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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

This article examines A.I., policing and authoritarianism from a Western perspective, rather than the local perspective. I think it would have served the article's balance to get a more local and relativist view on the intersectionality of the things they are looking to be objective about.

That said, if the technology delivers on the potential the gov't claims, I think they will have to relax the laws or make it flexible enough such that people and the government reach an understanding in expectations while affording people the maximum liberty while providing a base-line of expected behavior.

Obviously, without oversight from the people, this has the potential to turn into a monster.

China is a huge, huge country, historically it's been difficult for the central government to exercise its control all over its territory. This would be the realization of that historical desire.

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What “local” is going to chat with The NY Times about this. More importantly, what local would dare question it? That’s the difference between the US and China right there.

you want local perspective? this is what happens when it's implemented against a religious and ethnic minority:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/02/asia/china-xinjiang-detention...

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/travel-0327201816200...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/china-surv...

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turn...

That's not local perspective. Please don't take these threads further into political or national flamewar. They're flammable enough already.

Posting concrete examples of how police state mass-surveillance technologies can aid and abet in the suppression of disliked minorities is defined as a flamewar? Yeah...

Yes, because you weren't engaging in conversation, just posting ammunition. Your other comments in the thread suggest that you have an agenda about this. That's not a good basis for posting HN comments, regardless of the agenda or whether you're right or wrong; and when the topic is divisive it basically always leads to flamewars.

Is your idea of local perspective a watered down and government-controlled local news source spouting government viewpoints? Really, dang, I’m curious what you would consider a valid local perspective that is something other than support of the regime. There were tons of local perspectives in links of the other comment.

And why is one viewpoint unworthy of HN but not the other?

Not speaking for dang, but for me local perspective means a Chinese perspective from Chinese people, be they actually living in Country or ex-pats living abroad consisting of regular folk [city and country] along with students and local experts. Chinese people are not "afraid" to speak their mind when they have something to say, so long as they trust you to not out them [when speaking on sensitive subjects].

Of course not. mc32 expressed an interest in how Chinese people see this issue ("non-Western", clear in context). That's an interesting question. But walrus01 responded with Western media reports on highly politicized subjects. That wasn't a serious response, just the usual political/national battle, which we're trying to avoid here.

HN threads are supposed to be for thoughtful conversation, in which people respond meaningfully to each other's questions and try to figure out the truth together. If you think in terms of intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), that isn't hard to understand.

Xinjiang is like Afghanistan, its not a police state, its a war zone.

You should not only pity the minority, the Han people are equally forced there because the government needs maintain control.

These articles, do care about the people, but not all of them.

This comment is not only hilariously unfounded, but also straight up wrong. Where is the Helmand province equivalent in Xinjiang?

It's a war zone in the sense of the forces want to turn it into.

Of course, the strong arms of Chinese government stops that from happening.

I've spent literally years living and working in Afghanistan, so I take your comment about as seriously as something I'd see on Infowars.

China is a huge, huge country, historically it's been difficult for the central government to exercise its control all over its territory. This would be the realization of that historical desire.

That sounds like a better argument for China breaking up than it does using force and dystopian surveillance to maintain a lock on power.

I don’t you’d see more than base level noise support to break up China, internally. Probably would not even register 1%. It’s an uncontested tenet for Chinese that they are the descendants and heirs of an uninterrupted, uncorrupted people stretching five thousand years and counting.

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