Did you wonder whether our economy had grown a little overly precious? How can we really be producing value if we're all sitting around blogging and Facebook-friending each other?
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Is Web 2.0 Living on Thin Air? - Tom Davenport - 0 views
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1999 the British think-tanker Charles Leadbeater published the book Living on Thin Air. It was both an appealing notion and a scary one: that we no longer have to produce anything but ideas. And that was even before Web 2.0--a platform for everyone to share their ideas, opinions, favorite tunes, and relationship statuses with each other. It was all a lot of fun, but I occasionally wondered whether it was really good for economic productivity.
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it wouldn't be a bad outcome if the current crisis led to a more diligent, industrious economic climate. Chatting and socializing are important things, but they're not the only things.
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But it seems to me that many of the activities, business models, and assumptions behind social media are a bit fluffy, and that fluffiness is going to be difficult to maintain in the post-bubble environment we now find ourselves in.
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Socializing as a distraction has always existed. Though there are more ways to do this now, people still have the ability to recognize that which produces real value in their life, both economically and socially. Balance between these has always been a challenge.
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Propaganda | Berkeley Institute of Design - 27 views
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It acknowledges that design in the era of ubiquitous technologies means not only technical innovation, but deep understanding of behavior
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This compels a new approach to design that is partly technical, but also deeply social and humanist.
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Understanding activity means understanding values, needs, lifestyle, mythologies, aesthetics, social and cultural norms, and individual and social psychology
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Design grapples with the impossible complexity of everyday human action, and shines light on a path that can lead to better quality of life.
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Twitchboard:云智能体(Cloud Agent)的兴起 - 0 views
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Twitchboard 所做的事情就是把不同的社交网站服务整合到一起,然后实现这些服务之间的互动进行自动化处理。比如当Twitchboard发现你的Twitter有一个URL更新,它会自动把这个链接发到你的del.icio.us帐户。这家网站将支持更多的服务。
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Joho the Blog » McCain models tech policy on our oh-so-successful energy policy - 0 views
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THE MCCAIN NEGATIVE WORDCLOUDWords Not in McCain’s Tech Policy | blog |social network | collaboration | hyperlink | democracy | google | wikipedia | open access | open source | standards | gnu | linux | | BitTorrent | anonymity | facebook | wiki | free speech | games | comcast | media concentration | media | lolcats |
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Even if we ignore the cultural, social, and democratic aspects of the Net, even if we consider the Net to be nothing but a way to move content to “consumers” (his word), McCain still gets it wrong. There’s nothing in his policy about encouraging the free flow of ideas. Instead, when McCain thinks about ideas, he thinks about how to increase the walls around them by cracking down on “pirates” and ensuring ” fair rewards to intellectual property” (which, technically speaking, I think isn’t even English). Ideas and culture are, to John McCain, business commodities. He totally misses the dramatic and startling success of the Web in generating new value via open access to ideas and cultural products. The two candidates’ visions of the Internet could not be clearer. We can have a national LAN designed first and foremost to benefit business, and delivered to passive consumers for whom the Net is a type of cable TV. Or, we can have an Internet that is of the people, by the people, for the people. Is it going to be our Internet or theirs?
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“Senator McCain’s technology plan doesn’t put Americans first—it is a rehash of tax breaks and giveaways to the big corporations and their lobbyists who advise the McCain campaign. This plan won’t do enough for hardworking Americans who are still waiting for competitive and affordable broadband service at their homes and businesses. It won’t do enough to ensure a free and open Internet that guarantees freedom of speech. It won’t do anything to ensure that we use technology to bring transparency to government and free Washington from the grip of lobbyists and special interests. Senator McCain’s plan would continue George Bush’s neglect of this critical sector and relegate America’s communications infrastructure to second-class status. That’s not acceptable,” said William Kennard, Former Chairman, Federal Communications Commission.
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RConversation: Silicon Valley's benevolent dictatorship - 0 views
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As author Rebecca Fannin pointed out on the Huffington Post, even China was barely mentioned: "Why was China ignored in the panel discussions? First, it's far away. Second, and more importantly, Silicon Valley is in a state of denial." She thinks that the Silicon Valley patrons of the Fortune Brainstorm are failing to take China seriously, and that this denial will cause them to be "blindsided" by a "truly disruptive force."
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"The capitalists aren't really that helpful, generally," he said. It depends on the business model deployed which really depends on the social intentions of the people running the business, and how much they care about long-term social and political repercussions. "We're forgetting that we had to fight to create an open Internet." Venture capitalists, he said, "assume that the Internet just works... that's very irresponsible," and they're not thinking about how specific business decisions impact overall levels of freedom, openness, and inclusion. "We have to do more than just run around chasing deals."
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As author Rebecca Fannin pointed out on the Huffington Post, even China was barely mentioned: "Why was China ignored in the panel discussions? First, it's far away. Second, and more importantly, Silicon Valley is in a state of denial." She thinks that the Silicon Valley patrons of the Fortune Brainstorm are failing to take China seriously, and that this denial will cause them to be "blindsided" by a "truly disruptive force."
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Chinese Dismayed by Tales of Tibet Violence - WSJ.com - 0 views
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SEARCHQUOTES & RESEARCH2More
Cover story: 'China's new intelligentsia' by Mark Leonard | Prospect Magazine March 200... - 0 views
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I will never forget my first visit, in 2003, to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. I was welcomed by Wang Luolin, the academy's vice-president, whose grandfather had translated Marx's Das Kapital into Chinese, and Huang Ping, a former Red Guard. Sitting in oversized armchairs, we sipped ceremonial tea and introduced ourselves. Wang Luolin nodded politely and smiled, then told me that his academy had 50 research centres covering 260 disciplines with 4,000 full-time researchers. As he said this, I could feel myself shrink into the seams of my vast chair: Britain's entire think tank community is numbered in the hundreds, Europe's in the low thousands; even the think-tank heaven of the US cannot have more than 10,000. But here in China, a single institution—and there are another dozen or so think tanks in Beijing alone—had 4,000 researchers. Admittedly, the people at CASS think that many of the researchers are not up to scratch, but the raw figures were enough.
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China, according to the new political thinkers, will do things the other way around: using elections in the margins but making public consultations, expert meetings and surveys a central part of decision-making. This idea was described pithily by Fang Ning, a political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He compared democracy in the west to a fixed-menu restaurant where customers can select the identity of their chef, but have no say in what dishes he chooses to cook for them. Chinese democracy, on the other hand, always involves the same chef—the Communist party—but the policy dishes which are served up can be chosen "à la carte."
2More谷歌雅虎微软达成海外从业共同准则 - 0 views
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这一文件是由一家名为Global Network Initiative(全球网络倡议)的实体负责制定的,起草小组人员包括了人权第一(Human Rights First)以及保护记者委员会(Committee to Protect Journalists)等人权组织。非盈利组织the Center for Democracy and Technology and Business for Social Responsibility(民主、技术和商业社会责任中心)也参与了制定。三家公司同意由独立专家监控他们对新原则的遵守情况。
2MoreDigital renegades, or captives? - International Herald Tribune - 0 views
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We have to be aware of the fact that the Internet has given the youth living in controlled societies infinite venues for digital entertainment - without any religious or social censorship - that may not necessarily be enhancing their digital sense of citizenship and civic engagement. Risking the comfort of their bedrooms - with their hard-drives full of digital goodies - for the gloom of a prison cell does not appeal to many of them. The governments are all too happy to promote this new cult of "cyber-hedonism." Whatever keeps these troubled youths from the streets is inherently a good thing.
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The fact that existing political activists embraced the Internet as a tool of mobilization is fairly noncontroversial. What's less obvious is how many digital natives the Internet has turned into digital renegades - and how many into digital captives. It's precisely this balance that will determine what the political landscape of Russia, China or Iran will look like in 10 years.
1MoreThe Crackdown to Come - WSJ.com - 0 views
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As a key element of the revival of Chairman Mao Zedong's "people's warfare," Beijing and a number of other cities have revived the vigilante and spying functions of neighborhood committees. Municipal administrations along the coast -- and in the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xinjiang -- have recently earmarked additional budget to maintain the "spying" functions of neighborhood committees and similar vigilante outfits after the Olympics. Moreover, the Politburo's Central Political and Legal Commission, China's highest law-enforcement agency, has urged the courts and prosecutors to do more in fulfilling the party's priority task of thwarting anti-Beijing conspiracies and upholding sociopolitical stability. That the courts will comply in this is evident from a just-released article by the President of the Supreme People's Court, Wang Shengjun. Writing in this week's edition of the official Seeking Truth journal, Mr. Wang said: "We must pay more attention to maintaining state security and social stability. . . We must boost our consciousness of [safeguarding] the power of the regime . . . and fully develop our functions as a department for [proletarian] dictatorship."
2MoreGlobal Voices Online » Turkey: Bloggers Banning Themselves? - 0 views
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If you are a long-time follower of the Turkish blogosphere you will have undoubtedly heard about the Turkish ban on Wordpress….and the periodic bans on YouTube, and on the social-networking widget site Slide, oh..and now on Dailymotion as well.
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It is hard to keep track now-a-days and frustrating. Turkish bloggers feel the same way too, and are protesting the constant banning of sites by voluntarily banning their own. So how are Turkish bloggers protesting these periodic bans on the internet? By putting the following up on their website: Bu siteye erişim kendi kararıyla engellenmiştir which translates roughly into “This site is blocked by [the author's] own choice”.
12More新"蜜蜂的寓言" -搜狐财经 - 0 views
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“企业公民”(Corporate Citizenship)和“企业社会责任”(Corporate Social Responsibility)在中国商业世界正成为时尚话题。
但真正的危险还不在这里。“企业公民”和“企业社会责任”不是(至少不仅仅是)企业有余钱余物时向公众示好买好的捐款捐物,不是以“转移支付”方式巧妙变相的“事件营销”,更不是问心有愧的企业和商人为洗白自己或包装自己而进行的“非常投资”。正如老子所言:“天下皆知善之为善者,斯恶也。”当“企业公民”和“企业社会责任”行为被作为一种善行来提倡时,诸多的恶行或与善恶无关的行为很可能“假汝之名而行”。这就是企业公民面临的真正的危险——成为“伪善”的代名词,最终让人们避而远之。
作为一种商业伦理,企业公民要想成为商业世界普遍的共识,它一定不能作为一种外在的规范来提倡。道德说教只能导致对伪善和对道德的抵触。只有当企业家意识到企业公民行为与企业家自身的需求和企业日常的经营活动有一种内在的、隐秘的关联时,企业公民才可能成为企业家们内在的共识。
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蒙古草原上无数的敖包是如何建起来的呢?我们容易以为是某个权势巨大的统治者下令建起来的。在如此地广人稀的土地上,把一个个行踪不定的游牧部落组织起来进行这样一个浩大的工程是不可能的。事实上,所有的敖包都是千百年来,人们自发建成的。在蒙古民族中有一种民间信仰:如果你看到了石头(在草原上石头是很稀少的),就是看到了你的“福气”,如果你拿着石头绕着别的石头走一圈,然后把它与别的石头放在一起,你就是在为自己增添福气。人人都愿意自己的福气尽可能地多,所以当一个人看到一块石头时就会捡起来,等看到别的石头时就把它放在那儿。这种信仰代代相传,草原上的石头堆(即敖包)就越来越多,每个敖包也越垒越高。就在一代又一代人为各自“谋福利”的过程中,一个服务于所有人(包括后代子孙)的导航系统就在广亵的蒙古草原上建成了。
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在《国富论》中他这样写道:“每个个体既不打算促进公共利益,也不知道提升多少公共利益。他只在乎他自己的保障,自己的收益。个体被一只看不见的手所引导,最终达到的结果并非他自己的意图。个体通过追求自身的利益来促进社会收益,往往比他真正打算促进社会收益时更有效率。” “我们每天所需的食料和饮料,不是出自屠户、酿酒家或烙面师的恩惠,而是出于他们自利的打算。我们不说唤起他们利他心的话,而说唤起他们利己心的话。我们不说自己需要,而说对他们有利。”
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亚当·斯密认为是后者。人类在道德问题上的传统焦虑被宣布为庸人自扰,人尽可以放心大胆地追求自己的利益,根本不用担心“自利”会有损公共利益,相反,只有当个体专注于自己的利益的追求,在追求自利上精益求精(即“分工”),让自己的利益最大化时,一只看不见的手就会神奇地将个人的追求转化为社会的利益。“总体收益的结果,有别于创造收益的个体意向”。
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1720年,曼德维尔出版了一本书,书名叫做《蜜蜂的寓言,或私人的恶行,公共的利益》。他把人类社会比喻为一个蜂巢:“这些昆虫生活于斯,宛如人类,微缩地表演人类的一切行为。”在“这个蜜蜂的国度”里,每只蜜蜂都在近乎疯狂地追求自己的利益,虚荣、伪善、欺诈、享乐、嫉妒、好色等恶德在每只蜜蜂身上表露无遗。令人惊异的是,当每只蜜蜂在疯狂追逐自己的利益时,整个蜂巢呈现出一派繁荣的景象。后来,邪恶的蜜蜂突然觉悟了,向天神要求让他们变得善良、正直、诚实起来。“主神终于愤怒地发出誓言:使那个抱怨的蜂巢全无欺诈。神实现了誓言……”接着,在整个蜜蜂的王国中,一磅贬值为一文,昔日繁忙的酒店渺无人迹,不再有人订货,全国一片萧条景象。 这就是说,私欲的“恶之花”结出的是公共利益的善果。这就是著名的“曼德维尔悖论”。从道德的角度看,以自利驱动的行为是应该受到谴责的,但如果想以“公共精神”的道德情怀来建立一种充满美德的繁荣社会,那只是一种“浪漫的奇想”,因为私欲和私欲支配的个人恶行恰恰是社会繁荣的能源,离开了这个能源,公共利益将是无源之水,无本之木。公益心和道德感这样的善之花,都将结出贫困和伪善的恶之果。 曼德维尔的“蜜蜂的寓言”是现代自由主义经济学和经济伦理的基本隐喻。其理论主旨是弘扬私欲,相信市场对私人恶行具有神奇的转化和净化力量,认定出于道德情怀的行为不仅不可行而且可能危及公共利益。
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简言之,“公民”是一个既独立又不独立的概念,指的是一个有所属的个体而不是原子式的个体。所谓“企业公民”,就是自觉地把自己归属于社区共同体、社会共同体和人类共同体的企业,在核算成本时,将社会成本、环境成本考虑在内,在计算收益时将企业收益、社会收益和环境收益同时计算在内,在做投资决策时将市场、社会和环境的投资回报率计算在内。拥有“企业公民”身份和资格的企业,就是在“公地”上谋求生存和发展的同时守望、养护“公地”,力图避免“公地的悲剧”发生的企业。 英国学者约翰·埃尔金顿把这种企业描述为同时追求“三重盈余”——经济盈余、社会盈余和环境盈余的企业。企业公民意识的有无,首先表现在对企业的所有权的认知。没有企业公民意识的企业,认为企业的股东仅是为企业提供资金者,企业经营的目的,就是为股东的投资带来回报并且使回报最大化。但追求三重盈余的企业认为企业的股东至少有三个:自然环境、社会和投资人。企业经营者的真实身份是受托于这三个股东的“公民CEO”,他的经营行为是确保三个“出资人”同时受益,而不是为了一个股东利益的最大化而牺牲其他两个股东的利益。
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一、人们在寻求自己私欲的时候,既有可能是个体间的相互利用、交易、竞争甚至相互欺诈、掠夺,也有可能是没有节制地利用无人所有的资源,人们出于私利为他人生产时,既包含自己承担的成本,也包含看似免费的社会成本。
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公共利益的总量并非私人在交易活动中获得利益的总和。我们得到的许许多多“好处”(比如呼吸清新的空气、感受到的良好的社会氛围)都不是从交易活动中来的,个体拥有产权的东西所带来的好处往往超出(有时是大大超出)我们从交易活动中得到的个人收益。
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林地不仅生产木材,它从事的“生产”包括吸收二氧化碳、释放清新的空气、保持水土、为各种动植物提供生存环境等等,这些都是公共利益的一部分。当你因为木材价格暴涨而把整个林地砍伐尽净,获得了巨量的个人财富时,公共利益却受到损害。你不能说你对个人利益的追求促进了公共利益。
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“公地的悲剧”包含的真实问题是:个体如何在利用产权不可能明晰的资源时避免资源的衰竭,从而导致公共利益的丧失?在人生活的世界上,有许多资源,而且是对人的生存最重要的资源(如阳光、空气等自然资源和良好的社会治安、社会道德氛围、文化资源)往往是难以确定产权的。在利用这些看似免费的资源时,我们如何才能避免“公地的悲剧”?
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一、蜜蜂型企业:影响力高且对环境的回报率高。蜜蜂为了酿蜜,就必须从各种植物中采集花蜜——这可以看作是对环境资源的索取。而它在采蜜的同时,它翅膀上粘附的花粉就会给花授粉。如果没有蜜蜂来采蜜,花也就成了不结果实之花。(经济学家张五常在深入调查的基础上写出了一篇著名的经济学论文《蜜蜂的寓言》,涉及到了到底是果农该付给养蜂人钱还是该向养蜂人收钱的问题。)曼德维尔只注意到蜜蜂间的生存竞争,没有看到蜜蜂与环境之间的这种索取回报的关系——在从环境中索取资源的同时回报环境,使自己的“盈利”空间获得了可持续性和成长性。蜜蜂的这种获利模式是一种远比曼德维尔的寓言深刻的隐喻。 二、蝴蝶型企业:对环境有回报但自身的成长性和影响力小的企业; 三、毛毛虫企业:对环境有损害但自身的成长性和影响力小的企业; 四、蝗虫型企业:破坏环境且由于其成长性和影响力大而对社会和环境有巨大破坏性的企业。(见图一:企业的四种类型)
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企业的利益相关方,除了三重盈余对应的三个“股东”外,还有客户、员工和合作伙伴(包括供应商)。它寻求所有这六个利益相关方(“持股人”)的平衡。企业是股东的,也是员工的,是社会的也是自然环境的……公民行为体现为六个“善待”:一、善待股东;二、善待员工;三、善待客户;四、善待环境和资源;五、善待合作伙伴(供应商);六、善待整个社会。企业公民行为就呈现为一个六边形,这正好是一个蜂巢的形状。(见图二:企业公民行为的六个利益相关方)
2More付印:译言已经完成了《地震安全手册》和《地震搜救手册》的翻译 - 0 views
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今天,译言已经完成了《地震安全手册》和《地震搜救手册》的翻译工作,其余的相关指导手册正在翻译过程中。网友黄阿狗和莫之许已经联系到译言,考虑到灾区很难有时间上网,也没有合适的传播方式,因此由莫之许先生负责牵头,把两本手册和相关救灾的内容印刷成小册子,发放灾区。
4MoreThe Hypocrisy and Danger of Anti-China Demonstrations - CommonDreams.org - 0 views
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We hear that Tibetans suffer “demographic aggression” and “cultural genocide”. But we do not hear those terms applied to Spanish and French policies toward the Basque minority. We do not hear those terms applied to the US annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1898. And Diego Garcia? In 1973, not so long ago, the UK forcibly deported the entire native Chagossian population from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. People were allowed one suitcase of clothing. Nothing else. Family pets were gassed, then cremated. Complete ethnic cleansing. Complete cultural destruction. Why? In order to build a big US air base. It has been used to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq, and soon maybe to bomb Iran and Pakistan. Diego Garcia, with nobody there but Brits and Americans, is also a perfect place for rendition, torture and other illegal actions.
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The Chinese Context The Chinese government is responsible for the well-being and security of one-fourth of humanity. Race riots and rebellion cannot be tolerated, not even when done by Buddhist monks. Chinese Civilization was already old when the Egyptians began building pyramids. But the last 200 years have not gone well, what with two Opium Wars forcing China to import drugs, and Europeans seizing coastal ports as a step to complete colonial control, then the Boxer Rebellion, the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty, civil war, a brutal invasion and occupation by Japan, more civil war, then Communist consolidation and transformation of society, then Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Such events caused tens of millions of people to die. Thus, China’s recent history has good reasons why social order is a higher priority than individual rights. Race riots and rebellion cannot be tolerated. Considering this context, China’s treatment of its minorities has been exemplary compared to what the Western world has done to its minorities. After thousands of years of Chinese dominance, there still are more than 50 minorities in China. After a few hundred years of European dominance in North and South America, the original minority cultures have been exterminated, damaged, or diminished.
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China’s one-child-policy seems oppressive to Westerners, but it has not applied to minorities, only to the Han Chinese. Tibetans can have as many children as they choose. If Han people have more than one child, they are punished. There is a similar preference given to minorities when it comes to admission to universities. For example, Tibetan students enter China’s elite Peking University with lower exam scores than Han Chinese students. China is not a perfect nation, but on matters of minority rights, it has been better than most Western nations. And China achieved this in the historical context of restoring itself and recovering from 200 years of continual crisis and foreign invasion.
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