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Comment by cnidoblast | Hacker News Reader

I'm lucky I live in China. Here I can open any website i want, including adult content, just need 1 second to turn on the SSH, It has been working amazingly for 7 years, since i came to China. It's funny when i go to Hong Kong, and i see the signs warning you about the high fines you will pay if you throw a bit of bread to a bird, or if you smoke while walking on the street. Then when i tell HK people that I live in China and I love it and they say "but is not free there!" I just smile and say "yeah". In Europe you can't even buy a bottle of beer and walk away from the shop at night, If you take off your shirt in a hot day and walk outside people look at you like you are a criminal, while in China it is just normal. There are different kinds of freedom, off course, but the daily-life freedom we enjoy in China is better imho than the European daily-life's "strictly controlled freedom"

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Yes, just turn on the SSH to a server in a country that isn't China. You are relying on the citizens of other countries defending their Internet from their government. If nobody did that there will soon be no such places to SSH to.

I'm in China too, and my current annoyances are 1. other people exercising their freedom to park their cars on the pavement and leaving me no place to walk; 2. always being last in line no matter my position, even in hospitals; and 3. the middle-aged lady behind me at the checkout constantly trying to jam her shopping cart up my ass to due to 2. Once I can afford to drive a Lamborghini and the law stops applying to me things will be great, but that day's not today.

Westerners have a peculiar belief that voting on candidates for political office who make up about .02% of government employees and who have been chosen carefully by party organs beforehand constitutes the first and most sacred freedom, to be valued over anything - even good governance or personal liberty.

Sorry, but that is four levels of obfuscation with a strawman tacked to the end.

You may criticize how it is carried out in detail, but just blanket attacking representative democracy is idiotic and simplistic.

Oh wait, your first word was "Westerners". Gotcha, you already set out to state your prejudice, not make a balanced argument based in facts.

"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"

- Winston Churchill (a famous Westener)

- Speech in the UK House of Commons (1947-11-11)

- The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc. 206–07

"People who quote Churchill seldom have given serious consideration to other forms of government"

"The Devil was the first Whig"

> I can open any website i want, including adult content, just need 1 second to turn on the SSH, It has been working amazingly for 7 years

Don't be so foolish. There are parts of your internet that are censored and then there are parts that are monitored. The parts that are monitored may be readily accessible to you (because ooh, you're so smart to circumvent the censors), but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't be a likely suspect when whatever is monitored becomes a political issue (see: Porn in the UK).

> In Europe

First off: Many different Europes, pal, many different ones. Second off: None of the European countries has what you describe. Sorry, it's just not true.

Buying a bottle of beer and walking away at night is definitely not forbidden here in Portugal, and in fact, it's extremely common, and taking your shirt off in a hot day is completely normal (assuming you're a man).

Europe is not a country, you shouldn't make such wide range assumptions.

Not sure whether your comment is sarcastic. Having to use a VPN to read about Tiananmen is not exactly my definition of freedom.

Also, people who walk around at night, shirtless and with an open beer in the hand are usually drunks/douches looking for trouble, that's why people will give you the stink eye. But last I checked, it wasn't illegal.

"In Europe you can't even buy a bottle of beer and walk away from the shop at night"

You are wrong on this.

In which european country is that a problem? Certainly not in Germany. Please be more specific.

Some countries have "alcohol free zones". The imagery he is trying to invoke is - shirtless with a opened bottle of beer.

Most of the United Kingdom.

Well, I'm in Germany and can't buy beer after 10pm.

http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article6609694/In-Baden-Wuert...

1. This new law only applies to Baden-Wuertemberg (not Europe or Germany) 2. You can still buy beer at that time in restaurants

Yeah but still.

Almost all sentences starting with "In Europe" are false.

Yea--you have a point. I wish I traveled more before I planted myself in a country I'm embarrassed of.

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