China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by toephu2 on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:20PM (#16442939)

On the plus side, I just visited China last month and never felt safer. Before you would wear your backpack on the front of your chest when taking public transportation for fear of thieves. Now, with surveillance everywhere (and random ID checks at subways), you can freely wear your backpack on your back where it belongs without fear of theft.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by keiferski on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:34PM (#16443031)

There are plenty of western “free countries” with little-to-no street crime. It’s not an either-or situation.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by comex on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:07PM (#16443874)

And non-Western - just look at Japan.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by SN76477 on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:25PM (#16443695)

I have been thinking lately about the purpose of crime. Obviously people get robbed and bad things happen, but what would happen in a society without crime? is it possible that crime has a larger purpose?

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by brokenmachine on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:43PM (#16444038)

It's hard when there are so many laws on the books that it's almost impossible to not break one here and there.

"Crime" is a very loose term. Things like robbery and assault are obvious but there are a lot of laws out there that have no real "victim", or are enforced only when the powers that be have an inclination to.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by 45h34jh53k4j on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:00PM (#16443838)

stagnation. without risk there is no progress.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by SN76477 on Friday February 23, 2018 @01:28AM (#16444631)

would you say that without crime humans would be complacent?

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by gcb0 on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:27PM (#16442981)

without fear of theft, political organizational, labour bargaining groups, religious freedom, etc, etc.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by whooshee on Friday February 23, 2018 @12:35AM (#16444459)

Ah, unfortunately, there are many theft and violence in quite a few big Western cities.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by duxup on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:35PM (#16443987)

What is this fear of thieves thing? Is that some sort of line folks are selling, everyone in the west is afraid of .... thieves?

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by odiroot on Friday February 23, 2018 @02:27AM (#16444809)

That's the general feeling of the population as well -- as explained by my Chinese friends.

They're okay with the surveillance if it's going to prevent terrorist attacks or even more localised crime.

And most of the citizens couldn't even be bothered about losing access to non-Chinese Internet websites. The Chinese ones are good enough or sometimes even better, tailored to their tastes.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by Feniks on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:31PM (#16443015)

You're not wrong, article looks at it from a Western viewpoint. This surveillance is actually not new. Its a throwback to imperial China, with technology added to it. I can imagine a lot of Chinese prefer it to lawlessness.

It does cost vast amounts of money though. China spends more on surveillance and the police than the entire military budget.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by headsoup on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:12PM (#16443898)

I imagine there are some shades of grey between 'authoritarian surveillance' and 'lawlessness'...

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by brokenmachine on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:48PM (#16444052)

> I can imagine a lot of Chinese prefer it to lawlessness.

But would they prefer even more to have a choice in the matter?

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[dead]

Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by sctb on Friday February 23, 2018 @09:54AM (#16446607)

Please stop abusing this community. We ban single-purpose accounts with an agenda and we ban accounts that won't post civilly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by PhasmaFelis on Thursday February 22, 2018 @07:48PM (#16443138)

> borderline autistic

Hi, I'm autistic and I'd appreciate it if you didn't use me as a synonym for "stupid," thanks.

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Re:China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nob... by Cw67NTN8F on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:33PM (#16443982)

North Korea is even safer, I'm willing to bet. Wanna live there?

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