It’s entirely possible that the Global Times -- hardly a paragon of journalistic integrity -- got the story wrong, and the Gaoxin VII isn’t designed to induce nervous collapse. It's also possible, probable in fact, that Chinese Communist propaganda can't induce such a fit.Here's what the Global times wrote:
“When carrying out a mission, the airplane [the Gaoxin VII] will use its own ‘programs’ to forcefully overpower enemy television stations, radio stations and wireless communication networks, interfere with the enemy's propaganda dissemination programs, affect the enemy's military-civilian morale, and create rumors and confusion, thus causing the enemy, from government to everyday citizens, to have ‘nervous breakdowns’ and achieving their goal of rendering them helpless and unable to fight.”That's hilarious... until it's not.
Can we just get this as a movie?
Posts
14 comments:
Let's try some comments on this one. It's Saturday morning. Read this comments instructions above to understand the New Comments Regime.
It seems implausible from a technology standpoint. How many people, in America at least, still use TV without cable or satellite?
Radio is still common, but it's somewhat ephemeral. Americans are quite accustomed to changing channels or turning the thing off when the content doesn't interest them.
It would make a good movie, though. Maybe the Sharknado people could do it, with help from the Red Dawn (1984) writers.
I forgot to address the contention that this beast is supposed to "forcefully overpower" WiFi. That's what seems most silly from a technology standpoint. So the plane flies over Aunt Bea's house and suddenly her Yahoo screen turns into a Communist propaganda screen. She's gonna turn it off, thinking her computer has gone batty or maybe she has a virus. She's not an idiot. And a few seconds later, once the plane is out of range, everything returns to normal.
Coming soon to Syfy Channel.
ChiComNado...!
Sounds feasible as a way of creating a momentary disruption, but sustained? Doubt it.
The Gaoxin VII can mess with the first down line, but the soon to be in production Gaoxin VIII takes it to a whole new level.
Its supposed to be able to harvest multiple organs from a running dog in a single pass at 30,000 feet.
To be fair it will also automatically deposit market value into the donor's bank account to conclude the transaction.
They make it sound like the Riddler's 3D box in "Batman Forever".
We are more subtle. Our president will take over our not-so-smart phones with his messages. The Fed will send us govt. approved regular programming on TV, on the radio, on our X-boxes and iPads... Since we are a "free" people, we trust the govt. is protecting us from our silly selves.
We beat the Chinese to a country-wide nervous breakdown in which our white-black president denounces a jury for following the law to release a white-Hispanic citizen for killing a black-black attacker.
""One moment you’re sitting at home watching CNN, and the next you’re a basket case...""
Dearest, you are already a basket case sitting at home watching CNN.
China only gets away with censorship and repression because it's powerful.
They've killed more people than the Germans ever did, but their regime can sit at the table with everyone else.
Less powerful countries have to deal with international condemnation when they do things like this.
Might makes right.
Comments are on moderation now, so they won't appear immediately.
Interesting story. By chance, I watched the movie "Videodrome" yesterday for the first time in a couple of decades. How do you say "long live the new flesh" in Chinese?
I could totally see this causing breakdowns if... say... it was the last 5 minutes of a tied-up Bears-Packers game...
Against, say, the United States, it would be ludicrous, for a mix of technical reasons (effective raditated power, diversity in radio bands, wired systems, vulnerability to anti-aircraft fire, size of the country, et cetera) and social ones (there is no propaganda hardening more effective than enduring the US commercial media, where billions of dollars are spent trying to induce all sorts of contradicting behaviors).
However, if you were invading North Korea, where the number of stations are small, the counter-technology is weak, the whole country could be blanketed from only a few aircraft and people have been raised on a steady diet of one kind of propaganda? It becomes actually possible that your propaganda could seriously affect an important fragment of the country, and the overall effect might resemble a country-wide 'nervous breakdown'.
Post a Comment