Chinese prisoners forced to farm video game currency
- Thread starter Matthew DeCarlo
- Start date
G
Guest
A close re-read of the article would show that these people are forced, on pain of being beaten, to play games in order to supplement the real-world income of their guards--who beat them if they don't make a quota. And this all happens AFTER the prisoners have had to do a full day of hard labour. How this equates to a free person coming home from school or their day job to be online with their buddies and play for pleasure, I'm just not seeing.
It's bizarre, yes--but it's certainly not a free ticket. If I got somehow thrown into this prison, had to work at hard labour for God knows how many hours (surely someone else's idea of a "full day", not me with my regular 9 hours at a desk?), then told instead of resting I have to sit at a computer and play a game until I drop so someone else can make real money selling what amount to pixels... then had to get up at crack of dawn to rinse and repeat, on sub-standard prison fare--somehow I doubt I'd be enjoying anything.
It's bizarre, yes--but it's certainly not a free ticket. If I got somehow thrown into this prison, had to work at hard labour for God knows how many hours (surely someone else's idea of a "full day", not me with my regular 9 hours at a desk?), then told instead of resting I have to sit at a computer and play a game until I drop so someone else can make real money selling what amount to pixels... then had to get up at crack of dawn to rinse and repeat, on sub-standard prison fare--somehow I doubt I'd be enjoying anything.
NunjaBusiness
Posts: 36 +0
Actually, you have only to read the first paragraph of the original story to see that. I'd wager many people commenting only read the Techspot synopsis and that part is left out here.
G
Guest
I don't understand why everyone has sympathy for prisoners. They did bad things and now get their just punishment. They did something wrong and now they want to complain? Should have thought about that before they committed the crime. And don't bring human rights into this. When you rape steal and murder you take someone else human rights away. Let them farm let them work teach them how to be constructive citizens.
TorturedChaos
Posts: 836 +43
When I first read the head line I was thinking "dang that doesn't sound so bad 
" but after reading the whole article and from my experience with voluntarily farming money/items - it can be very tedious and boring. Now throw in threats of a beating if you don't farm enough gold and being forced to do it for 12hrs straight...sounds a lot less appealing.
But they are in prison for a reason (hopefully) so I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished.
" but after reading the whole article and from my experience with voluntarily farming money/items - it can be very tedious and boring. Now throw in threats of a beating if you don't farm enough gold and being forced to do it for 12hrs straight...sounds a lot less appealing.But they are in prison for a reason (hopefully) so I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished.
AnonymousSurfer
Posts: 456 +38
holy ****. If I ever go to be a prison guard, it will be in China definitely. $900 a day to make prisoners farm in games sounds like a great job.
MilwaukeeMike
Posts: 3,216 +1,469
Sitting there farming gold with the anxiety knowing that you're gonna get beat if you don't do well would really suck. I've run into these people in game, and this explains a lot of their behavior.
Don't get me wrong... after being the victim of quite a few thefts and knowing vicitms of crimes far far worse, I dont' care at all if prisoners are forced to do labor. Be it WoW, sewing clothes or crushing rocks. No, they shouldn't be beaten, but you won't see me outside that prison with a sign decrying human rights violations.
Don't get me wrong... after being the victim of quite a few thefts and knowing vicitms of crimes far far worse, I dont' care at all if prisoners are forced to do labor. Be it WoW, sewing clothes or crushing rocks. No, they shouldn't be beaten, but you won't see me outside that prison with a sign decrying human rights violations.
G
Guest
This is soo hilarious. Now I'm really glad I never bought any of that gold. As if China doesn't make enough money from us for real products, now we pay them for imaginary products?? The irony is that we're not supposed to buy the stupid gold in the first place. And for people gaming themselves to death, it's the high tech method of trying to "fix stupid." Bye bye gene pool. The pipes is uncalled for (unless they're in jail for beating other people). Just make them get ganked.
dividebyzero
Posts: 4,840 +1,279
Yeah, good luck with that.
Economics trumps morality every time.
Just out of interest, where are the components in your computer made/assembled/packaged...and likely recycled when their time comes?
G
Guest
do the math again, $20000 per person per year
I'm gonna interpret that with a deep implication, and with that, would you have the slightest bit of sympathy for these people? I understand they could be beaten for anything, but forced to grind on someones account?
"Yeah they make my stuff, and they need to be forced under these similar circumstances for years to help the economy of other countries. There's nothing anyone can do about it, might as well make the best out of it."
That's a personal cruelty as the finest example of itself.
"Yeah they make my stuff, and they need to be forced under these similar circumstances for years to help the economy of other countries. There's nothing anyone can do about it, might as well make the best out of it."
That's a personal cruelty as the finest example of itself.
dividebyzero
Posts: 4,840 +1,279
How's the air up there?
Don't go confusing a statement of fact with indifference
There's nothing anyone can do about it, might as well make the best out of it."
So, tell me, how do you plan to initiate a campaign to force mainland China to abide by a western ideal of human rights?
Can this plan be widened to include human trafficking ? enviromental pollution ? Tibetan autonomy ? the killing of female children ?...
Or should your message:
actually read: "Someone needs to stop this country. I'll get right behind anyone who comes up with a workable plan. Post the details on my facebook wall by the end of the day, but don't leave it too late 'cos I'll need to rail against game developers, the RIAA, or new model toasters lacking USB3.0 support in tomorrows post.
gingerbill
Posts: 315 +184
It beats breaking rocks with a sledgehammer . It's hardly a substantiated story either , i don't think we should be looking down on chinese jails either , US has the most overcrowded prison system in history with plenty doing labour to make money for the goverment , its an entire multi billion dollar industry. America also has more people behind bars per population head than any civilisation in history.
When you asked me where my computer parts came from, it seemed inappropriate to place me as ungrateful for their existence. I wanted to know if you had any sympathy for these people even as ridiculous as it seems to put them under labor to increase mere integer values in some game. Well, that's what I assumed, you are well within your rights to correct me instead of making it particularly difficult for me to clear these things up. I have no plans to make China a better country, and I probably won't be involved in some organized movement anytime soon, I just expressed a disbelief that China would let this kind of power extend so far as to benefit something like virtual commerce. You mentioned more pressing issues about the country to under-influence my blatant suggestion, those are insightful but I doubt it would be any help to inform me.
Well I'm glad that's not what you meant. Perhaps you were really worried about my computer parts?
I don't understand why I deserved that, and it doesn't make anyone seem any worldlier to assume me as such. I can only assume that you hold a superior position in worldly views and put mine as contemptible, if so I have no defense against that. That quoted sentence was just an attempt to understand why you would ask me where my parts came from, to question that country's significance in everyone's modern life. It was presumptuous in that If we're in such a technological asymptote, we should be grateful for the circumstances that brought China it's significant role. At least I'm trying to be as compassionate as possible; I apologize.
dividebyzero
Posts: 4,840 +1,279
Personally I don't care whether you're grateful for "Made in China" or not TBH.
My observation was centred upon the fact that people wax grandiloquent about "stopping" a country...while simultaneously using products made by said country from keyboard to website to make the statement.
My personal take on the situation would be:
1. What were these people convicted of. Does the punishment fit the crime ?
2. If 1 = Yes, and this punishment were not being used, what alternative labour would they be undertaking?
3a. If 1 = No, and I felt strongly enough to post my outrage on a site, I might (as example) petition Blizzard et al- to blacklist game accounts/IP's and try to enlist a groundswell of support on the game forums.
3b. If 1 = No, but I had neither the inclination or determination to invest time, resources or effort into trying to effect a solution...well, I probably wouldn't take the bait to make a generalized statement, which leaves little open for interpretation
You were expecting kid gloves ?
An absolutist statement:
...followed by ascribing an assumption of a lack of empathic concern:
_________________
I presume you mean undermine. Again you seem to ascribing an assumption not supported by the text. The other human rights "issues" are there to demonstrate that
1. mainland China has a vast and ongoing lack of interest in human rights, and
2. forcing prisoners to play WoW probably needs to placed into perspective against some of the more pressing cases of abuse (i.e. executing prisoners and harvesting organs for translantation)
captaincranky
Posts: 20,423 +9,389
I still a bit baffled about the punishment aspect of this. After all, some people consider "Farmville" and "Second Life" the rapture. I suppose if I were to be sentenced to something this *****ic, I'd opt for the needle. That said, everyone knows I'm a bit "different".
I suppose if the prisoners were taunted on the way back for the computer lab with jeers of, "get a life", that might be considered cruel and unusual.
Meantime the message is fairly clear, (at least to those not interested in video games), "don't f*** up in China".
As to the rest of you morally superior elitist windbags, another message should be equally clear, shut your collective yaps, put your money where you morality is,and start buying iPhones made with USA union labor for maybe, oh say, 2000 bucks a pop.
I suppose if the prisoners were taunted on the way back for the computer lab with jeers of, "get a life", that might be considered cruel and unusual.
Meantime the message is fairly clear, (at least to those not interested in video games), "don't f*** up in China".
As to the rest of you morally superior elitist windbags, another message should be equally clear, shut your collective yaps, put your money where you morality is,and start buying iPhones made with USA union labor for maybe, oh say, 2000 bucks a pop.
Lokalaskurar
Posts: 513 +0
Agree with you there, none-humane labour will still be considered 'non-humane' so to speak. And gaming away for 3 solid days, that's seriously demanding for your body as well as your mind. Making up for the lack of sleep with say, Coke, will only make it worse. At least the Chinese prisoners get to sleep between shifts of gaming.
Running prisons is very costly after all, at least in China. So making the bill a little smaller would probably sound attractive to the average jail-owner (government). It doesn't really make up for their "gas-chamber vans" though, it's still very inhumane.
I actually thought so too. But the article on the BBC website said 'Chinese gamer drops dead' - so unless they got something mixed up, he was Chinese all right.
G
Guest
You know, I was with this story until I came across:
"performing manual labor, such as carving wood chopsticks and toothpicks"
They would have us believe that chopsticks are whittled with a Bowie knife? Toothpicks turned on a lathe?
"performing manual labor, such as carving wood chopsticks and toothpicks"
They would have us believe that chopsticks are whittled with a Bowie knife? Toothpicks turned on a lathe?
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