[brendanw]

A few years ago a Chinese man on the BART tried asking me for directions. His english was poor. With the aid of google translate we were able to do some basic communication. Over the course of 10 minutes I learned he was trying to visit the Wikipedia headquarters. I mentioned I was surprised he could access Wikipedia in the mainland. He told me that many know how to access Wikipedia.

Let's be clear. Authoritarianism is not culture; it is an evil political ideology that the people of China are subjected to.

[woutr_be]

There's honestly quite a lot of misinformation about how people live their lives in China. Many of my friends are perfectly capable of accessing blocked websites, and they're by no means computer experts. They all have been able to travel because of their increase in wealth, and most of them are in contact with foreigners from all over the world. To them, they live in a society with restrictions, but they've all benefited immensely from it in the past decades.

[spectramax]

This is such an absurd reasoning. Just because people have circumvented the Great Fire Wall has no bearing on what the parent comment is talking about - GFW is the consequence of the evil things an authoritarian government is capable of doing (amongst other freedom of speech and press issues such as banning books, independent journalism, etc.) - whether people circumvent it using potentially illegal means (VPN in this case) is irrelevant. The government can arrest you for this reason alone.

[woutr_be]

You're missing the point of my comment, and the parent comment. The parent comment isn't talking about how the GFW is a consequence of an authoritarian government, it's talking about how he wasn't aware people could get around it.

Where I'm pointing out that this kind of unawareness is quite common, and until you've actually been to China, or have lived there, you'll have a totally different picture painted by the media. (This really goes for all countries)

[spectramax]

It is downplaying authoritarian rule by saying that they've made is easy for people to bypass it and as you said, many people live their lives "normally" in China. The parent clarifies this by reaffirming the core subject, i.e. quoting - "Let's be clear. Authoritarianism is not culture; it is an evil political ideology that the people of China are subjected to."

[woutr_be]

You're turning this into a political discussion for the sake of discussing politics and pushing your opinion. Nobody is downplaying authoritarian rule, merely pointing out how unaware people are about other people living in different countries. You could take the exact same comment, change Wikipedia and China to something else, and I could make the same argument that I've made before; that until you actually live in a country, and talk to the people, you'll never be fully aware of how things are. Wether it be government imposed restrictions (which, let's be honest, all of us are subject to), or cultural differences, if you only use the media to build your view of a country, you'll almost always be wrong.

[powerapple]

it is not absurd reasoning. Source: being Chinese

[spectramax]

What you are agreeing to is that it is OK for a government to arbitrarily censor information to the public as long as it is possible for the people to bypass it - this is absolutely and utterly absurd. Please provide some additional color as to why you think otherwise.

[powerapple]

You are putting words to my mouth. I was referring to words: 'To them, they live in a society with restrictions, but they've all benefited immensely from it in the past decades.' I think this is ok reasoning in my opinion. I think it is OK for a government to arbitrarily censor information to the public as long as they are serving the public good in other areas. governments are not perfect. If you ask my opinion, I think it is stupid to censor information. From what I observe, having access to censored information will not make public against government, sometimes it can make them more pro-China. Government is really thinking more about stability, they don't want to people to be either nationalists nor rebels. Information cannot be censored, it works because people don't really care.

[woutr_be]

And to be clear, I don't support a government restricting and putting limitations on people. But I'm also not a big fan of pushing your Western views on other countries if you've never visited them.

[ausbah]

The tragedy is things like sanctions against authoritarian regimes do nothing but to hurt the average citizen. The we'll connected in such regimes have the means to evade sanction, the lower classes don't. Look at Iran, North Korea, and other countries the US has sanctioned to kingdom come - there isn't nearly as much pressure as there would be in a western state.