The other neat thing is i was never said China was a liberal democracy cause that’s stupid and obviously it isn’t. I just questioned the notion that US residents are “dramatically” “freer”
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Freedom is very vague so of course America is obsessed with it because you can’t truly pinpoint what it is because America has rules just like everyone else. But economic prosperity and workers rights is more close to actual freedom then what America has and China’s got them beat on that.
Being able to say the government sucks but you can’t meaningfully do anything to make the government change course, plus your broke is not better than being unable to say the government sucks but your material conditions are good.
china is a mirror of what the US would look like if any of the wealth gushing upwards was reinvested in the country. they're still capitalist and ruled by an autocrat but didnt dump 99% of the country's money into javelin missiles for murdering children
well you see, when you're a liberal ghoul, living in a liberal democracy is the measure by which one is "free." It doesn't matter how much agency an individual has in life, financially, emotionally, ethically or economically. it has to match the specific sort of liberty as described by ownership
"Freedom" is such a perfect concept for the American elite to be focused on. It's nebulous and impossible to measure in any objective fashion. So yeah, maybe every objective measure of your life is worse but think of how FREE you are.
In the bay area if you drive from San Jose to San Francisco, there's a large chance you'll see someone who's been pulled over on the side of the road by a cop. In most other countries I've been in, you barely see cops ever.
in sweden, the usa has since the 70s been seen as a "less than good" country. Previously china has been seen as worse though, but i think ive seen some attitudes change recently.
in china there’s a proverb “americans get to pick their party but they don’t get to pick their policies; in china we can’t pick our party, but we choose our policies”
china learned sometimes they have to protect people from themselves and that’s why they’re thriving and we’re cooked.
they have single payer healthcare, 90% homeownership, their schools put ours to shame, their infrastructure is light years ahead of ours, and their tech is 10 years in the future and cheaper.
it’s not 1994 anymore. their economy is growing 3x faster than ours.
well for example, china’s internet wall. seems like its regressive and propagandized, right?
but adults always have the option to use a vpn to access the internet if they need to; and kids can grow up without being traumatized by the uncensored internet, which i think is healthy actually.
In hindsight China’s “censorship” and great firewall is a great way to protect citizens from imperialism or russia disinfo agents especially torwards vunerable populations like kids and the elderly. The fact that you can easily subvert it as an adult shows that it’s to protect you not to blind you.
There’s obviously problems with this approach, such as it being used to hide government crimes, but I think we should appreciate that approach more as we are living in the reality where complete freedom of speech and misinformation is destroying us
Freedom of Speech isn't holding anyone back. I shouldn't have to explain why on this speech platform, in a nation where you hold a very unpopular opinion.
I completely disagree. Having access to information limited by the state is bad thing. Especially bc that state wants you to believe and act in certain ways.
Being limited to find your expression and truth is anything but healthy. Living in the state's box makes you sick and prisoner to yourself.
American propaganda is bad and Chinese propaganda is bad. People should be free to live how people decide. Our culture should be decided by our immediate surroundings, not a government entity.
Our internet is decided by for profit corporations, theirs by the state. Both skew humanity to their will
Vote for the people that you should have no expectations from and who you should look to for what's politically effective despite them never demonstrating political effectiveness. Ya know, like a nonmonarcharchist
I would argue that both states are purely Oligarchical. Maybe China treats its citizens better but both invest so much in propaganda that it's really hard to tell.
I think it's in the difference between free to and free from.
Will and company think US is free from government oppression, they ignore that they aren't free to choose any other way of life (because everything else fucking sucks).
it really depends on the definition of "dramatically". china has a lot of inequality and poverty as well. i think people have recently gotten a false image cuz what you see rise to the surface of xiohongshu and the like is quite literally the Chinese urban upper class
while the hukou system is often exaggurated it is still a degree of place-of-birth social classing that the US doesn't have that makes a bunch of things around benefits and property rights complicated (tho it has been being reformed)
and ofc the PRC has *far* less freedom of speech thats inarguable
it's definitely complicated by like, the PRC is a lot more opaque. the statistics on things like jail occupancy or criminality for example are simply less available and entirely based on what the government says with not nearly as much data around e.g. court sentences available to the public
I mean in a very literal sense, Americans are a whole lot more "in actual prison" than the Chinese. Which, unless you think Americans are also more inherently criminal than the Chinese, does raise *some* questions, does it not?
some people think china executes thousands of citizens a day to keep their prison population down just to trick left-wing people in the west. there is no arguing with them.
Yep, got a little too free? Living on the ground outside someone’s business? Into the cage. Got to tap that down, don’t want you enjoying all that freedom from home ownership.
Nice park bench you got there, would be a shame if someone spent millions on hostile architecture about it rather than funding adequate social security provision.
Freedom is the ability to start out life in a filthy ditch and then the Libertarian miracle happens and you’re a millionaire. If only I had more freedom in the form of fewer protections, I’d be rich!
Here in America we have the freedom to choose between either working soul-sucking jobs for shit wages for the CEO of some giant corporation, or dying in the streets. Some of us can even do both! Gotta love that American freedom under capitalism.
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Other areas of the country are like an entirely different country.
I’d be doing even better if we:
Cut the FedGov by 75%. The DoD by 50%. Eradicate the ATF, and reduce all federal cabinets/departments to 5 employees.
china learned sometimes they have to protect people from themselves and that’s why they’re thriving and we’re cooked.
they have single payer healthcare, 90% homeownership, their schools put ours to shame, their infrastructure is light years ahead of ours, and their tech is 10 years in the future and cheaper.
it’s not 1994 anymore. their economy is growing 3x faster than ours.
but adults always have the option to use a vpn to access the internet if they need to; and kids can grow up without being traumatized by the uncensored internet, which i think is healthy actually.
american kids are hooked on tik tok by the time they hit middle school and many of them are barely literate now.
we can’t be a thriving world super power if we’re speedrunning idiocracy.
Being limited to find your expression and truth is anything but healthy. Living in the state's box makes you sick and prisoner to yourself.
everyone can still express themselves; like i said, they can always use a vpn when they’re old enough to know what one is.
a lot of what we think of china is also propagandized.
Our internet is decided by for profit corporations, theirs by the state. Both skew humanity to their will
we just want healthcare will
Will and company think US is free from government oppression, they ignore that they aren't free to choose any other way of life (because everything else fucking sucks).
Transportation is a perfect example of this imo.
That alone immediately disqualifies us as “freer”.
and ofc the PRC has *far* less freedom of speech thats inarguable
- Stancil, probably
Will Stancil, probably