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> If the research is being done in China and the tech is bespoke to the research program in China The headbands are produced and donated to a Chinese school by

by Udik 6y ago

> If the research is being done in China and the tech is bespoke to the research program in China The headbands are produced and donated to a Chinese school by an American company! The people protested and the authorities told the school to stop using them.

273737e7eudhd 6y ago
The headbands were handled via a partnership with Zhejiang Brainco Technology Co Ltd. so donation is far from the right word to use. One of their partner's cofounders is also a Harvard PhD holder so it's hardly a case of the Chinese company just being there to take up space as is often claimed around here. This is a donation in the same way that lots of large American companies are Irish. And the objections from parents as well as the government's cited reason for the shutdown were on data privacy grounds according to multiple articles which is a valid criticism but unrelated to the actual usefulness of the devices. So I'm not sure what you're actually driving at here.
- Udik 6y ago
  > The headbands were handled via a partnership with Zhejiang Brainco Technology Co Ltd Which I guess is a subsidiary of the US-based company BrainCo located in Massachusetts. The article describes the provisioning of the headbands as a donation, which I guess makes sense if you're a startup and you want to test a pilot program in a market that might be receptive to your product. The fact that Chinese parents protest on social media and with the authorities (on ethical grounds, it appears from the Quartz article) and the authorities banned the device on privacy concerns, sounds a lot like what would happen in the West. As an aside, every time I read an article about the Chinese society I discover a much more nuanced picture than "it's a dictatorship with no free press and human rights". It's not a democracy for sure, but the idea it's a totalitarian state where all dissent is banned seems very far from the truth.
  - zmalk 6y ago
    > Which I guess is a subsidiary of the US-based company BrainCo located in Massachusetts. Why am I not surprised. A U.S. company designs a device that likely does not work but can be used to control people who think it works. No orders come in, so let's donate it to a Chinese school for a pilot project in the hope that the CCP bites.
  - christophilus 6y ago
    > every time I read an article about the Chinese society I discover a much more nuanced picture than "it's a dictatorship with no free press and human rights". This is a generalizable realization. If you’re aligned with any political faction, it’s best to assume that what you hear about other factions is more negative than the reality.
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
    “ a much more nuanced picture than "it's a dictatorship with no free press and human rights"“ You should assume this is the case about everything that you have only read about without having long time personal experience. What we hear in the media about other countries or times in history is often basically a caricature of a reality that is way more complex and subtle than we usually are told. This is certainly true for China but also true for things like the Nazis or living under communism. Reality is way more complex than we have time to learn.

by Udik 6y ago

273737e7eudhd 6y ago

The headbands were handled via a partnership with Zhejiang Brainco Technology Co Ltd. so donation is far from the right word to use. One of their partner's cofounders is also a Harvard PhD holder so it's hardly a case of the Chinese company just being there to take up space as is often claimed around here. This is a donation in the same way that lots of large American companies are Irish. And the objections from parents as well as the government's cited reason for the shutdown were on data privacy grounds according to multiple articles which is a valid criticism but unrelated to the actual usefulness of the devices. So I'm not sure what you're actually driving at here.

Udik 6y ago
> The headbands were handled via a partnership with Zhejiang Brainco Technology Co Ltd Which I guess is a subsidiary of the US-based company BrainCo located in Massachusetts. The article describes the provisioning of the headbands as a donation, which I guess makes sense if you're a startup and you want to test a pilot program in a market that might be receptive to your product. The fact that Chinese parents protest on social media and with the authorities (on ethical grounds, it appears from the Quartz article) and the authorities banned the device on privacy concerns, sounds a lot like what would happen in the West. As an aside, every time I read an article about the Chinese society I discover a much more nuanced picture than "it's a dictatorship with no free press and human rights". It's not a democracy for sure, but the idea it's a totalitarian state where all dissent is banned seems very far from the truth.
- zmalk 6y ago
  > Which I guess is a subsidiary of the US-based company BrainCo located in Massachusetts. Why am I not surprised. A U.S. company designs a device that likely does not work but can be used to control people who think it works. No orders come in, so let's donate it to a Chinese school for a pilot project in the hope that the CCP bites.
- christophilus 6y ago
  > every time I read an article about the Chinese society I discover a much more nuanced picture than "it's a dictatorship with no free press and human rights". This is a generalizable realization. If you’re aligned with any political faction, it’s best to assume that what you hear about other factions is more negative than the reality.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  “ a much more nuanced picture than "it's a dictatorship with no free press and human rights"“ You should assume this is the case about everything that you have only read about without having long time personal experience. What we hear in the media about other countries or times in history is often basically a caricature of a reality that is way more complex and subtle than we usually are told. This is certainly true for China but also true for things like the Nazis or living under communism. Reality is way more complex than we have time to learn.