5 ms·

> The problem is, guys with guns will come to your door, beat you with a wrench, and put you in jail. This is hyperbole. A dictator might have the tools to shu

by csomar 4y ago

> The problem is, guys with guns will come to your door, beat you with a wrench, and put you in jail. This is hyperbole. A dictator might have the tools to shut off a couple of dissident. But if you have a large portion of the population running these dishes, it's game over. > Most people are bootlickers. Most people want the type of power structure that ends up with the internet blocked. They don't want freedom - they want to be on the side doing the oppressing. That's a bit contradictory to what you said a few sentences before. Most people like to be the oppressors but not oppressed.

warent 4y ago
if you have a large portion of the population running these dishes, it's game over. Sadly this is wishful and overly optimistic thinking. The Tiananmen Square protesters thought similarly. Dictators will massacre their own people
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  I don’t know how you can look at the expansion of democracy worldwide over the 20th century and say it’s just wishful thinking!
  - vkou 4y ago
    By most metrics, democracy is currently in contraction.
    - cubancigar11 4y ago
      The space of democracy is already taken by the leader of the freeworld that dictates how democracy should look like. So if you can't play the game, it is logical to want to play your own game.
      - cubancigar11 4y ago
        [flagged]
- csomar 4y ago
  It's not clear how many died in TSquare but it's a few thousands at most. That's very far from the hundred of millions of people China has. A counter example is the CCP backing down from the Covid restrictions under popular pressure. If enough people put pressure, the government will react. > Dictators will massacre their own people You have to be reminded that the government (and the army) are themselves made of the people. This has the interesting consequences that the most brutal ones are actually oil-funded (because they can outsource security) or countries that have a racial/cultural divide (because they can rally one segment of the population against another, ie: Syria).
  - varjag 4y ago
    > It's not clear how many died in TSquare but it's a few thousands at most. That's very far from the hundred of millions of people China has. Mao did kill off millions in the Great Leap, with no dissent.
    - tibbydudeza 4y ago
      Afaik it was not "planned" unlike Stalin and Beria's NKVD - Mao ordered crows killed to increase crop yields not thinking about the consequences of remove a predator from an ecosystem because the smart folks were either ignorant or afraid of going to a re-education camp. Mass starvation.
      - varjag 4y ago
        Mao killed people for mistakes far less than that, didn't he.
      - George83728 4y ago
        Under Mao's rule, millions of people were overtly executed. It wasn't just Mao's incompetence that got people killed accidentally. He ordered millions of people to be murdered.
        powerapple 4y ago
Max_aaa 4y ago
Would you volunteer to be among the first on the firing line? Most people would want to avoid that risk.
throwaway2037 4y ago
A significant portion of Mainland Chinese Internet users have access to a VPN. They can read the whole Internet. It's been that way for about 10 years. Why isn't it "game over" yet for the Chinese Communist Party? How about Myanmar or Cambodia, which have much less sophisticated national Internet firewalls? Still going dictator-strong.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  30% is high, but maybe not enough to make a big difference in such a police state.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  The point missed by the comment whom you reply to is that tech that enables information sharing (Internet, VPN, comms satellites) comes together with tech that allows for more effective population control and propaganda (great firewall, surveillance satellites, social karma, "everything app", electronic money). It's back to the human factor again: if you don't have protections against dictatorship tech won't help you, but if you do have democracy you don't care about that fancy tech.
- patrakov 4y ago
  That's only on paper. During anniversaries of various politically important events, access to the foreign segment of the Internet is slowed down, infected with packet loss, and disrupted in other ways so that VPNs become practically unusable. This obviously affects not only VPNs, but other kinds of traffic. Source: I worked for a company that had an office in China, and was responsible for maintaining the Chinese servers. In that case, I had to troubleshoot multi-hour MySQL replication lags. Solved by switching the TCP implementation to BBR, because it is resistant to packet loss.
petre 4y ago
Perhaps you should read this book. The first chapter is about Ai Weiwei's dad, Ai Quing, being deported to a work camp in Xinjiang during the Cultural Revolution, along with his two sons. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/books/review/1000-years-of-joys-and-sorrows-ai-weiwei.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/books/review/1000-years-o... The solution is not technical. My dad had a TV sat dish during the communist regime. He was scheduled to be arrested in '90, but the regime fell during the winter of the previous year.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
grecy 4y ago
> But if you have a large portion of the population running these dishes, it's game over It is illegal to bring them into the country, and if you get caught doing so it's jail time. That is true today of drones and any sat communication system in many, many countries.
- syntheweave 4y ago
  The black market tends to pop up to satisfy demand in violation of controls. Find a high ranking official who can tell the police to back off and cut them in: then you're in business, at least until they're purged. But even then, the next person in the seat will most likely respond to the same incentives and business will resume... Even in North Korea, this process takes place. It's just that much slower and riskier, and when lots of controls are slapped on people become too destitute to buy product. But the letter of the law is ultimately just a "threat" in your SWOT analysis when you're able to tempt people with personal gain. What good governance ultimately does is to enable everyone's indifference on these matters: the rules are out in the open, nobody's keeping secrets and blackmailing their rivals, and the result is sufficiently fair that going against it is a position only a tiny minority are inclined to take. Once everyone's in circumlocutions about their actual position because the politics have gotten out of hand, you have the kind of confusing, hysterical mess that would move someone to turn off the Internet rather than let any more rumors spread. Thus, this kind of tech - anything in the realm of decentralized communications - is easiest to access in the places of the world that need it the least.
  - grecy 4y ago
    While your philosophical approach sounds good written down, I can tell you from experience, the reality on the ground is vastly different. I drove my own vehicle across the land borders into Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, DRC, Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Egypt and about 40 more countries. You DO NOT want to bring sat communication equipment into countries where it is strictly prohibited. Some of those countries won't even let you bring 2-way radios in (military tech)

by csomar 4y ago

warent 4y ago

if you have a large portion of the population running these dishes, it's game over. Sadly this is wishful and overly optimistic thinking. The Tiananmen Square protesters thought similarly. Dictators will massacre their own people

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
I don’t know how you can look at the expansion of democracy worldwide over the 20th century and say it’s just wishful thinking!
- vkou 4y ago
  By most metrics, democracy is currently in contraction.
  - cubancigar11 4y ago
    The space of democracy is already taken by the leader of the freeworld that dictates how democracy should look like. So if you can't play the game, it is logical to want to play your own game.
    - cubancigar11 4y ago
      [flagged]
csomar 4y ago
It's not clear how many died in TSquare but it's a few thousands at most. That's very far from the hundred of millions of people China has. A counter example is the CCP backing down from the Covid restrictions under popular pressure. If enough people put pressure, the government will react. > Dictators will massacre their own people You have to be reminded that the government (and the army) are themselves made of the people. This has the interesting consequences that the most brutal ones are actually oil-funded (because they can outsource security) or countries that have a racial/cultural divide (because they can rally one segment of the population against another, ie: Syria).
- varjag 4y ago
  > It's not clear how many died in TSquare but it's a few thousands at most. That's very far from the hundred of millions of people China has. Mao did kill off millions in the Great Leap, with no dissent.
  - tibbydudeza 4y ago
    Afaik it was not "planned" unlike Stalin and Beria's NKVD - Mao ordered crows killed to increase crop yields not thinking about the consequences of remove a predator from an ecosystem because the smart folks were either ignorant or afraid of going to a re-education camp. Mass starvation.
    - varjag 4y ago
      Mao killed people for mistakes far less than that, didn't he.
    - George83728 4y ago
      Under Mao's rule, millions of people were overtly executed. It wasn't just Mao's incompetence that got people killed accidentally. He ordered millions of people to be murdered.
      - powerapple 4y ago

Max_aaa 4y ago

Would you volunteer to be among the first on the firing line? Most people would want to avoid that risk.

throwaway2037 4y ago

A significant portion of Mainland Chinese Internet users have access to a VPN. They can read the whole Internet. It's been that way for about 10 years. Why isn't it "game over" yet for the Chinese Communist Party? How about Myanmar or Cambodia, which have much less sophisticated national Internet firewalls? Still going dictator-strong.

mensetmanusman 4y ago
30% is high, but maybe not enough to make a big difference in such a police state.
throwaway290 4y ago
The point missed by the comment whom you reply to is that tech that enables information sharing (Internet, VPN, comms satellites) comes together with tech that allows for more effective population control and propaganda (great firewall, surveillance satellites, social karma, "everything app", electronic money). It's back to the human factor again: if you don't have protections against dictatorship tech won't help you, but if you do have democracy you don't care about that fancy tech.
patrakov 4y ago
That's only on paper. During anniversaries of various politically important events, access to the foreign segment of the Internet is slowed down, infected with packet loss, and disrupted in other ways so that VPNs become practically unusable. This obviously affects not only VPNs, but other kinds of traffic. Source: I worked for a company that had an office in China, and was responsible for maintaining the Chinese servers. In that case, I had to troubleshoot multi-hour MySQL replication lags. Solved by switching the TCP implementation to BBR, because it is resistant to packet loss.

petre 4y ago

Perhaps you should read this book. The first chapter is about Ai Weiwei's dad, Ai Quing, being deported to a work camp in Xinjiang during the Cultural Revolution, along with his two sons. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/books/review/1000-years-of-joys-and-sorrows-ai-weiwei.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/books/review/1000-years-o... The solution is not technical. My dad had a TV sat dish during the communist regime. He was scheduled to be arrested in '90, but the regime fell during the winter of the previous year.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

grecy 4y ago

> But if you have a large portion of the population running these dishes, it's game over It is illegal to bring them into the country, and if you get caught doing so it's jail time. That is true today of drones and any sat communication system in many, many countries.

syntheweave 4y ago
The black market tends to pop up to satisfy demand in violation of controls. Find a high ranking official who can tell the police to back off and cut them in: then you're in business, at least until they're purged. But even then, the next person in the seat will most likely respond to the same incentives and business will resume... Even in North Korea, this process takes place. It's just that much slower and riskier, and when lots of controls are slapped on people become too destitute to buy product. But the letter of the law is ultimately just a "threat" in your SWOT analysis when you're able to tempt people with personal gain. What good governance ultimately does is to enable everyone's indifference on these matters: the rules are out in the open, nobody's keeping secrets and blackmailing their rivals, and the result is sufficiently fair that going against it is a position only a tiny minority are inclined to take. Once everyone's in circumlocutions about their actual position because the politics have gotten out of hand, you have the kind of confusing, hysterical mess that would move someone to turn off the Internet rather than let any more rumors spread. Thus, this kind of tech - anything in the realm of decentralized communications - is easiest to access in the places of the world that need it the least.
- grecy 4y ago
  While your philosophical approach sounds good written down, I can tell you from experience, the reality on the ground is vastly different. I drove my own vehicle across the land borders into Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, DRC, Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Egypt and about 40 more countries. You DO NOT want to bring sat communication equipment into countries where it is strictly prohibited. Some of those countries won't even let you bring 2-way radios in (military tech)