the chinese already learn english for international business purposes. english is already entrenched globally because of the colonial era. certainly, plenty of kids will learn mandarin as a prestige language, just like plenty learned japanese when the world thought japan was going to take over the world in the 1980s. but you might as well declare everyone speak hindi or urdu: languages that locally are extremely important, but globally not so much
in a world where china is dominant economically, which we are fast approaching, the guy in brazil will still want to learn english before he learns mandarin. why? because that brazilian will want to do business with the french and the russians and the indians as well, who are not speaking mandarin, but are already speaking english for international business transactions. certainly, learning mandarin will help the brazilian guy tweak his chinese business partner's ego, but his chinese business partner will probably smile, and reply in english
english has become entrenched as the de facto international language of business, just as a matter of historical consequence. as a secondary consequence of english being the language of international commerce, it begins to bleed into use in the sciences and in the arts. so it will be hard to de-entrench english, regardless of who dominates the world after the americans
english is on track to become the second language of everyone in the world, and it will be hard to break that momentum, noce historically established. of course, english doesn't deserve that fate, anymore than any other language. although a few languages, like spanish (easier to pronounce for nonnatives: lots of vowels... but also confusing feminine/ masculine bullshit and too many verb tenses), or korean (high relationship between spoken word and alphabet: the letters actually represent the mouth shape), i think are more deserving for technical reasons to be international languages than english. english is one of the most difficult languages to learn, like japanese, for being a melange of so many different influences. it doesn't make any sense these pronunciations: cOUGH... bOUGH. or Support... Sure
but history has spoken. you can't control these things, they just happen. otherwise, i'd be writing to you right now in esperanto
nice to interact with you in english, the language of international business, and therefore, the language that every school in the world puts some sort of emphasis on
do you think we still would be first touristic destination if we dropped our cultural identity ? and for what ?(cultural irrelevancy my ass, as if culture could ever be irrelevant) and please we do not need to fight to retain our culture, it sustain itself on its own pretty good imo
the japanese have been pretty busy studying, incorporating, and adapting western ways for over a century, and there is no such thing as no japanese culture. in fact, its pretty easy to identify japanese culture, and japanese culture is very strong in its own right
the value and strength of a culture is derived in fact from this cross pollination with other cultures. meanwhile, if you isolate or protect a culture, you weaken the culture
culture stands on its own, it requires no support, regardless of how INSECURE the people of that culture are:
it is no mistake that out of the enlightenment in europe came the foundations of modern science. the enlightenment started as a questioning of religious edicts from the catholic church, the protestant reformation. the point was: when you question supposedly solid beliefs, you begin your intellectual growth. it doesn't mean you have to give up those beliefs, but some beliefs, yes, you will give up, and this will provide new avenues of thought which is a REQUIREMENT for a strong supple mind. you ask: "How does limiting it in this one small way somehow break the mind as a whole?" and i reply: there is no such limiting in a small way. thats not possible. either the mind is free in all avenues, or it is hobbled in all avenues. cognition does not break down into tiny social compartments
centuries before the enlightenment, the caliphate was the light of the world, where great science was made: algebra, distilled alcohol, alchemy, the names of stars, etc. but you won't see great science coming out of the islamic world today, as they are mired in fundamentalism and autocracies. the ayatollah is on record saying iran's future preeminence rests on it becoming technologically sophisticated and independent. but you will never have that in the iranian theocracy. all of their great nationalist "advancements": nuclear reactors, their satellite launch: its all technology borrowed from elsewhere. a society that rewards obedience to a belief system that cannot be openly questioned creates minds which are not predisposed and capable of scientific inquiry
of course, such great minds still exist in iran, in childhood. in every society exists certain brilliant children who, if the society were a pure meritocracy of ideas, would be rewarded and would prosper. but the "education" in iran, read "indoctrination", would punish such great minds: the mind that obediently brown noses would win the highest marks, the highest grades
the mind that blindly parrots the religious status quo would win control of the science department, not the truly technically most advanced. iranian society has spoken: political and social obedience is most important. i'm saying a great scientific genius in iran would be incapable of not also saying something that would get him in trouble with the religious authorities. simply because the mind that can come to great scientific insights is automatically also a mind which questions all sorts of other things about the world around him. you do not find in science departments anywhere in the world the ultranationalist, the deeply socially conservative, the politically reactionary, the religiously devout. why is that do you suppose?
i'm not changing the subject from china, i'm broadening the topic to show you my point is not limited to chinese control of the media. there is a reason why the usa and western europe has grown so powerful and has invented things like the internet: you can say and think whatever you want, and therefore that which is "truth" that which is most valued is only that which stands on its own. the usa has nothing that cannot be adopted to any other country in the world. and doing so would make that country as powerful as the usa. meanwhile, if you artificially attempt to control ideas, to control the free exchange of thought, all you do is hobble and weaken it
take all the arguments about communism and the free exchange of capital, and apply it to authoritarianism, and the free exchange of ideas. if you understand why communism does not make everyone equally middle class, but why it makes everyone equally poor, then you understand why authoritarian control of media and attempts to control the free exchange of ideas is equally hobbling in terms of intellectual richness. if only human thought could be walled off as simply political. if only those who control said "dangerous" thought only comes from cetain sectors of society. if only thought in one avenue of intellectual expression had no implications on any other
control any aspect of free expression, and you poison the w
you are not giving away the experience of seeing it in a theatre for free. the idea that the guy who will watch transformers for free in his basement represents a guy who will not spend $10 at the theatre is a falsehood. yes, there are in fact people who will not see a movie in a theatre after watching it on their computer, but not all of them, or even a majority. or that if i had the option, that i would choose to atch by myself rather than going to the theatre. does the existence of recorded songs on the internet mean that no one comes to artists giving live concerts? no, the opposite in fact
i often watch movies i like again and again. adidtionally, someone who saw it on his computer might be intrigued enough to see it in the theatre, or tell his friends they have to see it: the point is, its exposure, free advertising, for the REAL product, which is seeing it in the theatre, where you can charge for tickets, and no experience by yourself, at home, can ever replace that
besides, i didn't actually think movie studios will release their products for free on the internet the same time as they release in theatres. i was simply providing the contrasting situation from the status quo we have now to demonstrate why the intellectual property status quo is philosophically unsound. perhaps they could release the first 10 minutes of the movie online for free (and in fact, they do in some cases)
and even if someone got their product illegally, what is that? a screener copy with words flashing on the bottom? something recorded in the theatre from a handycam? a half-edited mishmash with incomplete effects a disgruntled studio worker uploaded? these poor quality reproductions are valid competition with the real product?
now, if the projectionist in a digital theatre copied the movie, then yeah: thats a problem. so control your content vigorously. banks don't stay in business without keeping vigilance on the actual cash. but that's the studios job to police their copies. the point is: punishing the CONSUMER for lapses in product control is not going to change that fact! do banks stay in business by keeping piles of cash laying on the sidewalk in front of the branch, then suing anyone who picks it up into bankruptcy? is that a valid business model?
that was either the best i've ever trolled anyone ever, or, in turn sir, i salute you as the best troll i have ever met, to play the easily offended pointlessly indignant dim-witted fop so seamlessly
so many chips on the shoulder, so easy to knock off, so confused by the concepts in play...
free television, then the vcr, then the dvd, now the internet: it was all supposed to destroy the movie theatre. it hasn't. movies will still sell tickets even if their dvd market is $0. sitting in your basement by yourself watching transformers on a 17 inch monitor and tinny speakers is just AWESOME dude;-P even if you had a legal dvd
you can get a 55" HD tv and dolby surround sound in your rec room? oh right, because everyone can afford that. oh, and all your friends will show up on cue every time you feel the sudden urge to watch a movie, right? not to mention the new frontier of 3D content, 3 stories high immersive IMAX theatres, etc
fact: if hollywood gave away every movie it made for free on the internet on the same day as release, they would still be rolling in dough. because watching a movie at home does not, and will never replace the experience of seeing it in a theatre. even with all the crying babies and the cell phones (yes, there are people for which crying babies and cell phones has totally destroyed their desire to ever go theatres again: all 13 dozen of you in the us population: a small minor cranky fringe who are so perversely overly sensitive and overly reacting)
the modern movie theatre replaces, in effect, older shared cultural experiences like going to church, the public debate forum of old greece, going to see plays in victorian times, etc. we are social creatures. we crave fellowship, we know we are in the darkness with a couple hundred other people (munching popcorn: their presence is felt) and this validates our emotional experience in a movie: we SHARE it
why do you write on slashdot? you wish to SHARE your feelings and thoughts. this is what it means in many ways to be human. when you go to a horror movie, and you gasp at a shocking scene, the experience in heightened when you also hear a woman shriek behind you. when you hear laughter at a comedy in the audience around you, you in turn laugh louder and feel more mirthful. why do television sitcoms pipe canned laughter over their shows? its a genuine human sociological effect
the point? if all of intellectual property laws were erased, we would see an INCREASE in cultural output and quality, without the laws getting in the way of artists attempting to create art (and running into interference from the great grandson of a guy who wrote a song he wants to use on a soundtrack, etc), and without distributors telling us what to watch/ read/ listen to (internet sites devoted to rating output would do that instead)
on the internet, i can give you, or someone in johannesburg, or someone in novosibirsk, any amount of my bits that they want
the internet is the ocean. media content is water
its simple economics: supply meets demand, and determines a price. with infinite supply. cost is zero. there is no ability, via any legal means, to modify this simple economic truth
"Just don't start crying about quality when fewer people are willing to take risks creating this "valueless" content that you love to download so much."
this is baseless panic
#1: who said we are getting quality now? i've seen $10,000 dollar movies that were much better than $100,000,000 movies. i've seen a guy in coffeeshop deliver more moving songs than mindless pop i've heard. i've read better books written by authors from eras where no intellectual property protections existed than pulp where the author received a million dollar contract before the book was written
#2: why do people create art? to get paid? they do it out of passion. well, most do. certainly, some do it only for money (see #1 above). fact: if it were legally enforced in an alternate universe that no artist ever be allowed to get a penny for anything they ever made, even if people were throwing cash at them and armed police were preventing the artist from picking it up the cash, guess what: people would still create art. ask any high school kid why he picked up a guitar: to get a girl's pants. FAME. or even, believe it or not, simply for the love of the art. why did the first proto-human draw a stick figure on a cave wall or beat a drum? because he wanted economic consideration?
#3: anything meatspace will still result in cash. the musician who distributes his mp3s for free, thereby getting a fan base, will sell tickets to his next concert. television, then the vcr, then the dvd, now the internet: it was all supposed to destroy the movie theatre. it hasn't. movies will still sell tickets even if their dvd market is $0. jk rowling could get $0 for her books and still be very rich: speaking engagements, personalized content, hollywood scripts, toylines, media endorsements, advertising, etc
the point? if all of intellectual property laws were erased, we would see an INCREASE in cultural output and quality, without the laws getting in the way of artists attempting to create art (and running into interference from the great grandson of a guy who wrote a song he wants to use on a soundtrack, etc), and without distributors telling us what to watch/ read/ listen to (internet sites devoted to rating output would do that instead)
egocentric idiotic tribal ultranationalists exist everywhere. in the usa, and in china. in the usa, you are allowed to question such ultranationalism. in china, such ultranationalism is a monopoly, the state owned media, and if you question the party line, you are fair game for monitoring, admonishment, and perhaps prosecution
this clearly means more minds are swayed towards han imperialism in beijing than there are minds in washington dc swayed towards american imperialism. this clearly means more minds in china adhere to the official "harmonious" monoculture, while in the usa they are allowed to inhabit a diversity of dissenting niches. a diversity of thought clearly results in a more supple, less brittle pool of minds, much more ready to lead via consensus, which is the only way you lead on the world stage
you really want to sit there and say that the media environment in the usa versus china makes no difference? you really want to say that argument of mine is thin?
"Most of the media is controlled by a handful of companies, and that is a fact."
we are reading and interacting on slashdot. which is not owned or run by megaultraevil corporation inc. it is one of thousands of independently run media outlets in the usa, which you are freely allowed to visit. right now, i can go read the news in tehran, or in beijing. if i were in beijing or tehran, i could not freely read the news in new york city. in china: there is only one media outlet. the government. you call my views simplistic. your views aren't simplistic: they are clearly falsehoods
"There is no real diversity of views, only minor ones."
translation: "i have some fringe wackjob belief i don't see getting the respect i think it deserves". because according to anyone levelheaded its not a belief that deserves much airtime, because it is easily dismissed, and is noncontroversial. but prove me wrong: go out and agitate for widespread support for your beliefs. you are free to try that, in the west (not in china). but if you can't get the support you think you deserve, is it because the people think you are nuts? or is it because some evilmegaultra corp is suppressing you?
"The Chinese state censors Western propaganda"
the chinese state censors its own people. for example, you are right now in the west, questioning the west. you are 100% allowed to do that and i support your right to do that. you are not allowed to question china, if you live in china. get the difference oh great wise one?
"where you get your idea of democracy, that you put as a condition to be a superpower."
yes, i believe that it is far superior to rule via consensus rather than force. it is not a condition for being a superpower, it is a condition for you to deserve respect as a government in my eyes. do you believe it is superior to rule via force than consensus?
"If China has showed us anything, is precisely that being a democracy is not a pre-condition to succeed on the world stage."
i never thought it was. the entirety of human history has shown brutality often rules. the chinese from their own history know that well: from mongol invasions to the opium wars, the chinese know they have to be strong to survive in this world. does it mean they shouldn't respect their own people and censor their own people's expression? why does beijing not respect its own people? i have more respect for chinese people and treat them like adults than beijing does, which treats its people like children
"BTW, how much "global international cooperation" did the US need to become a world super-power? Next to none."
the usa didn't exist 250 years ago. it rose to power dramatically over much older countries through the force of its ideas: a free market, rule via democracy rather than monarchy/ dictatorship. this has made it a strong stable country. its not a zero sum game: the usa did not take from someone else in order to be strong, the usa built its strength from within. the usa is not strong because of nike sweat shops in indonesia, or because it toppled the iranian govt, or assassinated chilean politicians. these were all stupid mistakes the usa committed. but none of those actions are reasons why the usa is strong. the usa is strong because of what its government and its people values. other countries that have been around a lot longer than the usa, who have committed just as many international crimes as the usa does (including china) are not as powerful as the usa, simply because they do not value free trade in capital and ideas like the usa does. china has learned to value capitalism. china is now more capitalistic than the usa, even though it is ruled by the communist party, which is some sort of laughable absurdity. if china next respects the free exchange of ideas like the usa, i will embrace china as readily as i embrace the usa. because i am not about tribalism, i am about principles
"Ultra-nationalism is a strength, not a weakness."
do you equate political dissent with hooligans intent on smashing windows?
do you really think that me writing my political opinion on a website is the same as some yahoo throwing bricks at police?
why do you think these are remotely the same:
1. the police control a handful of anarchist idiots who can't be reasoned with, feel they have a right to destroy things, and don't understand anything except physical force 2. the government monitors, filters, and punishes any and all political expression by anyone in the country
that's the difference between the west and china
do you have an ability to appreciate the difference? do you really think the level of control in china is anything remotely near that in the west?
because the west has to control a handful of destructive hooligans in pittsburg: this in your mind is the same as a government which filters and controls ALL media and internet expression by EVERYONE? really?
and as for the sound cannon: this is new technology meant to control anarchist idiots nonlethally, without using bullets. in other words, an advancement in nonlethal confrontation. but apparently, just because its a new technology, this is a rationale for your criticism. pffft
you can throw your weight around, but you can't lead, until you think about what other people want. which you can't do, if you've grown up never thinking about that, since your country didn't let you be exposed to anything outside the bubble of official chinese thought
dealings with others in the world is built on consensus. this is direct contrast to chinese authoritarian thinking. meanwhile, anyone raised in a democratic environment, which is also built on consensus, are naturally better suited to the task of world leadership
the chinese will never lead in the world, until they change their way of thinking. sure, world leadership in the hands of washington dc may be in sunset, but if anything, it will pass to brussels, not beijing
the chinese stranglehold on chinese media creates robots, not critical thinkers. if you prefer cotton candy "harmony" over ugly truths and uglier dissent, your mind is free of struggle, but it is also free of thought. why the chinese government thinks its citizens are children is beyond me, but i have more respect for chinese citizens than beijing does
in the usa, the story is purely idiot distributors fighting their irrelevancy in the age of the internet
in europe, there is another potent issue that does not exist in the usa: cultural irrelevancy. the french have been fighting to retain french culture for decades: funding french arts, fighting the emergence of english words into french usage, etc
its all rather silly and absurd from an american perspective: hey france, history spoke, and you lost, and the british won. now everyone speaks english in the world, shut up, get over it, and deal with it
but from the point of view of french national pride, you can see why the fight here is not simple and straightforward as it is in the usa
heck, even if you are danish, or belgian: how the hell are you suppose to preserve danish and belgian culture in the face of the english onslaught? protectionism seems appealing. even if, of course, it really makes no difference. its just nostalgia. resistance is futile
perhaps the canadians know best how to deal with being in the cultural shadow of a dominant neighbor: they send their comedians and actors to the usa where they feed that culture sometimes even better than the americans do. i always wondered why the hell there are so many successful canadian comedians in the usa: is there something fundamentally more absurd about being canadian? (snicker)
taiwan is not a horrible anti-feminist country like afghanistan or iran, but if a woman is stripping in taipei, she's doing it because of financial coercion much more often than for female empowerment. and i'm not saying that its true that if someone is stripping in the usa, it is only out modern feminist thinking. what i am saying is that you need to look at the real and exact status of women's rights in taiwan, officially and culturally before you say what you said
and, in hawaii, i can stand on a street corner and say so. i can go on a website and say hawaii should be independent. no us official will punish me. in fact, if a us official tried to punish me for expressing my political opinion, that official in turn could be punished, sued, even possibly charged with a crime. would that be true of the beijing official who cracked down on the tibetan's expression of political opinion?
i can make a movie about the injustice of hawaii being part of the usa. i can create a political party to that effect. on the mainland usa, i can view said party's literature, i can agree with it, openly, and i can even give that cause money. can a resident of shanghai do that?
they are freely allowed to run by the us government
can you say any of those things about what tibetans can do?
a better allegory would be if you had used puerto rico rather than hawaii as an example. puerto rico is not a state of the usa. puerot ricans can not vote for american president. yet in puerto rico, votes continue to come up, and PUERTO RICANS (not washington dc) continue to decide to be part of the usa as a commonwealth by a vast majority rather than be an independent country (they do this for the generous financial reasons of this commonwealth situation)
By choosing to maintain the commonwealth status that has been in place here for more than 40 years, Puerto Ricans made it clear that they prefer "the best of two worlds," in the words of a pro-commonwealth campaign slogan, to the prospect of more intimate ties with the United States. By an overwhelming margin, they also rejected independence, the third option that had been offered to them in the nonbinding vote today.
do you really think any of that would be true for tibet and tibetans? if tibetans could vote like puerto ricans, what would tibetans choose?
china uses tanks and coercion, the us uses votes and consensus
so do you really believe your comparison between tibet and hawaii is valid in any way whatsoever?
in the west, i can view any media source i want. in the west, i can criticize my government freely
in china, i can't view any media source, plenty are blocked. additionally, if i say something that criticises the chinese government, i can be monitored, perhaps punished
the difference is real and significant in terms of the types of minds that are created. there are plenty of nationlistic idiots in the west. but in china, there are many more, as simple result of the fact that the chinese government policy encourages the creation of tribal han and their self-comfort
apparently the chinese government thinks chinese people are pets, slaves, incapable of their own opinions. the chinese government thinks that adult chinese have to be treated like children
by any objective, heck, by any subjective measurement, in the west i clearly have orders of magnitude more freedoms of expression and political opinion than i do in china
which means i am able to fully express my mind as a fully capable human being. the chinese, meanwhile, are only allowed to be children, to be unquestioning robots. this is not my opinion. this is the obvious policy of the chinese government: the chinese people have to be controlled, they can't be treated like adults, they can't be trusted
i have a higher opinion of the chinese people than their own government. why?
your observations are fine in a vacuum of any other considerations. but if you compare how children are raised in the west, their media market, with children raised in china, the chinese media market, you are not creating a generation of critical thinkers in china because there is no exposure to anything other than "what is good for china". "what is good for the west" is still a valid concern in the west, but in the west, via self-criticism, you sometimes wind up with an even better answer to the question "what is good for the west"
self-introspection, self-criticism, does not necessarily result in a tampening down or destruction of self-centered greed. oftentimes, it actually results in better ways to enrich yourself. in other words, the guy who only thinks about "what is good for me" sometimes cannot see that what is best for him is something he would never see if he was unable to articulate, appreciate, and examine alternative points of view. cooperation and paradoxically giving rather than taking often result in more self-enrichment than simple blind obsessive "me, me, me"
of course there are also plenty of nationalistic blind morons in the west, and critical thinking is a rare commodity anywhere. but the mind is a muscle: use it or lose it. a media environment that challenges people with alternative points of view results in a mind that can justify what it already believes even better, or alternatively, adapt a superior point of view
raising that same mind in a hermetically sealed environment where "harmony" is valued over sometimes ugly truths results in minds that can't always see what is best for them, even if that is their only concern
what is best for china? sometimes, it is self-criticism. is that allowed in china? no. that's my point: what is best for china is not served by being singularly obsessed with what is best for china to the exclusion of any criticism and alternative points of view. a bunch of unthinking robots is all the current chinese media climate creates. this doesn't actually serve china in the end, it impoverishes china because such nationalistic fools do actions which often hurt china, internally and externally
even the most skeptical about the government's censorship excesses are still completely nationalistic. for example: it is not questioned, in the least, that tibet is part of china
with a straight face, tell me a chinese director could make a "dances with wolves" style movie about chinese troops in tibet, and that such a movie would as widely praised and be as popular with chinese citizens as the real "dances with wolves" was with americans
the worst the us government came up with as a response to the 60s was kent state
there were (and are) plenty of command and control arrogant authoritarian assholes in the us government who were itching (and are itching) to go hardline on the 60s countercultural revolution and its political effects. luckily, they didn't prevail, and are still not prevailing. however, such authoritarian assholes are clearly prevailing in china
its really hard to put a flower in the tip of a national guardsman's rifle and make a potent image and political point when said gun is actively firing on you
i see whistleblowing on corporations and where they do evil all the time in western media. the same would be completely covered up and whitewashed in china. do you understand the level of pollution chinese companies get away with in china? if chinese companies tried to pull in the west the kind of crap they get away with routinely in china, the media would start a firestorm. oh, in fact they did: melamine in food, ethylene glycol in medicine, lead in toys...
look at those pictures. this is what companies get away with in china. if you showed such pictures in the west about a western company doing that somewhere to people in the west are you going to tell me they get away with anything near remotely as murderous in the west? i'm not asking for historical examples, i'm asking for the here and now. plenty of western companies pollute outside the west... and chinese companies just as much if not more now. here in the west, western companies are sued and erin brockovitched to death. while in china its carte blanche, standard operating procedure: poison poor chinese with impunity
and deny this:
one of the most influential and deeply historically entrenched american businesses has been systematically dismantled over the last 20 years in the usa. its media edifice hamstrung and turned against itself, all of its entrenched political players and lobbying and propaganda utterly defeated. i'm talking about the tobacco industry. where's this amazing western corporate control of our lives again?
i am very sick of this meme that companies control everything in the west
of course money has too much influence in politics. as if this is unique to the west, or even the worst in the west. there are actually are laws about crass manipulation. so the money has to flow in soft ways, in indirect ways, and so its not as big a deal as certain propagandized "money controls everything in the west" fools believe. go back a hundred years, when the obsession was with preventing pinkerton gangs from breaking up union demonstrations with kneecap busting, with breaking up business monopolies, with establishing a standardized hours per workweek, from doing away with child labor, etc. meanwhile, in china, its communist in name, but more ultracapitalist than the usa in reality. try to get your stereotypes in synch with reality please
it is in fact the solid truth that in china, companies have much more influence and arrogant assumed right to pretty much murder, while in the west they are regulated and hounded by the media constantly. no such hounding in a government monopoly media in china, regulations only after they prove embarassing and hurt the bottom line in china
"Have you ever considered that it is precisely ultra-nationalism and 'tribalism' that could actually help China be the next superpower and crush the competition? I guess not."
actually, it won't help china. you need to cooperate on the world stage. you assume for some bizarre reason that india, russia, europe, brazil, etc., will simply roll over and take blatant han imperialism without any resistance
that's not loaded, its simply straightforward and obvious
you criticize what i say with a point of view which is not relevant to my conclusion:
"From my understanding, your main point is that China will need to have more open and engaging policies in order to sustain itself in the global economic and political arena"
i have no confusion or misunderstanding that china can and will continue to take care of itself- to sustain itself
but it won't LEAD
and if china can't lead, then leadership in world affairs will not flow from washington dc to beijing, it will stay in washington dc. if anything, it will flow to brussels, since europe is not a closed, censored media market
by censoring its media, china is creating a generation of dunderheads, only capable of seeing one point of view. if that point of view is "what is good for china" then that is fine if all you care about is china sustaining itself economically and politically. as if that is the only relevant point of view, and more to the point, as if that is the most useful point of view for china's future on the world stage
because being unable to do your online banking or telecommute or get health information isn't hurting the end user at all
and people who hack other people's machines are always motivated by the most altruistic, community-level concerns. people who commit transgressions towards property that is not theirs are never prone to selfish greed and a simple desire to exploit others for their own gain, regardless of who is hurt
the chinese hackers doing this are mostly motivated by ultranationalist impulses. they are self-starting, they are not command and control from the central government. if they discover any informational gems, the desire to report this to the government is also completely voluntary and desirable from an individual nationalistic point of view. if useful enough, such hackers can be brought into the fold and become a genuine command and control tool of the government, but this is at the late stage of things
of course, by completely controlling media, the government is creating a population of robots who aren't thinking critically and are ultranationalist only by default
luckily, tribalism is never stronger than principles in terms of motivations that win over others on the global stage. chinese censorship is creating a generation of cottonheads in its youth, unable to see the wider world for what it is. youth from countries with open and transparent media, and without hermetically sealed censorship of the level china employs, are meanwhile more globalistic and principled in their attitudes, rather than tribal. of course nationalistic, tribal thinking exists in all countries. but only in places like china and iran, who feel the need to control the media, does the nationalism rise to the level of blind passion: these minds simply aren't exposed to other opinions
so china has developed a wonderful machine for keeping china safe and secure from the outside. but as china begins to emerge as a player on the world stage, it is going to have to think on the world stage, not simply react from the point of view a cloistered hermit kingdom that imagines itself walled off from the wider world and its concerns
china will never lead in this world as long as it breeds children who can't think about anything except china. critical thinking only comes from exposure to alternative opinions and points of view. the chinese are raising their children to have no criticla thinking skills, to be blind cottonheaded nationalistic robots
such that grad students who work in strip clubs are seen as feminist icons: its all about exploiting silly weak men for lots of their cash by doing nothing but shimmying around
and no, that doesn't mean the new feminism is the same as pre-feminism. because the feminist who strips is CHOOSING to strip for fun and titillation (pun intended), rather than being FORCED to do it for economic difficulties
not that women aren't forced into exploitation for economic difficulties anymore, i'm not describing reality. i'm describing philosophical trends in feminist thinking. in feminist thinking, porn actresses are the new pioneers
Slashdot Mirror
the chinese already learn english for international business purposes. english is already entrenched globally because of the colonial era. certainly, plenty of kids will learn mandarin as a prestige language, just like plenty learned japanese when the world thought japan was going to take over the world in the 1980s. but you might as well declare everyone speak hindi or urdu: languages that locally are extremely important, but globally not so much
in a world where china is dominant economically, which we are fast approaching, the guy in brazil will still want to learn english before he learns mandarin. why? because that brazilian will want to do business with the french and the russians and the indians as well, who are not speaking mandarin, but are already speaking english for international business transactions. certainly, learning mandarin will help the brazilian guy tweak his chinese business partner's ego, but his chinese business partner will probably smile, and reply in english
english has become entrenched as the de facto international language of business, just as a matter of historical consequence. as a secondary consequence of english being the language of international commerce, it begins to bleed into use in the sciences and in the arts. so it will be hard to de-entrench english, regardless of who dominates the world after the americans
english is on track to become the second language of everyone in the world, and it will be hard to break that momentum, noce historically established. of course, english doesn't deserve that fate, anymore than any other language. although a few languages, like spanish (easier to pronounce for nonnatives: lots of vowels... but also confusing feminine/ masculine bullshit and too many verb tenses), or korean (high relationship between spoken word and alphabet: the letters actually represent the mouth shape), i think are more deserving for technical reasons to be international languages than english. english is one of the most difficult languages to learn, like japanese, for being a melange of so many different influences. it doesn't make any sense these pronunciations: cOUGH... bOUGH. or Support... Sure
but history has spoken. you can't control these things, they just happen. otherwise, i'd be writing to you right now in esperanto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
nice to interact with you in english, the language of international business, and therefore, the language that every school in the world puts some sort of emphasis on
http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/worldlang.htm
do you think we still would be first touristic destination if we dropped our cultural identity ? and for what ?(cultural irrelevancy my ass, as if culture could ever be irrelevant) and please we do not need to fight to retain our culture, it sustain itself on its own pretty good imo
the japanese have been pretty busy studying, incorporating, and adapting western ways for over a century, and there is no such thing as no japanese culture. in fact, its pretty easy to identify japanese culture, and japanese culture is very strong in its own right
the value and strength of a culture is derived in fact from this cross pollination with other cultures. meanwhile, if you isolate or protect a culture, you weaken the culture
culture stands on its own, it requires no support, regardless of how INSECURE the people of that culture are:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-184761138.html
it is no mistake that out of the enlightenment in europe came the foundations of modern science. the enlightenment started as a questioning of religious edicts from the catholic church, the protestant reformation. the point was: when you question supposedly solid beliefs, you begin your intellectual growth. it doesn't mean you have to give up those beliefs, but some beliefs, yes, you will give up, and this will provide new avenues of thought which is a REQUIREMENT for a strong supple mind. you ask: "How does limiting it in this one small way somehow break the mind as a whole?" and i reply: there is no such limiting in a small way. thats not possible. either the mind is free in all avenues, or it is hobbled in all avenues. cognition does not break down into tiny social compartments
centuries before the enlightenment, the caliphate was the light of the world, where great science was made: algebra, distilled alcohol, alchemy, the names of stars, etc. but you won't see great science coming out of the islamic world today, as they are mired in fundamentalism and autocracies. the ayatollah is on record saying iran's future preeminence rests on it becoming technologically sophisticated and independent. but you will never have that in the iranian theocracy. all of their great nationalist "advancements": nuclear reactors, their satellite launch: its all technology borrowed from elsewhere. a society that rewards obedience to a belief system that cannot be openly questioned creates minds which are not predisposed and capable of scientific inquiry
of course, such great minds still exist in iran, in childhood. in every society exists certain brilliant children who, if the society were a pure meritocracy of ideas, would be rewarded and would prosper. but the "education" in iran, read "indoctrination", would punish such great minds: the mind that obediently brown noses would win the highest marks, the highest grades
the mind that blindly parrots the religious status quo would win control of the science department, not the truly technically most advanced. iranian society has spoken: political and social obedience is most important. i'm saying a great scientific genius in iran would be incapable of not also saying something that would get him in trouble with the religious authorities. simply because the mind that can come to great scientific insights is automatically also a mind which questions all sorts of other things about the world around him. you do not find in science departments anywhere in the world the ultranationalist, the deeply socially conservative, the politically reactionary, the religiously devout. why is that do you suppose?
i'm not changing the subject from china, i'm broadening the topic to show you my point is not limited to chinese control of the media. there is a reason why the usa and western europe has grown so powerful and has invented things like the internet: you can say and think whatever you want, and therefore that which is "truth" that which is most valued is only that which stands on its own. the usa has nothing that cannot be adopted to any other country in the world. and doing so would make that country as powerful as the usa. meanwhile, if you artificially attempt to control ideas, to control the free exchange of thought, all you do is hobble and weaken it
take all the arguments about communism and the free exchange of capital, and apply it to authoritarianism, and the free exchange of ideas. if you understand why communism does not make everyone equally middle class, but why it makes everyone equally poor, then you understand why authoritarian control of media and attempts to control the free exchange of ideas is equally hobbling in terms of intellectual richness. if only human thought could be walled off as simply political. if only those who control said "dangerous" thought only comes from cetain sectors of society. if only thought in one avenue of intellectual expression had no implications on any other
control any aspect of free expression, and you poison the w
you are not giving away the experience of seeing it in a theatre for free. the idea that the guy who will watch transformers for free in his basement represents a guy who will not spend $10 at the theatre is a falsehood. yes, there are in fact people who will not see a movie in a theatre after watching it on their computer, but not all of them, or even a majority. or that if i had the option, that i would choose to atch by myself rather than going to the theatre. does the existence of recorded songs on the internet mean that no one comes to artists giving live concerts? no, the opposite in fact
i often watch movies i like again and again. adidtionally, someone who saw it on his computer might be intrigued enough to see it in the theatre, or tell his friends they have to see it: the point is, its exposure, free advertising, for the REAL product, which is seeing it in the theatre, where you can charge for tickets, and no experience by yourself, at home, can ever replace that
besides, i didn't actually think movie studios will release their products for free on the internet the same time as they release in theatres. i was simply providing the contrasting situation from the status quo we have now to demonstrate why the intellectual property status quo is philosophically unsound. perhaps they could release the first 10 minutes of the movie online for free (and in fact, they do in some cases)
and even if someone got their product illegally, what is that? a screener copy with words flashing on the bottom? something recorded in the theatre from a handycam? a half-edited mishmash with incomplete effects a disgruntled studio worker uploaded? these poor quality reproductions are valid competition with the real product?
now, if the projectionist in a digital theatre copied the movie, then yeah: thats a problem. so control your content vigorously. banks don't stay in business without keeping vigilance on the actual cash. but that's the studios job to police their copies. the point is: punishing the CONSUMER for lapses in product control is not going to change that fact! do banks stay in business by keeping piles of cash laying on the sidewalk in front of the branch, then suing anyone who picks it up into bankruptcy? is that a valid business model?
that was either the best i've ever trolled anyone ever, or, in turn sir, i salute you as the best troll i have ever met, to play the easily offended pointlessly indignant dim-witted fop so seamlessly
so many chips on the shoulder, so easy to knock off, so confused by the concepts in play...
CLASSIC INTARWEBS STUPDITNASS
free television, then the vcr, then the dvd, now the internet: it was all supposed to destroy the movie theatre. it hasn't. movies will still sell tickets even if their dvd market is $0. sitting in your basement by yourself watching transformers on a 17 inch monitor and tinny speakers is just AWESOME dude ;-P even if you had a legal dvd
you can get a 55" HD tv and dolby surround sound in your rec room? oh right, because everyone can afford that. oh, and all your friends will show up on cue every time you feel the sudden urge to watch a movie, right? not to mention the new frontier of 3D content, 3 stories high immersive IMAX theatres, etc
fact: if hollywood gave away every movie it made for free on the internet on the same day as release, they would still be rolling in dough. because watching a movie at home does not, and will never replace the experience of seeing it in a theatre. even with all the crying babies and the cell phones (yes, there are people for which crying babies and cell phones has totally destroyed their desire to ever go theatres again: all 13 dozen of you in the us population: a small minor cranky fringe who are so perversely overly sensitive and overly reacting)
the modern movie theatre replaces, in effect, older shared cultural experiences like going to church, the public debate forum of old greece, going to see plays in victorian times, etc. we are social creatures. we crave fellowship, we know we are in the darkness with a couple hundred other people (munching popcorn: their presence is felt) and this validates our emotional experience in a movie: we SHARE it
why do you write on slashdot? you wish to SHARE your feelings and thoughts. this is what it means in many ways to be human. when you go to a horror movie, and you gasp at a shocking scene, the experience in heightened when you also hear a woman shriek behind you. when you hear laughter at a comedy in the audience around you, you in turn laugh louder and feel more mirthful. why do television sitcoms pipe canned laughter over their shows? its a genuine human sociological effect
the point? if all of intellectual property laws were erased, we would see an INCREASE in cultural output and quality, without the laws getting in the way of artists attempting to create art (and running into interference from the great grandson of a guy who wrote a song he wants to use on a soundtrack, etc), and without distributors telling us what to watch/ read/ listen to (internet sites devoted to rating output would do that instead)
the value of water is not very much
on the internet, i can give you, or someone in johannesburg, or someone in novosibirsk, any amount of my bits that they want
the internet is the ocean. media content is water
its simple economics: supply meets demand, and determines a price. with infinite supply. cost is zero. there is no ability, via any legal means, to modify this simple economic truth
"Just don't start crying about quality when fewer people are willing to take risks creating this "valueless" content that you love to download so much."
this is baseless panic
#1: who said we are getting quality now? i've seen $10,000 dollar movies that were much better than $100,000,000 movies. i've seen a guy in coffeeshop deliver more moving songs than mindless pop i've heard. i've read better books written by authors from eras where no intellectual property protections existed than pulp where the author received a million dollar contract before the book was written
#2: why do people create art? to get paid? they do it out of passion. well, most do. certainly, some do it only for money (see #1 above). fact: if it were legally enforced in an alternate universe that no artist ever be allowed to get a penny for anything they ever made, even if people were throwing cash at them and armed police were preventing the artist from picking it up the cash, guess what: people would still create art. ask any high school kid why he picked up a guitar: to get a girl's pants. FAME. or even, believe it or not, simply for the love of the art. why did the first proto-human draw a stick figure on a cave wall or beat a drum? because he wanted economic consideration?
#3: anything meatspace will still result in cash. the musician who distributes his mp3s for free, thereby getting a fan base, will sell tickets to his next concert. television, then the vcr, then the dvd, now the internet: it was all supposed to destroy the movie theatre. it hasn't. movies will still sell tickets even if their dvd market is $0. jk rowling could get $0 for her books and still be very rich: speaking engagements, personalized content, hollywood scripts, toylines, media endorsements, advertising, etc
the point? if all of intellectual property laws were erased, we would see an INCREASE in cultural output and quality, without the laws getting in the way of artists attempting to create art (and running into interference from the great grandson of a guy who wrote a song he wants to use on a soundtrack, etc), and without distributors telling us what to watch/ read/ listen to (internet sites devoted to rating output would do that instead)
egocentric idiotic tribal ultranationalists exist everywhere. in the usa, and in china. in the usa, you are allowed to question such ultranationalism. in china, such ultranationalism is a monopoly, the state owned media, and if you question the party line, you are fair game for monitoring, admonishment, and perhaps prosecution
this clearly means more minds are swayed towards han imperialism in beijing than there are minds in washington dc swayed towards american imperialism. this clearly means more minds in china adhere to the official "harmonious" monoculture, while in the usa they are allowed to inhabit a diversity of dissenting niches. a diversity of thought clearly results in a more supple, less brittle pool of minds, much more ready to lead via consensus, which is the only way you lead on the world stage
you really want to sit there and say that the media environment in the usa versus china makes no difference? you really want to say that argument of mine is thin?
"Most of the media is controlled by a handful of companies, and that is a fact."
we are reading and interacting on slashdot. which is not owned or run by megaultraevil corporation inc. it is one of thousands of independently run media outlets in the usa, which you are freely allowed to visit. right now, i can go read the news in tehran, or in beijing. if i were in beijing or tehran, i could not freely read the news in new york city. in china: there is only one media outlet. the government. you call my views simplistic. your views aren't simplistic: they are clearly falsehoods
"There is no real diversity of views, only minor ones."
translation: "i have some fringe wackjob belief i don't see getting the respect i think it deserves". because according to anyone levelheaded its not a belief that deserves much airtime, because it is easily dismissed, and is noncontroversial. but prove me wrong: go out and agitate for widespread support for your beliefs. you are free to try that, in the west (not in china). but if you can't get the support you think you deserve, is it because the people think you are nuts? or is it because some evilmegaultra corp is suppressing you?
"The Chinese state censors Western propaganda"
the chinese state censors its own people. for example, you are right now in the west, questioning the west. you are 100% allowed to do that and i support your right to do that. you are not allowed to question china, if you live in china. get the difference oh great wise one?
"where you get your idea of democracy, that you put as a condition to be a superpower."
yes, i believe that it is far superior to rule via consensus rather than force. it is not a condition for being a superpower, it is a condition for you to deserve respect as a government in my eyes. do you believe it is superior to rule via force than consensus?
"If China has showed us anything, is precisely that being a democracy is not a pre-condition to succeed on the world stage."
i never thought it was. the entirety of human history has shown brutality often rules. the chinese from their own history know that well: from mongol invasions to the opium wars, the chinese know they have to be strong to survive in this world. does it mean they shouldn't respect their own people and censor their own people's expression? why does beijing not respect its own people? i have more respect for chinese people and treat them like adults than beijing does, which treats its people like children
"BTW, how much "global international cooperation" did the US need to become a world super-power? Next to none."
the usa didn't exist 250 years ago. it rose to power dramatically over much older countries through the force of its ideas: a free market, rule via democracy rather than monarchy/ dictatorship. this has made it a strong stable country. its not a zero sum game: the usa did not take from someone else in order to be strong, the usa built its strength from within. the usa is not strong because of nike sweat shops in indonesia, or because it toppled the iranian govt, or assassinated chilean politicians. these were all stupid mistakes the usa committed. but none of those actions are reasons why the usa is strong. the usa is strong because of what its government and its people values. other countries that have been around a lot longer than the usa, who have committed just as many international crimes as the usa does (including china) are not as powerful as the usa, simply because they do not value free trade in capital and ideas like the usa does. china has learned to value capitalism. china is now more capitalistic than the usa, even though it is ruled by the communist party, which is some sort of laughable absurdity. if china next respects the free exchange of ideas like the usa, i will embrace china as readily as i embrace the usa. because i am not about tribalism, i am about principles
"Ultra-nationalism is a strength, not a weakness."
hi, nice to meet you fascist
"And it does not exclude c
do you equate political dissent with hooligans intent on smashing windows?
do you really think that me writing my political opinion on a website is the same as some yahoo throwing bricks at police?
why do you think these are remotely the same:
1. the police control a handful of anarchist idiots who can't be reasoned with, feel they have a right to destroy things, and don't understand anything except physical force
2. the government monitors, filters, and punishes any and all political expression by anyone in the country
that's the difference between the west and china
do you have an ability to appreciate the difference? do you really think the level of control in china is anything remotely near that in the west?
because the west has to control a handful of destructive hooligans in pittsburg: this in your mind is the same as a government which filters and controls ALL media and internet expression by EVERYONE? really?
and as for the sound cannon: this is new technology meant to control anarchist idiots nonlethally, without using bullets. in other words, an advancement in nonlethal confrontation. but apparently, just because its a new technology, this is a rationale for your criticism. pffft
that china makes in africa and south america are for the benefit of the chinese
what do you think happens when south americans and africans start asking what is best for south americans and africans?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8314534.stm
you can throw your weight around, but you can't lead, until you think about what other people want. which you can't do, if you've grown up never thinking about that, since your country didn't let you be exposed to anything outside the bubble of official chinese thought
dealings with others in the world is built on consensus. this is direct contrast to chinese authoritarian thinking. meanwhile, anyone raised in a democratic environment, which is also built on consensus, are naturally better suited to the task of world leadership
the chinese will never lead in the world, until they change their way of thinking. sure, world leadership in the hands of washington dc may be in sunset, but if anything, it will pass to brussels, not beijing
the chinese stranglehold on chinese media creates robots, not critical thinkers. if you prefer cotton candy "harmony" over ugly truths and uglier dissent, your mind is free of struggle, but it is also free of thought. why the chinese government thinks its citizens are children is beyond me, but i have more respect for chinese citizens than beijing does
in the usa, the story is purely idiot distributors fighting their irrelevancy in the age of the internet
in europe, there is another potent issue that does not exist in the usa: cultural irrelevancy. the french have been fighting to retain french culture for decades: funding french arts, fighting the emergence of english words into french usage, etc
its all rather silly and absurd from an american perspective: hey france, history spoke, and you lost, and the british won. now everyone speaks english in the world, shut up, get over it, and deal with it
but from the point of view of french national pride, you can see why the fight here is not simple and straightforward as it is in the usa
heck, even if you are danish, or belgian: how the hell are you suppose to preserve danish and belgian culture in the face of the english onslaught? protectionism seems appealing. even if, of course, it really makes no difference. its just nostalgia. resistance is futile
perhaps the canadians know best how to deal with being in the cultural shadow of a dominant neighbor: they send their comedians and actors to the usa where they feed that culture sometimes even better than the americans do. i always wondered why the hell there are so many successful canadian comedians in the usa: is there something fundamentally more absurd about being canadian? (snicker)
taiwan is not a horrible anti-feminist country like afghanistan or iran, but if a woman is stripping in taipei, she's doing it because of financial coercion much more often than for female empowerment. and i'm not saying that its true that if someone is stripping in the usa, it is only out modern feminist thinking. what i am saying is that you need to look at the real and exact status of women's rights in taiwan, officially and culturally before you say what you said
and, in hawaii, i can stand on a street corner and say so. i can go on a website and say hawaii should be independent. no us official will punish me. in fact, if a us official tried to punish me for expressing my political opinion, that official in turn could be punished, sued, even possibly charged with a crime. would that be true of the beijing official who cracked down on the tibetan's expression of political opinion?
i can make a movie about the injustice of hawaii being part of the usa. i can create a political party to that effect. on the mainland usa, i can view said party's literature, i can agree with it, openly, and i can even give that cause money. can a resident of shanghai do that?
http://www.freehawaii.org/
http://freehawaii.blogspot.com/
http://www.hawaiiankingdom.info/
where are those servers located?
they are located in the usa
they are freely allowed to run by the us government
can you say any of those things about what tibetans can do?
a better allegory would be if you had used puerto rico rather than hawaii as an example. puerto rico is not a state of the usa. puerot ricans can not vote for american president. yet in puerto rico, votes continue to come up, and PUERTO RICANS (not washington dc) continue to decide to be part of the usa as a commonwealth by a vast majority rather than be an independent country (they do this for the generous financial reasons of this commonwealth situation)
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/15/us/puerto-rico-votes-to-retain-status-as-commonwealth.html
in the west, i can view any media source i want. in the west, i can criticize my government freely
in china, i can't view any media source, plenty are blocked. additionally, if i say something that criticises the chinese government, i can be monitored, perhaps punished
the difference is real and significant in terms of the types of minds that are created. there are plenty of nationlistic idiots in the west. but in china, there are many more, as simple result of the fact that the chinese government policy encourages the creation of tribal han and their self-comfort
apparently the chinese government thinks chinese people are pets, slaves, incapable of their own opinions. the chinese government thinks that adult chinese have to be treated like children
by any objective, heck, by any subjective measurement, in the west i clearly have orders of magnitude more freedoms of expression and political opinion than i do in china
which means i am able to fully express my mind as a fully capable human being. the chinese, meanwhile, are only allowed to be children, to be unquestioning robots. this is not my opinion. this is the obvious policy of the chinese government: the chinese people have to be controlled, they can't be treated like adults, they can't be trusted
i have a higher opinion of the chinese people than their own government. why?
your observations are fine in a vacuum of any other considerations. but if you compare how children are raised in the west, their media market, with children raised in china, the chinese media market, you are not creating a generation of critical thinkers in china because there is no exposure to anything other than "what is good for china". "what is good for the west" is still a valid concern in the west, but in the west, via self-criticism, you sometimes wind up with an even better answer to the question "what is good for the west"
self-introspection, self-criticism, does not necessarily result in a tampening down or destruction of self-centered greed. oftentimes, it actually results in better ways to enrich yourself. in other words, the guy who only thinks about "what is good for me" sometimes cannot see that what is best for him is something he would never see if he was unable to articulate, appreciate, and examine alternative points of view. cooperation and paradoxically giving rather than taking often result in more self-enrichment than simple blind obsessive "me, me, me"
of course there are also plenty of nationalistic blind morons in the west, and critical thinking is a rare commodity anywhere. but the mind is a muscle: use it or lose it. a media environment that challenges people with alternative points of view results in a mind that can justify what it already believes even better, or alternatively, adapt a superior point of view
raising that same mind in a hermetically sealed environment where "harmony" is valued over sometimes ugly truths results in minds that can't always see what is best for them, even if that is their only concern
what is best for china? sometimes, it is self-criticism. is that allowed in china? no. that's my point: what is best for china is not served by being singularly obsessed with what is best for china to the exclusion of any criticism and alternative points of view. a bunch of unthinking robots is all the current chinese media climate creates. this doesn't actually serve china in the end, it impoverishes china because such nationalistic fools do actions which often hurt china, internally and externally
even the most skeptical about the government's censorship excesses are still completely nationalistic. for example: it is not questioned, in the least, that tibet is part of china
with a straight face, tell me a chinese director could make a "dances with wolves" style movie about chinese troops in tibet, and that such a movie would as widely praised and be as popular with chinese citizens as the real "dances with wolves" was with americans
it ended in tiananmen square
the worst the us government came up with as a response to the 60s was kent state
there were (and are) plenty of command and control arrogant authoritarian assholes in the us government who were itching (and are itching) to go hardline on the 60s countercultural revolution and its political effects. luckily, they didn't prevail, and are still not prevailing. however, such authoritarian assholes are clearly prevailing in china
its really hard to put a flower in the tip of a national guardsman's rifle and make a potent image and political point when said gun is actively firing on you
i guess you missed the memo
i see whistleblowing on corporations and where they do evil all the time in western media. the same would be completely covered up and whitewashed in china. do you understand the level of pollution chinese companies get away with in china? if chinese companies tried to pull in the west the kind of crap they get away with routinely in china, the media would start a firestorm. oh, in fact they did: melamine in food, ethylene glycol in medicine, lead in toys...
witness:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/showcase-65/
look at those pictures. this is what companies get away with in china. if you showed such pictures in the west about a western company doing that somewhere to people in the west are you going to tell me they get away with anything near remotely as murderous in the west? i'm not asking for historical examples, i'm asking for the here and now. plenty of western companies pollute outside the west... and chinese companies just as much if not more now. here in the west, western companies are sued and erin brockovitched to death. while in china its carte blanche, standard operating procedure: poison poor chinese with impunity
and deny this:
one of the most influential and deeply historically entrenched american businesses has been systematically dismantled over the last 20 years in the usa. its media edifice hamstrung and turned against itself, all of its entrenched political players and lobbying and propaganda utterly defeated. i'm talking about the tobacco industry. where's this amazing western corporate control of our lives again?
i am very sick of this meme that companies control everything in the west
of course money has too much influence in politics. as if this is unique to the west, or even the worst in the west. there are actually are laws about crass manipulation. so the money has to flow in soft ways, in indirect ways, and so its not as big a deal as certain propagandized "money controls everything in the west" fools believe. go back a hundred years, when the obsession was with preventing pinkerton gangs from breaking up union demonstrations with kneecap busting, with breaking up business monopolies, with establishing a standardized hours per workweek, from doing away with child labor, etc. meanwhile, in china, its communist in name, but more ultracapitalist than the usa in reality. try to get your stereotypes in synch with reality please
it is in fact the solid truth that in china, companies have much more influence and arrogant assumed right to pretty much murder, while in the west they are regulated and hounded by the media constantly. no such hounding in a government monopoly media in china, regulations only after they prove embarassing and hurt the bottom line in china
"Have you ever considered that it is precisely ultra-nationalism and 'tribalism' that could actually help China be the next superpower and crush the competition? I guess not."
actually, it won't help china. you need to cooperate on the world stage. you assume for some bizarre reason that india, russia, europe, brazil, etc., will simply roll over and take blatant han imperialism without any resistance
as long as china is simply concerned with china
that's not loaded, its simply straightforward and obvious
you criticize what i say with a point of view which is not relevant to my conclusion:
"From my understanding, your main point is that China will need to have more open and engaging policies in order to sustain itself in the global economic and political arena"
i have no confusion or misunderstanding that china can and will continue to take care of itself- to sustain itself
but it won't LEAD
and if china can't lead, then leadership in world affairs will not flow from washington dc to beijing, it will stay in washington dc. if anything, it will flow to brussels, since europe is not a closed, censored media market
by censoring its media, china is creating a generation of dunderheads, only capable of seeing one point of view. if that point of view is "what is good for china" then that is fine if all you care about is china sustaining itself economically and politically. as if that is the only relevant point of view, and more to the point, as if that is the most useful point of view for china's future on the world stage
because being unable to do your online banking or telecommute or get health information isn't hurting the end user at all
and people who hack other people's machines are always motivated by the most altruistic, community-level concerns. people who commit transgressions towards property that is not theirs are never prone to selfish greed and a simple desire to exploit others for their own gain, regardless of who is hurt
get real dude
virtuous hacking is not reality
the chinese hackers doing this are mostly motivated by ultranationalist impulses. they are self-starting, they are not command and control from the central government. if they discover any informational gems, the desire to report this to the government is also completely voluntary and desirable from an individual nationalistic point of view. if useful enough, such hackers can be brought into the fold and become a genuine command and control tool of the government, but this is at the late stage of things
of course, by completely controlling media, the government is creating a population of robots who aren't thinking critically and are ultranationalist only by default
luckily, tribalism is never stronger than principles in terms of motivations that win over others on the global stage. chinese censorship is creating a generation of cottonheads in its youth, unable to see the wider world for what it is. youth from countries with open and transparent media, and without hermetically sealed censorship of the level china employs, are meanwhile more globalistic and principled in their attitudes, rather than tribal. of course nationalistic, tribal thinking exists in all countries. but only in places like china and iran, who feel the need to control the media, does the nationalism rise to the level of blind passion: these minds simply aren't exposed to other opinions
so china has developed a wonderful machine for keeping china safe and secure from the outside. but as china begins to emerge as a player on the world stage, it is going to have to think on the world stage, not simply react from the point of view a cloistered hermit kingdom that imagines itself walled off from the wider world and its concerns
china will never lead in this world as long as it breeds children who can't think about anything except china. critical thinking only comes from exposure to alternative opinions and points of view. the chinese are raising their children to have no criticla thinking skills, to be blind cottonheaded nationalistic robots
the new feminism is about self-empowerment
such that grad students who work in strip clubs are seen as feminist icons: its all about exploiting silly weak men for lots of their cash by doing nothing but shimmying around
and no, that doesn't mean the new feminism is the same as pre-feminism. because the feminist who strips is CHOOSING to strip for fun and titillation (pun intended), rather than being FORCED to do it for economic difficulties
not that women aren't forced into exploitation for economic difficulties anymore, i'm not describing reality. i'm describing philosophical trends in feminist thinking. in feminist thinking, porn actresses are the new pioneers
remotely bricking the modem hurts the end user far more than it hurts time warner
ya-HOOO-WOOO-OOO
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