Tiannanmen Massacre Anniversary

[mindseye]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm most likely not remembering correctly but weren't you going to start a thread stating that the gender imbalance wasn't as big a problem as generally thought.

Good memory! It's a major problem, but there are good reasons for hope. I'll summarize:

* Simple economics: as the female shortage grows, females are going to become more valuable. This can already be seen in the increase in kidnapping/selling/buying of brides. If the shortage continues to worsen, I expect a dowry system to appear (re-appear?) in rural areas where the problem is worst. This will materially increase the value of rearing a daughter. Whether it's a dowry system or something else, as long as men desire wives, the value of females must rise if the shortage deepens. Chinese being nature's capitalists, I have great hope that basic economic forces will go a long way to re-establish the equilibrium.

* In developed urban China, the value of girls has risen greatly. Shanghai is a great example. Here, daughters are treated more or less equally with sons (e.g. parents are not less likely to provide a daughter with a college education). These trends may follow development as it spreads through the country.

* As I mentioned before, there is talk of the gov't ending the one-child policy to help diminish the preference for boys.

* Beijing has implemented a pilot program to provide pensions for elderly rural Chinese who have a single child, or have only daughters. I don't know how the program is going, but it's another step in the right direction of removing the root pressures for male preference.

[mindseye]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Eh, no, it's not passive - there has to be a bunch of people to handle all the websites being registered, and there have to be a bunch of people to constantly review registered websites so that they don't have objectionable content ( )

That's my take as well.

The actual number and the nature of all the programs, national and regional, is hard to say. But at the very least, it's far from passive, and many people are involved all over the country.

And internet censorship has significantly increased under Hu Jintao.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Tingkai


Read my first post.

All I see in your first post is a rant with only your opinions. So far I haven't seen anyone trivialize what the Chinese students went through except those that continue to make excuses for the goverment. Are those the people you are talking about?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by mindseye
If you are a rural Chinese daughter, well, you may be sold, abandoned, aborted before birth, or left to wither away underfed in an orphanage.

A reflection of an agarian society that struggles to feed itself. We similar situation happening in India, for example, and many other under developed economies.

Originally posted by mindseye
Some Chinese parents don't really mind if daughter goes away to the big city to become a prostitute - as long as she sends money home.

You do realize these people are dirt poor. As China moves to more a market economy, the poor must find anyway they can to survive.

Originally posted by mindseye
However, child labor in China is just one tiny aspect of what I consider the most worrisome shortcoming of Chinese culture: Chinese simply treat other Chinese (who aren't valuable to them) like sh*t. You see this daily, manifested in countless ways, great and small. It's so dismaying.

Again, you see this in many societies. The manager who fires people because they are no longer useful, homeless people who are ignored, family members cut off and isolated, people being rude and obnoxious to each other, and so on.

It happens everywhere.

Originally posted by mindseye
As so many lament (I think DaShi in this thread), in China it's the squandered potential of so many Chinese people that really strikes you.

Squandered?

China has achieved amazing results that have benefitted millions of people.

In the last 20 years, 250 million people have risen from poverty into the middle class, according to the Chinese government. A French bank puts the middle class at 50 million. Even with the lower number this is a phenomenal accomplishment. These people's quality of lives have significantly improved.

Working class incomes have risen signficantly and while many work in sweatshops, many do not.

What it sounds like, however, is that you are applying standards from a economically developed world onto a economically under-developed country.

You remind me of a tourist I once met who complained that the Indians were not spiritual, that all they cared about was making money. I thought, what did she expect? When you're poor in a capitalist society, the most important thing is to make money to put food on the table and a roof over your head.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Eh, no, it's not passive - there has to be a bunch of people to handle all the websites being registered, and there have to be a bunch of people to constantly review registered websites so that they don't have objectionable content ( )

Active = police officers spending their days actively surfing the net, actively looking for illegal content.

Passive: build a firewall filter , if someone else wants to get through the firewall, that person has to ask permission. All the government does is build the firewall and approve requests. They're not monitoring the system, every hour, every day. that's quite different from actively searching for illegal websites.

Like I said, the passive system is quite commonly used by corporations that want to fliter out websites for things like sex, gambling, etc., from employee computers.

It's passive, not active.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Sprayber


All I see in your first post is a rant with only your opinions. So far I haven't seen anyone trivialize what the Chinese students went through except those that continue to make excuses for the goverment. Are those the people you are talking about?

Try reading it again.

I specifically provided an example of racism. That was the post that read: "Chinese all absorbed into a consumer/nationalistic frenzy."

Claiming that all people within a race have a specific personality trait is racism, just it would be racist to say that all white people are greedy materialists.

As for the trivilization, we have a thread about a tragedy and the tragedy is then used as a launch pad for attacks on UR.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by mindseye

The actual number and the nature of all the programs, national and regional, is hard to say. But at the very least, it's far from passive, and many people are involved all over the country.

If it is hard to say then what indication do we have that there are many involved in controlling the Internet. How many is many?

[Agathon]

I think it's great that the party is stopping right wing loons from operating web sites. Think of how much better everything would be if that rule was applied across the world.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Tingkai
As for the trivilization, we have a thread about a tragedy and the tragedy is then used as a launch pad for attacks on UR.

In thier defense, UR denies a massacre took place.

I think it's great that the party is stopping right wing loons from operating web sites. Think of how much better everything would be if that rule was applied across the world.

You don't really understand free speech, since you are quite prepared to live in a society where no-one tolerates anyone else's political opinion. Your views are compatible with that, and are hence ridiculous.

[Saras]

isn't that... PWNAGE?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Active = police officers spending their days actively surfing the net, actively looking for illegal content.

Which is what's happening. You have to register to even put up your site, and then the police regularly check the registered websites for content they don't like.

Passive: build a firewall filter , if someone else wants to get through the firewall, that person has to ask permission. All the government does is build the firewall and approve requests. They're not monitoring the system, every hour, every day. that's quite different from actively searching for illegal websites.

Bull****! In the words of the MII, "the internet has profited many people but it also has brought many problems, such as sex, violence and feudal superstitions and other harmful information that has seriously poisoned people's spirits." Does that sound like they'll just ignore the websites once they're registered? Moreover, according to the BBC, "it has developed a system which will monitor sites in real time and search each web address for its registration number. Any that are not registered will be reported back to the Ministry [of Information Industry], the statement said." Exactly what I said - active monitoring of websites.

Like I said, the passive system is quite commonly used by corporations that want to fliter out websites for things like sex, gambling, etc., from employee computers.

And the way it works is they generally hire some other company to actively construct the database of permitted and forbidden websites, and to update this list as websites are created and/or changed!

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Tingkai


A reflection of an agarian society that struggles to feed itself. We similar situation happening in India, for example, and many other under developed economies.

Yes, but the extremity is much greater in China. This culture still exists among city-dwellers. China doesn't really have a problem feeding itself at this time, even in some of the poorest area. However, I'd like to see some examples of other countries with the same problem.

[quote]
You do realize these people are dirt poor. As China moves to more a market economy, the poor must find anyway they can to survive.[//quote]

This is not entirely true. In many small towns in southern China, families send their daughters off to become prostitutes so that they can live a life of luxury. It has little to do with being poor. It's simply greed.

Again, you see this in many societies. The manager who fires people because they are no longer useful, homeless people who are ignored, family members cut off and isolated, people being rude and obnoxious to each other, and so on.

It happens everywhere.

1. Doesn't justify it.

2. It's far more pronounced here. You simply cannot ignore it.

Squandered?

China has achieved amazing results that have benefitted millions of people.

In the last 20 years, 250 million people have risen from poverty into the middle class, according to the Chinese government. A French bank puts the middle class at 50 million. Even with the lower number this is a phenomenal accomplishment. These people's quality of lives have significantly improved.

Working class incomes have risen signficantly and while many work in sweatshops, many do not.

What it sounds like, however, is that you are applying standards from a economically developed world onto a economically under-developed country.

You remind me of a tourist I once met who complained that the Indians were not spiritual, that all they cared about was making money. I thought, what did she expect? When you're poor in a capitalist society, the most important thing is to make money to put food on the table and a roof over your head.

There's more to life than money. You have a very simple-minded view that seems to blame everything on capitalism with no support.

Active = police officers spending their days actively surfing the net, actively looking for illegal content.

Passive: build a firewall filter , if someone else wants to get through the firewall, that person has to ask permission. All the government does is build the firewall and approve requests. They're not monitoring the system, every hour, every day. that's quite different from actively searching for illegal websites.

Like I said, the passive system is quite commonly used by corporations that want to fliter out websites for things like sex, gambling, etc., from employee computers.

It's passive, not active.

You do realize that they still have to monitor the registered websites as well as hunt down hackers and other violators? Then there's the question of what kind of government would need to do this.

Try reading it again.

I specifically provided an example of racism. That was the post that read: "Chinese all absorbed into a consumer/nationalistic frenzy."

No, you didn't. Spiffor was asking a question, and Tass was being. . .well Tass. Calling them racists on this is insulting and unbased.

As for the trivilization, we have a thread about a tragedy and the tragedy is then used as a launch pad for attacks on UR.

He's barely mentioned and in just a humorous way.



The short of it is, you really don't know much about China. You seem to see everything through your capitalist-colored glasses. China is a far different country from any other. Perhaps if you got out of Hong Kong and Macau, lived in the mainland, and wiped the crud from your eyes, you'd see the mistakes in your reasoning.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Agathon
I think it's great that the party is stopping right wing loons from operating web sites. Think of how much better everything would be if that rule was applied across the world.

You do realize that it's going to be mostly left-wing groups that will be blocked. You know, union supporters, equal-rights groups, human rights groups, historical preservation groups, etc. Basically, the same type of people old GB would like to block in the old US.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
I think it's great that the party is stopping right wing loons from operating web sites. Think of how much better everything would be if that rule was applied across the world.

I think you're an idiot, kidding or not.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

I think it's great that the party is stopping right wing loons from operating web sites. Think of how much better everything would be if that rule was applied across the world.

You don't really understand free speech, since you are quite prepared to live in a society where no-one tolerates anyone else's political opinion. Your views are compatible with that, and are hence ridiculous.

DD, you are my hero. That's some of the best Aggiepwnage I've ever seen