The China Thread

[Sheilbh]

"Control your soul's desire for freedom. Do not sing" is a very lyrical kind of totalitarian phrase, followed by the bluntness of a sledgehammer.

I can only assume it sounds less terrifying/grim in Chinese.

[Jacob]

One mildly satisfying thing coming out of the Shanghai thing is the number of people saying that Fang Fang had a point (author of the Wuhan diaries, chronicling the impact of the lockdown in Wuhan), when they had previously denounced her as an anti-regime, anti-Chinese stooge of Western disinformation.

Not that it matters much in the big scheme of things, but there are a couple of folks I get personal satisfaction from knowing they're locked down.

[Admiral Yi]

Bladerunner meets 1984.

[Jacob]

Shanghai is fucking up their covid management and it's circulating on social media. They've built massive facilities for quarantining folks. When they deliver food and provide blankets there's no organization, just a free for all - meaning there are people who are going hungry for days or are sleeping without blankets because they lost out in the frenzy.

That's following stories of people who've been quarantined for days in public washrooms and the like, because that's where they were when the lock-down order came down.

And Shanghai is supposed to be the most advanced, modern, civilized, and well organized Chinese city. Not a good look.

[Josquius]

That's crazy.
Just why is China keeping at this zero covid approach when everyone else has gotten to a stage of covid is now a flu?
They've got to be looking for an opportunity to smoothly wind down whilst making it seem it was all their idea.

[Sheilbh]

Just why is China keeping at this zero covid approach when everyone else has gotten to a stage of covid is now a flu?
They've got to be looking for an opportunity to smoothly end down whilst making it seem it was all their idea.

Generously - China has messed up its vaccine programme and the elderly who are most at risk are even less vaccinated than in Hong Kong. So ending zero covid now would result in probably millions of deaths.

Less generously it gives the regime an excuse and mechanism to cut off China from the rest of the world without taking an ideological turns.

[crazy canuck]

Shanghai is fucking up their covid management and it's circulating on social media. They've built massive facilities for quarantining folks. When they deliver food and provide blankets there's no organization, just a free for all - meaning there are people who are going hungry for days or are sleeping without blankets because they lost out in the frenzy.

That's following stories of people who've been quarantined for days in public washrooms and the like, because that's where they were when the lock-down order came down.

And Shanghai is supposed to be the most advanced, modern, civilized, and well organized Chinese city. Not a good look.

Squid Game irl

[The Minsky Moment]

"Control your soul's desire for freedom. Do not sing" is a very lyrical kind of totalitarian phrase, followed by the bluntness of a sledgehammer.

the delivery of the message by drone is the icing on the creepy Orwellian cake.

[The Larch]

"Control your soul's desire for freedom. Do not sing" is a very lyrical kind of totalitarian phrase, followed by the bluntness of a sledgehammer.

the delivery of the message by drone is the icing on the creepy Orwellian cake.

What would make it even more terrifying? The message being read in a robotic voice? Or in a soothing human one?

[Admiral Yi]

Chirpy Japanese voice. 

[The Larch]

Chirpy Japanese voice. 

Cutesy anime girl style? 

[Admiral Yi]

Cutesy anime girl style? 

I was thinking Bladerunner geisha/hostess style.

[Sheilbh]

Chirpy Japanese voice. 

Cutesy anime girl style? 

Mono's writing the memo suggesting this right now.

[Jacob]

I think if I was locked in my apartment for an unknown amount of time, with limited access to food, and a drone flew by to tell me to stay indoors / now worry / comply - the type of voice and exact phrasing would change the flavour of dystopian sentiment, but not the intensity. It'd all suck, because the situation fundamentally just sucks.

[HVC]

Looks like there's looting in Shanghai. Wonder how bad the crackdown will be.