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The reason people don't think it's bad to lose their privacy, is the same as why they don't take climate change seriously: the effects are more than a year out.

The reason people don't think it's bad to lose their privacy, is the same as why they don't take climate change seriously: the effects are more than a year out. Most likely they won't even feel the effects directly in their lifetime. On another note, have Chinese citizens ever been "free" since the one party system?

pasabagi 5y ago
Freedom is not a binary state. In the UK, new laws are being brought in to ban demonstrations that cause annoyance. Does that make the UK unfree? It makes some people less free, but is it sufficient? Again, in the UK, the first-past-the-post voting system is widely understood to produce governments that don't reflect voter desires. Is that enough to say the country is not a democracy? It makes it less democratic than, say, PR countries like Germany. I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures - and while the legal structures in China have changed just a little, the norms of government behaviour have shifted an enormous amount in the last ten years.
- Popegaf 5y ago
  > I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures That sounds like a reasonable take. I like it. I wonder how many Chinese are actually OK with the system as it is and how many aren't.
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    What pasabagi wrote is a very good summary of the situation, I agree with that. As for how many people support the system it's impossible to say right now because people can't speak their mind anymore since Xi took power, it's gotten dangerous. Before when the internet was still relatively uncensored the majority of the comments regarding the government was negative. If it hadn't been they'd not have needed such a massive censorship apparatus in the first place, don't you think? Internet users were mainly younger people though. From my experience in real life I'd say it might have been about 50/50 support vs opposition. Not that it's in any way representative.

pasabagi 5y ago

Freedom is not a binary state. In the UK, new laws are being brought in to ban demonstrations that cause annoyance. Does that make the UK unfree? It makes some people less free, but is it sufficient? Again, in the UK, the first-past-the-post voting system is widely understood to produce governments that don't reflect voter desires. Is that enough to say the country is not a democracy? It makes it less democratic than, say, PR countries like Germany. I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures - and while the legal structures in China have changed just a little, the norms of government behaviour have shifted an enormous amount in the last ten years.

Popegaf 5y ago
> I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures That sounds like a reasonable take. I like it. I wonder how many Chinese are actually OK with the system as it is and how many aren't.
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  What pasabagi wrote is a very good summary of the situation, I agree with that. As for how many people support the system it's impossible to say right now because people can't speak their mind anymore since Xi took power, it's gotten dangerous. Before when the internet was still relatively uncensored the majority of the comments regarding the government was negative. If it hadn't been they'd not have needed such a massive censorship apparatus in the first place, don't you think? Internet users were mainly younger people though. From my experience in real life I'd say it might have been about 50/50 support vs opposition. Not that it's in any way representative.