anya

I thought it was very interesting and put very well the way in which lack of free speech is so able to influence people.

I know people argue that countries even if they do change to a different kind of government tend to stay similar psychically to what they were before.

Some of it was somewhat worrying. Let's hope China does not see nuclear war as a possibility.

I think control of people is nowhere near as strong in the societies with free press and democracy - which is not to say there is not a lot of propaganda and that freedom of people in these kind of societies depends on the lack of apathy and the education and indeed ethics of the people. Apathy is however the biggest reason for 'free societies' going astray.

Openness through the internet allows for much greater exchange of views and my hope would be that at some time many of the Chinese people who post here would begin to see that in order to find the truth, or the nearest to the truth you can find, you need to at least consider things that others say which are not in accordance with your current view. You need to weigh things up, balance things that are said before coming to your conclusion rather than remaining rigid in your thinking and refusing to look into what other people say.

Thank you for posting that. It gave pause for thought.