
China confounds all that western liberals believed about the net - SmkyMt
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/11/the-networker-how-the-new-china-confounds-everything-western-liberals-thought-about-the-internet
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exabrial
Am I the only one that sees an irony with the deep blue states with this
article? There seems to be an unbounded expansion of Government in those
areas; from what intrusions it has on your personal life (sugar taxes [unless
your starbucks]), to business regulations [coffee causes cancer signs,
demanding women be on boards], and increasing the reliance of people on the
government (business taxation to 'help' the 'homeless' in areas with high
inflation, taxation of business cafeterias).

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mcphage
> Am I the only one that sees an irony with the deep blue states with this
> article?

There’s a vast chasm between the government being used as a tool for
collective action (like when forcing human-friendly business regulations) and
government being used as a tool for control.

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toomuchtodo
Would you mind if I borrowed this as a political talking point in public
forums?

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mcphage
Sure, that's fine—it's probably not my original thought, either.

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i_am_nomad
I hate to be the one to point this out, but: it certainly isn’t just China.

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wwweston
This reminds me more than a little of Hernando de Soto's work with _The
Mystery of Capital_, subtitled "Why Capitalism triumphs in the West and fails
everywhere else." It's an interesting read for its specifics (and I think he's
got it right that successful private markets depend heavily on a network of
accepted public services). But one generalizable takeaway might be that would-
be sociocultural exporters often don't understand why their social systems
work -- it's easy to take for granted background cultural features and social
institutions you simply assume are there.

Also: it's probably worth noting that while the US isn't particularly
dystopian, it can't be taken for granted that it will remain a liberal
democracy (there are highly visible impulses to turn it down a different path
right now) or that technology won't be a significant tool of social control.

(Nor is it entirely clear that the West has capitalism totes dialed-in.)

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photojosh
Thanks for this comment. It initially piqued my interest because I confused de
Soto with the Spanish conquistador of the same name, quickly cleared that up
though! It was cool to realise he was key in the economic reforms of Peru, my
family had to move because of the Shining Path, so it's close to home.

So I've quickly read his Wikipedia entry (and have the book to read later). It
seems like the critiques of his approach, resulting him being lumped in the
'neoliberal' bucket, is that he pushes property rights as practically the
_only_ requirement for developing countries to successfully reform their
economies to the benefit of all. Whereas your phrasing as "successful private
markets depend heavily on a network of accepted public services" (which I
agree with more) would seem to encompass more than only legal and justice
frameworks towards property rights.

Anyway, I'll read the book and think more about it. Thanks again.

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wwweston
Yeah, I'm probably overly vague about "accepted public services." More
specifically, the kind of thing De Soto seemed to focus on are property
recording systems, functioning courts working on reasonably well-defined
property law, and permitting/review/accounting that makes economic activity
legible. These aren't super sexy public institutions, and it may well be they
aren't sufficient for a truly thriving society, but they are basic entry level
public components of a functioning private enterprise system, and apparently
more than a few attempts to export US capitalism have failed to account for
them.

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chrisco255
I mean, Brave New World and 1984 predicted the abuse of technology to socially
engineer societies into obedience. These novels were written in the 30s and
40s but still seem prescient today. China has become the living embodiment of
those books, with its social credit system. It's not surprising per se,
China's communist roots serve as an excellent breeding ground for techno-
authoritarianism. My only fear is that the Western world has forgotten it's
classical liberal roots...

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quantum_state
It is quite a common sense any technology can be used for whatever purposes at
the hands of its master. Not sure the net should be an exception. As we have
witnessed, social networks can be used to organize Arabic Spring. They can
also be used to screw up the election process in many countries.

