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> Sounds like they were scared into actually overdoing the censorship. They were scared into doing the censorship. Saying they overdid the censorship implies t
by themacguffinman 3y ago
> Sounds like they were scared into actually overdoing the censorship.
They were scared into doing the censorship. Saying they overdid the censorship implies there is an acceptable level of censorship that they could have done.
And why does anyone have to have a plan for rectifying China's authoritarianism? It's up to China to do that. In the meantime, we can incentivize China by refusing to whitewash their behavior with prestigioius cultural awards. You don't get to have cultural prestige while you destroy culture with authoritarianism.
- persnickety 3y agoI don't know, maybe some people are not fine sitting around waiting for the bully to reform while the bully keeps bullying.
- themacguffinman 3y agoI'm not fine with that either, I think it's essential to rectify the bullying by protecting countries & organizations like the one behind the Hugo Awards from being bullied. But that is different from rectifying the bully, which I'm sure you already know is extremely costly and difficult.
- persnickety 3y agoWhile that is the issue discussed here, authoritarianism hurts those trapped as part of the system the most. It's diffcult to protect the system without directly affecting the system.
- AceJohnny2 3y agoThis is really a case study demonstrating how authoritarian regimes enforce their power. Have trigger-happy and excessive punishments to violations will scare the rest of the population into self-enforcing the rules.
- hyperman1 3y agoI see some discussions on Disqus or Reddit where people don't mention Corona because the posts might be removed and the accounts flagged. I see people put stars in swe*rwords. I see people commit all kinds of contortions to not mention any kinds of possibly sexual content. No censor has been able to check everything. The point has always been to get people to self-censor, and even stop thinking about it as censorship. So here we see the west reacting on Chinese censors. As an European, I've wondered about how the supposed land of the free managed to build a culture of deep puritan self-censorship. Undoubtly, I have my own built in Europe-based self censoring and can't even notice it. I was in fact wondering if I could post this here, without risk of downvoting, flagging or account removal. I decided to take that risk and post, because a) to hell with virtual internet points b) HN is still reasonably free. But this post would not have much chance on Disqus/Reddit, and I did think about it so censorship works.
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoMost of the western world gave authoritarianism a huge vote of confidence with the pandemic response and still are unable to come to terms with what this means or their responsibility for it. How can the west stop its increasing addiction to authoritarianism when most of it can't even admit that it is a problem?
- hyperman1 3y agoThis started a lot earlyer than the pandemic, however. I've seen a huge increase when the WTC has been attacked. Older example: American culture had huge puritan censorship on comics in th 1960's. The stories are heavily infantilized, and even the word for them became 'comics'. A new word, 'graphical novels' was needed to make the same things acceptable to a somewhat older public. Culture in Belgium is completely different: there is a much more natural progression, from children stories to young adult and adult ages. Adult also does not automatically imply sex. They're just books, with pictures. I do think politicians became aware of the internet between 2010 and 2020, and covid gave them the excuse needed to start thought control and censirship on the new media.