DOn't forget that democratic institutions in Hong Kong are less than 10
years old. That HK has become so wealthy without a smidgen of popular
representation for so long is rather the main problem preventing wider
acceptance of "western values" in China and SE asia. They pointedly
ignore Japan's stable democratic gov't that has existed in one form or
another, since the mid 1800's. THey also pointedly ignor other
democratic states with high asian populations: Hawaii, Seattle,
Vancouver B.C., & Australia. China, et al think that if HK can get so
wealthy without democracy for so long, then they can too. THey pointedly
ignore the implication that this makes them the running dog imperialist
capitalists they revolted against....
>
> And what are the odds of a more pragmatic approach? Everyone yaks about
> "human rights", like the Chinese are committing some obvious crime
> against nature, or something. David Brin points out that we can afford
> to have a quasi-religious attitude to free speech because its benefits
> are so miraculous. Perhaps we should be pushing "cultural technology":
> ways of organizing a society, like free speech, mutual accountability,
> private property, as the best means to satisfy their explicit goals,
> like wealth and getting rid of corruption. (And surely they'll care
> about pollution at some point?) People who object to Western culture
> and "values" have no qualms about grabbing our factories and planes.
> Perhaps we should put more emphasis on the practical benefits of our
> societies, and cut the appeals to morals they don't share.
How about putting bots out on the web that prevent web browsers from
computers in repressive countries from accessing western web pages, or
conversly, to make the economic and idea flow on the web more
beneficially one way, to prevent western browsers from accessing China
based web pages, and pages in other repressive countries? Maybe as a
virus that installs itself on browsers??? MSIE has enough security holes
that this should be easy... I'm surprised this hasn't happened
already....
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?