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Chinese mass-indoctrination camps evoke Cultural Revolution
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cygx 8y agoReeducation camps, mass surveillance, the Social Credit System - China has made last century's dystopian fiction its playbook.
- ddtaylor 8y ago.
- eastWestMath 8y agoThe public school system is absolutely not a re-education camp, you loon.
- danharaj 8y agoYou're right, it's a child's first and main source of inculturation. No re- about it.
- mattnewton 8y agoRead the article. Let me know where in western public schools they ask people to denounce their family on threat of starvation.
- danharaj 8y agoIt's possible to indoctrinate without violence, you know that. It's possible for educational institutions to be ideologically motivated and coercive without starving their subjects. In fact, perhaps the it's the case that the more effective such institutions are the less violent they have to be. Thankfully, enlightened western nations like Canada have not been so cruel since the distant, distant year of 1996 [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_...
- mc32 8y agoChina has these schools too, so it seems even if they’re equivalent to the west, they are not effective enough at indoctrination, so more remedial indoctrinstion is needed... But honestly, do you think ours and their systems are equivalently indoctrinational?
- danharaj 8y agoIt depends on who you are: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_...
- Lionsion 8y ago> It depends on who you are Correction: it depended on who you are. Those schools have been closed and have been repudiated at the highest levels of the Canadian government: > On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology, on behalf of the sitting Cabinet, in front of an audience of Indigenous delegates, and in an address that was broadcast nationally on the CBC, for the past governments' policies of assimilation.[78][79] The Prime Minister apologized not only for the known excesses of the residential school system, but for the creation of the system itself. Harper delivered the speech in the House of Commons; the procedural device of a Committee of the Whole was used, so that Indigenous leaders, who were not Members of Parliament, could be allowed to respond to the apology on the floor of the House.
- ficklepickle 8y agoAnd yet the resulting intergenerational trauma lives on. The echoes of these abuses continue long after the abuse itself ends. Lots of similarities, actually. Both systems were designed to destroy a culture seen as backwards by the powers that be.
- Lionsion 8y ago> Lots of similarities, actually. Both systems were designed to destroy a culture seen as backwards by the powers that be. Yeah, except one occurred in the past and is now condemned; the other is a present, newly-created reality.
- megaman22 8y agoNo, it's a warehousing system to keep children watched and fed while their parents work.
- vuln 8y agoI agree and I find it interesting that teachers are wanting more money for less work... My 8 year old son who is in the third grade has spent all year 'studying' for the SOL (Standards of Learning) test. All day everyday for the last year nothing but SOL 'prep'. He sits on a Chromebook all day. All of his work is done on a Chromebook, his teacher doesn't even have to grade the assignments it's automatically done by the application. The teacher doesn't even come up with the lesson plan, it's all pushed by the school system. No deviation. The only reason he has to 'attend' school is because his mother and I work full time. I've considered working remote and just homeschooling my son but I worry about him missing out on the social aspect of school. but that's a double edge sword also. One last kicker. I never signed anything that would allow my son to use a chromebook or consent to google data mining my son who is under the age of 13. But alas I am sure google has a whole profile built around him and his classmates...
- aoeusnth1 8y agoI think we both agree that American public education isn’t in a good state of affairs - but through personal experience I know just how much work it is to do a proper job at teaching. It’s at least 70 hours a week of work just to tread water. So yes, teachers are underpaid and overworked, and I believe that’s partially causing our system to be so mediocre - it’s hard to hire talented teachers who have time and energy to do a good job when the job is so exhausting and financially unrewarding.
- fsloth 8y agoNo, it was deviced as a system after child labour became illegal to keep jobless children out of the streets practicing delinquency. This is the uncharitable, slightly tongue in cheek interpretation of events.
- cygx 8y agoCare to carify? What would be the European equivalent of the Social Credit program?
- lmm 8y agoGetting denied a bank account/job/housing rental/... for no clear reason and with no way to appeal is becoming increasingly common, and seems to have all the same negatives as the social credit program - if anything worse, since at least you can see your "social credit" score and have some idea of how to improve it.
- Lionsion 8y ago> Getting denied a bank account/job/housing rental/... for no clear reason and with no way to appeal is becoming increasingly common, and seems to have all the same negatives as the social credit program - if anything worse, since at least you can see your "social credit" score and have some idea of how to improve it. You seem to be confused about the salient differences between the social credit system and Western credit scores. Focusing on the fact that you can be "denied...for no clear reason or way to appeal" to draw an equivalence entirely misses the point. What's novel and scary about the social credit system is that political actions like criticizing the government or associating with activists could hurt your score. It's not scoped to financial activity like western systems. If I have a low FICO score, I'm 100% certain that it's not because I didn't vote for Trump.
- lmm 8y ago> What's novel and scary about the social credit system is that political actions like criticizing the government or associating with activists could hurt your score. It's not scoped to financial activity like western systems. If I have a low FICO score, I'm 100% certain that it's not because I didn't vote for Trump. What gives you that certainty? I worked on this stuff in the finance industry a few years back. Even at that stage we were taking any available data and throwing it into opaque machine learning models, and using those to make lending decisions. There was no nefarious intent, but it's not like we had (or cared to have) any way to exclude political affiliation effects either.
- lr4444lr 8y agoYou've gotta be kidding me. What in "western politics" is the equivalent of detaining free adult citizens charged with no crime, with no evidence toward any imminent threat, denied legal representation and speedy trial, in the hundreds of thousands?
- jbob2000 8y agoWe do the same thing, we just create laws out of thin air first. Black people smoke marijuana? Make marijuana illegal! Now we can put them in prison!
- hungerstrike 8y agoYep and also China of today was created by western powers. Mao Zhedong came out of Yale, the home of Sull and Bones. It’s not like a bunch of Chinese farmers decided that they wanted this government. This is the model for the next world-wide government after China wipes the USA off the map as planned. Most people can’t deal with this information, despite the fact that it is staring them right in the face. “Made in China” is a curse that people have accepted though, so as usual they get exactly what they deserve.
- johnaoss 8y agoYou do realize Mao Zedong didn't go to Yale right? His affilation with Yale was pretty loose at best. His father was a Chinese farmer too. The "China of Today" one could say was created by Western Powers would be Taiwan, but even Taiwan had it's foundings on anti-Western sentiments (Chiang Kai-Shek despised Western democracy).
- hungerstrike 8y agoSure. They just put him in charge of their school paper over there for no reason where ‘he edited its student magazine, re-focusing it on "thought reorientation," ‘ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale-China_Association#Early_years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale-China_Association#Early_y... You can also read an article about it on Yales website titled “Yale spurs Maos emergence“. I wish I were wrong about the direction things are heading in, but I'm not.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- obelix_ 8y agoYup they really need to be feeding their population the Kardashians, WWE, Alex Jones, super hero movies and space operas the whole day.
- linkmotif 8y agoThey do that, too.
- techterrier 8y ago#savetheexpanse
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- simonh 8y agoI'm sorry the actual choices free people make seem to disappoint you so much. What do you think should be done about it?
- teekert 8y ago"Free people" as in, attention high-jacked, rent paying, sugar'd up, Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires represented by purchasable politicians? What is freedom today anyway? We don't work for a company anymore, we work for share holders. We don't pay eachother for housing anymore, we pay banks. We don't choose what we eat anymore, we are seduced. We don't spend our time anymore, companies sell our time and attention for us. At the very least freedom should come with "being well informed", however we are informed by commercials nowadays. Is this freedom?
- fwn 8y agoDeconstructing freedom might be a fun exercise, it is, however, completely unrelated if it comes to criticising dystopian state oppression. (Which the linked article is about.) Torture & forced reeducation camps are wrong regardless of some other wrongness somewhere else.
- 0x4f3759df 8y agoWSJ did a piece about Xianjiang: Life Inside China’s Total Surveillance State https://www.wsj.com/video/life-inside-chinas-total-surveillance-state/CE86DA19-D55D-4F12-AC6A-3B2A573492CF.html https://www.wsj.com/video/life-inside-chinas-total-surveilla...
- imbokodo 8y agoIt sounds like for China's Muslim extremists and terrorists in prison, if it gets worse, they will almost have it as bad as the Muslim extremists and terrorists the US waterboards in Guantanamo Bay or black-op sites have it. Of course they're not nabbed from other countries, are given trials and so forth. If they keep this up, the Chinese will become as bad as the West.
- dmm 8y agoYou're invoking a logical fallacy know as whataboutism[0]. The actions of the west cannot justify the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands by the chinese government. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- danharaj 8y agoThe parent didn't justify anything.
- Lionsion 8y agoWhataboutism is more about distraction than justification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Methods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Methods: > "[Whataboutism] functions as a diversionary tactic to distract the opponent from their original criticism. Thus, the technique is used to avoid directly refuting or disproving the opponent's initial argument."
- abiox 8y agoi believe they were refering to the part in the previous post that said "a logical fallacy". to be a logical fallacy requires that something be used in a logical construction (hence the name). this is where "justify" has relevance. for example, ad hominem is not a "logical fallacy" unless it is used in some kind of logical construct (such as a syllogism). it's not necessarily a "logical fallacy" to just simply insult someone in some subjective or qualitative way.
- davidhyde 8y ago"Leading to what a U.S. commission on China last month said is “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”" Oh the irony.
- NPMaxwell 8y agoI think I'm following you, but I'm not sure. You're referring to the incarceration of African Americans and poor people today? Or Japanese-Americans during WWII? Or Native Americans under Jackson? Also, AP is referring to counts; percents are needed.
- ForRealsies 8y agoYou're looking for a premise in the parent comment that isn't there.
- arcticfox 8y agoWhy is this ironic? Are we talking about Japanese internment camps from almost a century ago?
- danharaj 8y agoIt could also refer to Gaza. I'm not the OP though.
- adventured 8y agoI believe they're referring to the premise that US prisons are overwhelmingly filled with innocent, non-violent offenders, with the majority specifically consisting of black and hispanic men. The US has a real negative mark there and deserves the flack that it gets for it. However, while China seems to be racing toward some terrifying authoritarian nightmare with its Xi dictatorship and bringing back camps, the US incarceration rate has been declining for a decade. It has been rolled back to 1995-1996 levels and is on an aggressive downward slope. Most likely with the continued legalization / de-criminalization of marijuana, the US will see its incarceration rate continue to plunge for the next 10-20 years. The prison explosion began around 1978-1979. In another ten years we should have the incarceration rate back down to late 1980s levels. That would still be 2x higher than the late 1970s levels, and a lot more work would still need to be done. For reference, peak incarceration was around 2007, and was about 5x what the rate was in the late 1970s (per capita). Both political parties have widespread agreement that the failed US policies of mass-incarceration have to be reversed / ended.
- vengefulduck 8y agoIt's like the leaders of China read 1984 and thought: those are pretty good ideas!
- maxxxxx 8y agoMix in Brave New World and you have a perfect work instruction.
- mistermann 8y agoStories like this make me wonder if people in Taiwan and Hong Kong have some serious concerns about the future for themselves and their children. I haven't picked up much sense of concern from anyone in the West, but if China's long term behavior pans out to resemble that of the USA in terms of forcing its will upon others I'd think they'd be first in line for reeducation.
- CogitoCogito 8y agoHong Kong is probably kind of screwed, but Taiwan and China are still two separate countries (regardless of their constitutional claims as well as other countries diplomatic relations). But yeah you're right this sort of thing is unlikely to help any arguments for potential future unification.
- adventured 8y agoWhat major territories has the US annexed, or tried to annex, since it became the global superpower post WW2? Germany? No. France? No. Japan? No. South Korea? No. South Vietnam? No. The Philippines? No. Canada? No. Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. Mexico? No. Panama? No. Grenada? No. China just violently annexed territory 4x the size of France from its neighbors. Nobody did a thing about it (and nobody is going to do a thing about it), the world just stood aside and watched. The UN barely wagged its finger at them.
- aninhumer 8y agoThe US doesn't need to annex them, it just violently installs a capitalist government and then US companies buy everything.
- mistermann 8y agoOne might argue that "forcing its will" can manifest in forms other than annexation of land. There is a bit of a rumor going around about the US meddling in the affairs of other countries, but maybe that's just another one of those conspiracy theories.
- zip1234 8y ago
- narrator 8y agoWhat if this works? It seems like China is trying to fight a psychological war this time instead of with weapons as the Russians successfully did recently in Chechnya. Maybe we are seeing the first time a religion/ideology has been forced on Muslims. All other previous attempts at subduing Muslims have been by genocide and brutal war, so this would be a first in world history if it works. It would open a new chapter in the history of propaganda, behaviorism and religion. We could have a post-war society where wars are fought with psychology. Like some mash-up of 1984 and the Foundation Trilogy.
- imbokodo 8y agoIn 1971, England began interning thousands of Irish who opposed the English army in the six counties of north Ireland. The New York Times wrote editorials calling the interned without trial "diehards" and "uncompromising bigots". A few months later, a march for their civil rights through Derry was met by gunfire as 14 unarmed men were shot by the British. It's strange (well, not really) how easily we see sympathy or shrugging when the English speaking West interns without trial, or incarcerates Muslim radicals under torture, or mass incarcerates its former slave population etc., then dabs a handkerchief for Muslim radicals in China. It reminds me of the tears shed in Washington DC for the Muslim terrorists blowing up Chechnya in 1999, and 2000. That kind of slowed down in 2001. I suppose this is "whataboutism", which is amazement at Western professionals who pontificate about far-off lands of competitors, when the westerners have done or are doing worse.
- fiter 8y agoI think worse than "whataboutism" is the conflation of all westerners as one.
- lainga 8y agoThe British did not make captured IRA members renounce Catholicism, nor the Americans make Guantanamo internees "erase their Islamic beliefs and reshape their very identities". Here is an article from the CBC, if you can't bear to see an American outlet report on the issue. Or are the Canadians complicit with their actions as well? http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-internment-camps-1.4666686 http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-internment-camps-1.466668...
- imbokodo 8y agoAnd here we see it...the British intern people like Michael Farrell without a trial, and he is said to be a "captured IRA member" and so forth. He's still alive actually, acting as a lawyer for refugees. You people still have to invent lies for why you interned people like him, shot unarmed people in the street that protested the internment etc. But the Chinese are the real bad guys. It's why the British had to burn his winter palace at the end of the Opium wars.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoWhen I see things like this I can't help but consider that China is some 400% larger than the US, in a slightly smaller landmass than we have, all while bordering 14 different nations - including several hotspots of Islamic extremism such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. I'm certainly not defending China, but I simultaneously find it difficult to condemn them. How would we cope with a similar situation? And as a deeper and deeper divide is drawn within our nation - in no small part based on political extremism, I can't help but think that our current system is ultimately headed towards a climax that's not going to have a happy ending. And we live in a nation that ought be a million times easier to manage according to most measurable factors.
- Lionsion 8y ago> How would we cope with a similar situation? I've heard China described as one of the last classical empires. All the others, such as the British Empire, Ottoman Empire, Soviet Empire have dissolved. So "our" solution would be independence for the imperial possessions.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoAre you suggesting that as the US population increases you'd expect to see states starting to secede from the nation? Or that that would be a productive solution to whatever problems we may face in the coming years? For China the areas outside the mainland such as Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are already effectively independent and in any case are tangential to the issue here.
- Lionsion 8y agoI'm saying Xinjiang and Tibet are akin to the Philippines, India, and Greece: conquests that should get their independence. The latter independence movements had varying degrees of conflict, but I think few argue that those countries should still be ruled by their former foreign masters.
- Bucephalus355 8y agoFYI the Chinese government literally pays ppl to sit in massive internet cafes and camp out on various internet forums. They comment about how great China is and how anything bad in China is made not bad by something similar happening in the West.
- Lionsion 8y ago> FYI the Chinese government literally pays ppl to sit in massive internet cafes and camp out on various internet forums. They comment about how great China is and how anything bad in China is made not bad by something similar happening in the West. They're called the "50 Cent Army" or "50 Cent Party." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party The details of the contemporary Chinese censorship regime are actually pretty interesting. It's not as simple as just banning content and keywords they don't like, even with the benefit of the great firewall.