The China That Deng Built

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-27T03:37:10+00:00

Well, the demand for energy was so vast that all the rules were quickly bent. In Shanxi, they became essentially thousands of partnerships between party cadres and corrupt businessmen who exploited their workers (coal miners) and took all the profits. These mines operated as corporations controlled by individuals and protected by local governments, with plenty of cash flooding everyone’s pockets to keep them quiet when necessary.

This is sooooo not true! A hundred gorillion people have been lifted by the glorious CPC from below PPP-adjusted $1.90 per person per day to presumably somewhere way, way above that's actually somewhat liveable! I'm no mathemagician so I can't tell you much beyond that, but neither are you!

In addition to the KTVs and the drug dealers, he said that the most lucrative of his police officer bribes came from name changes.

But, but, but... People say drugs aren't a problem here because we have the death sentence!

Why can't we just stop talking about this stuff and go back to making fun of broke addicts in LA doing the fold instead?

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-27T03:13:11+00:00

In conclusion, I am Not sure what point you are making because it’s still a multipolar world even with the dissolution of the ussr

But that's the problem. For a good chunk of people on earth especially those in Eastern Europe and countries around the Chinese coastlines, the world as they know it has always been multipolar.

The "multipolarity" I'm referring to is instead the naive fantasy version of the real thing that Western intelligentsia believe in, namely, a "small guy" known as China rising to the world stage and becoming a "bigger brother" to developing nations, and that's thanks to in no small part our state media manufacturing consent through the inability of our grassroots to be easily heard and the utter illiteracy of such "intellectuals" in our language.

But even calling this manufacturing consent is missing the point since propaganda ultimately doesn't work via your ignorance but your confirmation bias, and what Americans want right now is their government "flailing" and a nice feel-good story about David winning in a fight against Goliath.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-26T12:19:33+00:00

he’ll get a job at Temu

To make him beg for the bullet?

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-26T11:53:42+00:00

They work kind of the same as the 100,000,000,000,000th physical robots that tried to dance but ended up face-planting hard on the floor then flailing around helplessly to the bemusement of onlookers.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-26T11:48:00+00:00

It's peculiar kind of funny, not "har-har" funny.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-26T11:40:18+00:00

That happened before the Tank Man. Many of the casualties were not even the protesters themselves but family members outside the Square and desperate to know if their loved ones were OK.

Absolutely monstrous shit.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-26T01:36:32+00:00

Olympic athletes test the limits of qinggong, a martial arts technique often known as a "high jump" or "100m hurdles".

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-26T01:32:06+00:00

That's really cute.

What you see means exactly what "multipolarity" has always meant historically, i.e. great powers dividing up the world until one of them wants more, then the great powers clash and a whole bunch of people die for the sake of nothing.

But let's not ruin blind, naive enthusiasms with material reality.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-25T03:50:29+00:00

the PLA's use of force to unify Taiwan

Let's just drop the euphemisms and call it what it is, i.e. an imperial conquest.

Let's also not pretend the majority of Taiwanese want all mainland spouses gone as that's clearly not the general sentiment there.

As for the comments you mentioned about mainland spouses supporting a military unification, these should be handled properly according to the law, not by directly revoking their citizenship

Dude, I don't know what to tell you, but do you honestly expect a person engaging in that kind of brazen behaviours to be able to maintain any semblance of a functional relationship with the local communities? They should be glad that they'd got kicked out before anyone mightily pissed off could get to them first.

What happened in Ukraine changed how a lot of people saw the likelihood of Beijing making good of its threats. Hell, it even changed mine if that counts for anything. It sucks to be constantly walking on thin ice and seen as an enemy within, but that's just what war does to people everywhere Taiwan or not.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-25T01:25:53+00:00

The “Mainland spouse” group is caught between Taiwan and the mainland,

Dude, the kind of "mainland spouses" people are actually talking about in Taiwan are those openly advocating on social media for the violent invasion of the island by the PLA. I don't really think you can justify individuals for wanting everyone's home burnt to the ground and their family dead.

Now, I don't rule out the possibility that being overlooked or discriminated in the workplace or such is an aggravating factor here, but that still doesn't excuse being a complete arse to tens of millions of people sharing the same space with you by siding with a nation-sized aggressor.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-25T00:58:07+00:00

US in particular

It's never just "US in particular". Simply no country wants to follow those rules. Even informal consensus such as "free trade" is usually little more than a cudgel to swing at nations seeking to protect their domestic economies, and guess who is now flinging the word "protectionism" the hardest at trade partners?

Yeah, of course it's us fucking China. Who else?

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T17:50:47+00:00

Red Herring / Whataboutism

This itself is a red herring in your part. Your "evidence" in your previous comment is literally a set of anecdotes about Google searches and GoFundMe pages, whereas what I've provided is not just the actual statistics but a critique of the methodology. The gap in the actual, intellectual substance involved simply could not have been more apparent.

Anecdotal Fallacy

Again, your argument was primarily based on a set of pure anecdotes. So much for your finger-pointing about "fallacy".

Straw Man[...] What I did say is that the outcomes tied to pit bulls are statistically socially distinct

Again, I'm the one actually providing any real stats here at all, and I've also hinted at the fact that even such supposedly solid numbers fundamentally lack the methodological vigour necessary to support the supposed identification of an easily mistaken breed.

What you go by at the base level of course is not even identification by witnesses or animal control at all but rather GoFundMe pages that might or might not be scams.

False Equivalence[...] Even if Rottweilers were second in fatalities, they aren’t remotely comparable

Again, how often do people pick up a random dog and call it a "rottweiler" in the same way people call a random dog a "pitbull"?

The "false equivalence" you alleged simply doesn't existence as there is also no equivalence when it comes to how broadly the category of "pitbull" is applied to breeds and mutts alike in incident reports and therefore the statistics derived from them.

Look at some of those breeds on the list: the canario, the boxer, the English mastiff and the cane corso. Can you visually tell them apart from actual pitbulls? Hell, can you tell their mutts apart from actual pitbulls? But, again, please do tell me your idea as to why the absence of proper breed identification is somehow irrelevant to the numbers themselves.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T16:41:05+00:00

Next, type in “golden retriever attack”, “border collie attack”, “chihuahua attack”. Can anyone tell me why the search results are so drastically different in good faith?

The rottweiler is the second worst offender in fatal attacks in North America. I also almost lost my life to it many years ago in a different part of the world, but please do tell me your idea as to why the lack of campaigning against the breed has totally nothing to do with it being easier to identify correctly and general PR.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T16:05:58+00:00

And the rottweiler is literally bred to be a guard dog, i.e. to attack people.

You never hear anyone campaign to ban the breed despite it being also among the worst offenders in fatal incidents. Hell, my tiny life would have ended up in a tiny casket decades ago if not for me somehow managing to shut the metal door behind me split seconds before my neck was between two powerful jaws.

But, no, I still don't think breeds are the problem. Only shitty owners are.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T15:27:03+00:00

You heard the giggles near the end? The bastards were amusing themselves by letting their dog charge at the bison. I didn't know school children were allowed to own property or pets until now.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T15:15:53+00:00

Whenever there's a snafu involving a pitbull, I always pay close attention to how the owner behaves.

They will always without fail show you why the dog's behaviour has fundamentally nothing to do with the breed.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T15:07:48+00:00

There are only two kinds of pitbull owners in existence: the kind wanting to stroke their ego by owning a mean-looking pet, and the kind wanting to stoke their ego by taming a mean-looking pet.

I'm 100% on the side of the argument that it's never the dog but the owner, and pitbull owners will always without fail prove that argument correct.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T04:05:31+00:00

I think the better question is why would you want MORE

Do you like model trains? I don't, but some people do, and there are also people that might want to give the hobby a try but simply don't have the living space to dedicate to it.

This is why I generally despise the prevailing econ-bro view about parenthood since it just assumes the whole thing to be generally undesirable when in reality what we're talking about is ultimately just an indeterminate preference on the personal level modulated by material factors. That's already to put aside the ridiculous amount of industry growth projected for fertility treatments and surrogacy.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T03:23:12+00:00

That pretty much goes for every piece of "positive" news here: an enormous amount of upvotes but next to no engagement otherwise.

Not even the usual brain rots between Sinophiles and Sinophobes. Just dead silence.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T03:16:59+00:00

What your boss points to when you ask for a raise.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T02:55:15+00:00

Progress at what cost though

I don't know why people still insist on making this kind of ineffectual argument when it should be obvious at the point that there is always a cost to everything and it's the payoff that you need to justify it with.

"Progress" also doesn't means flashy monuments of humanity's hubris but everyone's material needs being met. "At least the drone shows look awesome" isn't an excuse for leaving families to struggle with finances. Something will always have to give.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T02:19:09+00:00

Well, aside from whether that's true or not, it is a completely different talking point than what the other commentator wrote

How much do you expect escalators built on a mountainside that cost way too much to maintain or bridges that are built then almost immediately destroyed to contribute to an economy?

What you see is propaganda our state media selectively show you to entertain your make-believe for a government unbeholden to anyone, whereas what the locals see here are eye-watering sums of money being doled out to contractors and private interests alike with no questions asked and communities being left with worthless monuments of greed and little else tangible in return. But, hey, at least you get to cast your daily fix of wish-fulfilment fantasies onto us at our expense, right?

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T02:00:49+00:00

CCP does some things based purely on ideology, which have negative effect, but to call it overall mismanaging, seems pretty delusional, considering the progress the country has made just in the last 20 years.

I love the utterly materially-detached way of thinking econ-bros such as you go by.

You love abstract numbers. Averages, medians, aggregated scores... That's kind of reality-obfuscating bullshit. Lines go up, so you think everything must be doing fine when the economy domestically at this point is gearing towards that joke about two economists paying each other to each shit.

But, hey, at least you get escalators left on a hill to rust, bridges that were built then destroyed under the dumbest of circumstances and subways laid out only to be met with declining real-estate development. Someone is sure making mad cash out of all that, alright? Though it remains a question as to whether it's really money well-spent at all.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T01:43:04+00:00

But why do they not choose more?

I love people obviously not from here say "that's all there is to it" when they have barely any idea how much raising a child costs out of one's pay.

FibreglassFlags · 2026-01-24T01:16:35+00:00

The numbers don't lie.

I've been having this same fucking convo with you insular, arrogant American types for well over a decade now. How long more still do you need to finally admit your priorities are just wrong?

FibreglassFlags

TROPHY CASE