Memes

So, hopefully I can communicate my sincerity well enough for my response to result in earnest conversation, thats usually what I'm hoping for when I chat with .ml folks (though most of the time its to ask questions as theres a lot of language/vocabulary thats more common in those circles than elsewhere on the threadiverse. Its easier to convey your sincerity with questions I guess)

Also sorry in advance, I'm tired and today has sucked and I'm pretty shit at being efficient with words even when my brain is working. You don't have to read all this, at this point I'm typing it at least as much for me as for you. I'm aware this is too much text I'm just not capable of editing.

Having looked up the definition just to make sure I'm not mistaken, I don't believe "two things can be true" is actually a thought terminating cliche? Its a pithy reply, but Wikipedia defines a thought terminating cliche as such:

A thought-terminating cliché is a form of loaded language – often passing as folk wisdom – intended to end an argument and bypass cognitive dissonance with a cliché rather than a point.

"Two things can be true" explicitly has a point. The point is that they see both the US and China as having dystopian features. Which you may disagree with, but a pithy retort isnt a logical fallacy, theres still an actual position theyre taking. Is there something about the term "thought terminating cliche" that I'm misunderstanding? To be honest I almost never hear the term outside of debate on the threadiverse.

To be clear, I think there is much about the US that I find more dystopian than China. I also know that any time I talk to people I consider to have historical expertise or who have actual geographical and demographic proximity to China, they have pretty clear criticisms of the Chinese government. I do not have meaningful perspective by which to gauge the accuracy of their perceptions, and I do expect that an enormous amount of what I grew up learning about China is manufactured, or exaggerated for political gain.

Honestly the thing I feel most confident personally in finding dystopian about China is the surveillance. Depending on your perspective, that may be less of a big deal to you, and thats okay. But even if its significantly less than the almost 1 camera for every two people in Beijing figure, thats pretty dystopian to me. I do not wish to live in that world. And I do think that's an understandable position for me to have. London also has a frankly dystopian amount of surveillance, I wouldn't want to live there either, and theyre estimated at being a much much lower ratio of cameras to people.

Other issues people debate regarding China like human rights issues are more important, but I'm not a scholar, and I have no ability to read or pass judgment on primary sources, so I don't feel I have much meaningful perspective on other issues. And quite frankly, I think very few people on lemmy have that actual expertise to read multiple languages fluently and the academic background to pass judgment on sources either, so what random people online tell me is true about some of the most hotly debated segments of Chinese history doesnt mean a lot to me. For the most part, we all just live in this world of secondary and tertiary sources where all of the information we have is filtered through entities shaped by the powerful governments that theyre in some way beholden to.

I very explicitly don't see China as an enemy nation. I just also don't see them as beyond reproach and without any skeletons in their closet. Not so much because I believe fervently they committed xyz atrocities and despite no expertise or proximity, I just know thats true chase someone told me. I just don't think power really ever exists at the scale of a world super power of more than a billion people without abuses happening. I don't think really any country thats relevant on the world stage is without issues, and if a new country became a major geopolitical player I would fully expect that they would then also have issues, and likely already have those issues from along the way to becoming a major geopolitical player.

I get that you feel I have made assumptions about who y'all are and how you see things but to be honest your reply literally just described me in like 6 different ways that aren't even remotely accurate while asserting that thats what I'm doing. And I get why, y'all are undoubtedly exhausted from dealing with people who engage in a pretty hostile way all the time. But like, I literally like last week had an argument with someone who was mad at me for being too far left here on the threadiverse. I may not be the most knowledgeable or most deeply steeped in praxis but I do think I'm entitled to saying I'm not a liberal, and that not sharing your exact perspective doesnt make me into one. I don't see China as an enemy, nor do I hate china, even a little bit. I have zero hatred for China. I really like learning about how China has addressed certain problems- just a bit ago folks on .ml were explaining to me the program or policy that helps keep folks in China fed, I wish I could remember what its called off the top or my head, I think it had 5 in the name like 5 guarantees or assurances or something

I'm not frustrated with y'all for having a pro China perspective, I'm frustrated with y'all because any time folks don't tiptoe around the disagreement on whether China good or china bad, the pent up defensiveness y'all clearly live in as a product of what this site is like, turns into bitterness in an instant, and as an outsider to your perspective, even a curious one, it all just reads as trying to argue China good actually. And I get why, I do. But maybe its just because as I learn more about political theory I tend to lean more anarchist, but I'm pretty much never gonna be huge on "simping" for wildly powerful nation states (sorry, I'm tired and I don't have better vocabulary for what I mean)

And I get where it comes from but it still sucks shit to be around. Folks can't really look at anything differently from y'all without it being taken as an attack. And to be fair I'm sure it often is, and I have no doubt thats where it comes from. And yet I come back to: it still sucks shit to be around. And to be pragmatic, it doesnt even seem like a good way of deprogramming people from western propaganda, so much as just being a collective coping exercise where you can vent the resentment for folks too far outside your bubble for subjecting y'all to constant bullshit. That's really all I was trying to express; I'm venting just like y'all are. It's one of the most overtly miserable aspects of the social dynamics on this site. And y'all aren't the only player in that shitty toxic dynamic, but y'all are one of them. And I wish it didnt have to be that way.