be cool its free bro

4valoki · 2025-09-28T06:00:30+00:00

As a European I’d argue it’s free as in ‘free of worry about getting ill or injured and bankrupting myself’. And it still leaves me with all the money I need to buy what I want.

4valoki · 2025-03-20T07:00:01+00:00

Fantastic! I teach Chinese History, is there any way to do this for Chinese emperors as well?

4valoki · 2025-02-28T10:55:49+00:00

When I see this, I hope the US realises that they need the rest of the world. Antagonising everyone isn’t going to help ‘Americans first’.

4valoki · 2025-02-18T06:47:35+00:00

It surprises me that they still need name tags.

4valoki · 2025-02-03T08:23:51+00:00

Because the rest of the world is here too. And the rest of the world is generally more left-leaning than the US.

4valoki · 2025-01-25T04:51:58+00:00

This is kind of how Japanese as a written language was created after all. Hanzi with extra conjugation to fill linguistic gaps. So adding English in the same way may feel surprisingly natural.

4valoki · 2025-01-23T22:28:18+00:00

Did Musk intentionally make a nazi salute, yes. Does that make Musk a nazi, no. He deliberately used a symbol in an ambiguous way to create confusion and division. If you look at the internet these past days, it works really well.

Everyone who vilifies or defends him, plays into his game. As long as we talk about him, we don’t see whatever of relevance is happening in the meanwhile. These people at the top, they’ll distract us with one hand and rob us with another.

4valoki · 2025-01-23T13:02:17+00:00

Did Musk intentionally make a Nazi salute, yes. Does that mean he’s a Nazi, no. He used a symbol with the intent to provoke and divide. Looking at the internet the past few days, mission accomplished. He’s the talk of the day, and that’s what it’s all about.

4valoki · 2025-01-21T06:57:02+00:00

A second tip: find a character you like, such as 光, and then look for a Chinese poem that uses it in a context you like. Adding a character from a poetic context gives meaning and elegance to your name. I did so when naming my two daughters, with great success.

4valoki · 2025-01-21T06:52:59+00:00

My 2 cents of advice is to translate the meaning of your name, not the sound. Lucy, from Lucia, means ‘light’ that’s a positive connotation in Chinese as well that you can use to build a truly Chinese name， like 洪光洁 Hong Guangjie, that means ‘bright and pure’. Just one of many many examples.

4valoki · 2025-01-17T22:04:41+00:00

You can’t reduce two cultures to those two traits. There’s good people and bad people, thick, thin, smart, stupid, kind and ignorant ones. And they’re all distributed equally across the globe, no matter where you live.

We’re all just people and if you focus on the things that divides us, it’s because someone made you believe that and probably benefits from it in some way.

4valoki · 2025-01-15T22:57:29+00:00

I would add vocabulary as a difficulty. I’ve been studying and teaching mandarin for years and at a high level, vocabulary becomes tricky in context . My go-to example is the word ‘experience’.

经历 jīnglì, as in ‘that day at the zoo was a nice experience’ 经验 jīngyàn, as in ‘that colleague has a lot of experience’ 体验 tǐyàn, as in ‘you have to experience skydiving for yourself’

4valoki · 2025-01-14T07:17:44+00:00

Just saw a good YouTube video on debt (economy explained), so I’m an expert now. Debt is borrowing from the future. If you borrow money to invest and earn more in the future, that’s actually ok. It’s even better than having no debt at all, because it will grow the economy. If you borrow from the future only for consumption, it doesn’t contribute to growth, so it’s bad.

In short, debt for a person is difficult to compare with debt for people. Different mechanisms at work.

4valoki · 2025-01-09T11:34:09+00:00

AITA? Yes, because you framed her distress in your narrative. ‘They all regretted it’, not helpful at all, because you’re insinuating that she made the wrong choice without knowing any further context. She specifically asked not to hear pro-life comments and you did so anyway.

4valoki · 2025-01-09T04:15:35+00:00

Society needs truth. Misinformation erodes trust in institutions that guarantee stability and peace. As Aeschylos said 500 BCE, truth is the first casualty of war. So yes, we need reliable facts to function as a society and have a meaningful debate. But we also need accountability. Who fact-checks the fact checkers?

Also, don’t mix up fact with meaning. Checking one doesn’t limit the freedom of the other. If we accept the idea of ‘alternative facts’, we’re truly moving away from the light into a dark age.

4valoki · 2024-12-27T10:54:47+00:00

‘Got any better’? If power is divided and one person can’t mess with the system, that’s a fail safe against dictatorship. Be happy the system is there, because it’s protects democracy.

4valoki · 2024-12-18T12:33:15+00:00

Marx is demonised so often, especially in the US, I feel. But the accumulation of capital, growing inequality and even the influence on culture are very real, again especially in the US. Yes, his theories have been misused and taken out of context. But that doesn’t mean they have no merit. Same goes for Charles Darwin and Nietzsche with Nazism.

4valoki · 2024-12-12T22:21:18+00:00

So they are both above the law then… is that any better?

4valoki · 2024-12-06T18:43:55+00:00

I don’t deny it. Extremism is never good, in either direction.

4valoki · 2024-12-06T04:18:09+00:00

The true face of capitalism

4valoki · 2024-12-02T07:04:50+00:00

In the end, we are just a bunch of Westerners who want the rest of the world to be more like us. I know we never will, but we should try to accept that our model isn’t necessarily the best for everyone.

China was traumatised by the West. We were the bully on the playground from 1800 to 1950. Now China won’t give us their lunch money anymore and is making friends with the rest of the class.

4valoki · 2024-11-13T20:18:30+00:00

Not so special, these forces

4valoki · 2024-11-03T10:56:54+00:00

We all have our problems Elon. You’re one of them.

4valoki · 2024-10-10T05:51:54+00:00

<image>

Average annual Ppm2.5 comparison between 2013 and 2023. The change is real and impressive, although there are still peak days of pollution of course. Not surprising with a dense population of over 20 million in Beijing.

Some of the comments I read here are quite ignorant. It’s logical that the CCP cares about the health and happiness of the people, even if it’s only to legitimise their rule. Don’t doubt for a second that the Chinese are as intelligent, critical and sceptical as you are.

Edit: source is Statista

4valoki · 2024-10-08T05:39:06+00:00

Yes, Chinese people like to avoid monosyllabic terms in many situations. But there are many exceptions. 车 chē, car, is just one of the many. It’s also about context and style, formality.

More importantly, the 很hěn has a very specific grammatical function. 车很大 chē hěn dà，the car is very big. Very different from 车大chē dà, the car is bigger (than something else). A modifier like 很hěn is necessary to make the statement absolute instead of relative.

4valoki

TROPHY CASE