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I wish I could ask them how long they think they can keep the outside world outside? And wouldn't the shock for the Chinese people just be that much worse when

by hd4 9y ago

I wish I could ask them how long they think they can keep the outside world outside? And wouldn't the shock for the Chinese people just be that much worse when control over the information inevitably breaks down? I've posted this more than once but I'll so it again because it's ridiculous how relevant this quote from a 20~ year-old game (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) describes our current political state of affairs so well. "As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

jimbokun 9y ago
They can keep the outside world outside as long as they want, if their goal is to become North Korea.
- hd4 9y ago
  I don't get how the irony doesn't just hit them like a brick. Foreign universities but with central control, like what's the point of even having a foreign university then, just send your kids to Chinese universities if you're that worried they might learn things they "shouldn't". Better yet, stop sending them to university at all since you don't seem to understand the fundamental reason of higher education and you seem to worry about how impressionable and susceptible they are to western thought and the possibility that they might actually learn to form their own opinions.
  - umanwizard 9y ago
    What you think the “whole point” of higher education is is very Western-centric. You might need freedom of thought to become a philosopher or sociologist, but you certainly don’t need it to become an engineer, mathematician, businessman, etc.
    - hd4 9y ago
      No, I'd argue that same freedom of thought is precisely what gives us in the West a huge edge over those who fear losing control over their proletariat as we are able to innovate and create far better, and to think those things aren't important for engineers, mathematicians and businessmen is not borne out by economic results. Success in business especially relies greatly on being able to innovate.
crispinb 9y ago
> when control over the information inevitably breaks down That's quite an assumption. The CCP appears to be getting better, not worse, at controlling information. They are accumulating institutional experience and technical competence. I see no obvious reason beyond reflexive 20thC shibboleths why this direction should inevitably reverse.
- hd4 9y ago
  2nd law of thermodynamics
  - yequalsx 9y ago
    The second law of thermodynamics does not seem to apply here. Without a source of energy entropy must increase. Using the second law as an analogy of the information situation in China one would say you are correct if there was no external entity actively trying to suppress information. But there is in the case of China. Thus the second law analogy does not apply.
    - hd4 9y ago
      It most definitely does apply here. "Entropy may be understood as a measure of disorder within a macroscopic system. The second law of thermodynamics states that an isolated system's entropy never decreases. Such systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium, the state with maximum entropy." They aren't able to suppress information completely which is why they resort to the sort of shambolic behaviour described in the article. They lost control of it when the internet became widespread and since then they've been trying their best to firewall and block and censor, for what? Why censor anything if there is no appetite for it anyway? We can assume therefore that there is some percentage of the Chinese population that wants to know and will know despite their governments efforts.
      - crispinb 9y ago
        From what I read (no first hand experience, and based only on relatively shallow news & nonfiction reading), the CCP's aims don't rely on complete control of information. They want political control of the public sphere, for which purpose all they need to do is keep infractions below the surface. There's a nod-nod-wink-wink with the emerging middle class: "pretend in public that everything is as the Party says, whether you privately believe this to be true or not, and we'll deliver the goods". They don't require loyal hearts, just broad obedience. What they're vulnerable to isn't information leakage, but a future failure to deliver the goods (in which respect they're not that much different from liberal democracies). So far 3 decades of predictions that they would fail to continue holding a lid on the public sphere, and 10 years of predictions that they would fail to deliver the goods, have all been wrong. Which is unsurprising given that those predictions were rarely based on anything more substantial than a priori and ahistorical liberal dogma.
alexasmyths 9y ago
"And wouldn't the shock for the Chinese people just be that much worse when control over the information inevitably breaks down? " Surprisingly this may not be the case. Sitting next to a young Chinese national at the train station who goes to school in the USA ... he told me he likes that the 'state controls the press' for the following reason: 'because some crazy person could just, you know, get a knife and start killing people'. It was all rather odd: that it's all about public safety, and avoiding 'crazy people with knives' - but oddly - he was living mostly in the USA. I asked him 'do you feel unsafe right now, in the US, that someone could come at you with a knife'? He replied that he did not. But the irony was lost on him. There are a lot of people who support the 'one state / one party' thing even if they might disagree with some of the tactics here and there, they just see it in a different way. In much the same way Russians on some level are very aware of Putin's curruption and yet look past it.
- matchsetpoint 9y ago
  Actually you have proven the OP's point - There have been many knife attacks in China that injured and killed. Some reported, some aren't. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/10/china-knife-attack-18-injured-in-mass-stabbing-suspect-shot-and-arrested.html http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/10/china-knife-attack-1... He most likely isn't aware of the big knife attacks in China because of censorship. But once the party collapses or the censorship breaks down (whichever comes first), Chinese citizens will find lots of bad information out in the open. Things that will make them angry, like the billions of dollars communist party bosses have escaped with to other countries. Or that their water supply is grossly contaminated.
- hd4 9y ago
  It's starting to feel like China is a version of NK where they're allowed to leave the country (presumably in order to share the fruits of their 'logic' such as the case you mentioned).
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Exit visas haven’t been a thing in china since the early 90s, but they totally existed before then.
fellellor 9y ago
The Chinese people seem pretty patriotic (some others would say indoctrinated), to the extent that breakdown of the great wall would hardly cause any disruption. This probably has more to do with economic success then the effectiveness of the great firewall. The firewall itself probably persists because of bureaucratic inertia more than anything else. I formed this opinion after reading an article posted here about the influence CCP exerts over Chinese Expat students in the US.
- hd4 9y ago
  Not sure if it's really worth going into the politics for this one since news like this is becoming all too common. But that patriotism has a lot to do with how China unites its very heterogeneous people firstly under a contrived 'Han' ethnic identity but also by drumming into them the idea that they owe everything (i.e. their modern standard of life) to the Communist party thanks to the Chinese economic boom. The same Communist party who laid waste to virtually all of China's culture and tradition and killed off their intellectual and aristocratic elite. Now they get to have their opinions made for them even when they're not physically present on the Chinese mainland. What progress!
  - fellellor 9y ago
    All patriotism comes out of propaganda to some extent or the other. I don't mean to say that everyone is the same. But there is little to be gained in a discussion, where one feels that one country's patriotism is "true" and the other's is "fake" because of pure propaganda. In China's case, sure the government is actively covering their misdeeds. But that isn't the point I was referring to. All I'm observing is the CCP has been pretty successful in convincing (or indoctrinating) their people, to the extent that a one-off event like disabling the firewall would have practically negligible effect in disrupting the society.

by hd4 9y ago

jimbokun 9y ago

They can keep the outside world outside as long as they want, if their goal is to become North Korea.

hd4 9y ago
I don't get how the irony doesn't just hit them like a brick. Foreign universities but with central control, like what's the point of even having a foreign university then, just send your kids to Chinese universities if you're that worried they might learn things they "shouldn't". Better yet, stop sending them to university at all since you don't seem to understand the fundamental reason of higher education and you seem to worry about how impressionable and susceptible they are to western thought and the possibility that they might actually learn to form their own opinions.
- umanwizard 9y ago
  What you think the “whole point” of higher education is is very Western-centric. You might need freedom of thought to become a philosopher or sociologist, but you certainly don’t need it to become an engineer, mathematician, businessman, etc.
  - hd4 9y ago
    No, I'd argue that same freedom of thought is precisely what gives us in the West a huge edge over those who fear losing control over their proletariat as we are able to innovate and create far better, and to think those things aren't important for engineers, mathematicians and businessmen is not borne out by economic results. Success in business especially relies greatly on being able to innovate.

crispinb 9y ago

> when control over the information inevitably breaks down That's quite an assumption. The CCP appears to be getting better, not worse, at controlling information. They are accumulating institutional experience and technical competence. I see no obvious reason beyond reflexive 20thC shibboleths why this direction should inevitably reverse.

hd4 9y ago
2nd law of thermodynamics
- yequalsx 9y ago
  The second law of thermodynamics does not seem to apply here. Without a source of energy entropy must increase. Using the second law as an analogy of the information situation in China one would say you are correct if there was no external entity actively trying to suppress information. But there is in the case of China. Thus the second law analogy does not apply.
  - hd4 9y ago
    It most definitely does apply here. "Entropy may be understood as a measure of disorder within a macroscopic system. The second law of thermodynamics states that an isolated system's entropy never decreases. Such systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium, the state with maximum entropy." They aren't able to suppress information completely which is why they resort to the sort of shambolic behaviour described in the article. They lost control of it when the internet became widespread and since then they've been trying their best to firewall and block and censor, for what? Why censor anything if there is no appetite for it anyway? We can assume therefore that there is some percentage of the Chinese population that wants to know and will know despite their governments efforts.
    - crispinb 9y ago
      From what I read (no first hand experience, and based only on relatively shallow news & nonfiction reading), the CCP's aims don't rely on complete control of information. They want political control of the public sphere, for which purpose all they need to do is keep infractions below the surface. There's a nod-nod-wink-wink with the emerging middle class: "pretend in public that everything is as the Party says, whether you privately believe this to be true or not, and we'll deliver the goods". They don't require loyal hearts, just broad obedience. What they're vulnerable to isn't information leakage, but a future failure to deliver the goods (in which respect they're not that much different from liberal democracies). So far 3 decades of predictions that they would fail to continue holding a lid on the public sphere, and 10 years of predictions that they would fail to deliver the goods, have all been wrong. Which is unsurprising given that those predictions were rarely based on anything more substantial than a priori and ahistorical liberal dogma.

alexasmyths 9y ago

"And wouldn't the shock for the Chinese people just be that much worse when control over the information inevitably breaks down? " Surprisingly this may not be the case. Sitting next to a young Chinese national at the train station who goes to school in the USA ... he told me he likes that the 'state controls the press' for the following reason: 'because some crazy person could just, you know, get a knife and start killing people'. It was all rather odd: that it's all about public safety, and avoiding 'crazy people with knives' - but oddly - he was living mostly in the USA. I asked him 'do you feel unsafe right now, in the US, that someone could come at you with a knife'? He replied that he did not. But the irony was lost on him. There are a lot of people who support the 'one state / one party' thing even if they might disagree with some of the tactics here and there, they just see it in a different way. In much the same way Russians on some level are very aware of Putin's curruption and yet look past it.

matchsetpoint 9y ago
Actually you have proven the OP's point - There have been many knife attacks in China that injured and killed. Some reported, some aren't. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/10/china-knife-attack-18-injured-in-mass-stabbing-suspect-shot-and-arrested.html http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/10/china-knife-attack-1... He most likely isn't aware of the big knife attacks in China because of censorship. But once the party collapses or the censorship breaks down (whichever comes first), Chinese citizens will find lots of bad information out in the open. Things that will make them angry, like the billions of dollars communist party bosses have escaped with to other countries. Or that their water supply is grossly contaminated.
hd4 9y ago
It's starting to feel like China is a version of NK where they're allowed to leave the country (presumably in order to share the fruits of their 'logic' such as the case you mentioned).
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Exit visas haven’t been a thing in china since the early 90s, but they totally existed before then.

fellellor 9y ago

The Chinese people seem pretty patriotic (some others would say indoctrinated), to the extent that breakdown of the great wall would hardly cause any disruption. This probably has more to do with economic success then the effectiveness of the great firewall. The firewall itself probably persists because of bureaucratic inertia more than anything else. I formed this opinion after reading an article posted here about the influence CCP exerts over Chinese Expat students in the US.

hd4 9y ago
Not sure if it's really worth going into the politics for this one since news like this is becoming all too common. But that patriotism has a lot to do with how China unites its very heterogeneous people firstly under a contrived 'Han' ethnic identity but also by drumming into them the idea that they owe everything (i.e. their modern standard of life) to the Communist party thanks to the Chinese economic boom. The same Communist party who laid waste to virtually all of China's culture and tradition and killed off their intellectual and aristocratic elite. Now they get to have their opinions made for them even when they're not physically present on the Chinese mainland. What progress!
- fellellor 9y ago
  All patriotism comes out of propaganda to some extent or the other. I don't mean to say that everyone is the same. But there is little to be gained in a discussion, where one feels that one country's patriotism is "true" and the other's is "fake" because of pure propaganda. In China's case, sure the government is actively covering their misdeeds. But that isn't the point I was referring to. All I'm observing is the CCP has been pretty successful in convincing (or indoctrinating) their people, to the extent that a one-off event like disabling the firewall would have practically negligible effect in disrupting the society.