Chinese Internet Addiction Boot Camp Prison Break 177
UgLyPuNk writes "A group of inmates at the Huai'an Internet Addiction Treatment Centre decided they'd had enough of the 'monotonous work and intensive training.' Working together, they tied their duty supervisor to his bed and made a run for it. The 14 patients, aged from 15 to 22, hailed a taxi to take them to a nearby town — but were uncovered when the driver took them to the police station instead, suspicious of the identically dressed young men who were unable to pay the fare."
'monotonous work and intensive training' (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of playing WoW, are they just living it now?
Re:Age 15-22? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the age of [whateveritscalled] in China? i.e. Why do over 16/18 (?) year olds need to "escape"? Pressure from the government, or parents, or honour, or something else?
I think the word your looking for is "oppression", and the answer is "any".
Re:'monotonous work and intensive training' (Score:2, Insightful)
So you have to play for several weeks realtime before it gets fun? Sounds great. :P
Re:'monotonous work and intensive training' (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of playing WoW, are they just living it now?
But on a good monitor, WoW has got better resolution than the real world!
(appologies to Philip J. Fry)
Re:22, 28, what does the number have to do with it (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, legal adulthood? I live in a civilised country, not China or the US, so I'm not sure why you think pointing out equally nobbed up US laws would be a compelling argument.
You're really reading far too little into the story. The (alleged) motivations behind the kidnappers is a strawman - would you support Scientology's right to kidnap, hold and abuse adults in order to "correct behaviour"? What matters is that victims are being held against their will by private individuals, with no recourse to help from the State.
Is that worse than the abuses carried out by the Chinese State? No, but it's a new type of abuse, and cold comfort to these new victims.
Re:video games are an escape from reality (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhat verbose. Modern China is joining the industrial revolution [wikipedia.org], just a couple of hundred years late to the party. It's not like what's happening there is unprecedented.
Re:Really.... (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem is, would you willingly "bide your time" when you are being tortured? People have DIED in these 'camps'. Mind you, that's not died as in fell down the stairs or choked on a biscuit, that's died as in WAS KILLED BY THE SO CALLED TREATMENT!
This isn't fat camp, it's torture till conformity, then torture until there's no more money coming in for 'treatment'.
This isn't humane, and would be illegal in most of the world. It might even be illegal in China, but if you pay off the right people and make it sound like it's for a good nationalistic cause, you can get away with murder, literally.
Honestly, I'd love to visit China, but please note the key word visit. They have some absolutely amazing landscape.
chinese children are sheltered by parents (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:video games are an escape from reality (Score:2, Insightful)
Video games can provide an escape from reality. They can also be a unique tool for understanding the world.
These two statements are also true of any media you can name, or which will ever be invented -- books, magazines, newspapers, movies, music, theater, dance, whatever.