Google Meets the Frightened Old Men of China
We ultimately reached our decision by asking ourselves which course would most effectively further Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally useful and accessible. Or, put simply: how can we provide the greatest access to information to the greatest number of people?Information utilitarianism is not at all a bad idea. Google has been taking a hit for censoring results on google.cn. It is a justified hit but also one which puts immediate principle ahead of a longer term goal.
andrew mclauglin | google
The Chinese state believes that it needs to control information about democratic reform, funny exercises in parks and its revolting record in Tibet. This says more about how whacked the gerontocracy which rules China is than it does about an intelligent – if despicable – attempt to create the full Orwell.
In fact, access to the 99.9% of Google results which are not censored and having the information that the search the Chinese citizen has made has been censored will ensure, in the medium term, that the ability of the Chinese government to control its citizens is compromised.
Once people know that information is available which they are not allowed to access they will figure out ways of getting that information. And that will be another nail in the Chinese regime’s well deserved coffin. The Chinese government is, more or less, a dead man walking. The Communist Party is losing members and, more importantly, any sort of credibility as a political apparatus. Still fearsome, the Chinese government is no longer feared.
The inherent contradictions between the need for information to create wealth and the need to control information to create power are coming out in the open. Google, even crippled Google, will do more to destabilize the doddering Peking regime than any number of highly principled speeches.
For the Chinese – as well as people around the world – Google is access to the new world in the face of autocrats, theocrats and grumpy old men who are still trying to impose a bitter yesterday on their own grandchildren. They are old. They will die. Google will help them along.
January 28th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
As if capitalist infiltration is the answer to the world’s problems.
you seem pretty confident about your statements but when was the last time you were in China?
when was the last time you walked the streets filled with the pollution of foriegn investment that ‘lifts’ the Chinese people out of ‘poverty’ and into neverending dissatisficaion of consumerism?
i don’t know the answers, but at least i will admit my limitations. you seem to have it all figured out, which is precisely the thing that you are condeming the ‘grumpy old men’ of.
the truth is that the Chinese government has done very well thus far in guiding their 1.3 billion residents into a fast changing world. The economic growth their is simply unparalleled in world history and they’ve very well to keep the country in balance in the process.
Communism like Capitalism is inherently flawed because humans are inherently flawed. Nobody would argue that some of the Chinese government’s policies are not extreme. Modern industrial society breeds imbalance and increased pressure on humans that results in increased crime, anxiety and depression in the society as a whole. But Chinese society has very little violent crime and very few cases of depression and anxiety related illnesses compared with more ‘developed’ nations.
moreover, since when was a little control so bad? certainly if you have children, you want to guide them in the right direction,correct?
i’m not sure if my points are entirely complete or object correctly to your piece, but (in all honesty) i think people like you that proclaim to know what is good and bad for entire nations are a little silly.
also, are you sure you don’t have a tv? because most of your thoughts seem pre-packaged to me.
January 28th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
No TV…
Do the Chinese pay you? I mean it has to be tough to write “since when was a little control so bad?” for free.
January 30th, 2006 at 12:13 am
so much for intelligent conversation.
anyway, all countries must control their populations. these are called ‘laws’ and are related to everything from gun control to drugs.
January 30th, 2006 at 2:47 am
Travis, here’s the difference: if the Canadian government passes a law which I don’t like I can a) vote against them in the next election, b) organize protests and actions against that law, c) appeal in the Courts to have that law overturned, d) refuse to obey that law and suffer the non-capital consequences.
In Canada, the US, Europe laws are made not to control the population but rather on behalf of a self governing population. If you cannot see the difference between this and the situation in China you really need to spend a bit of time learning about the distinction between a democratic, an authoritarian and a totalitarian state. Chine, to a degree is moving from totalitarrian to authoritarian which is a good thing.
A better thing will be when the Chinese people are no longer controlled by the government but are rather in control of their government.
January 30th, 2006 at 5:06 am
Er, Jay, haven’t you noticed it’s the Canadian courts that have been making our laws lately? Or that in most of Europe, say, the popular majority’s preferences with regard to immigration policy, for example, are ignored? Or that free speech (and hence protest) is now severely circumscribed by law in Europe?—which makes a mockery of the notion of self-government in those areas of policy where restrictions are in effect. The distinction between the West and China is increasingly becoming one of “soft” vs. “hard” totalitarianism.