Topic: China is fucking scary (Read 17027 times)

A² · « **Reply #100 on:** May 26, 2011, 03:02:06 PM »

Sometimes they'd made art in the air spelling out their domain name.

Dropping a train set screws this up, which is a hilarious site to behold.

Pacobird · « **Reply #101 on:** May 27, 2011, 06:08:41 AM »

Blizzard actually took a gold-selling site with particularly aggressive marketing (peons for hire) to court to shut them down and won, but that's typical of anti-RMT enforcement in these games; you can't go after the guys producing the product if they're just farming (even bots are usually coded in a way that can't be detected server side), so you go after the companies that sell the product to consumers when they behave in particularly egregious ways. It's telling that Blizzard took PfH to court for harassment of players, not selling them in-game currency.

sei · « **Reply #102 on:** June 16, 2011, 08:50:12 PM »

Vote as I say
_{Independent candidates for elections appear to be a spontaneous step too far for the Communist Party}

Quote

Even a hint of spontaneity in legislative elections can make the party squirm. In 1980 the first experiment with such polls led to heated campaigns on campuses. Officials intervened to block outspoken candidates from winning seats. Six years later, attempts to exclude independent candidates from local elections prompted student protests. The crackdown on the Tiananmen Square unrest in 1989 all but ended activists’ efforts at the ballots until 2003, when a slightly more liberal atmosphere encouraged dozens from the newly emerging middle classes to run. But when elections were held three years later, the party stifled media coverage.
...
On June 8th the government revealed its jitteriness about elections in an interview by the state-run news agency, Xinhua, with an unnamed official of the National People’s Congress, the apex of the legislative hierarchy. The official said independent candidates had “no legal basis” and hinted that campaigning in non-approved settings would not be tolerated. But the official did not rule out the possibility that independents could run.
...
Liu Ping (pictured above), a retired worker with more than 31,000 online followers, tried to run but was disqualified, apparently because of her labour activism. Her home was later raided by police, who detained her for several days.

sei · « **Reply #103 on:** July 09, 2011, 12:54:19 PM »

China blocks searches for "river" to suppress rumors about the death of a former-president (surnamed River).

Not scary (beyond the everyday information suppression) so much as kind of a weird externality.

Büge · « **Reply #104 on:** July 09, 2011, 01:15:39 PM »

You can't stop the signal.

Zaratustra · « **Reply #105 on:** July 11, 2011, 10:07:49 AM »

Quote from: sei on July 09, 2011, 12:54:19 PM

China blocks searches for "river" to suppress rumors about the death of a former-president (surnamed River).

Not scary (beyond the everyday information suppression) so much as kind of a weird externality.

Apparently China doesn't want the Chinese to think old people die.

Disposable Ninja · « **Reply #106 on:** July 11, 2011, 07:22:59 PM »

So, is China just one big scary fucking place?

Yes. Yes it is.

Ziiro · « **Reply #107 on:** July 15, 2011, 10:05:01 PM »

China's Ghost Cities and Malls

Mothra · « **Reply #108 on:** July 16, 2011, 03:33:38 AM »

64 fucking million empty apartments

François · « **Reply #109 on:** July 16, 2011, 04:18:04 AM »

64 fucking million empty luxury apartments

François · « **Reply #110 on:** July 16, 2011, 04:20:58 AM »

built on demolished occupied apartments

gah

Mothra · « **Reply #111 on:** July 16, 2011, 06:43:32 AM »

Yeah where do they get off charging 70 to 100 thousand for these places when the combined income of most families each month is under a grand?

Büge · « **Reply #112 on:** July 16, 2011, 07:13:32 AM »

It means that the right people see numbers go up.

Classic · « **Reply #113 on:** July 16, 2011, 07:55:30 AM »

Are you saying that my creepy love of rising numbers could be used against me?

Also, I wonder how many of those people will be quietly disappeared.

Defenestration · « **Reply #114 on:** July 16, 2011, 09:29:19 AM »

I'm confused why they wouldn't just construct bare bones studio apartments that the populace can afford instead of these baffling luxury suites. If you're going to build to meet an expansion quota, why not at least build something immediately useful?

Classic · « **Reply #115 on:** July 16, 2011, 10:15:07 AM »

Maybe because the projected value of the assets is one way to calculate GDP.

Mothra · « **Reply #116 on:** July 16, 2011, 11:13:28 AM »

What a shitty country

Classic · « **Reply #117 on:** July 16, 2011, 11:45:39 AM »

For a collection of elites creating a housing bubble?

Beat Bandit · « **Reply #118 on:** July 16, 2011, 12:17:50 PM »

You guys seem to be over thinking this a bit. China has always not given a shit about its people and loved to look insanely successful to the outside world.

Mongrel · « **Reply #119 on:** July 16, 2011, 05:25:08 PM »

Yep.

You're also overthinking this in sense that town-planners are basically given a giant suitcase full of money and told SPEND THIS OR DIE! So why build shitty apartments when you can build nice ones? Nobody was going to afford middle-class ones anyway.

The problem is that nobody really cares if they sit empty or not (except people who would love to live in them). Once the money's spent the city could give a shit what happens and the developer's already two projects away. So there's no incentive to just drop prices and get them filled up. And if they devalue them now, wealthy speculators will shit their pants, the bed, and possibly the whole economy.

It might even work out for the government. If social unrest gets much worse, and housing is a big component beef (odds are yes) THEN they'll have an incentive to fire-sale the things to keep people quiet. Just think! The government can be all like FREE HOUSES FOR EVERYBODYYYYYYY!!!!!! As long as the buildings haven't crumbled too badly, they're like revolution insurance.

News:

Author Topic: China is fucking scary (Read 17027 times)