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LOL gamer gone mad over mw2 (pg. 7)
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| Fledz |
| quote: | Originally posted by astroboy
If the people's delusion that they are part of the best and mightiest empire in the world is broken then they won't have anything left and might suddenly realise that the government is treating them like worthless pieces of . |
Wait, are we talking about Russia here, or maybe the USA, or China, or Iraq, or hell even the UK? |
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| astroboy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fledz
Wait, are we talking about Russia here, or maybe the USA, or China, or Iraq, or hell even the UK? |
Russia.. though it would probably apply to China too. The people are stuck in the serf mentality. They sit around with their thumbs up their butts while the country slowly turns back into a dictatorship. They're happy to give away their rights as long as they think they;re still part of a global superpower. It makes me sick how little value people there place on their individual rights. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by astroboy
Russia.. though it would probably apply to China too. The people are stuck in the serf mentality. They sit around with their thumbs up their butts while the country slowly turns back into a dictatorship. They're happy to give away their rights as long as they think they;re still part of a global superpower. It makes me sick how little value people there place on their individual rights. |
Why is it so bad if thats what the people want?
Democracy doesn't always work. |
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| ToF |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
Why is it so bad if thats what the people want? |
They don't know what they want, they are being told that's what they want, that's the problem.
Choice to decide what you want is what everyone deserves. |
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| Fledz |
| Anyone see how Obama went to China and spoke to a select group of students about freedom of speech, yet it was all censored to hell and back to the point where most people in China weren't even aware he was there. I'd hate to live in a country like that where you're told how to act and what to think. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fledz
Anyone see how Obama went to China and spoke to a select group of students about freedom of speech, yet it was all censored to hell and back to the point where most people in China weren't even aware he was there. I'd hate to live in a country like that where you're told how to act and what to think. |
Every country is like that. China has a group mentality and it works. They are the fastest growing super power in the world and their people are generally happy now. You look at the pro-democracy movement in the late 1980s and the only reason it was such an issue was because of the lack of economic security.
Now China is an economic power house, even while the rest of the world is doing pretty poor their GDP is still growing at an alarming rate and the population, at least a significant chunk of it, is for the first time experiencing something other than abject poverty. The people no longer care about a democracy movement at large public level. There are reformers still, but most people do not care anymore, they are buying cars and western goods and an emerging middle class is enjoying the fruits of their country... So why would anyone want to change that.
Your view of how they live their life is biased based on the values of the society you live in. External change is never effective or good and in the past has almost always led to hardship for the ones exerting the change and the ones receiving the change. If the Chinese people, or the Russian people, or whomever demand change enough they will make it happen.
Granted there are exceptions to this rule, like North Korea, but that is probably the only one. |
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| NeoPhono |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fledz
Anyone see how Obama went to China and spoke to a select group of students about freedom of speech, yet it was all censored to hell and back to the point where most people in China weren't even aware he was there. I'd hate to live in a country like that where you're told how to act and what to think. |
Or you could be a modern American NeoCon and actually enjoy being told how to act and think by radio and TV personalities. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by ToF
They don't know what they want, they are being told that's what they want, that's the problem.
Choice to decide what you want is what everyone deserves. |
Also, I do not like this idea about China being told what they want and them blindly following it. China has a far amount of access to Western media. They know that they live in a one party system, they know that other systems exist (obviously).
Money trumps all though. They like being top dog in the world and they aren't about to start ing that up for themselves.
The same could be said about Russia, but there its for more nationalistic. There was little to the Soviet Union about a world workers revolution, the true spirit of their socialist founding philosophies. You could almost entirely call the Soviet expansionism during the 20th century as a cover for Russian nationalism and the same as Peter the Great and other Russian imperial movements. |
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| Fledz |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
Every country is like that. China has a group mentality and it works. They are the fastest growing super power in the world and their people are generally happy now. You look at the pro-democracy movement in the late 1980s and the only reason it was such an issue was because of the lack of economic security.
Now China is an economic power house, even while the rest of the world is doing pretty poor their GDP is still growing at an alarming rate and the population, at least a significant chunk of it, is for the first time experiencing something other than abject poverty. The people no longer care about a democracy movement at large public level. There are reformers still, but most people do not care anymore, they are buying cars and western goods and an emerging middle class is enjoying the fruits of their country... So why would anyone want to change that.
Your view of how they live their life is biased based on the values of the society you live in. External change is never effective or good and in the past has almost always led to hardship for the ones exerting the change and the ones receiving the change. If the Chinese people, or the Russian people, or whomever demand change enough they will make it happen.
Granted there are exceptions to this rule, like North Korea, but that is probably the only one. |
Rubbish. That middle class that's enjoying the fruits of labor are a very small minority and the ones that force such censorship. Why? Because it lines their pockets with money and allows them to live that life.
Go ask any Chinese migrant that has spent a decade or more outside of China, what they think of the establishment over there. They all hate it and are glad they got out.
The model that the Chinese run is a travesty to modern civilisation. Hell, you could even see that during the Olympics when the eyes of the world were even more focused on them. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fledz
Rubbish. That middle class that's enjoying the fruits of labor are a very small minority and the ones that force such censorship. Why? Because it lines their pockets with money and allows them to live that life.
Go ask any Indian migrant that has spent a decade or more outside of India, what they think of the establishment over there. They all hate it and are glad they got out.
The model that the Indians run is a travesty to modern civilisation. Hell, you could even see that during the Olympics when the eyes of the world were even more focused on them. |
See what I did there? I just replaced the worlds largest communist state with the worlds largest democracy and got essentially the same thing.
You are blaming the wrong things. |
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| astroboy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
Why is it so bad if thats what the people want?
Democracy doesn't always work. |
That's what they want because it's all they've ever known. They went from being serfs, to being the proletariat. Besides a decision is only of any real value when its an informed decision. If the government is your only source of information and as a result you support the government it can't be said to be an entirely free choice.
I've lived there.. my whole family had to survive there. I still mix in the community here which shares the same beliefs as those back home (why they don't go join them is beyond me). Trust me I understand their mentality quite well.
| quote: | | Also, I do not like this idea about China being told what they want and them blindly following it. China has a far amount of access to Western media. They know that they live in a one party system, they know that other systems exist (obviously). |
A fair bit of access doesn't really cut the mustard. I wonder what percentage actually make the effort to see any information outside of what the government feeds them.
I went to high school with a mainland Chinese student. His father was a corrupt public official (fairly obvious to me, being familiar with how communist bureaucracies work) yet he still sucked up the propaganda like a chump. He believed the official Chinese line about Tiananmen for example (some of the charred bodies had nice crisp, undamaged police uniforms on them, proving that they were provoked into taking action by the demonstrators).
Later at law school I spoke to professors who remember Chinese exchange students who had problems coming to grips with the idea of owning land.
| quote: | | Money trumps all though. They like being top dog in the world and they aren't about to start ing that up for themselves. |
To the vast majority of Chinese the money is nothing more than abstract economic performance figures they read in the paper. The life of a factory worker or rice farmer hasn't improved phenomenally. Those figures are important though.. as I said before, to someone who has no conception of personal wealth or individual rights, you have to believe in national pride otherwise you really have nothing.
Furthermore the democracy movement in the 80s got a lot of Western press.. but it really was never that significant. The changes they wanted weren't that radical.. and relative to the population it wasn't all that popular. It was a threat that was taken care of. The Chinese don't really have democratic value in their culture - it's all Confucian, loyalty to the family unit and deference to seniority extended to a state level - obedience to the emperor trumping all other duties.
| quote: | | The same could be said about Russia, but there its for more nationalistic. There was little to the Soviet Union about a world workers revolution, the true spirit of their socialist founding philosophies. You could almost entirely call the Soviet expansionism during the 20th century as a cover for Russian nationalism and the same as Peter the Great and other Russian imperial movements. |
Again they went from one form of slavery to another. I know my peasant great grandparents (one of whom was a hero of the revolution) saw their lives only get worse after the revolution. But the majority probably felt better about their new form of serfdom because they were constantly bombarded with propaganda about the evil West and how they were part of the greatest nation on earth that was going to defeat the evils of capitalism etc..
Who knows how they would have felt, or what they would have chosen for themselves if their information was not so limited. |
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| astroboy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
See what I did there? I just replaced the worlds largest communist state with the worlds largest democracy and got essentially the same thing.
You are blaming the wrong things. |
I don't think the Indian state is even capable of censoring its numerous sources of information even if the huge bureaucratic government had the coordination to form the intent to do so.
Secondly I've been friends with lots of Indian immigrants that did go back to India. Of those that didn't I haven't met a single one that bags out the country's political system (individual politicians and certain institutions sure, but not the state, party, media and everything to do with it - as you tend to hear from Chinese immigrants) or claims they were being oppressed in any way.
Thirdly, they haven't hosted an Olympic games of late. And I don't really see how their democratic model is antithetical to modern civilization. |
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