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sincx fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Nov 3, 2016 07:13
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sincx posted:
we've having a goon meet in two weeks in hong kong, you should come if you're free  i'll be there on the 18th-22nd
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Nov 3, 2016 07:38
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Hey you should hang out with us in Hong Kong. There's beertopia and I'm thinking of throwing a BBQ. We got some other out of town goons coming as well. **** Rich or poor, everyone in China can still use a squat toilet and throw their poop stained toilet paper in some basket  So Angel Opportunity touched on rural Shandong. It reminds me of the stories I hear from my older colleagues and boss when they left Hong Kong during the 80's and invested in Shenzhen. Barely any electricity, no highways, people were still wearing Mao clothes. Sure Hong Kong was more "international" but the world wasn't as globalized back then and Hong Kong wasn't really that rich compared to now. Yeah I know Hong Kong is a giant money sink for international dirty money and we live in poo poo boxes with low median income but the city and parts of the world has certainly become richer than the 80's. People from the country side threw themselves at the factories back in the day. It was actually through the foreign affiliated factories that workers learned a lot more about modern living. Workers who spit were fined. Swearing was fined. Littering was fined. It's mind grueling work. Everything is made or planned for the sake of efficiency, order, and profit. Some of you guys who work/live in China might chuckle at what I wrote, but foreign run factory operations are no nonsense kind of places because once things are not profitable the factory will just pack up and move. Some people were content to save money for a house back home and retire. Some people went bootstraps and started learning English on their own at night and attended night school and started their own businesses. It was a free for all environment and now the country has to deal with the left behind by the rat race. In the middle of all this street making GBS threads, Japanese hating, bajiu fueled bureaucratic mess of a country, there was a window of social mobility through manufacturing. People had more time for leisure and self development. Unfortunately, China is going through the middle income trap and the wealth gap is massive. The argument for the current status quo is that the baseline existed has been "uplifted" and the CHINESE DREAM WILL LIVE ON. I just puked a little typing that but instead of thinking about Remembrance Day I'm just going to use Tmall and alipay shopping. It's really ages ahead than everything else
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Nov 3, 2016 08:00
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Oh yes!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAfssuXHjuY
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Nov 3, 2016 08:04
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Squalid posted:You know I've seen some surveys like this before showing extremely counter intuitive results, like sub Saharan African countries scoring much better than many developed nations. It sometimes makes me question just how meaningful such survey data is, like I wonder what results you'd get by surveying blood-cortisol levels. Not saying there isn't anything to surveys like this, and certainly it isn't hard to find farmers/fishermen/ranchers waxing poetic about their lifestyle, but you'd think if rural residents were so satisfied with their lot in lot they wouldn't be fleeing to cities just as fast as they could manage. I have read self-satisfaction is mostly a function of relative social status, with more egalitarian groups experiencing less resentment/stress over one's rank in the hierarchy. I imagine Chinese villages have less extreme wealth disparities than cities, although the same might not be true in all rural regions of all nations. the primary driver of rural to urban migration in most economies is a lack of demand for agricultural labor/opportunity for employment. remember in a preindustrial/agricultural economy the great majority of people do not own land, they're wage workers for landowners. it is actually fairly consistent across countries that rural people with a comfortable economic position are much happier/live much better than the urban proletariat created immediately after rural to urban migration in china's case of course you had the whole communism thing happen, so land was redistributed to people and turned into collective farms, which has had the effect of entrenching a rural smallholding class that is poor but not so poor they can't survive and are forced into cities icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Nov 3, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2016 08:40
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hong kong divorce lunch posted:I can't wait to move out of Hong Kong with all this crap going on. You should read the comments from the guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/02/hong-kong-beijing-intervene-pro-democracy-activists-basic-law
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Nov 3, 2016 08:53
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If there's any conspiracy behind the actions of the kids, it's going to be China's to bring down the hammer. Most of these people are just paid psychos, though.
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Nov 3, 2016 09:48
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Grand Fromage posted:We really need to teach people better about making false equivalencies. I was comparing versions of poverty, and America is a convenient reference point. Yes, it's a false equivalency in a way. If you ask the people, western values don't feature money as #1. Though if you asked Chinese, I think they would probably say family. In any case, I was pointing out the unfortunate reality that western society, in particular American society, has institutionalized greed in the form of the corporation, granting them powers far beyond what most people desire.
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Nov 3, 2016 13:10
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Changing topics, just took a high speed train through the countryside, and holy poo poo there are a lot of seemingly abandoned unfinished developments.
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Nov 3, 2016 13:24
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Rated PG-34 posted:I was comparing versions of poverty, and America is a convenient reference point. The incredibly vapid materialism does have an American counterpart; it just does so far in the past, far enough that at that point we're into a discussion on history back when Upton Sinclaire was relevant It really is kinda depressing to see how capitalism has completely failed to fill the idealogical moral/ethical vacuum left by the abandonment of Maoism, though it's tempered by a quick comparison with the absolute garbage work the Orthodox church has done in Russia where a similar thing happened after the fall. This has been the root of the encouragement for all the nationalist nonsense the CCP props up and seeing as even that is starting to fail, I really do wonder what they'll think of next, if anything.
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Nov 3, 2016 13:46
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Deceitful Penguin posted:It really is kinda depressing to see how capitalism has completely failed to fill the idealogical moral/ethical vacuum left by the abandonment of Maoism, though it's tempered by a quick comparison with the absolute garbage work the Orthodox church has done in Russia where a similar thing happened after the fall. I'd argue this is (partly? not to discount plain old corruption and incompetence) by design coming from the state and not something that just happened spontaneously. People whose values boil down to "more money for me, gently caress you" aren't likely to rock the boat. I think this goes hand in hand with the state disappearing critics like human rights lawyers, that bookseller from Hong Kong, those five feminists who tried to protest sexual harassment, that guy who was planning to wear a "Xitler" T-shirt, etc. I think I remember protesters from Egypt saying very similar things about how things were under Mubarak. Authoritarian states can't tolerate even mild dissent and this is the result. Obviously there's no alternative morality starting to form: the state is crushing anyone who even tries. caberham posted:the CHINESE DREAM WILL LIVE ON. The "China Dream" really is just sad, isn't it? Talk about a Chinese knock-off of the "American Dream". Kassad fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Nov 3, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2016 14:10
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Imperialist Dog posted:I imagine the draw of the cities is that although you might be happy with your lot in a hardscrabble lifestyle, the promise of more money in a month than you get all year as a dirt farmer might have something to do with leaving the old homestead. There's also that when you have the draw of the cities for decades on end, a ton of the people who were least happy with rural life simply aren't going to stick around to bring down the average happiness. You certainly see this in the US, where nearly 100 years of the majority of people living in the cities and the rural population continuing to shrink has meant that a lot of the people still in rural areas are fairly comfortable at least. Lots of barely scraping by family farmers are gone, for instance, and a lot of the farmers left are comfortably running large farms with minimal worries. And a lot of the rest of the people still out there are old folks who hate the idea of adjusting to a city or suburb lifestyle.
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Nov 3, 2016 16:39
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This thread has depressed me greatly. Not even the historical irony of China's cities becoming hyper-capitalistic provides more than momentary amusement. I used to actually have hopes for China, but over the past couple of decades it feels like it's actually gotten more oppressive - the worst of both worlds, east and west. I'm drunk, so perhaps I am being overly dramatic, but reading these stories doesn't give me a lot of hope for the future of modern China, you know?
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Nov 3, 2016 17:04
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I've been following Chinese politics for about 15 years now and am very disillusioned and cynical about it; certainly any hopes of political reform have been well and crushed by this point. It would be pretty amazing if the CCP were to somehow avoid the long-predicted collapse but it's clear by this point that nobody can really pinpoint anything with certainty.
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Nov 3, 2016 17:17
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Pfff, the moment that Deng took over China turned to poo poo and if you thought that it would go otherwise, hah! Right now, it's a race which will get them first; water and food insecurity, political instability or something neat and different. About the only thing we can certain of is that it will never be good.
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Nov 3, 2016 18:21
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SlackJawedMoron posted:This thread has depressed me greatly. Not even the historical irony of China's cities becoming hyper-capitalistic provides more than momentary amusement. I used to actually have hopes for China, but over the past couple of decades it feels like it's actually gotten more oppressive - the worst of both worlds, east and west. I'm drunk, so perhaps I am being overly dramatic, but reading these stories doesn't give me a lot of hope for the future of modern China, you know? the idea that China would become a west-friendly liberal democracy was always idiotic, probably the stupidest part of the already very stupid end of history fukuyama predictions
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Nov 3, 2016 19:28
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icantfindaname posted:the idea that China would become a west-friendly liberal democracy was always idiotic, probably the stupidest part of the already very stupid end of history fukuyama predictions By the same token it wasn't a foregone conclusion that China would be like it is now. There have been plenty of local experiments with elections and whatnot. The biggest issue is that the CCP looked at the collapse of the Soviet Union and took the lesson that it was caused or abetted at least partly by a loss of central control and the expansion of free speech and political discussion and so they've been hellbent on avoiding that in China. But it's not like that's some sort of sustainable path. In general the CCP always goes for repression first, which I think is a little bit darkly funny because I don't believe that 'repress your symptoms and you'll be cured' is the philosophy behind traditional Chinese medicine. China could have been a democracy friendly with the West if the KMT had won the civil war. I would hesitate to blame Deng, out of any of the leaders, for the current situation. Opening the country was the right move, but there was much more that needed to happen, still needs to happen.
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Nov 3, 2016 19:34
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angel opportunity posted:Most of what I'm describing is how things are in the cities, I don't know if people who just decide to stay in the countryside face the same kind of grind. I think it's possible the people who are condemned to poverty are more likely to be happy in that they don't have to deal with so much of this bullshit. I do get the sense though that if you do really well in school on the farm, that you can go to a good university, which plucks you out of being rural. There's probably a lot of pressure from urbanization for the younger generations to get out of the country, and I'm guessing the "happy farmer" thing you're seeing isn't going to last. The marriage stuff is definitely true in the part of Anhui my wife's family is from. (OMG was her dad pissed when she started dating me.) But they're all within a relatively short bus ride of a medium-to-large city, and at least her mom's village is a place that actually has some infrastructure. It'll be one of the last holdouts of happy farmers.
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Nov 3, 2016 19:38
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icantfindaname posted:the idea that China would become a west-friendly liberal democracy was always idiotic, probably the stupidest part of the already very stupid end of history fukuyama predictions I think there's some wiggle room between 'western friendly liberal democracy' and 'Orwellian nightmare with a heavy dose of Social Darwinism'
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Nov 3, 2016 19:45
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Taiwan is one of the only countries (the only country?) in the world to transition to a peaceful and prosperous democracy without any bloodshed and with full consent of the ruling authoritarian party. But in the early 1980s, they were a one party, Leninist vanguard state that censored any criticism of the government, locked up dissidents, controlled the economy through powerful state-owned industries and was very comparable to China today. Taiwan is the one thing that still gives me hope for China.
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Nov 3, 2016 20:05
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The KMT faced a very similar situation as the CCP did in Tiananmen not long after that happened, but they chose a different path. I'm not certain a moment like that will come around again in mainland China. But it's true it shows the line of 'Chinese people can't handle democracy' for the lame excuse it is.
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Nov 3, 2016 20:20
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South Korea also transitioned from military dictatorship to democracy. Is still transitioning, really. And Xi just announced there are massive secret conspiracies to undermine the Party coming from within the Party. Looks like we're in for some more purges!
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Nov 3, 2016 20:41
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I'm not in the "China will collapse" camp (I'm in the stagnate camp) but China is so large it's hard to imagine it transitioning to democracy without a return to regionalism.
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Nov 3, 2016 21:15
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Fojar38 posted:I'm not in the "China will collapse" camp (I'm in the stagnate camp) but China is so large it's hard to imagine it transitioning to democracy without a return to regionalism. Except the last few decades have seen absolutely enormous internal migration that would muddle up any attempt to decentralize based around regional identities. I dunno, maybe if experiments with local self government keep spreading and it slowly transitions up to provincial and finally national elections over a very long time frame. But I don't trust the CCP to not gently caress with local self government the second it stops serving their interests. I mean they already have a democratic region with a strong regional identity in Hong Kong and they don't seem terribly happy about it.
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Nov 3, 2016 21:30
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Imperialist Dog posted:And Xi just announced there are massive secret conspiracies to undermine the Party coming from within the Party. Looks like we're in for some more purges! Do you have some sources for that, I'm interested in hearing about it, cursory search shows nothing
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Nov 3, 2016 23:47
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SlackJawedMoron posted:This thread has depressed me greatly. Not even the historical irony of China's cities becoming hyper-capitalistic provides more than momentary amusement. I used to actually have hopes for China, but over the past couple of decades it feels like it's actually gotten more oppressive - the worst of both worlds, east and west. I'm drunk, so perhaps I am being overly dramatic, but reading these stories doesn't give me a lot of hope for the future of modern China, you know? Things were getting better for a while but since Xi took over they've done a 180 and it's getting much worse very quickly. There's propaganda posters everywhere again, what free speech did exist is being clamped down hard, the internet is being restricted more every day, and now pile on that the economy is making GBS threads itself and China has done a great job of pissing off basically everyone and things don't look good. Imperialist Dog posted:South Korea also transitioned from military dictatorship to democracy. Is still transitioning, really. It was a lot more violent about it than Taiwan though. I don't think anything comparable to Tiananmen or the Gwangju massacres happened there.
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Nov 4, 2016 01:59
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Grand Fromage posted:Things were getting better for a while but since Xi took over they've done a 180 and it's getting much worse very quickly. There's propaganda posters everywhere again, what free speech did exist is being clamped down hard, the internet is being restricted more every day, and now pile on that the economy is making GBS threads itself and China has done a great job of pissing off basically everyone and things don't look good. yeah it's time to get out, i thought it would last a bit longer, and it probably could, but with a wife and a kid i'm not waiting for it to fall off the cliff
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Nov 4, 2016 02:08
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Grand Fromage posted:There's propaganda posters everywhere again drat, I'd love to see some of these if some of you can spare the time next time you see one. edit: i'm picturing an old mao era one but where instead of grinning proletariat it's awful wechat characters instead Koramei fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Nov 4, 2016 |
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Nov 4, 2016 02:58
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Sure, I'll take some pics when I'm out today. They're mostly slogans though, not fun socialist realist art stuff.
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Nov 4, 2016 03:05
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Bloodnose posted:Taiwan is one of the only countries (the only country?) in the world to transition to a peaceful and prosperous democracy without any bloodshed and with full consent of the ruling authoritarian party. But in the early 1980s, they were a one party, Leninist vanguard state that censored any criticism of the government, locked up dissidents, controlled the economy through powerful state-owned industries and was very comparable to China today. How did they transition so peacefully? It's surprising that the military authoritarian party would relinquish control if there was any threat of a leftwing party rising to power (in light of similar "democratic" transitions in Latin America). Doing some light perusal of history, and perhaps the ruling party crushed most remnants of the leftwing in the White Terror and through continual globalization of the economy.
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Nov 4, 2016 03:41
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I feel like brutal as it was the KMT in Taiwan was less brutal and authoritarian than the military regime in SK
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Nov 4, 2016 03:47
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Zhou En Lai should have smothered Mao when the fat gently caress was sleeping. China would be waaaaaaaay better off.
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Nov 4, 2016 04:13
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Ceciltron posted:Zhou En Lai should have smothered Mao when the fat gently caress was sleeping. China would be waaaaaaaay better off.  I think at this point that it is way more likely that Vietnam will go Democratic because that communist party has enough successes that they could compete on that record but I probably don't know enough to say with certainty.
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Nov 4, 2016 04:18
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sincx fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Nov 4, 2016 06:45
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See also: Spain
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Nov 4, 2016 06:46
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Grand Fromage posted:Things were getting better for a while but since Xi took over they've done a 180 and it's getting much worse very quickly. There's propaganda posters everywhere again, what free speech did exist is being clamped down hard, the internet is being restricted more every day, and now pile on that the economy is making GBS threads itself and China has done a great job of pissing off basically everyone and things don't look good.
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Nov 4, 2016 08:24
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The information is so completely drowned in bullshit there's no way to know. It's clear from things like imports of raw materials that things have stalled, despite the numbers the government likes to put out, but what's actually going on? Given how much lying there is at all levels I don't know if the central government even really understands the economic situation.
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Nov 4, 2016 08:31
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Fall Sick and Die posted:Do you have some sources for that, I'm interested in hearing about it, cursory search shows nothing https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/11/03/china-president-slams-conspiracies-communist-party/ It was during the "core of the party" declaration. quote:Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily published two documents Wednesday detailing the four-day meeting’s decisions, along with a commentary by Xi. He basically announces that the purges are far from done.
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Nov 4, 2016 08:45
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Grand Fromage posted:The information is so completely drowned in bullshit there's no way to know. It's clear from things like imports of raw materials that things have stalled, despite the numbers the government likes to put out, but what's actually going on? Given how much lying there is at all levels I don't know if the central government even really understands the economic situation. Wasn't that something that Gorbachev or one of the other latter Soviet leaders encountered? The regional leaders lied so much on economic data that he had to ask the USA for their intelligence estimates of Soviet production so that he could cross-check them.
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Nov 4, 2016 08:54
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Paid a visit to my wife's grandfather today at his retirement home. He's like 90 and was a party management executive urban planner for a university in his younger days. The party looks after him quite well and he gets a pretty good pension (5k/mo and 10k/yr bonus). I wish I spoke mandarin and could pick his brain a bit more about how it was then. poo poo must have changed a lot.
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Nov 4, 2016 13:30
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