Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bitinn 3948 days ago
Totally speculation, but maybe related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10115641
2 comments

Attribution dice need to be rolled for this one (https://twitter.com/AttributionDice)
Yeah my first reaction was it is government based and probably China.

I know, we should keep building up their economy by manufacturing nearly everything there, that should stop them.

Over the long term, it will. An educated wealthy populace doesn't accept tyranny for long.
To some extent, most likely, yes. But my perspective on the PRC is that the powers that be know that they will only remain in power for as long as they can provide, or rather, the illusion of them providing, a continuous increase in wealth. This in part would be why information is key in China. Assange had a very positive view of it when he said "I often say that censorship is always cause for celebration. It is always an opportunity, because it reveals fear of reform. It means that the power position is so weak that you have got to care about what people think." [1].

[1]: https://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt#996

You know, the implication of that for the U.S. is pretty disturbing.
The US isn't big on censorship, they're big on data collection. The MPAA and RIAA are HUGE on censorship, but they aren't government entities.
Except they don't know it is tyranny, just like Russia, they rely heavily on subtle propaganda to manipulate their population.