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Neurolimal posted:The US doesn't have to wield hard influence [outside subjugating minority protests] because it doesn't need to, not because it doesn't want to. This is why we keep bringing up the red scares and the civil rights assassinations; we saw what happens when the USA is vulnerable, and can speculate from there how the USA would act if their wall of soft influence faltered. What is your sourcing for the part of your post where you quote yourself? That is, is the idea that a liberal society will turn authoritarian or vice versa supported by any research? Why do you want to see China culturally dominant?
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Jan 20, 2022 03:07
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Neurolimal posted:The US doesn't have to wield hard influence [outside subjugating minority protests] because it doesn't need to, not because it doesn't want to. This is why we keep bringing up the red scares and the civil rights assassinations; we saw what happens when the USA is vulnerable, and can speculate from there how the USA would act if their wall of soft influence faltered. Except for the fact that the US government, unlike the PRC government, isn't a single-party system where state and party are one and the same. The PRC state apparatus answers to the CCP, is staffed and led by CCP members, and is answerable to the CCP alone. The civil rights assassinations were mainly carried out by extremists like the KKK. I am not an expert in the civil rights movements but I am unaware of any mass systemic attempt by the highest levels of the US government to suppress the movement and kill and jail its leaders. Certainly, there was immense opposition by large segments of the population and political leaders but never a single-minded state-run campaign to exterminate the movement. Indeed the marches and demonstrations kept happening and the movement was successful in ending Jim Crow with a white congress and a white southern Democrat President signing the Civil Rights Act 1964 and the Voting Rights Act 1965. Meanwhile the Uyghers are in reeducation camps and their movement is dead(I won't call them concentration camps because, despite their treatment, I don't think there is enough evidence that prove that their treatment was as worse as say what happened to the Boors in South Africa of the prisoners of Nazi Germany). McCarthism as well died in less than a decade despite massive wrongdoing and many innocent individuals needlessly persecuted. The Senate publicly condemned McCarthy himself and public support for McCarty fell away after publicly failed accusations were circulated by a free press. A black man was President for 8 years 50 years later. This is why there is a stark difference between China and the West. As bad as things can get, there are many self-correcting mechanisms that eventually curb the worst of the excesses. Cold comfort for those who lose their lives literally or metaphorically I know but when was the last time China had such a soul-searching moment? The day the CCP comes out and acknowledges shitstorms like Tiananmen was a mistake and that those responsible, if still alive should be punished; the day they allow independent media to examine the mass persecution of Falun Gong and unearth those who are responsible and let Falun Gong victims sue the CCP for recompense, I'll be onbard with you. Until then, I see a giant canyon between CCP led China and Western nations, USA in all its gory injustices included.
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Jan 20, 2022 03:09
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Neurolimal posted:The US doesn't have to wield hard influence [outside subjugating minority protests] because it doesn't need to, not because it doesn't want to. This is why we keep bringing up the red scares and the civil rights assassinations; we saw what happens when the USA is vulnerable, and can speculate from there how the USA would act if their wall of soft influence faltered. right – the span of acceptable criticism may be wider in the united states, but it's demonstrated that it will use equally 'authoritarian' measures when that line is crossed.
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Jan 20, 2022 03:11
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Neurolimal posted:By all means, I'd be quite into seeing a China so culturally dominant on a global scale that it didn't need to wield hard influence. Perhaps in the future. Yeah that's what Taiwan is and it owns hard. In general I don't understand why everyone jumps to compare the mainland to the USA when Taiwan is like, right there.
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Jan 20, 2022 04:07
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The last few pages moved way too fast for me to keep up, but I will note a few things. Re: Surveys/polls in China. My career has allowed me to participate in many capacities in scores of labor surveys and prevalence studies of hard-to-reach and extremely vulnerable populations, ranging from simple and naive methods to the cutting edge of what social science and tech can enable. My experience includes large-scale engagement with workers in China, including internal migrant laborers. I am not at all a "polls mean nothing" person, quite the opposite. But results can be extremely sensitive to methodology. Face-to-face and internet based are notoriously limited. When you're dealing with touchy subjects and vulnerable populations, it gets really tricky, because respondents are hard to find, may not respond truthfully, and are hard to randomize, so it's hard to make population level claims. For example, if you survey workers face-to-face and ask if they've been physically abused by their employers, you could very well get 100% "no" response even in the most abusive factories imaginable. Maybe their manager is watching. Maybe they think the enumerator works for management. There are technologies that maximize privacy and accessibility by using headphones, audio directions, and graphical choices that prevent an observer from knowing your response (e.g., press the triangle shape if your answer is "yes"). Participation and honest responses are still a challenge, because people do not trust the enumerator or tech. The best projects I've seen rely on partnership with groups that are already highly trusted, like the staff at the factory creche. That's not to say that the 95% approval rates in China are inaccurate. I think they're probably directionally correct, because for the vast majority of people in China things probably have been pretty darn good, especially when you see what's happening elsewhere (regardless of the accuracy of what's being seen). I personally also wouldn't lean too much on majority approval or even 'benefits the majority' as an indicator of the 'goodness' of anything. Something can be popular at one moment in time and reviled at another. It can be popular among the overall population but an atrocity for a minority. Good political systems have to balance reflecting the population, protecting minority and individual rights, and being effective enough to actually get poo poo done. This is not a dig at China. It's true of everything, everywhere. And I don't think it's a purely normative statement. Political systems that don't balance those things don't last. Re: Authoritarianism. Some of the posts (sorry for not having the patience to go back and find all the quotes) seem to be conflating any authority for authoritarianism. All states concentrate power and exercise authority to some degree, because that's necessary to get poo poo done. (Anarchists may have a different take on this.) Otherwise it's, uh, not really a state. The more authoritarian a system is, the more concentrated and unchecked that power is; the more it is exercised without respect to the population or with guardrails that protect minorities and individuals; and the more it is exercised to further concentrate and remove limits from that power. It is authority as a means to authority as an end. It is not unique to liberal democracy, socialism, or any other ideology, though it can co-opt them. It is its own perverse ideology. It often gets really weird when those in power start to impose their own twisted views on society. In China, there is a ton of state capacity to wield its authority. That is not necessarily a bad thing. You want your state to be able to act effectively. It has been instrumental in China's success over the last few decades. Personally I think that the PRC is more responsive to its population than many people give it credit for and that power is less concentrated and unlimited than people may think. But I also think it should be far more accountable to its population, have far more checks on those in power, and have far, far more protection for the little man (and little woman and little nonbinary person). On all of these axes, I feel that China has moved backwards over the last decade or so. This wouldn't be the first time post-Mao that China has regressed in this way (see: post-Tiananmen period), though. I'm critical of most states, including the US, in the same way. It needs to be more accountable to its population, have better checks on power, and protect its most vulnerable better. The US has the additional problem of having really unevenly distributed state capacity. It's extremely effective at some things (for better and for worse) and like a failed state in other regards (almost always for worse). Something else I sense in this thread — again, sorry for being too lazy to do a meta-analysis of posts — that makes discussion really difficult is that people are having PRC be the stand-in for socialism and the US the stand-in for liberal democracy. Just remember that both are very imperfect implementations of their respective purported ideologies, and there are many degrees of freedom with which those ideologies can be pursued. Don't twist your own ideology to fit a single, imperfect, real-world implementation of it and dismiss criticism. Criticism is how you improve poo poo!
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Jan 20, 2022 04:45
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fart simpson posted:i dont find it hard to believe. material conditions have improved massively year on year for a very long time. most people i talk to have a general sense of "even if this thing isnt good, i trust the government wont let it get too bad" which is just an observation of mine and not quantified That's kind of interesting and I wonder if it depends on where you are in China, because overwhelmingly, if I had to pick a "general sense" it would be a kind of "you cant trust the government but there's nothing you can do about it so keep your head down" apathy. The more rural you get (from where I am) the less of an apathy it gets and the more pissed off it gets. The exception is usually very, very young people who get absolutely pumped about the party, very well off people (though even that depends), and aspiring civil servants. I can only think of one person I know over the age of 40 who isn't rich who is completely in support of the Party, especially now. Though I know a lot more who just don't really share their opinion much than who are very outspoken either way (but even on weibo I've seen this last year people are getting a little bolder.) I don't doubt though that if you took China as a whole support for the Party is probably pretty high, it's no surprise that states are very good at convincing people of a particular narrative and, in China, that narratives going to be the pro-party narrative every time.
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Jan 20, 2022 05:21
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E: not going back to that since better posting is happening now
Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jan 20, 2022 |
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Jan 20, 2022 05:29
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BrainDance posted:That's kind of interesting and I wonder if it depends on where you are in China, because overwhelmingly, if I had to pick a "general sense" it would be a kind of "you cant trust the government but there's nothing you can do about it so keep your head down" apathy. The more rural you get (from where I am) the less of an apathy it gets and the more pissed off it gets. The exception is usually very, very young people who get absolutely pumped about the party, very well off people (though even that depends), and aspiring civil servants. So if the people support the government, it can only be because it's so good at propaganda? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 20, 2022 06:21
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crepeface posted:So if the people support the government, it can only be because it's so good at propaganda? No
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Jan 20, 2022 06:36
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BrainDance posted:That's kind of interesting and I wonder if it depends on where you are in China, because overwhelmingly, if I had to pick a "general sense" it would be a kind of "you cant trust the government but there's nothing you can do about it so keep your head down" apathy. The more rural you get (from where I am) the less of an apathy it gets and the more pissed off it gets. The exception is usually very, very young people who get absolutely pumped about the party, very well off people (though even that depends), and aspiring civil servants. I totally disagree. While people around me are upset about various censorship/cultural moves the government makes, everyone I know is much happier to live in china vs the rest of the world. the simple answer is covid. Life has been largely normal in china for the last 2 years, while it's been obviously terrible in the rest of the world. There's also the fact that the quality of life here is just not bad for most people. The wages relative to prices are good, food and transport are cheap. home prices are crazy but rent isn't that bad, and since most chinese families own homes high home prices are an (arguable) good. there's also basically no crime here. while some people may think that it's only propaganda that makes people feel this way, I for one feel very lucky that I've been in China since march 2020, and it's not difficult to explain why.
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Jan 20, 2022 06:55
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BrainDance posted:That's kind of interesting and I wonder if it depends on where you are in China, because overwhelmingly, if I had to pick a "general sense" it would be a kind of "you cant trust the government but there's nothing you can do about it so keep your head down" apathy. The more rural you get (from where I am) the less of an apathy it gets and the more pissed off it gets. The exception is usually very, very young people who get absolutely pumped about the party, very well off people (though even that depends), and aspiring civil servants. i mean, maybe it does depend. but i also am not saying that people aren't critical or that they "completely" support the party, people find plenty of things to complain about and there is a kind of "keep your head down" thing, i do agree with that. i mean among the people i know there is a kind of baseline assumption that beijing won't let things really fall apart or get too bad. like as an example off the top of my head here, i can ask "aren't you worried of a housing market collapse like 2008 in america? it seems like we might be in a speculative bubble" and the answer i'll get from nearly everyone is some variant of "yeah it may be a bubble, but the government won't let normal people like me get burned too badly even in the worst case". there's an underlying assumption there that i find interesting because my only other frame of reference (america) this kind of baseline trust is almost completely absent. see also the covid stuff that mirello is getting at above me. idk if i'm explaining this well
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Jan 20, 2022 07:10
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Mirello posted:There's also the fact that the quality of life here is just not bad for most people. The wages relative to prices are good, food and transport are cheap. home prices are crazy but rent isn't that bad, and since most chinese families own homes high home prices are an (arguable) good. there's also basically no crime here. I don't know about these generalisations, it sounds very middle-class, even out of touch, to suggest that wages relative to prices are good - I know lots of taxi drivers would absolutely not agree with that sentiment. "Rent isn't that bad" is also highly dependent upon where you live; if you're in Beijing or Shenzhen for example the rent is very much "bad" to usurious, especially when you compare it to the average wage. Home prices being stupidly high is not good, especially for those people coming into the cities from rural areas who are just priced out of home ownership completely. To add an anecdotal piece of evidence, my friend is in his 30s, graduated from Beida, and works in a stock market company in Chengdu as an analyst, full time. His salary is 5,000 RMB per month. That's absolutely not enough to live in Chengdu and feed and clothe his family, as he has two young daughters. Rabelais D fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Jan 20, 2022 |
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Jan 20, 2022 07:51
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My knee-jerk response is to disbelieve a number like 95% approval just because 95% of people aren't happy in general. And it's also not like people can do much public criticism of the PRC in general, or even keep reliably informed about their faults and mistakes which regardless of how much propaganda you huff, they have faults and mistakes because they're human. Although however you try to poll the Chinese public, I think whether they approve of their government or not is strictly academic, since I don't think the government would do anything particularly different without public approval, because that's how autocracies work. Their natural incentives aren't to court public opinion, it's to discourage the idea that even having an opinion would be relevant. Mirello posted:I totally disagree. While people around me are upset about various censorship/cultural moves the government makes, everyone I know is much happier to live in china vs the rest of the world. the simple answer is covid. Life has been largely normal in china for the last 2 years, while it's been obviously terrible in the rest of the world. Well, there's been all those lockdowns that definitely don't seem like normal life. Even if they've been effective, at the very least it'd be disconcerting.
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Jan 20, 2022 08:08
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It also depends on who you poll. Why wouldn't people in China be happy, especially in a survey past 2019? Sure, in a country where the range of acceptable criticism of the government is more narrow, people are less likely to poll negatively. But even taking that into account, consider that for the majority population in China material conditions are improving, often for people where this is a primary need, and the covid response has been better than anywhere else. Heck, if you are willing to move to certain regions you'll get a free house, a bed, and a Muslim wife for free. What's not to like... If you'd manage to poll Uyghurs who aren't held at the edge of a knife, say refugees, numbers are different, unsurprisingly. Haramstufe Rot fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Jan 20, 2022 |
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Jan 20, 2022 09:12
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Jarmak posted:There's a whole page where the try to dig into the pollution responses and surprise, the people who thought it worth actually doing anything about had to deal with it first hand or had access to independent news sources. So to be clear, when you said this: Jarmak posted:There's literally a whole section of it that discusses the way that potentially taints the results and why they think it doesn't invalidate the results. Did you even read it? You were completely lying. There is not a "whole section" of the report where the authors describe state propaganda as a caveat that "potentially taints the results". The authors don't suggest anything like this. Nor is there any place where they explain "why they think it doesn't invalidate the results", this appears to have been fabricated by you from whole cloth. Amazingly this section you quote says the exact opposite of what you claim it does: quote:Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. What they are saying here is that the opinions of Chinese people correspond mostly to "real, measurable changes in individuals' material well being" as opposed to "state censorship and propaganda". This is not even remotely close to your claim about carving out a "caveat" about state propaganda and how it "taints" their results.
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Jan 20, 2022 09:41
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Smeef posted:Something else I sense in this thread — again, sorry for being too lazy to do a meta-analysis of posts — that makes discussion really difficult is that people are having PRC be the stand-in for socialism and the US the stand-in for liberal democracy. Just remember that both are very imperfect implementations of their respective purported ideologies, and there are many degrees of freedom with which those ideologies can be pursued. Agreed, and also I think it's something of an understatement. China is also often the stand-in for marxism and communism by regime-friendly marxists and communists who've adopted China as the Home Team or the Replacement Hegemon -- despite China being not these things and less of these things every day (unless you are rigorous adherent to the Democratic People's Republic of X axiom of "if governments i like use these words to define themselves, they are surely these things")
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Jan 20, 2022 10:58
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Let’s see if I can get a view that everyone will disagree with: * The Chinese government is made up of people who are, most of the time, trying to do the best they can within the constraints that they believe exist to govern their country well. Over the past 40ish years they have done a pretty good job of it and people are mostly happy. * China has a strong tradition of government treating individuals as an annoying inconvenience who get in the way of the government making Good Decisions so the government generally has a lot of power to gently caress people over completely unfairly, and doesn’t have to say sorry when it does this. This is encapsulated in folk sayings like 苛政猛于虎 (a harsh government is scarier than a tiger). Everyone in China agrees that (a) this sucks; and (b) it’s just the way things are. * People who are given a lot of power tend, on average and as a class, to abuse it for their personal interest. For government officials, there are two ways to mitigate this tendency: taking away that latitude (aka the western solution) or punishing them harshly to discourage abuse (aka the Chinese solution). The western solution is effective but erodes the ability of government to Get poo poo Done. The Chinese solution is effective only for people who (a) get caught; and (b) aren’t well connected enough to avoid consequence, but it preserves government’s ability to Get poo poo Done. So that’s a tradeoff. * One important way of managing the risk of abuse is to protect whistleblowers from reprisals. This is the actual substance behind “freedom of speech”. It is not really practiced in China, because it is a potential constraint on government’s ability to Get poo poo Done. So that’s another tradeoff. * The western system of elections is a bit of a red herring because it’s been captured by special interest groups. However, the west does have a strong tradition of freedom of speech and in particular of freedom of the press: there’s no guarantee that true stories will get out but usually they won’t be actively suppressed. The corollary is that fake news also won’t be actively suppressed. Again, it’s a tradeoff. * Whatever poo poo America may or other countries may not get up to has nothing to do with what life is like here and I really wish people would put their thoughts on America in one of the many America focused threads.
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Jan 20, 2022 15:34
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Beefeater1980 posted:Let’s see if I can get a view that everyone will disagree with: Sadly you utterly failed because I agree with everything you wrote. I'll also add: *It is possible to dissaprove of particular policies the CCP is currently undertaking, or even the general trajectory of the party at the moment, without necessarily hating the CCP in general, let alone Chinese people writ large. The converse is also true.
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Jan 20, 2022 17:24
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A scene in Shenzhen as Omicron bites: https://twitter.com/fangshimin/status/1484044527308447744 This is not the first such protest since 2020, and nor is it representative of the generally-acquiescent mood at the moment. It's still remarkable though.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:03
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Red and Black posted:So to be clear, when you said this: I believe Jarmak addressed this in response to my own post: Jarmak posted:There are two separate lines of argument going on, in reference to those quotes I'm speaking to whether their beliefs are reasonable or based on propaganda. Perhaps tainted was the wrong choice of words based on how you interpreted it. This is what Red and Black was characterizating as "brainwashing" and calling racist.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:59
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Koos Group posted:I believe Jarmak addressed this in response to my own post: I disagree, his response does not address anything. He claimed that the authors carved out a caveat in their research, a "whole section", where they discuss the impact of propaganda on their research and how it potentially compromises it. He also said they had provided a justification of some sort to account for this. But he is unable to produce either the surveyors mentioning this caveat nor their alleged justification. In other words, he claimed something was in the report that simply is not there.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:46
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ronya posted:A scene in Shenzhen as Omicron bites: Wow, so much to learn from the video. Surprised to see 0 weaponry used in a police action like this. What's the context here? Is this a protest against the lockdowns?
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Jan 20, 2022 20:21
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Red and Black posted:I disagree, his response does not address anything. He claimed that the authors carved out a caveat in their research, a "whole section", where they discuss the impact of propaganda on their research and how it potentially compromises it. He also said they had provided a justification of some sort to account for this. But he is unable to produce either the surveyors mentioning this caveat nor their alleged justification. In other words, he claimed something was in the report that simply is not there. Our findings only reflect online, urban users and may be subject to social desirability bias—that is, they may be influenced by respondents’ preference for giving answers that the regime approves of. However, the upward trend in government trust is nonetheless meaningful because our samples are comparable (over time) and the respondents were asked the exact same questions. What might be driving Chinese citizens’ rising trust in their central government? National crises may inspire citizens to “rally around the flag,” and China’s relative success in controling the virus’ spread inside China probably also contributed to citizen satisfaction. ?
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Jan 20, 2022 20:36
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btw of note, i didn't see the demographics of that survey group, though they allude to them being educated, online, and urban but another survey of similar size and methodology they gave data for was: Of the 1040 respondents, • Their ages ranges from 18 to 60. • 42.8% have a monthly income below 5000RMB, 38.8% have a monthly income between 5000 and 12000RMB, and 18.4% have a monthly income above 12000RMB. • 27.7% have a bachelor’s degree or higher, 19.9% have a three-year college degree and 17.8% have their highest education as regular high school. • 40.5% work in private enterprises, 13.6% work for state-owned enterprises, 19.3% work for foreign companies, and 1.3% work for the CCP and government organizations. • 78% lived in cities for the most of their lives before age 18, and 89% have urban resident’s household registration. • 95% belong to the Han ethnic group. • 12% are CCP members.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:42
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Our findings only reflect online, urban users and may be subject to social desirability bias—that is, they may be influenced by respondents’ preference for giving answers that the regime approves of. However, the upward trend in government trust is nonetheless meaningful because our samples are comparable (over time) and the respondents were asked the exact same questions. So in other words they did not test for the thing in question. Edit: specifically the effects of indoctrination and propaganda.
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Jan 20, 2022 21:15
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I think even the most ardently pro-prc poster here wouldnt deny that the high approval ratings are caused by state propaganda, at least in part. Hell, the CPC highlighting how much material conditions have improved is itself propaganda!
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Jan 21, 2022 13:41
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A big flaming stink posted:I think even the most ardently pro-prc poster here wouldnt deny that the high approval ratings are caused by state propaganda, at least in part. Hell, the CPC highlighting how much material conditions have improved is itself propaganda! Arguably one of the main purposes of a government is convincing the governed that the government deserves to exist. So it seems silly to dismiss polling on the basis that the government is effectively carrying out one of its basic duties. Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 14:18
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Beefeater1980 posted:Let’s see if I can get a view that everyone will disagree with: This is a premise that I would disagree with. China's leadership is almost exclusively in it to enrich themselves. All the leftist and CCP cheerleaders in this thread keep doing derails about how the Western democracy is just some sort of sham ritual and it is really the evil capitalists in charge that are drinking the blood of the working class etc etc. The problem for them is that China is really no different. The Panama papers have shown how CCP members in positions of power have either personally or have family members keep massive amounts of money offshore. One of their favorite investments? Overseas real estate. It also happens to be where CCP party members send their kids abroad to get educated. The anti-corruption sweep made by Xi shows just how brutal and deep the corruption in the one-party system runs. And we can be sure Xi loyalists weren't touched in the sweep itself. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35957228 Yes, people have materially benefited over the past 40 years, but the bar isn't exactly very high given the incredible levels of poverty. And the path they took has been destructive to the environment in the extreme. Everything from massive air pollution that harvested far more people than COVID ever will in China https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5479577/ to the ruination of their freshwater supply to the point where apparently 80% of the groundwater is now unfit for human consumption of any sort. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1935314/80-cent-groundwater-chinas-major-river-basins-unsafe. People wax on and on about evil capitalists destroying the planet while the CCP enriches itself while destroying China's environment in ways that would be unthinkable here in the West. It is a wonder that they have to keep a tight lid on the negative press in the country? How would people actually feel if they knew the full extent of the corruption, lax environmental care, and accumulation of wealth by their supposed benevolent government overseers? [/quote] Rent-A-Cop posted:The problem then is that the discussion devolves into "All data is lies only my feelings matter." The government shouldn't have to lie, censor, and jail those who tell negative stories about its behaviour in order to convince the populace that it deserves to remain in power. If it is doing such an amazing job, why does it not allow a free press to throughly investigate allegations of wrongdoing?
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Jan 22, 2022 04:51
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Rent-A-Cop posted:The problem then is that the discussion devolves into "All data is lies only my feelings matter." Oh, let me be clear I think it is complete idiocy to dismiss polling data because polls are influenced by propaganda MikeC posted:
A free press is not an unalloyed good, and there is certainly an argument to be made that US style free press carries the heavy cost of networks of disinformation springing up A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 05:19
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MikeC posted:Yes, people have materially benefited over the past 40 years, but the bar isn't exactly very high given the incredible levels of poverty. And the path they took has been destructive to the environment in the extreme. Everything from massive air pollution that harvested far more people than COVID ever will in China https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5479577/ to the ruination of their freshwater supply to the point where apparently 80% of the groundwater is now unfit for human consumption of any sort. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1935314/80-cent-groundwater-chinas-major-river-basins-unsafe. Oh wow, 80% of the all the water is poisoned? I'm surprised they can even sustain a civilization like that.
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Jan 22, 2022 05:36
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Beefeater1980 posted:* The Chinese government is made up of people who are, most of the time, trying to do the best they can within the constraints that they believe exist to govern their country well. MikeC posted:This is a premise that I would disagree with. China's leadership... Can you spot the important difference in wording between your two posts?
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Jan 22, 2022 06:23
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A big flaming stink posted:A free press is not an unalloyed good, and there is certainly an argument to be made that US style free press carries the heavy cost of networks of disinformation springing up Yes but the problem is that if you don't have a free press all you have is one big network that all too readily spreads disinformation that there's no alternative to.
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Jan 22, 2022 06:36
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Rabelais D posted:Yes but the problem is that if you don't have a free press all you have is one big network that all too readily spreads disinformation that there's no alternative to. Is this an issue in china's social media right now, or are you speaking generally?
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Jan 22, 2022 06:41
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Just generally, the state issues directives to all media organisations that must be abided by: some things cannot be reported on, there must be positive spin on certain topics, other news pieces are boosted (i.e. possibility of virus emerging from Fort Detrick). There's a quote from Wu Zixiang (professor of Chinese literature at Peking University) from 1980 that still holds up: “There is truth in Chinese newspapers, but you have to know how to find it. This often means reading upside down. If they say great strides have been made against corruption in Henan, you know corruption is especially bad in Henan. If they say dozens of police were hurt in a clash with students, you know hundreds of students were injured if not killed”
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Jan 22, 2022 06:51
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Rabelais D posted:Just generally, the state issues directives to all media organisations that must be abided by: some things cannot be reported on, there must be positive spin on certain topics, other news pieces are boosted (i.e. possibility of virus emerging from Fort Detrick). There's a quote from Wu Zixiang (professor of Chinese literature at Peking University) from 1980 that still holds up: This also works really well with American media! (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 22, 2022 12:56
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A big flaming stink posted:A free press is not an unalloyed good, and there is certainly an argument to be made that US style free press carries the heavy cost of networks of disinformation springing up Ah yes, then we should definitely centralize our disinformation system and conduct organized attacks on the ability for inconvenient truths to spread like the PRC does. It's such a bonkers line of reasoning. Every source in American media has its own inherent biases from the human condition, and some may be engaged in deliberate sabotage of the truth, but the plurality of sources and existence of alternatives means that if anyone is actually looking for the truth, it can often be found. Maybe some people can get caught in constructed bubbles or search for hidden truths where there are none and come up with some trash, but the truth will always exist somewhere in the mess, and seldom will people face major repercussions and get arrested just for telling the truth. Anyone here who lives in the western world and is taking some kind of edgey "the west is just as bad, if not worse than China" take is literally a beneficiary of the system that they're decrying, and the point of Chinese control over its domestic media is to both get big chunks of its citizenry deliberately trapped in a more comprehensive news bubble than western ideologues could dream of, make it complicated and difficult to get actual accurate information that could make the government look bad, and then literally arrest and eliminate news sources that are critical or ideologically unaligned with the Chinese government. Like sure there are problems with American media (and how a lot of news distribution is currently in the hands of an oligopoly of tech companies that are motivated to generate engagement by algorithmically keeping people angry), but the literal alternative you are praising is for the US government you're so decrying to maintain its own algorithm and shut down and arrest whatever news sources you're relying on right now for your false equivocations. It's an absolutely bonkers line of reasoning.
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Jan 22, 2022 16:51
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SlothfulCobra posted:Ah yes, then we should definitely centralize our disinformation system and conduct organized attacks on the ability for inconvenient truths to spread like the PRC does. Could you please tone down the condescension I legit cannot understand what you are trying to argue in this post.
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Jan 23, 2022 02:18
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SlothfulCobra posted:Like sure there are problems with American media (and how a lot of news distribution is currently in the hands of an oligopoly of tech companies that are motivated to generate engagement by algorithmically keeping people angry), but the literal alternative you are praising is for the US government you're so decrying to maintain its own algorithm and shut down and arrest whatever news sources you're relying on right now for your false equivocations. It's an absolutely bonkers line of reasoning. I'm confused. Afaik nobody itt is calling for this. Could you cite a post calling for the US government to monopolize control of the media?
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Jan 23, 2022 03:11
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SlothfulCobra posted:Ah yes, then we should definitely centralize our disinformation system and conduct organized attacks on the ability for inconvenient truths to spread like the PRC does. This is very idealistic, and I don't see how you could argue that it actually works this way given the past... forever of American media history. Even if there are alternatives and differences there's an overwhelming push for information that contributes to a particular narrative by almost all American media outlets relying on the same sources, giving default weight to particular, "official" sources, advertising and ownership limiting the ways certain stories can be portrayed, and certain types of stories being given attention while others aren't for one reason or another (usually to fit the biases media consumers already have. I think the good stupid example of that is how American media for a long time put a lot more attention on "strange" Japanese stuff than anything else.) This isn't really that controversial of a take, and you can pretty much see it in anything (the super obvious recent example is the buildup to the Iraq war.) With news on China it's pretty obvious too, Western reporting on China does focus on strange things while ignoring a lot of other things, like you'll get dozens of stories on some very small thing that happened in one place in China while ignoring the actual, big things happening. And that does contribute to a very specific narrative about China. If I made a list of the actual serious issues China is facing domestically most of them wouldn't be things that are often reported on. But you gotta have a million articles on what one local official did in one province that goes against western sensibilities. This even affects alternative media, because even if it's responding to mainstream media it's still responding to that narrative and not independent of it. Chinese media is also terrible and driven to promote a specific narrative, kinda the same thing but in different ways (if there's one better thing about the way China does it it's that it's so heavy handed that a lot of people recognize it) so it's incredibly stupid when people recognize the flaws in American or Western media and respond by completely buying into Chinese media. But the opposite conclusion is just as crappy. I don't think those are the only two options so, we don't gotta pick one.
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Jan 23, 2022 04:33
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I feel like that's just the nature of human networks of exchange though; I don't think it has much to do with press-bias / state-level-bias so much as just the way humans get information. I'm only familiar enough to notice it in Korean news, but there for instance the issue you have is that US media (and government) ties were all fostered decades back during the dictatorship days, so the contacts that are relied on still have deeply conservative ties. To address that you need a whole series of new media contacts, which is what having a plurality of sources of information, and a culture of creating more, can be particularly helpful for achieving (and has slowly been doing wrt Korea; just like voices that have been able to decry Orientalism have slowly created a healthier landscape towards how we view "strange" Japan). I definitely wouldn't say "truth" can at all "often" be found this way, but it at least takes us part of the way there. Alternatively what, have the state recognize the bias in their contacts (I guarantee this affects literally every department in literally every government on the planet, mind) and make a concerted effort to make new ones? I'm not at all familiar with the Chinese media landscape, but talking about the imo adjacent field of academic history, I think you can see the clear difference in state directed vs free press in the course of Chinese vs Western historiography over the past half century. Both have utterly horrifically ethno-nationalist foundations, but through a pattern of initially radical counter-narratives in the West that the free press helps foster we've gotten to a point where this has been (albeit not without hiccups) getting steadily stripped away -- and very visibly out to the mainstream in the past half decade. In China for the past 30 years or so, you have the opposite; an ethno-nationalist historical orthodoxy has been getting steadily more codified. My impression of the Chinese mainstream perception on that is only through netizens in the China/Korea history wars that've been raging over the past couple of years, but at least by that metric things are pretty dire.
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Jan 23, 2022 06:40
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