Is just such a shock from being in China. Just got harassed and essentially threatened for being a socialist. They searched my bags and commented on my China flag and my little red books and my copy of Blackshirts and Reds. Fucking police state. The security in China is strict, but they don’t give a fuck about your thoughts, whereas this guy was very aggressive about “consequences” for being a socialist.

  • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
    hexagon
    ·
    8 months ago

    Jesus Christ that’s bad. I got rerouted and came back through Vegas airport, and seeing people not even make it out of the airport before getting sucked into gambling really made the differences apparent.

    • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Question: I know gambling, prostitution and pornography are all illegal in China - is this strictly enforced or do they kind of informally allow it to happen like most other countries do where such bans are in place?

      • SSJ2Marx
        ·
        8 months ago

        I know that for gambling it's pretty common for Chinese people to vacation to Macau and Hong Kong to do it, and I have to imagine that online gambling is just as prevalent and hard to spot and stop as it is here.

        • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          8 months ago

          I think where online gambling is concerned first and foremost you need to make sure that children can't fall victim to it. If you have a limited amount of resources to devote to policing these things then that should be the main focus. And you need to start by cracking down on game-ified gambling, "loot boxes" and the like. I heard some pretty good things about China and their policy toward tackling the problem of gaming addiction in children so I hope that they are also staying on top of this too.

      • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
        hexagon
        ·
        8 months ago

        I don’t know, because I am not a consumer of any of those things. I have a Chinese friend who often jokes about erotic massages, but that’s about as far as my exposure to that goes. I know Macau is basically the gambling den of China though.

        • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          8 months ago

          I know Macau is basically the gambling den of China though.

          I should have specified mainland China. I am aware that sadly in the formerly colonized territories like Macau and Hong Kong there are still a fair few remnants of western removed.

          • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            China still has remnants of the system too. Lotteries are not legally considered gambling, and the state operates two state sponsored lotteries.

            • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              8 months ago

              That's...unfortunate. Lotteries may not be as addictive or as scummy as other forms of gambling but they are definitely still gambling. I wonder if the state sponsored lotteries have a profit margin or if the money from ticket sales just goes fully back into the prize pool.

              • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
                ·
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                Only 50% of the profits go to welfare. The other 50% is pocketed. The welfare part is essentially good PR, and is identical to the US system. In the US lotteries are used as a funding mechanism for school districts, and that’s essentially what China is doing here. It’s just a way to pretend that the lottery is doing something good.

                Still scummy, and still supporting gambling addiction :/

              • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
                hexagon
                ·
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                I’m not sure on the mechanics of it, but I did see the state lottery offices, and it’s subtitled in English as Chinese Welfare Lottery, so hopefully the profits go to welfare? Idk. I hear it’s pretty popular though.

                I forgot to mention that there were scratch off tickets at one of the malls I went to also, my wifey bought a few and lost on all of them 😂

        • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          8 months ago

          Production and distribution is legal if it is not done for profit. So you cannot pay actors, have a subscription service, sell your product directly, or use backend ways of avoid this restriction. This lets regular people make porn and not risk any penalty, but prevents companies from exploiting people or creating a problem industry.

          • Which is logical, some people enjoy displaying their naked bodies and/or sexual acts. Our problem is that money inherently makes it exploitative.

            What consenting adults do with their own bodies and how they choose to share that with other consenting adults is none of any other person’s business.

          • SadArtemis🏳️‍⚧️@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            8 months ago

            Production and distribution is legal if it is not done for profit.

            Any sources on that? Everything I've ever seen on the subject seems to suggest otherwise. It'd certainly be ideal if society moved to how you describe- maybe in a decade or more I could see that happening.

            • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              Section 9 of the legal code says it word for word.

              Whoever, for the purpose of profit, produces, duplicates, publishes, sells or disseminates pornographic materials shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance and shall also be fined.

              https://www.cecc.gov/resources/legal-provisions/criminal-law-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china#2%20Chapter%20VI.9

              Further if you look at how the authorities treat porn distribution in particular, they will immediately arrest anyone associated with “paid porn” even if that site operated perfectly fine for years before, with the only thing changing being that they now had a subscription service, or running ads, or another form of “profit creation”. Such as the case with Juneday, a site that operated for years on China’s clear net, but the second they started charging for the service and running ads, everyone associated was arrested.

              http://news.sohu.com/20061220/n247161264.shtml

              Further, peer to peer torrenting of porn is essentially never enforced, and sharing porn on Chinese networks is only enforced if users seed or leech more then 40 files simultaneously.

              For example, China’s daily BitTorrent traffic.

              https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/en/stat/CN/daily