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How do normal Chinese people feel about the things that go on?

Mirioron 8y ago
China is so big and blocks access to information here and there for the average citizen that they might not think that it could be significantly better in the freedom part.
jandrese 8y ago
Officially? The state is always right. In private? I think the government's ever tightening grip is going to explode in their face eventually.
- TrainedMonkey 8y ago
  Or the power of technology will enable them to repeat the message until public believes it. If you repeat something enough people start believing it. Fun exercise, check out persuasive techniques below and count how many of those China (and other governments) are employing en masse. https://www.mindmeister.com/213923097/persuasive-techniques-and-their-examples https://www.mindmeister.com/213923097/persuasive-techniques-...
  - jerf 8y ago
    The inability to instill belief is not the problem... the ability to instill belief is the problem. You instill belief in the place of social feedback, which breaks people's ability to react to the feedback the system is yielding, like "that's too much money being spent here" and "that's not enough money spent there" and "it turns out that while everyone believes everyone believes that the right answer is X, that in fact nobody believes it" and just an uncountable list of other adjustments societies have to make in order to survive. In a hypothetical world where humans were not subject to social pressure and the corresponding ability of social systems to produce situations where privately everybody knows a thing but nobody is publicly allowed to acknowledge it... well... that's effectively a world on the other side of a singularity from us. Presumably it would have its own pathologies, greater ones for all I know. But it would not have this problem of entire societies riding off the rails because it applied ever stronger powers of social coercion to prevent the society from correctly (without reference to any particular definition of "correct") reacting to the changes that occur over time. It would have to come up with its own new pathologies. This scenario doesn't fail when everybody stops believing in it; it fails, and then everybody stops believing in it. (Peer pressure in the modern world is dangerous, and merely "being pressured to do drugs" is a fairly innocent instance of it, because that only does local harm. When you find yourself unable to speak out about your own beliefs to your own neighbors and friends because of the social costs, it's not just a problem for you, it's a problem for your society.)
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      This scenario doesn't fail when everybody stops believing in it; it fails, and then everybody stops believing in it. The 21st century 1st world aspirant intelligentsia is in this situation right now. When you find yourself unable to speak out about your own beliefs to your own neighbors and friends because of the social costs, it's not just a problem for you, it's a problem for your society. My "tribe" is trapped in such a bubble. It's intellectually doomed.
      - leephillips 8y ago
        Can you give an example of a belief or opinion that you feel unable to express to other members of your tribe?
        jeffreyrogers 8y ago
        Not the OP, so I'm not claiming to speak for him, but here are some views I've seen really upset left-leaning people despite having a fair amount of evidence to support them: heterosexual two-parent households are best for raising children, rape is less common now than in the past, unrestricted immigration hurts low-skill workers. I'm not necessarily saying these are all true, but they're at least open for debate, and you will lose friends in some parts of the US for voicing these opinions.
        stcredzero 8y ago
        1) Many actions of Antifa are immoral, authoritarian, and bad for society. I can write this here on HN, but I've encountered what can only be described as toxicity on other social media and in person. (The most extreme example of this would be someone responding to a wedding invite by calling me a racist.) 2) Homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, which results in some biologically driven differences on average between men and women. Again, I can write this here on HN, but I've encountered what can only be described as extreme toxicity on other social media and in person.
        clairity 8y ago
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Or the power of technology will enable them to repeat the message until public believes it. If you repeat something enough people start believing it. Fun exercise, check out persuasive techniques below and count This has been true of media since the beginning. It's certainly at play in social media today. It has been glaringly true of print and television media for decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
- jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  That is essentially what led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Although China's economy functions better and conditions seem to be improving for the average Chinese person, so it's hard to say how it'll play out. Also the Tiananmen Square protests happened 30 years ago and the same government is still in power. So I think chances are good that they'll be able to hold onto power for the foreseeable future. As long as they continue to do well economically at least.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > China's economy functions better China's economy developed under a multi-person single-party system. That has devolved into a dictatorship. I would be cautious about using the last thirty years as a baseline for the next fifty. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping
  - kika 8y ago
    > That is essentially what led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Care to elaborate? (full disclosure: I was born and raised in SU and lived in it for 20 years of my life and then another 20 in Russia after the fall). My family were "dissidents", we were under almost constant surveillance since at least 1980 (when I went to the 5th grade) and I can tell that the grip weakened every year until Andropov, who tried to hysterically tighten it, but it didn't work already. In my simplified opinion, it was just the oil price that killed the Soviet Union. It went from $120 in 1980 to $23 in 1986. Soviet Union as any sufficiently developed socialist economy became more and more dependent on the external supply of goods for which it had to get some hard currency. It basically just run out of money and went bankrupt.
    - jeffreyrogers 8y ago
      My understanding is that people within the Soviet Union (including within the Communist Party) saw that conditions in the West were better and became disillusioned with the Soviet system, which enabled Gorbachev to make his reforms. But I wasn't there and only know what I've read so you're probably right that the economy had a larger role than I'm giving it credit for.
Chaebixi 8y ago
> How do normal Chinese people feel about the things that go on? That can be really hard to find out. Chinese culture looks down on people who criticize their own group in front of outsiders. So it's bad to truthfully criticize your family in front of a neighbor, even if you do it at home, and similarly bad to truthfully criticize your country in front of a foreigner. For an example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_speech_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_spee.... That student was ripped apart and called a traitor in regular media and social media, even though a lot of the things she said were true and often complained about. Add mass censorship to the mix, which denies access to honest options shared among the Chinese themselves, and it gets to be extremely difficult to get an accurate sense of true Chinese public opinion. There are also other confounding factors: such as the CCP not emphasizing the distinction between the the government and the nation. Lots of people might not realize "you can love your country and hate your government" at the same time.
- kika 8y ago
  > "you can love your country and hate your government" Reminds me of Russia very much. Self-proclaimed "patriots" standard response to any critics of government is "you just hate everything Russian".
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Generalized: Self-proclaimed [X] standard response to any critics of [X] is "you just hate everything [X]". I think it's a standard self-defense mechanism for any meme in the Dawkins sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
    - larkeith 8y ago
      Slightly off-topic, but you might want to avoid using "[X]" as a general placeholder - I was momentarily thrown off, as I expected each instance of X to be the same.
      - 8y ago
devy 8y ago
If you read Chinese, you can usually get a sense from Weibo (Chinese version of twitter), sometime censorship come into play but those are always after the fact.
codedokode 8y ago
If you are interested, there is an interview with Chinese people in the street about this system [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAIKh7AnTIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAIKh7AnTIk
- aplc0r 8y ago
  This channel is very interesting. Thank you!
rqs 8y ago
What it takes to be normal? I mean, I'm a human being who can type comment and send it online, does that makes me normal? Anyways, I actually asked around about that topic on an domestic Chinese online forum that only had few dozens of visitors, the result that I've received showing that the most of those people who replied are actually ... let say ... not in the opposition of it. Things are vastly different on another domestic website, where most of people are (implicitly) against it. So, it's actually depends on who you asking. And remind you, we Chinese are also effected by echo chambers.

China is so big and blocks access to information here and there for the average citizen that they might not think that it could be significantly better in the freedom part.

jandrese 8y ago

Officially? The state is always right. In private? I think the government's ever tightening grip is going to explode in their face eventually.

TrainedMonkey 8y ago
Or the power of technology will enable them to repeat the message until public believes it. If you repeat something enough people start believing it. Fun exercise, check out persuasive techniques below and count how many of those China (and other governments) are employing en masse. https://www.mindmeister.com/213923097/persuasive-techniques-and-their-examples https://www.mindmeister.com/213923097/persuasive-techniques-...
- jerf 8y ago
  The inability to instill belief is not the problem... the ability to instill belief is the problem. You instill belief in the place of social feedback, which breaks people's ability to react to the feedback the system is yielding, like "that's too much money being spent here" and "that's not enough money spent there" and "it turns out that while everyone believes everyone believes that the right answer is X, that in fact nobody believes it" and just an uncountable list of other adjustments societies have to make in order to survive. In a hypothetical world where humans were not subject to social pressure and the corresponding ability of social systems to produce situations where privately everybody knows a thing but nobody is publicly allowed to acknowledge it... well... that's effectively a world on the other side of a singularity from us. Presumably it would have its own pathologies, greater ones for all I know. But it would not have this problem of entire societies riding off the rails because it applied ever stronger powers of social coercion to prevent the society from correctly (without reference to any particular definition of "correct") reacting to the changes that occur over time. It would have to come up with its own new pathologies. This scenario doesn't fail when everybody stops believing in it; it fails, and then everybody stops believing in it. (Peer pressure in the modern world is dangerous, and merely "being pressured to do drugs" is a fairly innocent instance of it, because that only does local harm. When you find yourself unable to speak out about your own beliefs to your own neighbors and friends because of the social costs, it's not just a problem for you, it's a problem for your society.)
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    This scenario doesn't fail when everybody stops believing in it; it fails, and then everybody stops believing in it. The 21st century 1st world aspirant intelligentsia is in this situation right now. When you find yourself unable to speak out about your own beliefs to your own neighbors and friends because of the social costs, it's not just a problem for you, it's a problem for your society. My "tribe" is trapped in such a bubble. It's intellectually doomed.
    - leephillips 8y ago
      Can you give an example of a belief or opinion that you feel unable to express to other members of your tribe?
      - jeffreyrogers 8y ago
        Not the OP, so I'm not claiming to speak for him, but here are some views I've seen really upset left-leaning people despite having a fair amount of evidence to support them: heterosexual two-parent households are best for raising children, rape is less common now than in the past, unrestricted immigration hurts low-skill workers. I'm not necessarily saying these are all true, but they're at least open for debate, and you will lose friends in some parts of the US for voicing these opinions.
      - stcredzero 8y ago
        1) Many actions of Antifa are immoral, authoritarian, and bad for society. I can write this here on HN, but I've encountered what can only be described as toxicity on other social media and in person. (The most extreme example of this would be someone responding to a wedding invite by calling me a racist.) 2) Homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, which results in some biologically driven differences on average between men and women. Again, I can write this here on HN, but I've encountered what can only be described as extreme toxicity on other social media and in person.
        clairity 8y ago
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Or the power of technology will enable them to repeat the message until public believes it. If you repeat something enough people start believing it. Fun exercise, check out persuasive techniques below and count This has been true of media since the beginning. It's certainly at play in social media today. It has been glaringly true of print and television media for decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
jeffreyrogers 8y ago
That is essentially what led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Although China's economy functions better and conditions seem to be improving for the average Chinese person, so it's hard to say how it'll play out. Also the Tiananmen Square protests happened 30 years ago and the same government is still in power. So I think chances are good that they'll be able to hold onto power for the foreseeable future. As long as they continue to do well economically at least.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > China's economy functions better China's economy developed under a multi-person single-party system. That has devolved into a dictatorship. I would be cautious about using the last thirty years as a baseline for the next fifty. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping
- kika 8y ago
  > That is essentially what led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Care to elaborate? (full disclosure: I was born and raised in SU and lived in it for 20 years of my life and then another 20 in Russia after the fall). My family were "dissidents", we were under almost constant surveillance since at least 1980 (when I went to the 5th grade) and I can tell that the grip weakened every year until Andropov, who tried to hysterically tighten it, but it didn't work already. In my simplified opinion, it was just the oil price that killed the Soviet Union. It went from $120 in 1980 to $23 in 1986. Soviet Union as any sufficiently developed socialist economy became more and more dependent on the external supply of goods for which it had to get some hard currency. It basically just run out of money and went bankrupt.
  - jeffreyrogers 8y ago
    My understanding is that people within the Soviet Union (including within the Communist Party) saw that conditions in the West were better and became disillusioned with the Soviet system, which enabled Gorbachev to make his reforms. But I wasn't there and only know what I've read so you're probably right that the economy had a larger role than I'm giving it credit for.

Chaebixi 8y ago

> How do normal Chinese people feel about the things that go on? That can be really hard to find out. Chinese culture looks down on people who criticize their own group in front of outsiders. So it's bad to truthfully criticize your family in front of a neighbor, even if you do it at home, and similarly bad to truthfully criticize your country in front of a foreigner. For an example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_speech_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_spee.... That student was ripped apart and called a traitor in regular media and social media, even though a lot of the things she said were true and often complained about. Add mass censorship to the mix, which denies access to honest options shared among the Chinese themselves, and it gets to be extremely difficult to get an accurate sense of true Chinese public opinion. There are also other confounding factors: such as the CCP not emphasizing the distinction between the the government and the nation. Lots of people might not realize "you can love your country and hate your government" at the same time.

kika 8y ago
> "you can love your country and hate your government" Reminds me of Russia very much. Self-proclaimed "patriots" standard response to any critics of government is "you just hate everything Russian".
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Generalized: Self-proclaimed [X] standard response to any critics of [X] is "you just hate everything [X]". I think it's a standard self-defense mechanism for any meme in the Dawkins sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
  - larkeith 8y ago
    Slightly off-topic, but you might want to avoid using "[X]" as a general placeholder - I was momentarily thrown off, as I expected each instance of X to be the same.
    - 8y ago

devy 8y ago

If you read Chinese, you can usually get a sense from Weibo (Chinese version of twitter), sometime censorship come into play but those are always after the fact.

codedokode 8y ago

If you are interested, there is an interview with Chinese people in the street about this system [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAIKh7AnTIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAIKh7AnTIk

aplc0r 8y ago
This channel is very interesting. Thank you!

rqs 8y ago

What it takes to be normal? I mean, I'm a human being who can type comment and send it online, does that makes me normal? Anyways, I actually asked around about that topic on an domestic Chinese online forum that only had few dozens of visitors, the result that I've received showing that the most of those people who replied are actually ... let say ... not in the opposition of it. Things are vastly different on another domestic website, where most of people are (implicitly) against it. So, it's actually depends on who you asking. And remind you, we Chinese are also effected by echo chambers.