Regardless of my opinions on whether China has a right to block things or not, I'm going to say that I'll wait for a week to see if this is actually a huge blockage of Google's apps or if this is just "a bad day for Google in China."
If you look at all of their reports, there are some days that things seems more blocked than normal. (Check out May 26 and June 18.) I'm not sure if this is just bad data getting into the system or what — maybe when it was time to ping services they couldn't. For the most part things go back online the next day.
This does seem to be the first time things are in the red, but I think it's too early to assume everything is gone for good.
I would love to see Google start directly and openly campaigning for the downfall of the Chinese one-party state and the introduction of democracy.
Not only is it about damn time somebody with deep pockets did, it's practically demanded by their obligation to maximise shareholder returns. If the servicing of one billion potential customers is incompatible with "Don't Be Evil" due to the existence of the Chinese Communist Party, then the Chinese Communist Party needs to be swept out of the way so they can reach those customers.
The US Government is too chickenshit to stand up for democratic principles when it comes to China, but Google has nothing to lose any more. I say go for it.
The US Government is too chickenshit to stand up for democratic principles when it comes to China, but Google has nothing to lose any more. I say go for it.
I don't care about democracies, but I do care about liberty.
As I see it, democracy is both a means to the end of ensuring (relative, in fits and starts) liberty, and an end in itself.
Nobody can rightfully claim to be entitled to make and enforce laws for a group of people unless they were chosen by that group of people. Claiming otherwise is like claiming that person A is entitled to own person B as a slave just because person A is a relatively good slavemaster.
As I see it, democracy is both a means to the end of ensuring (relative, in fits and starts) liberty, and an end in itself.
Nobody can rightfully claim to be entitled to make and enforce laws for a group of people unless they were chosen by that group of people. Claiming otherwise is like claiming that person A is entitled to own person B as a slave just because person A is a relatively good slavemaster.
This is a fundamental disagreement in political philosophy and let we disagree on that.
Mine is based on the concept of the sovereignty of the individual, not the group. To add a little bit information, I am an individualist anarchist.
Thus, I place my hope in things like pananarchism(seasteading), or agorism, anything, other than trust people with political power. It might not work out, but I developed a deep distrust for democratic institutions.
I think a deep distrust of democratic institutions would be the best thing democracy proponents (and those living in democratic governments) could cultivate.
Learn a little about 'democracy' and you'll see that in practice it doesn't really bring us any closer to true individual liberty than the old era of Kings and Queens.
>I don't care about democracies, but I do care about liberty.
Agreed. In America, the top judges in most states are directly elected by the people. Is this really a good thing? In China, people in many govt and party tiers are elected by the people in the tier directly below them. Is this really a bad thing?
It seems to me that transparency and clear rules are more important than the technicalities of the voting system in both legislatures and judiciaries.
If Google devoted itself to the downfall of the CCP, then the CCP would quite naturally retaliate against Google.
Governments traditionally use deadly force to protect themselves from overthrow. It's one of the things that make them special compared to other corporations!
Are you suggesting Google field an armed military? Do you think Page/Brin/Schmidt can be the William Walker [1] of the 21st century? China may be harder to 'liberate' than 1856 Nicaragua.
Ok, what if Baidu started openly campaigning against the predominantly two-party system in the US? Is that going to change a thing?
There's actually a way to affect change in China, believe it or not. Unfortunately, it's not by the usual methods Americans believe to be effective (protests, marches, general upheaval, etc).
IMO, the best way to engage China is by using back-channels to express concerns while helping the Chinese government save face in public.
Ok, what if Baidu started openly campaigning against the predominantly two-party system in the US? Is that going to change a thing?
No, because there's no pent-up demand within America to overthrow democracy.
There's actually a way to affect change in China, believe it or not. Unfortunately, it's not by the usual methods Americans believe to be effective (protests, marches, general upheaval, etc).
I'm not sure what the best way to overthrow the Chinese dictatorship is, but looking at the models which worked in Russia or Argentina or Spain or Indonesia or... well, any of the other dozens of countries which have transitioned from dictatorship to democracy. Has any country ever made the transition without some kind of mass protest movement or an external invasion? (The latter option is off the table.)
I don't think the present system of back-channel polite tut-tutting is working very well.
First, I don't think there's a pent up demand to overthrow the Chinese government. There are disgruntled factions here and there (China is a very economically uneven country, unlike the US), but overall, people feel their lives are improving and there's an immense sense of optimism in the country.
They have a "government" which wasn't elected. If you claim sovereignty over a bunch of land and its people, and you haven't been elected by those people as their representative, then you are not a legitimate government, you're merely a bunch of armed thugs who happen to control some territory. (I have no interest in debating whether your definition of "dictatorship" varies from mine.)
Getting rid of folks who claim sovereignty over a nation without the expressed and open consent of its people is, as I see it, the great moral challenge of the 21st century, much as ending slavery was the great moral challenge of the 19th.
So every single government in the history of mankind, up until the last couple of hundred years, has been illegitimate?
The legitimate sovereign is the one the people permit to exist - if the Chinese government's rule was that of the iron fist against the vast majority who are itching for revolution, then sure, you might have a point.
But this is not how China is right now - there is no pent-up demand for revolution, and the people campaigning against the government are a vanishingly small minority at best.
Actually in many democratic nations more than 50% (due to first past the post style voting) did not want the ruling faction in power. If an unelected government can achieve the same percentage of satisfaction (without violence of course) then I fail to see how they are any less legitimate.
By your logic, U.S. government are a bunch of armed thugs who happen to control some territory. 50% of the U.S. population aren't voting. 50% of the remaining 50% decides the next government. Basically 25% of the population impose their will on the rest of the 75% of people. That's tyranny.
In Civil War era, the Southern States had democratically voted to leave the Union. The North ignored the democratic result and went to war to bring them back, killing half of millions in the process.
The Southern States had voted democratically, with super majority, to keep blacks as slaves. By your logic, that's just a-ok.
I think there was a revolution at some point which brought in the communist party. I think at that point the revolution probably had a lot of support, thus, legitimacy. Just because people did not hold election does not make their government illegitimate unless power is taken by force.
The government does become illegitimate however if power is kept by brutal force. A lot of people died in the 1990s protests in China, the only country where the mass protests of people did not lead to a change of regime from communism to democracy.
But they are doing well now. They are kind of doing what Gorbachev did in the 80s, before the overthrow of the regime, that is slowly and gradually opening up. SO the people might overthrow their government soon as they did in Russia, or they might collectively decide some other form of governance. Democracy is not the only optimal option. We just have not thought of any other because we have not had to and just as the guys in china put up with communism, we do with democracy.
My point is, leave China to the sovereignty and will of its own people. Now, North Korea does need help.
There's actually a way to affect change in China, believe it or not. Unfortunately, it's not by the usual methods Americans believe to be effective (protests, marches, general upheaval, etc).
If these methods are entirely ineffective, why is the Chinese government so afraid of letting the 1989 Tiananmen events be public knowledge?
Because comments are like chain links: the strength of the best is limited by the worst.
(Facetious, obviously; while I disagree with your parent comment because Google has far too little influence in China to effect any change, a response declaring the whole of HN rotten is nothing more than a non sequitur; "Good riddance!" I say.)
while I disagree with your parent comment because Google has far too little influence in China to effect any change
Ah, now that's a good argument! That's the argument I'll probably make against myself when I'm less caught up in libertarian fervour. A sober cost-benefit analysis may reveal that google can't possibly do enough to hasten the downfall of the Chinese regime to make it worthwhile. Still, we have yet to consider the question of what they could actually do. Email every Chinese citizen? Fly the Goo-Jet over Chinese airspace dragging a banner? Radio transmissions across the border? Who knows? Can't do a cost-benefit analysis until you've thought through strategy. What is the best way to spend, say, a billion dollars in order to bring down a regime?
This is the type of attitude that got us into two huge wars and the reason why so many people hate us so much. You are probably one of those people that also believe in white supremacy and that would join the KKK in a heart beat. Stupid Moron.
The best way to deal with this is by the US blocking some of the chinese companies ability to do business here in the USA. Or something similar to that. But not by us getting involved in their political process. They have to solve their own problems.
There's nothing racist about his comment. He didn't say anything about the Chinese people. Going on about white supremacy and the Ku-Klux Klan is just ignorance on your part. Quite frankly I find your comment to be the racist one.
This is how it starts though. How do you think the British justified taken the lands from Native Americans? By saying that they were savages and a lot of other rationalizations. This is the first step towards that slippery slope. Once everybody is convinced that going into China and messing with their political affairs is OK then we will raise it up a notch. This is how its always done. His comment may seem innocuous to you but this type of comments are only the beginning of something more perverse.
I thought his comment was utterly stupid. I thought twice or more wethere he was joking or being for real. No one else has agreed with him. He hardly has offered any good follow up arguments and in the end he even seems to soften down his approach.
None of that was achieved by calling him a racist or anything else. He has a belief in some idea, that "dictatorships" are bad and we should do all we can to "liberate" the people of such dictatorships. That is his right.
Ideals are only half the story though. Pragmatism trumps most often. But there is no reason to insult the man rather than his thinking.
This comment I replied to has a fair point though. Shame it was tainted by the previous ones.
