"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
I've read enough articles over the years that this move on China's part is not surprising to me at all. I think the average person in China is quite fed up with the lack of morality and social compassion in the general public - due to news articles like the ones I am about to link you.
I think the majority of the West believes that the government is behind everything. But the truth is that most of these kinds of changes in China are actually reflected in the people's opinion. In this case, the PEOPLE in China are really sick and tired of seeing news articles like few I have linked. The government has just decided that this seems like the best method to achieve what the people want.
I know it sounds kind of crazy, but you have to remember that almost nobody in China has ever read 1984. They don't share your values.
No, that doesn't sound crazy at all. I don't sit around with the myopic viewpoint that everyone in the world shares my same ideas, ideals and values.
What I meant by my original post was that I try to put myself into their thought process when they arrive at such decisions. I know however that I cannot, based on my own bias and brainwashing.
[Playing Devil's advocate here, just to offer alternate perspectives]
> How did they get to this point?
Having a dictatorship as a government tends to lead down this path.
> What goes on in the mind of the person sitting in the "idea room" when they first thought of this?
I don't think the people who pitch these ideas are always the negative power hungry types - though with the media constantly pitching fear as they do in North America, it's easy to see how we'd immediately jump to that conclusion. My knee jerk reaction is incredulity, but stop and think about it for a second... their brainwashing is no different than happens in our Western "Democracy." We talk about the "freedom" we have, but our behaviour is manipulated by the media, advertising, consumerism, the society around us which seeks to enforce our buy in to their values. What's the difference if it's peer pressure making us conform or the Government? The end result is the same - it makes it a struggle to maintain independent thought, and upon reflection, is it really independent thought anyway? Are we truly free? Cases can be made for both sides of the argument with both sides claiming the other is deluded.
There are many negative personalities in society, those that don't toe the line, those that don't care about the effect their actions have on others, those that would do whatever they please and to hell with everyone else.
I can see how in some skewed perspective, one might consider "what if we can make people conform to the way we think everyone should behave to make our society a better place for all." Unfortunately, as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I could see it bringing harmony to society if everyone bought into it, however, I think it's much more likely to end up in some Demolition Man style dystopia where those that conform live in the open and those that don't wish to conform and want freedom live in some alternate reality, hidden from mainstream society.
Hopefully Taco Bell doesn't win the franchise wars or they're all doomed :P
I'm an American. So what I can't help wondering is ...
How comprehensive is the data analysis system that my government uses ???
Is it more ... or less comprehensive ???
Do they really only use it on "bad" actors ??? Or do they use it on everyone to determine who has the capacity to be a "bad" actor ???
Etc etc etc.
Articles like this, at least, give me a good idea of what they are probably doing. However, I have to say, I'd like more articles on how to remain invisible to government surveillance systems. Though I'm pretty sure it is impossible at this point. Or, at the very least...
China has long been a "face" orientated society. This is traditional to varying extents throughout the world, with (parts of!) the US probably being at the other end in terms of extreme individualism.
Once you keep dossiers on people, it's natural to want better dossiers. This is just an extension and a centralization of technology that in the was is used to mould people's consumerist behaviour by rating their purchasing habits and credit. In the US there are reports of people being unable to access jobs if they have poor credit or healthcare if they have poor "lifestyles".
Dehumanisation is very easy: you reduce people to statistics, and then give those tasked with maintaining the system the objective of increasing certain statistics. The overall question of "is this just?" is hard to see and hard to discuss.
You don't have to reduce people to statistics, all you need is ideology and believe in a better future brought to you through ideology. Ideology is the real bastard.
Yes and with pragmatism you get Realpolitik, which may be a decent position to maximize some goals but can have nasty results as well if you're not careful. I dont think its possible to get away from this problem, all we can do is be aware of it as a problem and avoid the pitfalls.
It is also possible that the people who designed this genuinely believe that they are doing good. A thought process like this "imagine our country with super nice citizens - citizens who are respectful to elders, don't read bad stuff, don't do bad stuff, are polite, have good credit score etc etc. our country could be a model country for others, we'll truly create a society where everyone is nice to everyone else" or something along those lines. They probably thought it is for the greater good. Just one scenario.
Let's say you're the Chinese government (or a person in the government) and care deeply about the future of China. What's your main concern? Is it not the prevention of destabilizing civic unrest like that we've seen in Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, and for that matter, China? That's the worst possible thing that could happen to the country, and it's quite far from unlikely, and I'd want to do whatever I can to prevent it.
Then you should probably do same things that successful countries do. Ones that did not have devastating civic unrest. From Australia to Austria.
What do they do? What's holding them afloat? Hint: it's the remnaints of democracy and civil society, not special services looking for destabilizing factors day and night.
Special services don't hurt, but everyone relying on just them had bitter end. Treating your citizens like criminals didn't help.
I assure you that Syria and Libya had extensive systems to counter insurgents, and it led them straight nowhere. As it was for DDR and USSR.
To offer a cynical perspective from a formerly colonized country, it seems to me that what made Australia, the UK, the US, Canada etc. successful is blatant disregard for human rights and equality when they were going through the same phase that China is going through now.
To take the US as an example, the Europeans just came to North America, pretty much killed or made life miserable for the native americans, stole all their land, brought in a bunch of slaves as free labour, prevented what the chinese might call "disharmony" by making sure non-white people couldn't immigrate until as recently as 1960, gave little or no regard for nature and the enivornment and so on. Equality and human rights were really bolted on as an afterthought well after development was achieved.
When it comes to the environment, you're accusing based on things that were not well understood in 1870-1910 when the US went through its industrial revolution.
The health effect correlation with specific chemicals was extremely poorly understood when the US went through its industrial revolution. The progress of chemical and biological sciences were still in the first inning.
The understanding of how certain chemicals can pollute or destroy the environment, and specifically what that means for long-term health, were hardly understood at all. I would argue 1% of what is known today about the environment, was known in 1900. One need not look any further than the medical therapies that were being attempted in the late 1800s to understand how backwards and ignorant the various scientific fields were.
The same cannot be said of the last 30 years when it comes to China. Their behavior is one of destruction with near complete disregard for the vast information that we now have.
Not really. Have you heard of lead paint and gasoline ?
The Ancient Greeks knew lead was poisonous - didn't stop american companies from using it since it improved profit.
This is startlingly true. For example most of Africa or the Middle East is going through very blood struggles that the western world only got through 70 years ago. Some places are at the French Revolution stage, others at the Glorious Revolution stage, others still stuck in a Weimar Republic or even Nazi regime phase.
Prosperity seems to be a prerequisite for solid democracy. And unfortunately it does not ensure it :(
How did they get to this point?
What goes on in the mind of the person sitting in the "idea room" when they first thought of this?
Are they just the product of an already oppressive government and therefore see this as completely and totally fine?
Or do they know that it is oppressive, but since they're already a cog in the machine, they pitch the idea up and get praised for it?