Maybe, anyone living in post 9-11 Patriot act would say the same, more like a tendency rather than a bump?
BynarsAreOk
Like you see that Munich conference in February right? The official media loves it to an extent that is mind boggling, as if there is no hint of irony, going to the enemy side of the cold war and being applauded by almost the same ghouls as if its a sign that justifies the dengist path so far. "See its working they love us" and then merely weeks later the Trump tariffs happened. These are events that I'd laugh even 5 years ago. "Yeah the US just bombs Chinese allies but its fine because China got a round of applause in Munich!".
Chinese pacifism is basically gaslighting themselves into thinking they're not enemies of the west.
Most users here with that type of perspective ignore the people they claim to defend, and allege to speak for them anyway. Iran didn't ask for help and didn't need it at that moment, why should we assert that China needed to do something when Iran itself wouldn't assert it? One example of many
How is someone seriously suggesting the world's third largest nuclear power defending Iran is a bad outcome simply because Iran didn't bother asking, when literally the point is Iran getting their own nukes to defend themselves. Either Chinese or Russian umbrella would have seriously changed the calculation overnight.
The point made is Iran is China's major trading partner not the US. There is nothing to ignore here other than the fact China is the one getting fucked if they lose Iranian oil. You're asking us to justify why China wont act out of material self interest as if its an own. China is the one that constantly boasts about win-win relationships. I guess Iran is winning when they get bombed and China watches... respectfully obviously.
When the Palestinians call for a global revolution or global resistance to zionism that does not include Beijing either, clearly because Hamas didn't send a delegation to Beijing asking for a Chinese liberation force? Deeply unserious.
I think the sentiment here is more like we say "every country must get a nuke to defend against the US" and China's response is predictably "huh not on my border please". Its another contradiction people wont like, it happened in the past(DPRK) too so...
That said you're right its not like this is a current issue either, for better or worse these countries could not get a nuke even if they tried. It is funny China saying "its for stability", like they need to chill with the trade pill.
You have to assert an alternative economic model of reality that fits the facts better and uses materialist analysis, as well as just generally having a decent degree of knowledge of macroeconomics.
What? No! NGL this reads as someone who isn't even interested in Marxism economic side so why even beat yourself up for not discussing economics? Either you have the interest or you don't. I say this because absolutely nothing of what that user writes is ever complex or barely "correct" from a socialist viewpoint. The very basic principles of Marxist theory often disproves it, like with due respect, if you think you need a econ degree to contest them then idk... That said if you say "but it requires time investment and reading" then yes, I agree 100%. You need to spend some time reading and reading fairly regularly(one a month) to keep up.
Here even on reddit you can find this topic, what are some other Marxist sources. Monthly review is also a solid source though more varied.
Of course I mention Michael R. blog often because he also does excellent reviews of the broad situation e.g he does writeups on the econ confereces including the ones he visits(latest). BTW for an example talking point, you'll find Marxist economics has been trying to deal with China's "sub-imperialism" or "BRICS wont save us" for years now.
You do not need an econ degree to contest NakedCapitalism level takes, I'm sorry but no.
It is worrysome how all these people(cockshott, Roberts, Harvey, Hudson etc...) are all so old now I'm not sure who will replace their content but that is another discussion lol.
And the reason I'm being kind of aggressive in my calling out here is that while yes some things suck now some people just read more like some western third world maoists that have had their brains cooked and are now unable to do anything because the empire is doing 120d chess moves that mean that whatever we do we've already lost and the western population will never do anything and yadda yadda.
Since you're doing a meta commentary on the "doomerism" I'll add my thoughts too. If someone doesn't agree feel free to not read, I'll write either way.
Its funny how the very first few news megas on the Ukraine war was basicaly huge struggle sessions over the libs on the website having to accept Russia wasn't the bad side and even that already caused most of them to leave permanently. We never meant to do anything but to give Russia critical support but now we're policing ourselves over being too critical of Russia's eventual downfall. Who cares if western wunderwaffenare are useless when the Russians themselves are also idiots who already made a dozen blunders in this war.
I think if there is one "hill" I'd gladly die on is that "we" are not "doing" fucking anything. Of course by "we" it boils down to the China-Russia-Iran axis and by extension the BRICS optimism too.
I will gladly die on this hill that Palestine was a litmus test for China and it failed, I too was very positive on China-Russia-Ukraine prospects up to Oct 7th. But I had my positive world view shatter by that disgusting useless meeting in San Francisco, 1 month into the genocide(Israel bombed Al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Oct 17th) and not one word was spent on anything related to Israel let alone the whole ME. How China has cooperated with Israel since Oct 7th is well detailed now.
The second point is I do not feel the need to create new accounts, I've been here long enough to see the site culture change too and the whole garbage "China wins doing nothing" comes from the optimism carried over from the reddit communities(specialy genzdong etc). For example, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc... Its always some form of economic optimism = China "winning", just look at some comments and see how similar it is to hexbear culture of the past years.
This meme represented the hopes that the dengist economic prosperity would put China in a position to not only resist but become THE leadership of anti-imperialist resistance. This has not materialized. how can you discuss current events and their prospects if you hold yourself to 5 year old bed time stories of Xi fighting the US?
Repeating this hope while China is now realistically the #1 economy, they already created their own superweapons, China Has the World’s Largest Navy. What on earth is China still building for if none of this is enough to even begin to show a commitment to the anti-imperialist struggle?
You've been here throughout 2024, you saw this same larger hexbear community cry every couple of days calling Biden 99% Hitler etc... Yet when we simply say China should not, it must not side with Hitler then its all excuses, "trust the plan bro" or "smol bean China can't help but side with 99% Hitler or else 999 nukes will fly to Beijing ~~so anyway here is a photo of the newest 126th gen PLAAF fighter or another hypersonic missile porn post~~".
You're not going to tell me we need Uncritical support for... neolib reforms. Uncritical support for... playing both sides on Israel's genocide. Uncritical support for... AI garbage with a red paint. Uncritical support for... constantly shaking the hands of the Biden admin(and Trump too he wasn't as stupid or adversarial). Xinjiang was western media hysteria and CIA propaganda. None of these current issues with China are talking points from NYT, instead they're the first ones to support it when China does all of these things.
The recent Iran-Israel skirmish ,you can arrive at close to a 100% consensus China should defend Iran for their own economic and geopolitical self-interest and yet they didn't. So add that the list Uncritical Support^tm^ for... letting your biggest geopolitical partners get bombed to shit while you send angry letters to the UN.
Indeed some people already dropped the mask, Iran broke their brains, dipshit Carl Zha(worthless grifter) tells it straight up, "China doesn't own us anything". I've been noticing Chinese nationalists are just unapologetic and not very much committed to socialism or the global south. Chinese nationalists will continue to embrace capitalism, they'll continue to embrace selfish relations with all our enemies in the west if its good for China. For god sake just visit r/sino and they`re the better China sub, blatant chauvinism over there very often.
Nobody should pretend this is the good outcome or a good path. Chinese nationalism and chauvinism only means internationalism is dead and will remain dead since the cold war. Again, how are you going to sit here discussing news without realizing the fact there is no real actual anti-imperialist "bloc" or alliance?
Considering how much of this community identify was transformed into uncritical pro-China sentiment. I can't say more other than are some people waiting for global south countries to start burning Chinese flags so they can smugly turn around and say "hah clueless reactionary compradors they know nothing about the sacred righteous path to socialism! Dengism was absolutely the correct choice" as Xi and Biden-Trump eventually shake hands again and thousands, millions eventually billions of people die on the sidelines of this cooperation. [Insert a Xi emote here drinking liberal tears lol].
Ultimately I can say Carl Zha style Chinese chuavinists can go fuck themselves. This ought to end soon, you don't want to wait for 2050 to find out how Chinese chauvinists or "China wins doing nothing" idealists deal with climate change either.
This is an extremely popular take from people e.g Hasan.
In fact, the CPC is very adamantly against welfare state and has publicly stated this many times, and Xi Jinping has said before that Latin American-style “welfare state” will only encourage the people to turn lazy. This is also a major reason why they keep missing the obvious solution to alleviate the domestic consumption problem.
Just for the sake of argument as I mentioned before while you want "welfare" the socialist solution would be to move further along the socialist path which the CPC absolutely refuses to do.
Solving the consumption problem starts with lowering taxes on the poor, giving higher wages, creating new SOEs and expanding the current ones, more working benefits e.g vacation time, less working hours, more worker ownership culture e.g Huawei's bonuses etc and finally guillotining any and all billionaires who dare complain along with any dipshit economist with a Harvard PhD and a suit.
You're right Xi and others hate "welfare" but it is also to me a damning sign that they do not particularly value or desire a complete revolution away from the current capitalist status quo.
Common "prosperity" ought to begin with absolute equality, workers collective ownership etc. China needs to move along the socialist to communism path and not sit around trying to make "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work" nonsense work.
I do not know why people are acting surprised as if Putin and Russia are based anti-imperialists. Always remember the current nuclear non-proliferation status quo is beneficial to every single neoliberal country including Russia.
Remember that Russia-Putin and China-Xi sanctioned DPRK in 2015 after their successful nuclear test.
Of course we can rationalize a dozen reasons why these countries should support Iran and others getting nukes, but this is not how they see it. This gap is what explains China's death cult embrace of US and pacifism, it is what explains Putins multiple fall for it again award in Ukraine since 2014 etc...
I want to see TASS and RT put out coordinated denials of this narrative otherwise its going to be the same DPRK troops to Ukraine stuff again. People will dismiss only because its western sources while the Russians themselves only play around the issue and shift blame.
There are other reasons to see this as a plausible stance too. Russia has shown to be entirely self-interested and if they're judging that Iran may face a real war over the nuclear program it is only going to be a war that permanently puts Russia-Iran-China on the same "bloc". To me at least this is clearly undesirable for all parties. Neither Russia nor China want to fight the US realy, Russia is a white conservative shithole thinking they're on some global war against woke liberalism or something and China is cynical trade pill garbage.
At this point it should be clear Putin has already faced internal pressure to end this Ukraine war as soon as possible and expanding it by unconditionally supporting Iran's nuclear program is only going to make it harder.
I don't know, maybe within a week all Russian news and government denies this and its a nothingburger but it doesn't surprise me to see this alignment towards pushing Iran to accept a US deal at all, perhaps its even expected now realy.
IMO the capitalist victory also means climate change became unavoidable. Civilization will be destroyed for thousands of years if temperature goes over 5 degrees. By 3 degrees half the population is already dead and the feedback loop makes that a done deal. We`re on path for earlier than 2050.
I respect the fear of nuclear anihilation, specialy if a Soviet boomer came to me and explained how it felt living through it. But then we are now "priviledged" to experience the unique period of human mass extentinction from climate change caused by the capitalist victory in the cold war. Its ironic yes, also sad. If given the choice I`d rather echo the sentiment of war and struggle than the upcoming hell.
People will say humanity will go on regardless but who cares IMO, nihilism is only as powerful as you make it. In the long term the Sun will also engulf the solar system and destroy the Earth too.
I guess but it seems like very often they put a lot of emphasis on the "program" creation aspect. AI slop as it exists today is the opposite no?
I think of both extremes where the holodeck is a combination of being so extremely detailed you can spend years on a program and also supposedly extremely "slop" like where you can just say "computer create X" and it just does so.
The current AI slop is very much the latter part of this, specialy given how little control you have and if you do end up having to integrate AI art or whatever into some bigger project then it is borderline not saving any time at all.
At the current stage, you do not get exponentialy or even lineraly better results by spending more of your own time messing with AI models, LORAs etc.
So yeah I guess, maybe you may as well say that the replicator is just actualy good "fast food".
Absolutely not, this is why the DPRK alliance was crucial. China looks at Russia funny like that and they got 3 nuclear armed hostile countries near their borders.
India though is pretty much irrelevant in the long term, like they're literaly the #2 region to get fucked by climate change just second to Africa.