chenGOD

Nothing social about watmm anyway.

I just meant in terms of market value and overall size. Not massively important.

Paywalled…. seems the wiki page on them is out of date, or the FT writer got their facts wrong. Strong possibility of both those scenarios being right lol.

Yeah those are awful for sure. Myanmar has just been abused by all comers, and they’ve done a good job of fucking things up themselves.

This is a thread about China. The US thread is full of fucked up examples of bizarre ideological fetish of money and other stupid shit that goes on there. There are probably quite a few posts in this thread alone extolling the virtues of Chinese cinema, the amazing variety of delicious Chinese food, the brilliant works of Chinese authors (both historical and contemporary), lots of discussion around Chinese philosophy/religion (given that Zen Buddhism is still so fucking hip). Throwing out the accusation of racism because people happen to discuss negative aspects of Chinese history or society cheapens the word, especially when there is actual anti-Asian racism that could be addressed.

In scale, Chinese slavery probably far outstripped any other (demographics dictate that), but in brutality absolutely nothing touches the slavery in the ante-bellum south. China’s slavery definitely didn’t have the same economic impact that happened in the US, they were more of a luxury item. There was likely more trafficking of girls for sex than in the Americas (although that obviously happened there as well). Definitely does. As an example, Singaporean treatment of Myanmar domestic workers. Google it for the sordid details (it’s really fucked up, so if you have a shred of hope for humanity, better if you don't).

Slavery in China existed for well over 400 years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_China They just didn’t need to import their slaves.

Nah, re-reading my statement I was being pretty obtuse. No apologies necessary, eh.

that's what I said...

Radical cumunism is obviously the end state.

While we should be cautious about survivor or defector narratives, we can’t always dismiss them out of hand. Not knowing anything about this particular quote or survivor, it’s hard to say, but humans are the most horrible animals.

Exhibit 1 Exhibit 2 Exhibit 3 Exhibit 4

why, we have you...

“China good, US bad” ”party is all, party loves you”

Context was: "Ultra-Nationalism pose itself as cultural preservation but i think that it is more alike to cultural self-destruction." But while banning playtime for video games is obviously not a cultural revolution, there are certain elements of Xi's policies that hearken back to the Cultural Revolution. Like banning English education in Shanghai, the introduction of Xi Jinping thought as a mandatory subject, the purging of high-ranking members of society and the party to bring "capitalism" back in line etc. Under Xi, there has been a crackdown on academia as well (just the like the good old days). With respect to video games, the aforementioned agency, the NPPA, is is China’s primary regulator of its online game industry, and part of its mandate is to block the publication of any game that is vulgar, low brow, kitsch or otherwise in violation of “core socialist values” (note that what constitutes a violation of core socialist values is not clearly laid out, leaving plenty of room to block games for whatever reason). This is just part of Xi's longstanding war on culture (and in this speech from 2014, he discusses the need for patriotic art and the need for greater control of new art forms) and is very reminiscent of what happened to the arts and culture in the actual cultural revolution. As well, while Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jintao had no problems criticizing the Cultural Revolution, Xi has been reluctant to do so. He recently did criticize it in a very oblique fashion, but Xi is obviously reluctant to "throw shade" on Mao, as he wants to compare himself favourably to Mao (who is very popular among Chinese youth). So all that to say, while a ban on young people playing video games in and of itself is certainly not a neo-cultural revolution, when taken in the broader context, it is one part of a slow burning trend to reimagine China domestically in service of the Party.

Like a cultural revolution?

Texas really going hard for worst state for women to live in: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033202132/texas-abortion-ban-what-happens-next

You gotta make it all the way to the end. But yeah scared old white people who don’t understand demographic/social change.

They (MIIT) may not be, but the NPPA doesn't care. The power hierarchy is pretty blatant here. I'm trying to imagine a government agency here in Canada overstepping its bounds with respect to another agency's mandate. Would not go down well.

??

The video game thing is dumb of course, because there are numerous loopholes to exploit, and prohibition doesn't work. The interesting aspect about it is really in the power hierarchy it exposes: the original release was done through the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), and not the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which is the Ministry responsible for regulating the internet. Why is this interesting? Because the NPPA (which is responsible for granting licenses to online games) falls under the Central Propaganda Department. State control over online gaming as a means to promote CCP propaganda is an interesting tactic indeed. It's also going to lead to more invasion of privacy by corporations for the state, such as the Tencent use of facial recognition, or their logging of play time in games like League of Legends.

Starting to get more into it, the social media feeds and Ameristan don’t feel totally unreal. His obsession with capital and uber-rich is a little weird for sure.

It sure is. In a bizarre sense of timing, I’m reading “Fall” by Neal Stephenson, and his ideas around editing of social media feeds are so eerily on point.

I just want to say that r/hermancainaward is a rewarding way to spend 20 minutes or so.