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Historical context of a country matters a lot when judging the extent of a surveillance problem. Chinese are terrified of chaos and disorder, which has in the p
by mavdi 8y ago
Historical context of a country matters a lot when judging the extent of a surveillance problem. Chinese are terrified of chaos and disorder, which has in the past has led to civil wars. For them the first priority is keeping the status quo.
Just take a look at the death toll of these wars: https://www.businessinsider.com/bloodiest-conflicts-in-chinese-history-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/bloodiest-conflicts-in-chine...
25 Million casualties, and that's in the 17th century. Compare that to the absolute carnage of Syria, which has had less than half a million casualties.
- Juliate 8y agoThat's not a valid excuse for a totalitarian, unfair system. Because these systems have all been torn down by some kind of civil war - there is no other way, because of the nature of power and the structures it uses.
- paganel 8y agoMores do change, people do evolve (I know that's not the PC term to use, but that's the reality of it), there's no reason to allow ourselves to allow the Government or any other Government-like entity to dictate our lives only because some centuries (or decades ago) there was a deadly civil war going on. Just think about the English and John Locke, who wrote his "Second Treatise of Government" just a few decades after the English king had been decapitated as the result of a civil war. Without people like Locke the world would have been a worst place now and we wouldn't probably have this conversation at all.