China bans time travel

Well, kind of.

In summary, any reference to the idea of rewriting history is strictly prohibited. They really don't like the concept of free thought, do they?

Their people will rebel eventually. Societies and civilisations always reach a precipice right before the changes that occur. Just be aware that eventually this kind of censoring will happen here until the third world war starts.

Is it really worse than something like this? At least with China (or any other thing explicitly state-sanctioned) you know where you stand, what flies and what does not, black on white. Do thing A and don't do thing B and you're a good citizen.

On the other hand, keeping things murky and loosely defined (e.g. "potential terrorism", "unusual behavior" etc.) allows casual "well meaning" snitches and rats to flourish.

Mao has either rewritten or destroyed their historic background for the better part of a century. I don't think they even know their history to fear altering.

I don't think they did before anyway. China has always done a good job of using history to show the unbroken legitimacy of the huge government. When reading Chinese history, none of it seems to exist in areas outside the control of the empire of the time, even though it was very much smaller for a long period. Exceptions are made when one of the non-controlled areas is involved - for example, at war.

I believe every nation uses some degree of historical distortion or "beautification", at least for internal consumption.

Without going to extremes such as NK or China, and without considering recent historical event (any event from the 20th century is often subject to active political pressure today, everywhere), older history is often mixed with myth in order to create a strong national identity, even when none exists.

E.g. the U.S. has its All-American Tall Tales to unify what just 200 years ago was essentially a rag-tag bunch of hungry European (and predominantly Anglo-Saxon) settlers.

Keeping to my own country, there was recently a revival in the so called 1821 Revolution, an event that is narrated with the fervor of a heroic fairytale in our books, and is hailed as a prime example of unity that paved the way for the modern nation of Greece. Turks are demonized as inhuman, beastly overlords, the Orthodox Church is portrayed as a Paladin of Hellenicdom etc. etc. while the truth is much less glamorous, much less grand and much less romantic (e.g. the Turks were actually quite fair and liberal to the culture of their subjects, the Church was actually enjoying a lot of privileges and did anything in their power to oppose the revolution etc.).

Just so you don't think that Western Civilization = fully liberal, objective and always telling of the truth. I personally find it hypocritical to point at the Chinese or the NKeans and say "Boo Whoo, they are altering their history!" while every "western" nation did (and is still doing so) to some degree.

Who would want to watch or read something that was of a historical nature if it did not have hype to it. It is definitely wrong to do so, but at the same time it works.

Technician said:

Mao has either rewritten or destroyed their historic background for the better part of a century. I don't think they even know their history to fear altering.

Students in Chinese universities are no longer aware even of the Tiananmen square incident.

Watch this.

How about a less sensationalist article? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/14/china-time-travel-dramas

and you think they can do shit about time travel once some one do travel anyway?

the winners write history, here's an good example:

allied won WW1 and WW2, so they screwed over to the start of WW2 by harrassing the germans so hard that hitler actually got elected.

ever since WW2 the germans have been harrassed for various shit (from its time), and the french and brittish have shun like heros in their own burried shit, note all the collonizations and slavery that french, brittish, dutch etc have been running and so-on god damn, by that time either the brittish or french vere any better than hitlers jew-hunting and that was before WW2, I tell you, they're all fucking ashamed for their history. thats all basicly the same shit from just different assholes.

its most likely that chinas current tyrrany looking rule will end in that people in china will give their goverment the finger.

so why do they even try? this bizzare banning?

its just so much easier that all get along and if some dont, just shut the fuck up and stick to their own shit cus no one can sit upon the entire world.

Let's just hope that this convinces American McGee too come back...

This is the weirdest thing i've seen all day o_O

I for one welcome this ban. I think the past is better off unchanged.