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The Chinese government effectively has infinite resources and unlimited time. They will proceed with slow divide and conquer, jailing people one by one until ei

by keanzu 7y ago

The Chinese government effectively has infinite resources and unlimited time. They will proceed with slow divide and conquer, jailing people one by one until either the protestors give up or turn violent. If the protestors can be provoked to violence then the mainland government can respond in kind. China either wins slowly or quickly. There's no scenario where they don't win.

carapace 7y ago
I once heard that, when Vietnam and China were at war, the Chinese went to the Vietnamese and said, "When you grind a pebble against a boulder which one disappears first?" The end result here depends on a lot of factors, but as it stands the CCP has the long-term advantage. The "super camera"[1] along with the ban on face masks is just one obvious vector for the techno-authoritarians to win by attrition. They can analyze the data, find the key nodes (people!) in the graph, and make them disappear. AFAICT, there is no long-term defense against ubiquitous surveillance. Technology makes it possible and politics and economics drive it to the limit (e.g. Vernor Vinge's "locator dust".[2]) From this POV, the crucial question is whether the administrators of the system are themselves subjected to it. It's a global problem. Authoritarianism anywhere threatens you, today, wherever you are. The inexorable logic of it means there can be no stable equilibrium. Notice how the CCP is already working to control people outside the bounds of China? That's not going to stop. The people of HK are the "tip of the spear" in the war between free humans and dictators. If Xi really was Papa Smurf [3] the people of Hong Kong wouldn't be so scared to be a part of his village, eh? [1] "China's super camera can pinpoint specific targets among of thousands of people" (abc.net.au) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100048 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust [3] The Smurfs are Communist Propaganda!? https://www.buzzfeed.com/richmonahan/13-reasons-why-the-smurfs-is-communist-propagand-1096m https://www.buzzfeed.com/richmonahan/13-reasons-why-the-smur...
- nyxtom 7y ago
  Noting [1], imagine when this kind of resolution will be possible from simply deploying a range of satellites. http://thescienceexplorer.com/technology/new-satellites-will-detect-your-face-and-phone-space http://thescienceexplorer.com/technology/new-satellites-will...

by keanzu 7y ago

carapace 7y ago

I once heard that, when Vietnam and China were at war, the Chinese went to the Vietnamese and said, "When you grind a pebble against a boulder which one disappears first?" The end result here depends on a lot of factors, but as it stands the CCP has the long-term advantage. The "super camera"[1] along with the ban on face masks is just one obvious vector for the techno-authoritarians to win by attrition. They can analyze the data, find the key nodes (people!) in the graph, and make them disappear. AFAICT, there is no long-term defense against ubiquitous surveillance. Technology makes it possible and politics and economics drive it to the limit (e.g. Vernor Vinge's "locator dust".[2]) From this POV, the crucial question is whether the administrators of the system are themselves subjected to it. It's a global problem. Authoritarianism anywhere threatens you, today, wherever you are. The inexorable logic of it means there can be no stable equilibrium. Notice how the CCP is already working to control people outside the bounds of China? That's not going to stop. The people of HK are the "tip of the spear" in the war between free humans and dictators. If Xi really was Papa Smurf [3] the people of Hong Kong wouldn't be so scared to be a part of his village, eh? [1] "China's super camera can pinpoint specific targets among of thousands of people" (abc.net.au) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100048 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust [3] The Smurfs are Communist Propaganda!? https://www.buzzfeed.com/richmonahan/13-reasons-why-the-smurfs-is-communist-propagand-1096m https://www.buzzfeed.com/richmonahan/13-reasons-why-the-smur...

nyxtom 7y ago
Noting [1], imagine when this kind of resolution will be possible from simply deploying a range of satellites. http://thescienceexplorer.com/technology/new-satellites-will-detect-your-face-and-phone-space http://thescienceexplorer.com/technology/new-satellites-will...