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I'm really torn between two thougts. Of course this kind of censorship shouldn't happen. What they are doing is wrong and I find it mostly just sad that the Ch

I'm really torn between two thougts. Of course this kind of censorship shouldn't happen. What they are doing is wrong and I find it mostly just sad that the Chinese government can't function without such a degree of censorship. On the other side though, people are being warned again and again about centralized platforms, and they never cared one bit. Even with China as a perfect example of how terribly that can go wrong, people just won't believe that maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't be relying 100% on centralized messaging and social media platforms. We can't change the Chinese government; nobody can. It's a political monolith built from the ground up to maintain its own stability above all else. What we can do, however, is the way we think about software; not as something that just seems to grow on trees on its own, but tools that can and will be used for political purposes whenever possible.

ardy42 8y ago
> We can't change the Chinese government; nobody can. It's a political monolith built from the ground up to maintain its own stability above all else. People once thought the same thing about Soviet Russia, and they were wrong. The Chinese government can be changed, it's just that none of the actions "we" can do to help with that have any clear path to quick success. I think it'll be more an exercise of doing what one can (like refusing to cooperate with censorship. tying to subvert it, amplifying dissidents, etc.) and waiting. Just to clarify, I'm taking "we" to mean all of us opposed to authoritarianism, across all national boundaries.
- alexandre_m 8y ago
  That's foolish to believe that. Soviet Russia in the 80s was falling apart after economic stagnation, then the perestroika and glasnost would make it open to critic communism itself, even some events like Chernobyl contributed to some extent. You wouldn't have even dreamed to make Soviet Russia regime fall with "social pressure" under Stalin. China is not regressing nor stagnating, it's peaking. You can't take it out from the inside so easily.

ardy42 8y ago

> We can't change the Chinese government; nobody can. It's a political monolith built from the ground up to maintain its own stability above all else. People once thought the same thing about Soviet Russia, and they were wrong. The Chinese government can be changed, it's just that none of the actions "we" can do to help with that have any clear path to quick success. I think it'll be more an exercise of doing what one can (like refusing to cooperate with censorship. tying to subvert it, amplifying dissidents, etc.) and waiting. Just to clarify, I'm taking "we" to mean all of us opposed to authoritarianism, across all national boundaries.

alexandre_m 8y ago
That's foolish to believe that. Soviet Russia in the 80s was falling apart after economic stagnation, then the perestroika and glasnost would make it open to critic communism itself, even some events like Chernobyl contributed to some extent. You wouldn't have even dreamed to make Soviet Russia regime fall with "social pressure" under Stalin. China is not regressing nor stagnating, it's peaking. You can't take it out from the inside so easily.