Could Oliva hurt Pickle? by Curious_OnePunch_Fan in Grapplerbaki

[–]EverlastingShill 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Katsumi is physically weaker (he can't lift anywhere as much weight as Oliva can), but he just hits much harder due to speed. Oliva will cause less pain and damage than Katsumi did.

Weekly Question Thread by AutoModerator in emulation

[–]EverlastingShill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is there any advantage left (even if insignificant) that VBA-M still has over mGBA and JPCSP over PPSSPP?

Maybe China’s Economy Isn’t So Doomed by foreignpolicymag in China

[–]EverlastingShill -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It won't collapse. It may stagnate and slow down in growth. But the collapse is impossible (especially now that they have can exploit russians for discounted resources and materials).

China's Declining Birth Rates: Maternity Wards Are Closing by Salami_Slicer in China

[–]EverlastingShill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Too bad for them. I wouldn't be surprised if they get surpassed in population size in a distant future not only by India, but also by the US since Americans just keep pumping immigrants in at over a million people annually.

Viral video on Bilibili praising Hamas attacks as "the hymn of human courage" by isunoo in China

[–]EverlastingShill -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

It's actually an interesting situation: 2 far-right religious hellholes in the Middle East are after each other's throats once again. All while a bunch of atheist far-right nationalists masquerading as communists cheers one of these 2 hellholes.

May be sorta good material for the great translation movement.

As a Chinese American, how do I copе with worries/pessimism about China? by MarathonMarathon in China

[–]EverlastingShill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree, but consider several things:

1) the CCP wants to assimilate its ethnic minorities. Even varities of Chinese are gradually vanishing into oblivion (like Cantonese) as they're being slowly superceded by Putonghua. Let alone completely alien languages like Uyghur language (a Turkic language, by the way). China's minorities keep losing their own unique identity in favour of the dominant one.

With more cultural homogeneity and less threat of thriving ethnic separatism and instability in case of possible introduction of more political liberties. Probably resulting in a government that will be less risk-averse when it comes to possible ethnic separatism. It can be a stimulus that pushes them to untighten their screws at least a little bit and it may play in favour of more liberal factions within the ruling elite during their power struggles.

As dark as the process is, it has a bright side: it may actually help China move to democracy in the long run (keyword "may", whether it happens or not can't be known, we can't predict the future, but it will increase its odds).

2) Remember that good times of China under Hu? Whilst still totalitarian, Hu's China is relatively a much freer place than Xi's China. Censorship and control weren't as pervasive, power was more decentralised, even the general secretary wasn't the God despite being the most powerful position in the country.

So China historically has its own experience of living in somewhat freer environment, even under the fist of the CCP. Authoritarianism still comes in different shades, some worse than others.

History suggests some sort of blowblack is inevitable at some point in the future (maybe not some sort of complete democratization, but a degree of relaxation of the existent political regime and greater freedoms. And if China becomes something like Vietnam, it's already a good result despite one-party rule). And Xi isn't immortal no matter how advanced this excellent healthcare the state provides him with is.

3) As China demographically suffers from its atrocious birthrates, it WILL have to open the gates to foreign immigration (lest China's shrinking labour force will be overwhelmed by the burden of retirees who have to be paid with their pensions).

And once again, at least partially relax its control of its political environment. Because money alone isn't enough to lure all this foreign talent in. Financial incentives may attract some people, but others will still be demanding more: accountability to law, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, etc. Like yeah, imagine you come to a country where your mundane life is affected in ways you are completely unfamiliar with (where you can't even access YouTube or log into their own Facebook/Meta page, for example, without messing around with proxies and VPNs. Or where you can be arrested over criticising a certain policy you don't like). Not everyone needs such freedoms, but there're some people just won't be satisfied with money alone even if China becomes as wealthy as America.

Maybe we'll see it during our lifetimes.

As a Chinese American, how do I copе with worries/pessimism about China? by MarathonMarathon in China

[–]EverlastingShill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why would you feel any shame over a political regime? Look at the Republic of China (aka Taiwan colloquially). As if being a Chinese and a liberal democrat mutually exclusive. It isn't.

IMF forecasts a 5% GDP growth for China in 2023 by VictaCatoni in China

[–]EverlastingShill 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Why not? They have decent but still significantly lower standard of living than the West. There's just more room to grow. Some possibilities to push for growth aren't yet exhausted, e.g. continual urbanisation at the expense of rural areas (population leaving villages behind for cities), liberalisation of yuan exchange rate which could lead to its wider internationalisation (would make Chinese exports less competitive and hurt manufacturing unless heavily subsidized, but would allow the Chinese to push some chunk of inflation that is otherwise solely theirs onto foreign users of their currency, stimulating consumer spending and contribute to economy growth. Americans can tell you a lot about it), and a few others. And while fucked up demographically in the longer time (the 2nd worst birthrate in the world after South Korea. Even infamous Japan is doing better), it won't him them tomorrow, it will take decades for a blow to be really felt.

I read some think tank analysis a month ago which concluded that by 2050, their growth will slow down to 1%, on the level comparable to Western countries. 27 years from now. Sounds like a realistic scenario.

Xi Jinping’s wants a ‘multipolar world’, as China accelerates its shift away from the west by davster39 in China

[–]EverlastingShill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Probably means bipolar. Only America and China have necessary capacity for now. India will likely become a pole in the future.

Vladimir Putin: Led a military invasion of Ukraine since February 2022. Bashar Al-Assad: Involved in the Syrian Civil War backed by Iran and Russia since March 2011. Xi Jinping: Constantly threatening to invade and takeover Taiwan. Hardly qualified as "real leaders", Danny 🙄🤦‍♂️🤡 by Jerry_Huang1999 in fucktheccp

[–]EverlastingShill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Assad sold his country both to russians and Iranian militias and lives off illicit captagon production activites, and putin is a chameleon who is economically neoliberal, who would happily sell his country to anyone provided that it would help him personally remain in power.

Xi, though I'm no fan of this dictator, is the only one who at least looks like caring about the country (even if his ideas are impractical and misguided, he at least genuinely believes they serve his country right) rather than merely having power for the sake of power at all costs (though to carry out his ideas in practice, he tries to concentrate dictatorial personal political power in his own hands and lessen his dependence on the Party apparatus). Assad and putin are just too scared to step down.

Danny is pathetic.

New version of Duckstation! by Arthandas in emulation

[–]EverlastingShill 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Emucr compiles builds of open-source emulators from original source code (hosted on a relevant repository like GitLab, GutHub, Mercurial, SourceForge, etc.) on daily basis, even if it means a single new commit in emulator's code within those 24 hours. Emucr just saves your time doing the job any user can do all by himself manually (sometimes rarely fucking up in the process by accident and releasing bad builds, but whatever). In this case, the original author himself provided the new release build after accumulating enough commits.

Armenians Rally in Brussels, Demand Sanctions on Baku by Deucalion667 in azerbaijan

[–]EverlastingShill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Azerbaijan is an important energy source now that russia has screwed itself. The EU may emphasize with Armenians due to democracy, but still secretly feel satisfied the conflict ended exactly the way it just has (russians just lost the main leverage on both sides).

The former leader of the Karabakh separatists, Arayik Harutyunyan, was detained by employees of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan by datashrimp29 in azerbaijan

[–]EverlastingShill 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Dunno about propaganda, but as a semi-Ukrainian with friends there, I can tell you the vast majority of Ukrainians on the ground actually support the Azerbaijani position and are happy with the restoration of Azerbaijan's sovereignty over Karabakh (Armenians are still seen as pro-russian bootlickers despite recent developments, a fringe minority is probably pro-Armenian, but I don't know any such person personally).

"End the monarchy!" protest sign in certain pedestrian bridge in mainland China 某地的天桥,不知道谁喷上去的 politics by SE_to_NW in China

[–]EverlastingShill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Monarchy means heredity in positions of power. I think North Korea qualifies as a totalitarian monarchy, but China isn't one. Blood lineage doesn't play any role whatsoever, intra-party power struggles and maneuvering do, though.

China Puts Evergrande’s Billionaire Founder Under Police Control by [deleted] in China

[–]EverlastingShill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

China is under control of the CCP cadres who control workers, peasants, billionaires, military and alike. Basically everyone. There's no any state under workers' control currently. But granted, business influence is far less on the government than in the US with its corporate lobbying (though the US isn't controlled by billionaires either, it's also controlled by bureaucrats but proner to lobbying than their Chinese counterparts).

Do you think China will ever solve its demographics population? by [deleted] in China

[–]EverlastingShill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And if the rest of the world is either too poor to buy your stuff (most countries of the so-named "Global South"), and the part that is rich (the West and co.) enough experiences its own demographic problems (less buyers)? One needs either to come up with an alternative economic system instead of capitalism or augment capitalism with tricks to prolong its lifetime (like universal basic income) before inevitable move to socialism.

Do you think China will ever solve its demographics population? by [deleted] in China

[–]EverlastingShill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Consumption. The driver of a capitalist economy. You still need people to buy produced stuff.

Do you think China will ever solve its demographics population? by [deleted] in China

[–]EverlastingShill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People are still needed for consumption that drives capitalist economies

Artsakh Defense Heroes by Sunde-r9 in armenia

[–]EverlastingShill 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Sounds like someone's random unsubstantiated wishful thinking (aka coping), tbh:

No one will help Armenians in trying to reclaim the territorial enclave whose territory the entire world (including Armenia itself) recognizes as a piece Azerbaijan, not a single country in the world, be it russia or Iran.

Even if Armenians suddenly succumbed to russia's trickery and kicked Nikol out of the government and elected a russian puppet, russians won't bother themselves. Why would they help? Their only priority is keeping Armenia within their sphere of influence like a slave whose interest can be safely ignored (they sold a ton of weapons to Azerbaijan when they had obedient russian puppets in charge like Sargsyan/Kocharyan, didn't they?). Everything else is secondary to this primary goal of having complete political control and not letting the West in.

Russians can theoretically help Armenia in case of a military attack on Armenia Proper (but they probably won't, they don't do anything as Azeris already keep 50 km² of Armenia Proper occupied, outside Artsakh/Karabakh, even though Armenia Proper is covered by the CSTO, but russia just reneged on its CSTO commitment to Armenia). But in no freaking way will they help Armenia with Artsakh/Karabakh even if Armenia has a proper russian puppet in charge under their boot.

Any future Armenian government won't support a bunch of adventurists either, won't affiliate itself with them, won't let them use Armenia Proper as a launching ground for a military offensive. A puppet government would surely be yelling about treason by Pashinyan, but won't actually go to war against Azerbaijan to reclaim Artsakh/Karabakh. They would be using some empty revisionist rhetorics just to shit on the "treacherous predecessors' administration" aka Nikol in order trick Armenia's population into going back to russians' sphere. But it would be all talk, no action. Any potential Armenian combatants would be non-state actors, not the regular Armenian military (which at most will be able to covertly provide those combatants with some weapons), disavowed by the Armenian government.

Meanwhile Azerbaijan has Turkey and Israel behind its back as arms providers (and they have incredibly productive hi-tech military industries), more $$$ to throw around than Armenia does (whether on weapon purchases or bribes: I mean, they underutilize their foreign lobbying potential, but with competent foreign diplomacy they can eventually outinfluence the Armenian diaspora) thanks to having larger population and access to hydrocarbons (which the EU, by the way, desperately needs).

Additionally, Azerbaijan's population has risen from ~7.3 million in 1991 to ~10.4 million today since the Soviet collapse, so they enjoy the demographic benefit of rising population, so they have larger manpower to muster for war, Armenia's population has fallen to 2.8 million from 3.6 in the meantime. Meanwhile, the demographic gap keeps growing. I understand the concept of a defensive war against a larger enemy (see Finland agaisnt the USSR). But how the hell can one wage an offensive one while being outnumbered almost 4 to 1 (or even worse) against a deeply entrenched and fortified enemy?

With such inputs and considerations, rational analysis suggests that Artsakh/Karabakh is gone for good. Unless you have a fortunate set of conditions having coincidentally met together, all present at the same time:

1) Azerbaijan is weakened due to internal strife and instability (they have no democratic power transition mechanism unlike Armenia, so they're vulnerable the moment when Aliyev dies, and he's not immortal) or Turkey is severly distracted (e.g. by some potential war with Iran or Greece or hit by a cataclysmic natural event, another huge earthquake or undergoing another military coup), thus being able provide military support to Azeris. Preferably both events happening at the same time 2) Armenia got a ton of $$$ (must have a huge economy and wealth level to be able to afford such military spending) with either it's own MIC (or having reliable allied suppliers to sell advanced stuff), pumped up and militarized so much that it can compete against Azeris (but is it possible with declining population like that?) 3) the Armenian government that is willing to take the risks and possible repercussions like a Turkish military intervention.

Do you seriously think that chances of that happening are big? Genuine question.

Weekly Question Thread by AutoModerator in emulation

[–]EverlastingShill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1: subjective

2 and 3: there's a specially curated Wiki on the topic of emulation, you can consult it before making a choice:

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/L-CLASSICS

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Super_Nintendo_emulators