We Have Been Harmonized
by Kai Strittmatter · first published 2020
6mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2021–2026first – last mentioned
60% recommend40% neutral
Hailed as a masterwork of reporting and analysis, and based on decades of research within China, We Have Been Harmonized, by award-winning correspondent Kai Strittmatter, offers a groundbreaking look at how the internet and high tech have allowed China to create the largest and most effective surveillance state in history. We Have Been Harmonized is a terrifying portrait of life under unprecedented government surveillance--and a dire warning about what could happen anywhere under the pretense of national security.
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Surveillance in China is completely ubiquitous to an extent that most westerners don't realize. There is an excellent book on the subject, "We Have Been Harmonized" by Kai Strittmatter that discusses it. As an example, if you jaywalk in Shenzen, facial recognition technology will trigger and have your face and name posted on a television screen before you have…
on “Apple redirects Google Safe Browsing traffic through proxy servers in iOS 14.5” ↗…actions.” That is behavior modification on a large scale. If you’re interested in developing a more robust view of this topic, I highly recommend “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” by Shoshanna Zuboff and “We Have Been Harmonized” by Kai Strittmatter. They go into detail about what these systems are designed to achieve on a population scale.
on “McDonald's Built a 515-Page Dossier on Me. It Says I'll Never Stop Eating There” ↗…but unsurprising. Expect neurodivergent and other people who don’t meet the AI’s definition of sufficiently performative of happiness to be punished. If you want to read what this is leads to, see: “We have been harmonized : life in China's surveillance state“ [0] [0] https://search.worldcat.org/title/1148138970
on “Is There Any Safe Place to Complain About Work Online?” ↗I read this book: We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China's Surveillance State - Kai Strittmatter (Author) https://bookshop.org/books/we-have-been-harmonized-life-in-c... "China's new drive for repression is being underpinned by unpre-cedented…
I have read a number of news articles and the book "We Have Been Harmonized" https://bookshop.org/books/we-have-been-harmonized-life-in-c... Is this enough for me to say "I Know China evil"?
…be watching everybody. Just enough that the subjects believe their behavior to be under scrutiny, and police themselves accordingly. At least, that's the principle of the panopticon. I've been reading We Have Been Harmonized, which talks about China's efforts to build something like this on a massive scale.
on “Cold war spy satellites and AI detect ancient underground aqueducts” ↗