415
Priorities (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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US tech may lag on the important stuff... but it's also pretty meh in the shitty ones too

Shaq sleeping meme showing Shaq sleeping at China lapping the US at manufacturing, robotics, trains, batteries, etc. followed by the description "Chatbots and Nudify Apps" and Shaq waking above the phrase "WE CANNOT LET CHINA WIN THE AI RACE"
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[–] 19 points 1 month ago (31 children)

So, what are the practical negatives of China at this point? Am I going to get flogged for pirating games or is it just as bad as the US?

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  • [–] 66 points 1 month ago (19 children)

    Most of their negatives are inward facing. My fear of them taking the mantle of world power would be that they become a highly racist and destructive expansionist power similar to the US of the Manifest Destiny era, but that remains to be seen.

    They are still quite openly repressive and you can and will face prison time for wrongspeak. Everything we hate about corporate surveillance they've been doing basically since the internet went mainstream. I doubt LGBT+ would have a good time under their rule, to say the least. Porn is outright criminalized. I'm not sure where they stand on piracy, but the tools you need to do it "safely" are probably illegal, and you've got the great firewall to contend with.

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  • [+] -13 points 1 month ago (18 children)

    Queer rights in China are highly regional, and steadily improving. Porn is indeed illegal, but piracy is less punished than in most western countries. VPNs are easy to get to bypass the firewall if you want to. Their surveillance is actually behind the west in terms of prevalence, it's just more in the open and honest.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (13 children)

    What's this about surveillance? Don't give me bullshit about the number of cameras per capita all that shows is the cities are denser.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    You're talking to Cowbee, loyally devoted defender of the PRC.

    Cowbee, of the "Expansionist Imperialism is okay when China does it."

    "It's actually chauvinist to call the PRC a Han-dominated ethno-state" Cowbee.

    Cowbee has many titles.

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  • [+] -6 points 1 month ago* (8 children)

    China isn't imperialist, nor is it "expansionist imperialist." It isn't that it's okay when China does it, I have no idea what you're referencing. It is chauvanist to call China an ethno-state, considering that it has 55 minority ethnic groups, who are overrepresented in the NPC to ensure their voices are not shut out by the Han majority. Do you have an issue with responding to me directly if you have something to say, or are you hoping I just won't notice while you undermine me so you can get away with it uncontested?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    China isn't imperialist

    Yes it is.

    nor is it "expansionist imperialist."

    Yes it is.

    I have no idea what you're referencing.

    Thanks for admitting you're uninformed. You can start by reading about Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. If you want you can look into their secret police networks in places like the UK and Canada too.

    It is chauvanist to call China an ethno-state,

    No it's not.

    considering that it has 55 minority ethnic groups

    All of whom are repressed by the dominant Han majority

    who are overrepresented in the NPC

    That's like saying America isn't racist because there are black people in congress.

    Do you have an issue with responding to me directly

    Not at all

    are you hoping I just won't notice while you undermine me so you can get away with it uncontested?

    Uncontested? I have no problem responding to your "contests."

    Do you have a problem with me responding to people who aren't you? You want me to only talk to you, because if I have a reasonable discussion with reasonable people then it becomes harder for you to monopolize the conversation with aggressive efforts at spreading disinformation?

    I'll respond to whomever I want. Do I need your permission? This isn't WeChat.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    No, China is not imperialist, nor "expansionist imperialist." This is baseless. The west is actively imperialist. The west uses financial domination of the global south, including dollar hegemony, IP monopoly, unequal exchange, and more to extract as much surplus from the global south as possible. China does not, and the reason it does not is because it isn't dominated by private finance capital. Private finance capital is the main driver of imperialism as a stage in capitalism, and because you have not looked into the causes of imperialism and neocolonialism and have not looked at the numbers, you assume that the socialists must be guilty as well:

    I've read a lot about Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and while I still need to read on Inner Mongolia, I don't see that changing my assertion that China is not expansionist. I recommend you read Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation, Taiwan: An Anti-Imperialist Resource, Hong Kong Reading List, and Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth. All of these are western sources, so you should have no problems with believing this to simply be "CPC propaganda."

    China has comprehensive minority protections and rights. Your evidence thus far seems to be that China is secretly evil because it has affirmative action, which is nonsense of course and demands more than just blanket statements with no backing. You're free to respond to whoever you want, but when you lie and slander to other people behind their backs, certainly you can see why that would be a pretty low thing to do, no?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    No, China is not imperialist, nor "expansionist imperialist." This is baseless.

    See, I just don't find it worthwhile to try to reason with people who are allergic to reality.

    you assume that the socialists must be guilty as well

    China is NOT socialist.

    Your evidence thus far seems to be that China is secretly evil because it has affirmative action

    That's a blatant strawman, as I never said anything of the sort.

    You're free to respond to whoever you want, but when you lie and slander to other people behind their backs

    Point to the lie. I've only spoken truth. And if it's slander to call out propaganda/disinfo accounts, then I'll say 99 hail marys and sleep soundly.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

    China is socialist, I already explained how and why to you a couple of days ago, which I will repost here so you can read it again:

    The PRC has a socialist market economy, a form of developing socialism where the commanding heights and critical industries are socially owned, while emerging industries are marketized. This is because the CPC understands the Marxist critique of capitalism, which isn't that private property is morally wrong, but that the basis of social ownership is centralized, socialized production as seen in developed markets, not decentralized and scattered production, which instead suits markets.

    The CPC already tried the more dogmatic method of collectivizing everything, and this went the way Marxists would predict: unstable. The developing areas were in contradiction between their unsuitable level of productive forces, and an attempt at forcing a higher level of social organization upon them. This resulted in dogmatic errors that have since been corrected.

    Regarding the CPC, they are a proletarian party. The state in Marxist analysis can never be a neutral "state," it can only be a "feudal state," a "capitalist state," a "socialist state." They can only represent the ruling class of society, as determined by which class controls the economic base. The proletariat and peasantry took power in 1949, and since then have had dominating control over the base and superstructure. Hierarchy is not class, that is not Marxist. The capitalists that exist in China are under the domination of the state, they are not in power.

    As for the affirmative action claim being a strawman, your only logical point was that affirmative action in China does not matter because the US has Black Americans in government. This is such a non-sequitor that I had to find a point somewhere, so that's the best point I could make out of your logic. I already responded directly to the lies you made, feel free to go back and reread my comment.

    I don't know what your goal is here. If your goal was to delegitimize me, then surely you'd actually respond to the points I brought up and source something, as it stands you're just legitimizing me.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Regurgitating the same disinformation as last time isn't the same thing as making a point.

    As for the affirmative action claim being a strawman, your only logical point was that affirmative action in China does not matter because the US has Black Americans in government.

    I never mentioned affirmative action, that's something you brought up. We were talking about minority representation in legislature. Do you think affirmative action is required for minorities to become representatives? Because if so, that's pretty demeaning as it suggests you believe they can't get elected on their own merit.

    And I didn't say minority representation "in China does not matter because the US has Black Americans in government." I said that arguing that China doesn't have a racial hierarchy on the grounds that minorities have representation is the same thing as claiming America isn't racist because it has black members of congress.

    You have to completely misconstrue my point to arrive at the interpretation you took away, which tells me you're being disingenuous. Hence I'm not putting a full-throttled effort into my responses to you.

    If your goal was to delegitimize me,

    No, I don't have to make that my goal because you already delegitimize yourself with basically every comment you make. The only people who ever side with you are the ones entrenched in the same epistemic bubble as you. In a sense, that puts you on pretty even ground with maga in my worldview.

    then surely you'd actually respond to the points I brought up and source something

    Nah, that's just called "not taking the bait"

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I referenced numerous works that provide definitive accounts of anti-discrimination laws, legal protections, and administrative power and representation. You deflected, said I was wrong, and refused to engage with any of it, hand waving it as "disinformation" despite largely being sourced from places like the New York Times. You have no actual legs to stand on, and justify your own lack of developed argumentation and lack of evidence as "not taking the bait." Anyone can see that the only people who ever side with you are the ones entrenched in the same epistemic bubble as you. In a sense, that puts you on pretty even ground with maga in my worldview, refusing to look at hard evidence and shutting your eyes and ears to uncomfortable facts.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yeah none of your links were to the NYT, so that's just a blatant lie. Most of your links were to fringy ML sites, and the rest were only tangentially relevant to the discussion at best.

    I'll admit though, you seem to be getting better at deflection and obfuscation. A cursory glance alone might make it appear that I'm the one here being dense.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    It wasn't a lie, the site links many western news sites as sources for claims. If you actually took a few minutes to engage beyond checking the links, you would have known that. No deflection or obfuscation on my part, just disappointment that you won't even do the due diligence to refute any points. You are indeed the one being dense, sorry to say. This is kind of like that time when you were insistent that the proper term is "Marxist-Leninism" rather than "Marxism-Leninism", which Wikipedia easily verifies.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Read up on the Five Eyes system. Many western countries have intense surveillance that is not only highly sophisticated, but very under-published about.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Porn is indeed illegal

    Production and distribution not consumption.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Ah, gotcha! Makes sense.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago

    It's hypercompetitive from an early age I guess? College exams are matter of life-or-death, it's the only ticket to a good life you will ever get, the spots are limited, and you are either pride or disgrace of the family depending on your academic excellence. And you are competing with thousands of other kids who are also pressured to excel.

    I would probably kill myself if I was pressured so much to compete with fellow humans as a kid, honestly.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    The level of casual racism in Chinese culture is pretty exceptional. It's not great in the USA, but China takes it to a whole new level.

    Things are supposedly getting better, but then we also say that in the west (and is it really).

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I would also like to know because we already have all of the commie distopia promises I was told about. Are there new worse ones now, or am I supposed to rely entirely on cognitive dissonance?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Yeah, this is literally where I'm standing. Everything I was warned about growing up has come in spades delivered by the system that was framed as the last stang against this nonsense. At this point, I'm genuinely hoping mexico becomes the next global super power because I can't trust any of the current regimes to have the best interest of humans.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

    So, you know all those bad things you hear about China? State survalience, freedom of movement, free speech. We decided to implement all of the bad things and none of the good things.

    Why? Well, because we have to. You don't want China to WIN THE RACE FOR AI SUPER INTELLIGENCE! Then you'll lose all your symbolic freedoms that have already been destroyed.

    I just want high speed rail man. I just want to go to the grocery store and not spend $100+ for one bag of groceries. I can't follow recipes, the spices cost $12 or more a piece.

    I don't want to "be China". I stan for China because despite their many flaws, they are improving and building shit. We can do that here if we learn from the way that they reign in capitalist control. My local library has visible black mold and the librarian is always coughing.

    Also, a lot of the "evil state government disappearing people" are things like this:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna34127010

    Say I'm crazy. But I think the death sentence is bad. But, if I was gonna reserve it for anything. I'd reserve it for people that decide to poison baby formula for profit.

    Hell, if I was world dictator, I'd mandate than any mother that needed baby formula they could go into any store and get it for free. Meanwhile, we lock up our baby formula behind glass. Because no one in their right mind, sees someone stealing baby formula and thinks "that person is wrong". I would hope they think "what the fuck is wrong with our society that people are stealing baby formula"

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  • [–] [S] 13 points 1 month ago

    Personally, I have this crazy idea:

    What if we just had a strong regulatory state ... but democracy too? Is that too crazy to even imagine? Like... China, but with press freedoms? And open elections?

    It doesn't seem nearly as radical to me as either China or the US presently, tbh.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Seriously. It makes people look bad & hypocritical when all they say is “China bad” while giving other countries like the US passes & excuses on corruption. It’s one reason that makes people like myself stan for China more.

    it’s what happens when people let corporate, mainstream media & corrupt politicians brainwash them instead of doing research & having critical thinking.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    This, this is what I'm feeling!

    We've known the solutions to all these problems for generations and still choose the most harmful option to prevent then. We put rules in place to torture people because they want different genitals, or because they're a different color, I've never been able to understand how anyone can care so much about any of that!

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago

    The actual, practical negatives for the average person are that it's still a developing country, so much of, say, rural China isn't as nice and developed as higher tier cities. This is a vanishing problem though as the entire country is rapidly developing. You also would have to learn Mandarin, and immigration is very difficult. The benefit system can also be more complicated due to how it was set up in the past, with many benefits being tied to regions, but this again is something being worked on.

    The primary benefit of China is that people there actually look forward to the future because of how rapidly it's improving, and that this has been steady since 1949.

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