In Coronavirus Fight, China Gives Citizens a Color Code, With Red Flags (nytimes.com) 138
A new system uses software to dictate quarantines -- and appears to send personal data to police, in a troubling precedent for automated social control. From a report: As China encourages people to return to work despite the coronavirus outbreak, it has begun a bold mass experiment in using data to regulate citizens' lives -- by requiring them to use software on their smartphones that dictates whether they should be quarantined or allowed into subways, malls and other public spaces. But a New York Times analysis of the software's code found that the system does more than decide in real time whether someone poses a contagion risk. It also appears to share information with the police, setting a template for new forms of automated social control that could persist long after the epidemic subsides.
The Alipay Health Code, as China's official news media has called the system, was first introduced in the eastern city of Hangzhou -- a project by the local government with the help of Ant Financial, a sister company of the e-commerce giant Alibaba. People in China sign up through Ant's popular wallet app, Alipay, and are assigned a color code -- green, yellow or red -- that indicates their health status. The system is already in use in 200 cities and is being rolled out nationwide, Ant says. Neither the company nor Chinese officials have explained in detail how the system classifies people. That has caused fear and bewilderment among those who are ordered to isolate themselves and have no idea why.
The Alipay Health Code, as China's official news media has called the system, was first introduced in the eastern city of Hangzhou -- a project by the local government with the help of Ant Financial, a sister company of the e-commerce giant Alibaba. People in China sign up through Ant's popular wallet app, Alipay, and are assigned a color code -- green, yellow or red -- that indicates their health status. The system is already in use in 200 cities and is being rolled out nationwide, Ant says. Neither the company nor Chinese officials have explained in detail how the system classifies people. That has caused fear and bewilderment among those who are ordered to isolate themselves and have no idea why.
A brave new world (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. Such an app is certainly authoritarian, but also probably effective. Since they can use GPS to track where people have gone, they should be able to immediately trace back who was likely exposed when a person is later diagnosed with the disease.
I wonder if there could be a good way to implement this without the sort of privacy concerns (e.g. without broadcasting everyone's locations to the government)... Hmm, maybe via "pull" rather than "push"? That is, your locations are only saved on your device
Re: (Score:2)
And they already sell that information routinely. The FCC even wagged it's finger at them and said "naughty naughty".
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it'll be interesting. So far, China (with 4x US population), has had 2500+ deaths, compared to the USA's two deaths. Of course, China had a big head start on body count, since they've had people dying since January (about 50 dead per day, average, so far), and our first (and second) death was this past weekend, I believe...
Re:A brave new world (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A brutal dictatorship is much more effective in imposing a quarantine than a free nation. Shocker...
Yea, that's a given.
But which system will prevent the most deaths? I guess we will all wait and see.
Re: (Score:2)
It's hardly an apples to apples comparison, given all the other differences between the countries - general income, education, access to healthcare, population density, cultural behaviours and attitudes, lifestyle factors such as smoking, prevalence of pollution etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm still curious.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
If you want to see a non-response in action, you need to look to Canada. The media and some members of federal and provincial governments are still calling quarantines xenophobic.
Re:A brave new world (Score:5, Interesting)
https://globalnews.ca/news/661... [globalnews.ca]
Then again, will testing and quarantines be able to stop the spread anyways? Or is it more a matter of just treating the symptoms effectively to keep people alive until they fight it off?
Re: (Score:3)
US to Canada will also be an interesting comparison. One anecdote, as of Friday, more coronavirus tests had been administered in British Columbia alone (population 5m) than in all of the United States.
Shouldn't be a surprise, there's a huge chinese population there. There's a reason why here in Canada, the lower mainland in BC is called Hongcouver. Though most aren't from HK, but mainland China, and if you get hit by an expensive car you're better off writing it off since the 'new money' has a tendency of fleeing back to China to avoid prosecution. Most HK expats moved to Waterloo, Ontario and Markham(North Toronto), Ontario.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oh it worse. Our government won't stop travelers from hot spots from entering the country either, almost all of the new cases are from Iran, and the people were knowingly infectious when they boarded the aluminum cigar tubes for an international flight. Sit back, enjoy the shitshow. [globalnews.ca] Two new cases, the people intentionally traveled cross-country twice from BC to Quebec after coming back from China when they were sick.
This is what happens when you put virtue signaling ahead of public safety and health.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Too bad that in this day and age we know exactly what passengers are flying from what airport, from which destinations and whether or not they also have had connecting or transit flights regionally isn't it? So really the WHO recommended practice only applied prior to about 1998. Reality meeting the road, the second that Chinese students tried bypassing quarantine by doing that exact thing, the AUS government already knew what was happening and refused them entry.
Re: (Score:2)
welding residents into buildings
Why do people like you, Mashiki and guruevi never show the links to such clear propaganda? You'd be a lot more believable and win over a lot more people to your cause.
Or are the 3 of you part of the 'say completely outrageous lies' department. So that the just 'outrageous lies' of your teammates look a little more credible?
Here is just one of dozens of videos showing doors being welded shut [youtube.com] skip to 31:25 for one example of several in just that show. It’s been more common to simply install chain and locks on the exits, but this method has been used. You just look like a moron when you refute things with ample commonly available evidence.
Re: (Score:1)
Apparently the Canadian government has mod points here.
When reasonable comments get unfairly punished, I find them that much more interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
Someone didn't like your comment. The thing is, it's probably not government...though with the leak that they were paying out millions to "social media influencers" and were working with various moderators on highly trafficked sites like reddit and facebook in order to steer the narrative on stories...it could be. In truth it's likely more that one of the dozen foes who get their panties in a twist whenever I manage to piss them off, don't like what I'm saying. The canadian ones are far more passive-aggr
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I'll give you a bit of a story, then answer your question. Back when the original outbreak started in China. And cases were exploding in Wuhan, the Chinese and HK immigrant communities started circulating petitions for mandatory quarantines for anyone coming back from hot spot areas. The media, and members of government fell all over themselves declaring this racist. The biggest offenders of declaring this racist were our own federal health minister, and the left wing press(CBC, Toronto Star, Globe and
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
co-ordination and petition [nationalpost.com] "racist abuse" [theguardian.com] asian anti-immigration protesters who were labeled as racist [ottawacitizen.com] The media also can't help to label anyone who holds an anti-illegal immigration view as 'white supremacists' and 'racists'
You can find the other stuff easily enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:A brave new world (Score:4, Informative)
The nurse Kaci Hickox, who belonged to Doctors Without Borders and who treated patients with Ebola in Africa, is white. Also, she was placed in quarantine against her will for 3 days will despite testing negative for Ebola. I'm not defending her lawsuit. I'm just providing context. Also, she sued Republican Governor Chris Christie in State civil court.
Blaming Obama for not stopping her civil lawsuit would be as asinine as blaming the Republican Governor for not stopping her lawsuit against himself. Obama just didn't have that kind of power. Even Trump doesn't have the power to end civil lawsuits unilaterally.
Re: (Score:2)
But he should if it will prevent even one death from COVID-19!!!!
We need the bad orange man to strap on his jackboots and step squarely on our necks or we will not survive! PLEASE TRUMP, OPPRESS US NOW!!!
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of Obama, who during the Ebola outbreak in the US, let hospitals get sued for quarantining African people with Ebola, because quarantining Africans is racist.
Complete and utter bullshit. Nice troll, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop voting for politicians that rule by their feelings instead of their brains. See New York, California, Oregon and Washings State for insight.
Canada uses First-Past-the-Post. A system that progressives and democrats seem to love, because it means that if your party with MP's or congresscritters crosses the line first, they also get the prime minister/president's seat as well. That means in Canada, if you can carry Toronto, maritimes, and southern Quebec, you've pretty much guaranteed full political power.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: A brave new world (Score:1)
No, it would be a triangle, and not yellow either. (Score:2)
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
There were quite a few more groups than Jews.
Other than that, it's already like this. The shape doesn't matter.
The biggest problem is, that this time, they have got nukes! So a direct war is out of the question.
Not that the CIA would have any problem with that, given that they have toppled more governments on the map than they haven't.
I'm just even more afraid of a world where the USA (or China, or Russia, or the EU, or corporations) don't have any enemy at all anymore.
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
The USSR had nukes too. We won the Cold War not because we were technically superior, the Red Army had tons more soldiers and resources, but because their ideology doesn't keep the support of their own people. Interesting how everybody tries to get OUT of East Germany and OUT of Cuba and OUT of North Korea and OUT of China and only very few people that claim they want to get their regimes here (eg. Bernie Sanders) never actually did want to go IN.
Re: No, it would be a triangle, and not yellow eit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No, it would be a triangle, and not yellow eith (Score:5, Insightful)
only very few people that claim they want to get their regimes here (eg. Bernie Sanders)
Please. I haven't heard Sanders saying something even remotely like that - making the US like the dictatorship in China etc. If something is an inspiration, it seem rather to be the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland ...).
With for example universal health care and free university education, but also marked-based economy, transparency laws, low corruption and almost no voter suppression.
Re:No, it would be a triangle, and not yellow eith (Score:5, Insightful)
transparency laws, low corruption and almost no voter suppression.
Now I see why many people are so against Sanders. Sigh.
Re: (Score:2)
transparency laws, low corruption and almost no voter suppression.
Now I see why many people are so against Sanders. Sigh.
And I assume you especially mean people having an interest in keeping the status quo? Regarding, for example, who gets government contracts or benefit from current policies, even if putting the general population at an disadvantage? (sorry, but irony is hard in text-only communications ...)
Re: (Score:2)
Then you haven't looked very hard into Bernie's past. He spent his honeymoon in the USSR. Now that's a romantic location. He has heaped praise on communist USSR, Cuba, and China.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/bernie-sanders-has-nothing-but-excuses-for-communist-tyrants
>>> Back in 1989, Sanders described a trip to Cuba in glowing terms for his local newspaper. “I did not see a hungry child,” he said. “I did not see any homeless people. Cuba today not only
Re: (Score:2)
Bernie wouldn't be the dictator. The dictator comes after the economy has collapsed and a foreign power is preparing to invade.
"Oh geez, our network of People's Committees are so unfathomably inefficient that they can never possibly handle a foreign invasion. Comrades, we need to put power solely in the hands of So-and-so, temporarily of course, until the crisis is past!"
"Oh no, So-and-so has dissolved our People's Committees and is consolidating his power! How could this have happened?"
Actually they didn't have all that much (Score:2)
Mostly our military industrial complex used them as a boogie man to excuse massive military spending despite no real wars. Worked too.
Re: (Score:2)
Its a very valid concern, and the negative effects of giving the government that sort of power are frightening
OTOH, CV seems to be more infectious than Flu which in a bad year infects 40-50M Americans, and the death rate apperas to be 1-2%. We could be looking at 500K to a million deaths in the US (and tens of millions around the world). So we actually have to face the safety vs freedom question head-on.
Re: A brave new world (Score:2)
Also, communal dishes such as hot pot are rare.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Westerners are spoiled in general, but Millenials really have never seen a real recession. The good thing is that young people (and Millennials in particular) don't vote.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Millenials really have never seen a real recession.
How old do you think Millennials are? The very term "Millennial" was coined because they were becoming adults at the turn of the millennium (i.e. well before the Great Recession). Did you not realize that they're old enough to have kids in college [xkcd.com] at this point? So of course Millennials saw the Great Recession. Most were already of age to be in the job market by the time it began, and most of the rest were of age by its end. Even among those who weren't 18 by the time it ended, they still would have been ol
Re: (Score:2)
"If so, I can only assume you're nostalgically thinking back on the Great Depression as the one and only "real recession", in which case I'll be happy to get off your lawn."
In which case boomers haven't seen one either.
Re: (Score:2)
In which case boomers haven't seen one either.
That depends on what country you lived in. 'Cause the 24% interest rates and 15% unemployment rates are things plenty of us gen-x kids remember growing up through the 80s.
Re: (Score:2)
"most free and prosperous" seems like just so much jingoism in the face of the cost of higher education and housing. It's hard to feel 'free' when entering the job market as an indentured servant, especially when you can easily be replaced with cheap foreign labor. I'd retire right now if not for medical 'insurance'.
Looking down at younger people that have had the ladder pulled up on them probably isn't a great strategy against communist opportunists.
Re: (Score:1)
Life is tough when you make a string of bad choices, based on bad advice, promoted by parents and teachers. Key one being "university is always good." If those kids wanted to fix the problem the first thing they'd be doing is demanding a block on all foreign labor, all of it. Sure it also might mean that some of those kids would also do what those of us did ~30 years ago and spend long months working shitty jobs picking fruit, or working in support industries relating to it, or dangerous jobs like fores
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"too bad so sad" is exactly what I expect to hear when I'm old enough to draw from the social benefit programs I worked my whole life paying into. Covid-19 might reduce the number of boomers currently saying "fuck you I got mine" after they have cashed out of their million dollar homes they bought for 50k in the 70s, but I'm not that optimistic.
Point is, I'd rather we not become like China, but I'm not so sure this system of healthcare with for-profit middlemen and lacking cost controls is "the best in the
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody handed me shit when I was growing up, and I grew up so poor that the sally ann was what kept our family alive. The problem isn't "fuck you I got mine" the problem is that the current generation of kids are so coddled it's stupid, they don't know real hardship. The last 30 years have been so great for most people that if you told them that not having electricity for 30 days is gonna happen the first thing they'll do is freak out about how their devices won't work.
Re: (Score:2)
Coddled, from being forced to live with parents into their 20's? By competing for scraps in the 'gig' economy and with imported cheap 3rd world labor?
Spoiled, by being pressed into having dual incomes in order to afford raise a family? Pampered, by being one health crisis away from bankruptcy?
I'll repeat myself; being disconnected from the issues that these youngsters face is how pied pipers like Sanders and social justice sociopaths like AOC get put into positions of influence. You don't want to see more h
Re: (Score:2)
Coddled, from being forced to live with parents into their 20's? By competing for scraps in the 'gig' economy and with imported cheap 3rd world labor?
Strange if 20's is their problem, then things are far better. About half of my friends didn't leave home until their early 30's because they couldn't make ends meet. The gig economy? That anything like starting to work on farms at the age of 8, and the only reason it happened was because the butcher your family went through wouldn't hire a kid to help('cause it was illegal) but a farmer he knew would because he'd been in the same spot.
Spoiled, by being pressed into having dual incomes in order to afford raise a family? Pampered, by being one health crisis away from bankruptcy?
Hey look at that, it's the 1980s and 90's all over again.
I'll repeat myself; being disconnected from the issues that these youngsters face is how pied pipers like Sanders and social justice sociopaths like AOC get put into positions of influence.
I'll repeat my
Re: (Score:2)
We could probably debate on what impact the dot com bust of 2000 and the great recession of 2008 had, but that's not really on topic.
I agree with you on your points. I just simply think we should recognize it isn't the 20th century any more, and all systems over time need to adjust to changing conditions. That may include economic system and or social benefit programs. I simply don't think what worked for me in the past for clawing my way out of poverty may be applicable to younger generations into the futu
Re: (Score:2)
We could probably debate on what impact the dot com bust of 2000 and the great recession of 2008 had, but that's not really on topic.
Sure it is. Ignore at your own peril the experiences of those who had it worse. I can go back to the 1980s, I grew up in Canada which had serious economic issues to the point that wage and price controls were introduced and there were nationwide wild cat strikes. The US mostly escaped the problems.
Clawing your way out of poverty is one of the few things that helps you discover your own value, and driving motivations to improve yourself. Ever hear the old saw about the death of a business in 3 generation
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the subject is communist China, so sure. I would rather we not become like communist China with suicide nets around dormitories in industrial complexes designed somewhat like prisons, because people are desperate enough to work under those conditions.
Personally I would have preferred to have had more time to challenge myself academically, than have to spend so much time performing menial work just put gas in the tank. "work smarter, not harder" I told myself. At no time had I set the bar so low that I
Re: (Score:2)
Of course part of that is because without power you can't apply for a job or hear back if you actually get it. It doesn't help that a lot of jobs that in those days would mean "our troubles are over" now mean "our troubles are just different".
Re: (Score:2)
Of course part of that is because without power you can't apply for a job or hear back if you actually get it. It doesn't help that a lot of jobs that in those days would mean "our troubles are over" now mean "our troubles are just different".
Pretty sure libraries are still around and let people use their shit for free, and for charging devices occasionally. Even the tiny library when I travel to my winter home in FL, let's the poor charge their devices for free and gives them internet access.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you favor Communism? Buy your own books, electricity and Internet from the Capitalists.
What kind of idiot are you? I need to know, I'm doing a study on brain dead posters and their lack of higher brain functions.
Re: (Score:2)
Look at the salaries those jobs command. Then look at the price of tuition. Because I'm guessing those were summer jobs for you (long months.) Whereas kids these days would be working them for a year and a half to pay for a single year of tuition.
Frankly, shitty
Re: (Score:2)
Look at the salaries those jobs command. Then look at the price of tuition. Because I'm guessing those were summer jobs for you (long months.) Whereas kids these days would be working them for a year and a half to pay for a single year of tuition.
That depends, does starting in may and ending in september which is the growing season count as summer? It used to be that picking(crop or stone), paid about $1-2/hr less then the min. wage. Some farmers still do that, but not many. And by kids, I really do mean kids. Because I started before I was 10, which was technically illegal. The problem with tuition is that universities(the US is the worst at this, but Canada isn't far behind), that they've become degree mills. Where large swaths of the course
Re: (Score:2)
I have been saying that for years. If the Capitalists want to make sure younger generations don't vote in Socialism, they better make sure the younger generations have the same great prospects under Capitalism that the boomers had.
That hasn't been done, now the chickens are coming home to roost.
Of course, the same people who fear the evil socialists forget that even the Republicans were more "socialist" back in that time, they just didn't (wrongly) call it "socialism" back then. Eisenhower could just about
Re: (Score:3)
Why should this surprise anyone? I was told that Bill Clinton was a communist; I was told that Obama was a socialist. And both of them had healthy economies, shrinking deficits, etc. So logically, communism/socialism must be good.
If people cry wolf over and over, and then say "but, but, this time I really mean it! Really! Why is nobody listening to me???", well, guess what happens.
Guys, can you help me? (Score:2)
I can't find a "red flag" on here [wikipedia.org].
Did they mean the red triangle?
As the man said (Score:3, Insightful)
You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste. - Stalin. Wait no... my bad, Rahm Emanuel.
Re: (Score:3)
Confirmed
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Way off. (Score:2)
It's an extremely old statement with a little variation over translations, times etc.
JFK famously said basically the same concept from which many people of that age have rephrased; it's likely where it comes from - but it's not the ONLY source of the expression. Crisis is always some kind of opportunity, you'll have people pointing that out in all of human history.
JFK misunderstood the Chinese and said their characters for Crisis are 2 characters: 1 for danger and 1 for opportunity.
Even "fake news" is just
Is this a crisis? (Score:2, Insightful)
You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste. - Stalin. Wait no... my bad, Rahm Emanuel.
I honestly don't know whether coronavirus is something to worry about.
On the one hand, it's a statistical certainty that the virus will get a foothold in the US and rampage across the country. Looking at China and applying it here, virtually everyone will get it with a 2.5% mortality rate.
On the other hand, in the 2009 H1N1 epidemic the president(*) didn't declare a national emergency until 1,000 people had died and millions were infected. That event passed and I barely read about it.
So far as I am aware, a
Re: (Score:2)
Does anyone have any realistic insight into the situation?
I don't think virtually everybody is going to get it. Think that may be a bit overblown. I have relatives who are nurses and a college friend who is a Physician's Assistant and none of them seem overly concerned at this time. I'm figuring it may be like SARS but with fewer deaths.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is this a crisis? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
the current test kit is not only crazy expensive
How expensive? A citation would be great.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Then hospital staff members told him he’d need a CT scan to screen for coronavirus, but Azcue said he asked for a flu test first. “This will be out of my pocket,” Azcue, who has a very limited insurance plan, recalled saying. “Let’s start with the blood test, and if I test positive, just discharge me.”
Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened. He had the flu, not the deadly virus that has infected tens of thousands of people...
IIRC, other sources have placed the cost of a coronavirus test at $250. Not cheap, but nowhere near the thousands that people are claiming here on slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I only vaguely remembered H1N1 and didn't know that many died. It does put things in perspective a bit.
But the economic damage will certainly be real, mainly the supply chain damage. Hopefully it's temporary and quickly reverts to normal or it could be quite serious.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, I only vaguely remembered H1N1 and didn't know that many died. It does put things in perspective a bit.
About 3500 people, it wasn't until 1k were already dead that team Obama decided that it was important to do something. Trump's way a head of the curve with this vs H1N1.
Re:Is this a crisis? (Score:5, Interesting)
The main thing to keep in mind is that the incubation period is two weeks, during which time you are infectious but not obviously sick. If there is community spread going on in the west coast, then the cases we are seeing now more or less represent the situation 2 weeks ago. These first few visible community-acquired cases are going to be some of the first people to get sick that way, and it will have been spreading unchecked for 2 weeks now that we're seeing the first cases. 2 weeks from now we'll find out how far it had spread as of right now, but it'll have had another 2 weeks to spread. Of course, this will happen continuously so we'll see a slow but exponential increase in the number of community-acquired cases, which we won't be able to halt because they already happened.
Furthermore, since there's no travel restrictions it's much more likely to jump to other parts of the country. There's far more interstate travel than international travel in the US. So, you aren't necessarily safe just because you aren't living on the west coast. Everywhere it spreads to, the virus is going to have a 2 week head start before we start seeing cases.
There are a few small caveats to this, if we were testing our population more extensively then we could theoretically catch more cases in the incubation period, and thus find out where it's spreading before 2 weeks has elapsed. That said, earlier stories on Slashdot have suggested that our testing programs are way behind the curve right now. More importantly, it's statistically unlikely for us to find the virus until it's already pretty prevalent in the population. If 40 people have it in California, then you'd have to test 1 million people in California at random to have any sort of chance of testing one of those 40 people, and it's really hard to really test people at random. Plus, that one person we might find will "just be one case", and not elicit as much alarm as multiple cases, even though there are 40 cases out there. Therefore, testing probably won't see the virus until there are many hundreds or thousands of people already infected (1000 people is 0.0025% of California's population, or about 1-in-400). So, testing will be useful to health authorities to find out where the community spread has become critical, and thus where it is justified to start quarantines to prevent the outbreak from widening, but it won't be so useful for stopping the spread around the US.
Also, as you pointed out, there's a false positive rate for any test, so massive testing of the population is only useful once the number of real cases rises above the noise of false positives. That said, these community acquired cases are probably people getting sick and coming to the hospital, as opposed to people being found by screening programs, since after all we were hardly doing any screening before community-acquired cases started popping up.
More importantly, the test for Coronavirus is especially accurate because they're looking directly for the virus's genes (a PCR assay, they are looking directly for the DNA (RNA?) pattern of the virus), so that makes false positives especially unlikely as you basically have to have Coronavirus's genetic sequence floating around inside of you for the test to be positive (unless someone really drops the ball on performing the test). I'm also pretty sure the health authorities are waiting until they're very confident to make an announcement, as unlike the media they don't have an incentive to get the news out ASAP. So, now that there's several known community-acquired cases, you can be pretty sure that Coronavirus has reached the US and is spreading through the community.
One more important caveat here is that spring and summer are swiftly approaching, and the warmer weather and increasing solar radiation may blunt the spread of the virus. Coronavirus spreads a lot like the flu, and the same factors that reduce the spread of the flu in the summer will likely reduce the spread of Coronavirus. That said, summer alone won't stop Coronavirus enti
China, not Corona (Score:2)
I don't know about being worried about the Corona virus itself. But if you were worried that China isn't shipping enough products, and the entire global economy halts because we don't have some random ass screw that's necessary to finish bolting together the tachometer in Fords, and so the entire production line there (and for their part suppliers) is halted until a replacement production for the screws gets up and going (times every product), I would understand that.
But leaving politics aside as well, can
Frankly, I think the virus is SELECTIVE. (Score:2)
Hence people being flagged, without knowing why.
My hypothesis is, that with the gene drive and CRISPR kits beig available for $150 online, enablig every half-competent lab assistant to create a virus that wipes out everyone withna certain trait, or even all of humanity, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Might also just be a mundane natural virus. I guess we will have to see if a pattern emerges.
I don't care if an idiot said it... (Score:2)
... if it is true, it is true.
Going by Slashdot's rules, that means nothing ... (Score:1)
At all.
He may be nuts. But if anything, that is the Slashdot norm. Have you seen the moderations here? Outright being pro psychopathy, racketeering, manipulation, torture and even mass-murder are regularly cheered for. People here have beliefs and mental models of reality, that are so far removed from actual experience and to ignorant and deluded, that schizophrenia would be an understatement!
Meanwhile, they are so unstable, that even the slightest criticism of the belieft they cling to, results in extreme
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste.
True, but I don't want to read a paywalled version of an article when Slashdot ran a non-paywalled version of the same thing on 18 Feb. 2020.
China Enlists Tech Titans To Help It Track Coronavirus With Color-Based QR Codes [slashdot.org]
China Enlists Tech Titans to Help It Track Coronavirus With Color-Based QR Codes: Report [gizmodo.com]
Channeling Rahm Emanuel (Score:3)
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
What better crisis than this for forcing direct control over their citizens?
A tale of two systems? (Score:3)
I think in the long run, China will win out on this compared with other countries...not by overall infection rate, but ability to control its population long enough to let the crisis pass. It's the same reason I think they're going to end up on top economically...other countries just don't have the direct control they do.
We tend to leave critical decisions to politicians and other people looking out for their own interests, but China seems to take the long view in everything. If a decision is deemed to be the best choice, it's enacted with zero debate. Economically, the central government gets to choose what gets invested in and they have control over key industries. Our system is messier for better or worse, and any big change gets swept up in endless deliberation.
We'll see what happens -- I find it amazing that with billions of people, they still have that level of control that they can enforce an entire regional quarantine and have it stick. That would never happen in the US...you'd have all the doomsday preppers rising up against the military.
Re: (Score:3)
You should see the Twitter feeds of various Chinese dissenters instead of reading the filtered media. There is some seriously graphic videos of police brutally beating down protestors, the sick, people without these flags or masks, welding shut the entrances and exits to apartment buildings (guess when they'll be allowed out to get food), mass encampments for the sick with minimal health care, mass evacuation of homes, people throwing themselves out of quarantined apartment buildings.
Many healthcare provide
Re: (Score:2)
It's the same reason I think they're going to end up on top economically...other countries just don't have the direct control they do.
This is the basic communism philosophy but it doesn't work and tends to produce bread lines. It's next to impossible for a central planner to accurately predict and distribute the correct number of loaves on a daily basis. In a capitalist country thousands of bakers bake for their local customers and if they have a few extra, they eat them themselves with virtually no waste. On the smallest scale like a family or a monastery, communism works ok. On the medium scale, the distributed nature of capitalism
Re: A tale of two systems? (Score:3, Insightful)
Jesus you're a fucking moron. They completely denied there was a problem in the beginning and even promoted a 40,000 family hot pot celebration in Hubei prior to admitting there was a problem which is virtually guaranteed to have massively spread the virus.
Re: (Score:2)
The quarantine of Wuhan failed spectacularly. Five million people fled in the three days before it was enacted, and started outbreaks in every corner of China. It's somewhat difficult to say at this point whether the quarantine ultimately did more harm or good. The outbreaks outside of Hubei province have not been nearly as severe, and these are places that were not locked down as hard. The lock-down may have starved the province of resources to take care of patients, and the makeshift mass wards turned int
Re: (Score:2)
Do you suppose the USSR would have collapsed if they'd managed to get themselves to be the manufacturing hub for the entire world? Nothing but Russian incompetence (which is legendary) was decisively defeated in the Cold War. China doesn't really "let people do things for themselves" and are pretty fucking productive. What gives?
Wrong (Score:1)
"Neither the company nor Chinese officials have explained in detail how the system classifies people."
Why is this BS posted here? The classifications are done by the person using the app. When people start the app they need to choose a color and self-report. Why do we pretend we "don't know how it works"? This is old news. Also, there really isn't anything wrong with it. I am sure the officials are trying to figure out the extent of the virus. Not everything is an evil Gubmint plot.
Re: (Score:1)
The US is only one election away from voting communist. Expanded government is not something anyone should like.
Re: (Score:2)
The US is only one election away from voting communist. Expanded government is not something anyone should like.
Yet corporations are so intertwined. Corporatism leads capitalism to feudalism just as effectively as communism does. That's what we can observe happening covertly with the US and overtly with China.
Totalitarian governments do what they do (Score:2)
It amazes me that western news outlets are astonished that a totalitarian regime uses technology to control its citizens and bit tech firms are willing to always chip in. Hell, IBM helped the Nazis [wired.com] so we should be surprised? We need to start waking up to the reality that even so-called democracies are just one or two steps away from doing the same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
This. I straight laughed at TFS's comment about "a troubling precedent for automated social control". That government "by design" would be considered "a troubling precedent for MANUAL social control" and they have plenty of AUTOMATION already.. this may be a new "flavor" but it certainly isn't new.
If a more democratic government was doing this it would be somewhat more troubling but as you say we're not as far from this reality as most people realize anyway so "troubling" but far from "surprising".
Borg like (Score:2)
What about... (Score:1)
Another reason it was released on purpose (Score:1, Offtopic)
Correction (Score:2)
I meant to type "can you share the analysis [about the fed]".