually find that song for solace as you mentioned?
Do you actually honor *facts* instead of the fantasy world in your head?
The great wall of China was built to fend off Mongols.
You know, the guys who invaded much of Asia and some of Eastern Europe.
It wasn't a pretty wall made to showcase power or anything. It had a significant military use (before modern military inventions like planes and tanks etc.)
Don't slander China with the sick beliefs of the west.
Despite all flaws about China and the Chinese government, nobody in China believes what you've said above.
This "China is bad, but so are we" mentality *seems* neutral, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes, despite the fact that most people just couldn't admit it, China is actually better. Not always, not often, but examples exist.
Just to bring one up: people accuse China (PRC) of being brutal and overly militaristic. Well, they've been threatening Taiwan for decades, and still haven't actually done anything "brutal" about it. There aren't even skirmishes. On the other hand, how many countries have USA and other western countries invaded, or "policed"? Now and then, some guy comes up and smites the PRC for blackmailing Taiwan. Some other guy comes up with a "neutral" comment saying "oh, China is bad, but we're just as bad! Look what we did in Iraq". Well, actually, no, you're worse.
So please don't assume that China has ALL your flaws, and then some. The fact is that every country has their own flaws, better in some aspects and worse in others. Unless you know what you're talking about, cease the bullsht.
It's the cold war all over. I've heard that back then, Americans actually believed that the Soviets had the power to build a military base on the "dark" side of the moon.
Now they believe that the Chinese have the power to have a "totalitarian" government (as opposed to "authoritarianism). It's just not possible.
It's easy to control people when you have a fake enemy that keeps them focused upon, so that they would simply gloss over your flaws. Oh and Saddam had WMDs.
everyone is full of shit. Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Japanese, everyone. Between "Muslim Obama" lies, "Japs wanna kill us all" hysteria, and everything else I've seen, there's no such thing as unbiased news reporting anymore. Journalistic integrity is non-existent anywhere you go. Sigh. But then if journalists would simply stop trying to insert their own crappy opinions and simply broadcast what they've recorded things would be much better.
Next time, please try to report on the EVIL CRIMES of CHINESE COMMUNISTS with a bit more subtlety. These days, with the free Internet, and more Chinese citizens on the Internet who've seen the real deal, blatant lies about the Chinese government will not work, and will get you discredited.
Please, for the sake of humanity and those who rightly believe in the CULT OF ANTI-COMMUNISM, run stories about CHINESE COMMUNISTS KILLING BABIES in their basements or something. Something that nobody can be sure about. At least you won't get a heck load of comments from readers outright contradicting your claims.
Well, let's presume your view of "they are trying to exploit this for nation building" is valid (which I don't agree).
Then, by US standards, China is doing just fine. The USA used 911 for nation building, fueled the fear of terrorists, and made Americans approve two invasions, one of which is viewed as a stupid war everywhere around the world.
You saw a bit more free speech in China after the quake. You saw less free speech in USA after 911.
So, what standards are you proposing to hold China to?
Brief reports of the quake came within an hour. More detailed reports of the quake came rolling in within 2-3 hours, detailing death tolls etc. Wen Jiabao flew to Sichuan on short notice and made an (national) announcement on the plane.
If your story is true everybody involved reacted real quick.
If anybody was trying to cover up the story it could only be the local (municipal?) government. If that's the case I'm not really surprised. It's no news that many local governments in China are crap, and it's not surprising that they couldn't suppress news of a huge national disaster like this.
obviously the local government won't follow suit Linking to a Chinese (language) site isn't the accepted norm here, but I'm too lazy to find an English link.
Basically, the (Hong Kong) local government is following suit as far as they can. Of course in Hong Kong the government doesn't control everything, so participation from private entities/companies is on a voluntary basis, but they're asking people to do it. (if you can't read Chinese I'm sure you'll be able to find a colleague to do a bit of quick translation.)
Subtle real option: get a secret agent to send him death threats. If that doesn't work you could always target his family or loved ones. I've been told that actually works.
If you have a "secure secret hospital" that's the "jail" method. It's not really that hard to fake a stroke without having the speech impediment device. And you'd have to think of reasons to deny visits from his family. And what if he recovers? Essentially, if you could pull this off you could send him to jail bluntly.
I still don't see what's why the paranoia about this device. My point is, the first half of your posts are REAL concerns, the slashdot paranoia on every new tech being applied as government controls is a result of reading too much sci-fi. When you focus on the wrong things, it distracts somewhat from the real issues.
Windows the Microsoft product is not better than Linux.
What's better:
- 3rd party applications support. Almost no major company writes apps specifically for Linux, but many target Windows. - 3rd party hardware support. Hardware manufacturers test their products on Windows, and have to fix any problems with Windows before they ship it. They also have to make a working windows driver. They don't have to do this for Linux, and many don't. - User familiarity. People are used to the quirks of Windows. They know what ctrl-alt-del means. They know what windows updates is doing. They know that many problems could be fixed after a reboot. - Windows is pre-installed. You don't have people running around bitching how hard it is to install a generic copy of windows. The rescue disks from OEMs contain the drivers for the hardware. Linux is hard to install because making an easy to use generic installer for ANY machine is hard, and this is part of the user experience when a user decides to switch to Linux.
Tell me about any significant areas that Linux is behind Windows which don't fall under these 4 categories. Windows is simply technologically inferior, the only major advantage it has over Linux these days is its existing market share. Of course this doesn't mean anything from the general consumer's perspective, but since slashdot is heavy on tech discussion, the technological aspects are discussed more here.
Insightful? When governments are twisted enough that they could "legally" do this, they could also do it the low tech way, namely cutting off your tongue. Throwing you into prison might help too but that's too high tech.
I mean, I didn't know my freedom of speech was *that* valuable... imagine all those expensive high tech gadgets required to silence me...
Seriously, this stupid "what if governments..." paranoia on slashdot has to stop. What if governments used TV to promote neo-Nazism? What if governments used dining knives to execute political dissidents? What if governments drugged me with pot to deprive my right to free thought? What if governments built androids that follow me every day for surveillance purposes? OH THE HORROR!!! HAIL THE GOOD OLD DAYS IN STONE AGE WHEN THE TRIBE LEADER THREW STICKS AT HIS ENEMIES!!
I mean, you guys need to understand how oppressive governments work. They don't care about you, so they'll just find the least complicated ways to "reform" you. You won't get the privilege to be silenced by these kinds of expensive tech if cutting your tongue or throwing you into prison works better and cheaper. Wake up dudes, you guys have read too much sci-fi./rant.
The real question is, whether it's ready for you The real question is, why should I (or you) switch?
Don't be mistaken I've been using Linux on my desktop for more than seven years now, almost exclusively. It's just that I don't see a marked advantage for people to risk trashing their computers by switching from Windows to Linux.
The real challenge is to find OEM vendors who are willing to ship Linux pre-installed (the progress seems slow but at least there's some progress here). Otherwise for most average users switching to Linux is nothing but a unnecessary hassle.
I finally gave up, formatted the drive and installed Windows. I'm not a hacker or even an overclocker anymore. I'm an administrator now and the final straw was when I realized that work was piling up on me while I fiddled with my OS. Playing with linux was cool but when it all boiled down to it, I had work to do and just wanted to get my job done. Generally, if you're not paid to fiddle with your workstation at work, it's a good idea not to. I don't know how sophisticated your office network is, but if your office IT infrastructure doesn't support linux installing a linux machine on your workstation and expect everything to work is a bad idea. Of course samba etc works fine these days, but why bother with the risk? It's not like you're going to increase your productivity with linux anyways, since you don't seem to know the OS as well as you know windows...
Also, if I had to install windows now, I probably have the same things to say: problems finding drivers, problems dealing with advanced network configurations, inexperience with OS quirks, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
That aside, censorship isn't the same as rescue missions in dangerous terrain. Besides, as I've (and some others) mentioned here before, the Chinese government are not Gods, they might wish to be able to control everything, but in fact they can't.
Hmm... about the words in bold.
How about reading the other comments on slashdot (that most sites are functioning), and the clarifications in TFA (that participating is voluntary).
Man, if you had to highlight something in bold at least you should verify it first lest you shoot yourself in the foot.
And if you allow me, the sentimentalism of 911 was as "propaganda"-ish as the news about the quake in China, if not more. The fact that the media is controlled by the state doesn't mean that the Chinese people don't have the ability of empathy and sympathy.
Would arguments like this please stop? It's getting old.
I'm not *justifying* the actions of the Chinese government (of declaring a national mourning). I'm saying that by YOUR standards, this is acceptable, and is simply the right thing to do. Unless you're proposing to hold China to a higher standard, and in which case I'm asking what standards.
The "War on Terror" is another thing entirely. Please don't mix up the issues. Until China decides to have a War on Earthquakes, or begins circulating conspiracies about some evil country causing the quake, this mourning is simply the equivalent of people mourning for the loss in 911.
Also (this is unrelated to my main point above) I don't see how "However, we have the freedom to criticize it through free press and we have the freedom to change it through free elections." helps. Yes, you have a more free press, free speech, and democratic government. But even with all that you elected a government who's waging a stupid war, people still believing that Saddam was involved in 911, and had WMDs. Sometimes I wonder whether I should say that you're justifying your wrongs with "free speech and democracy" -- yes we've done bad things, but we have free speech!! Hah!
I mean, if free speech and democracy doesn't lead to an accountable and sane government, why even bother? I sometimes wonder why Americans are so proud of their "freedoms"... they should be ashamed for electing a crap government despite having these freedoms. How many Iraqis have you killed because of your vote (or lack thereof)? And don't think you're entirely off the blame if you didn't vote for Bush -- did you use your freedom of speech to warn others about the problems of Bush? Did you use it to debunk the lies that the Bush administration has propagated (eg. WMDs)? Did you vote for the Senators who approved the war? (Did you even vote?)
PS: Pardon if you're not an American. "You" basically refers to all Americans who's using the same line of arguments as you.
In fact, personally I wonder why Americans find this idea acceptable. I don't know whether I'm biased, but most Americans seem to be more comfortable with the idea of invading other countries than the Chinese that I know. Even to "enemies" like Japan, the sentiment of Chinese is more like "apologize for your past crimes or we will hate you!" (note: hate != invade). Americans are like "oh they have a bad, oppressive government, maybe we should invade them to punish them?" (well, maybe you don't believe in this but enough do that it this concept has made an impression on me, and tell me what the Iraq war, the Korean war, the Vietnam war was about, and even if you don't approve of those wars why a significant number of Americans did)
The cultural ideals is different too. Most westerners want to see things like "freedom" and "justice" be implemented in the world. Most Chinese just want to get rich and live a life without foreign interference (and thus, aren't as interested in interfering with things in other parts of the world as long as those things don't affect them). I mean, frankly, if you ask me what I think of Al Queda/Bin Laden, I'd say as long as they're not targeting China or Chinese and won't be doing so, I personally couldn't care less. I certainly wouldn't be asking my government to scorch the Middle East to find him, even if he's the most evil man on earth.
My conjecture is that most Americans are simply more war-happy than Chinese, and yet since they perceive the Chinese to be "worse" than them, they delude themselves to think that the Chinese are actually MORE likely to initiate military actions, and thus paranoia ensues. But if you look at the history of the Chinese since time immemorial, all "wars" they've waged are on or within their borders. (And which country hasn't had border conflicts?) And when you compare that with the colonialism of the European powers (and also the Japanese), and the militarism of USA in the past few decades, you'll see that China is actually very "peaceful". The rest of the world really hopes that China will get its act together on e.g. human rights. Some, but I don't really think this is the case generally.
Most people are just afraid of China, for whatever reasons. Some think if China grows strong they'll invade other countries (as mentioned, the risk is minimal except maybe for Taiwan). Some think that the "bad ideas" will spread. Some are have more ulterior motives seeing it as a tool to weaken China by painting it in a bad light, etc.
Uh, so no, I personally don't think China will be doing a Tibet on you. And if one day some insane Chinese government comes to power and decides to invade other countries you have my word that I'd be as vocal as possible in opposing it.
Oh and back to the original question. If you don't shut up, I'll start calling you names or something like that.
Basically, a lot of people (whether on slashdot or not) bash China (and government) based on unconfirmed ludicrous arguments. A lot of "what if they did this?", "they're bad guys, so they must have done something evil" kind of thinking/reasoning. Why do they have to resort to this instead of basing their criticisms on actual facts? "They can't accept the fact that the situation in China is improving" is my conclusion.
Sorry that I can't point you to people saying explicitly "Oh no China can't be improving". Most people aren't stupid enough to say this. But then, may I refer you to the famous (in Chinese circles) comment by Jack Cafferty: "I think they're (the Chinese) basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years".
If you know what China is like 50 years ago, and the fact that it has unarguably improved a lot (though still a long way to go), you'll see how my statement could be valid.
Btw, my statement is not too ludicrous to Chinese or those who actually have a clue about China, but I admit I should have given a bit more evidence here
Compare with Slashdot title: "China Cuts Access to Entertainment Web Sites". And then people start bitching about how China is getting more oppressive etc and crackdown on entertainment sites... wtf.
Not lies? Willful ignorance?
And I admit I was a bit too sarcastic. I usually don't buy into the "lies" thing, but sometimes you just can't help but have that conclusion. Did you read about that Nepal "Chinese police" somewhere in the discussion? There are numerous other such examples, which sound perfectly "right" to westerners because most aren't familiar with issues in China, but are simply outright ridiculous when viewed by anybody with a clue about China. This one is simply a bit over the top. I mean, we all know that slashdot doesn't have any journalistic standards, but slashdot frontpage "news" linking to a site that comments on some rumors on Twitter?
Sometimes I feel that the western attitude towards China related reporting is like this: anything that paints China in a bad light "sounds" right, so it goes through without much scrutiny. Anything that paints China is a positive light "sounds" wrong, and people just have to twist it to sound like there's some ulterior motive. If you look and read carefully with an unbiased eye, you might see it yourself (just put your tinfoil hat on, the Chinese "nationalists" exaggerates things too).
I'm all for freedom of information and I personally think the great firewall of China is stupid (especially the wiki ban), but one should base criticisms on fact and not false rumors from people who have an anti-China agenda.
Huh? I pardon you that you probably don't read Chinese, but a LOT of news and information about the quake came from Chinese forums, and lots of people communicated with their families through the internet or SMS or other means of communication.
And, the story isn't accurate. They declared a 3 day mourning, they didn't cut off the Internet.
And what do you say to the people here claiming that net access is just fine, and they could, *gasp*, actually find that song for solace as you mentioned?
Do you actually honor *facts* instead of the fantasy world in your head?
The great wall of China was built to fend off Mongols.
You know, the guys who invaded much of Asia and some of Eastern Europe.
It wasn't a pretty wall made to showcase power or anything. It had a significant military use (before modern military inventions like planes and tanks etc.)
Don't slander China with the sick beliefs of the west.
Despite all flaws about China and the Chinese government, nobody in China believes what you've said above.
This "China is bad, but so are we" mentality *seems* neutral, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes, despite the fact that most people just couldn't admit it, China is actually better. Not always, not often, but examples exist.
Just to bring one up: people accuse China (PRC) of being brutal and overly militaristic. Well, they've been threatening Taiwan for decades, and still haven't actually done anything "brutal" about it. There aren't even skirmishes. On the other hand, how many countries have USA and other western countries invaded, or "policed"? Now and then, some guy comes up and smites the PRC for blackmailing Taiwan. Some other guy comes up with a "neutral" comment saying "oh, China is bad, but we're just as bad! Look what we did in Iraq". Well, actually, no, you're worse.
So please don't assume that China has ALL your flaws, and then some. The fact is that every country has their own flaws, better in some aspects and worse in others. Unless you know what you're talking about, cease the bullsht.
It's the cold war all over. I've heard that back then, Americans actually believed that the Soviets had the power to build a military base on the "dark" side of the moon.
Now they believe that the Chinese have the power to have a "totalitarian" government (as opposed to "authoritarianism). It's just not possible.
It's easy to control people when you have a fake enemy that keeps them focused upon, so that they would simply gloss over your flaws. Oh and Saddam had WMDs.
Dear all China/Communist haters,
Next time, please try to report on the EVIL CRIMES of CHINESE COMMUNISTS with a bit more subtlety. These days, with the free Internet, and more Chinese citizens on the Internet who've seen the real deal, blatant lies about the Chinese government will not work, and will get you discredited.
Please, for the sake of humanity and those who rightly believe in the CULT OF ANTI-COMMUNISM, run stories about CHINESE COMMUNISTS KILLING BABIES in their basements or something. Something that nobody can be sure about. At least you won't get a heck load of comments from readers outright contradicting your claims.
Best regards,
Concerned Reader
Well, let's presume your view of "they are trying to exploit this for nation building" is valid (which I don't agree).
Then, by US standards, China is doing just fine. The USA used 911 for nation building, fueled the fear of terrorists, and made Americans approve two invasions, one of which is viewed as a stupid war everywhere around the world.
You saw a bit more free speech in China after the quake. You saw less free speech in USA after 911.
So, what standards are you proposing to hold China to?
The quake happened at around 2:30pm China time.
Brief reports of the quake came within an hour. More detailed reports of the quake came rolling in within 2-3 hours, detailing death tolls etc. Wen Jiabao flew to Sichuan on short notice and made an (national) announcement on the plane.
If your story is true everybody involved reacted real quick.
If anybody was trying to cover up the story it could only be the local (municipal?) government. If that's the case I'm not really surprised. It's no news that many local governments in China are crap, and it's not surprising that they couldn't suppress news of a huge national disaster like this.
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/080519/12/2u88q.html
Basically, the (Hong Kong) local government is following suit as far as they can. Of course in Hong Kong the government doesn't control everything, so participation from private entities/companies is on a voluntary basis, but they're asking people to do it. (if you can't read Chinese I'm sure you'll be able to find a colleague to do a bit of quick translation.)
Subtle real option: get a secret agent to send him death threats. If that doesn't work you could always target his family or loved ones. I've been told that actually works.
If you have a "secure secret hospital" that's the "jail" method. It's not really that hard to fake a stroke without having the speech impediment device. And you'd have to think of reasons to deny visits from his family. And what if he recovers? Essentially, if you could pull this off you could send him to jail bluntly.
I still don't see what's why the paranoia about this device. My point is, the first half of your posts are REAL concerns, the slashdot paranoia on every new tech being applied as government controls is a result of reading too much sci-fi. When you focus on the wrong things, it distracts somewhat from the real issues.
Windows the Microsoft product is not better than Linux.
What's better:
- 3rd party applications support. Almost no major company writes apps specifically for Linux, but many target Windows.
- 3rd party hardware support. Hardware manufacturers test their products on Windows, and have to fix any problems with Windows before they ship it. They also have to make a working windows driver. They don't have to do this for Linux, and many don't.
- User familiarity. People are used to the quirks of Windows. They know what ctrl-alt-del means. They know what windows updates is doing. They know that many problems could be fixed after a reboot.
- Windows is pre-installed. You don't have people running around bitching how hard it is to install a generic copy of windows. The rescue disks from OEMs contain the drivers for the hardware. Linux is hard to install because making an easy to use generic installer for ANY machine is hard, and this is part of the user experience when a user decides to switch to Linux.
Tell me about any significant areas that Linux is behind Windows which don't fall under these 4 categories. Windows is simply technologically inferior, the only major advantage it has over Linux these days is its existing market share. Of course this doesn't mean anything from the general consumer's perspective, but since slashdot is heavy on tech discussion, the technological aspects are discussed more here.
Insightful? When governments are twisted enough that they could "legally" do this, they could also do it the low tech way, namely cutting off your tongue. Throwing you into prison might help too but that's too high tech.
..." paranoia on slashdot has to stop. What if governments used TV to promote neo-Nazism? What if governments used dining knives to execute political dissidents? What if governments drugged me with pot to deprive my right to free thought? What if governments built androids that follow me every day for surveillance purposes? OH THE HORROR!!! HAIL THE GOOD OLD DAYS IN STONE AGE WHEN THE TRIBE LEADER THREW STICKS AT HIS ENEMIES!!
/rant.
I mean, I didn't know my freedom of speech was *that* valuable... imagine all those expensive high tech gadgets required to silence me...
Seriously, this stupid "what if governments
I mean, you guys need to understand how oppressive governments work. They don't care about you, so they'll just find the least complicated ways to "reform" you. You won't get the privilege to be silenced by these kinds of expensive tech if cutting your tongue or throwing you into prison works better and cheaper. Wake up dudes, you guys have read too much sci-fi.
Don't be mistaken I've been using Linux on my desktop for more than seven years now, almost exclusively. It's just that I don't see a marked advantage for people to risk trashing their computers by switching from Windows to Linux.
The real challenge is to find OEM vendors who are willing to ship Linux pre-installed (the progress seems slow but at least there's some progress here). Otherwise for most average users switching to Linux is nothing but a unnecessary hassle.
I think most people have the opposite experience here.
At least, even if I don't break windows, it tends to break itself.
Also, if I had to install windows now, I probably have the same things to say: problems finding drivers, problems dealing with advanced network configurations, inexperience with OS quirks, etc...
Can He create a stone so heavy that he couldn't lift himself? :-)