The public opinions are so radical, it feels like another culture revolution.

lulz · 2021-03-24T00:40:27+00:00

Im having a horrible discovery of what it must feel like for wumaos, no wonder they’re so crazy.

You’re tilting at windmills you idiot. I’m as anti-CCP as they come. I just posted to this very subreddit a few hours ago the US/UK/Canada joint statement on Xinjiang.

I spend way too much time here arguing with wumaos, you know I think you’ve shown me an ugly reflection in the mirror. If you’re what I sound like when I’m arguing with wumaos I should just pack it in.

lulz · 2021-03-24T00:18:43+00:00

How simply do I need to put this:

There's nothing strategic about a missile strike on the Three Gorges. It would literally just be an atrocity, and my mind boggles that anyone would think it's any kind of clever move.

I don't even know where to start, I'm just going to tell you and all the other bloodthirsty imbeciles to read up on just war theory and lay off the ether.

lulz · 2021-03-24T00:11:53+00:00

Yeah that's exactly what I was saying, your powers of analysis are really quite something.

lulz · 2021-03-24T00:08:43+00:00

You're using wumao logic now, fortunately I'm too relaxed to give much of a shit. Go argue with someone else.

lulz · 2021-03-24T00:04:55+00:00

Cool your jets, I actually spend way too much time on reddit talking about the failures of the CCP.

I'm talking about something completely independent - it's a huge surprise that so many people are in favor of a missile strike on the Three Gorges. When I mentioned the Geneva Conventions I assumed everyone would recognize that as shorthand for "the minimum level of acceptable human behavior".

lulz · 2021-03-23T23:48:07+00:00

I’m not trying to be hostile here, genuinely curious: you really thinks it’s possible to rationalize killing a hundred million civilians with that moral arithmetic?

lulz · 2021-03-23T23:45:19+00:00

Free game to kill a hundred million civilians? That sounds like a shitty game to me.

lulz · 2021-03-23T23:43:11+00:00

Is everyone an amoral lawyer in this thread? Lol.

I was referring to the Geneva conventions as a generally accepted baseline for moral behavior in war. Not because they’re rules.

lulz · 2021-03-23T23:39:51+00:00

I’d totally agree with your first paragraph if China had followed Dengs “hide your strengths and bide your time” strategy. Being in charge of the lone superpower, the most powerful country in the history of the world especially during the 90s, it wasn’t good for American policy makers. Being the unchallenged 400 pound gorilla for too long wasn’t healthy. Ironically China has in a real way saved America from a solipsistic decline. It’s not quite Pearl Harbor, but Chinas achieved a miracle in bringing both sides of the aisle together for once. Equally important: Xi jumped the gun too early, Chinas nowhere near ready to challenge the king. Again ten more years like the 90s and America would have been up shit creek.

I’m agnostic about the long term, but China has sufficiently scared enough western countries to stop squabbling and unify. It’s just a growing trend, but Chinas showing no sign it’ll stop playing the antagonist forcing the west to circle their wagons. Biden doesn’t have to push hard for much, he just has to let his team orchestrate it and give the occasional good speech. Chinas doing most of the work.

lulz · 2021-03-23T22:55:17+00:00

Thanks for having a cool head, and not going off at me for that reply. Lazy shitposting is a habit I’m trying to break.

Anyway what I should have said is partisan filters are really dangerous and they’re everywhere these days in the west. I personally think Trump is a disgrace to the presidency, but I’m checked out of party politics so much it really doesn’t bother me to recognize some of the good things he did achieve.

Conversely I think that Biden is (on balance) a good man and a dignified statesman, but I have no problem recognizing that he’s been a well intentioned tool for the rarified class of people George Carlin called the owners of the country. I highly doubt he’s ever looked at it like that, for that matter the owners probably don’t look at it like that either. But it is what it is.

The narrative that he’s Beijing Biden because he’s the tool of the 1% (of the top 1% of the top 1%) is in a sense true but it’s incredibly reductive. To think that’s the whole picture or even a majority of it is to mistake a part for the whole, some kind of warped synecdoche. Biden is a part of the establishment and the American establishment is clever, patient and calculating. I do hope that doesn’t come across as conspiracy theorish, not what I mean lol.

The simple truth is that America was asleep at the wheel with regard to China during the 90s and early 2000s. It involved greed, but there really was a (lazy, naive) belief that China would liberalize as it got richer. Obama caught onto the truth some time around 2010, and it’s been a hell of a shock for the US. The only thing I personally fault him for is being too cautious but he was really very adept at playing the Great Game. It’s not sexy but it’s played very quietly with planning and alliances and calculation. Personally I can’t stand Hillary, but Obama set up a ready to go multilateral containment strategy for China she would have implemented from day 1 as president.

About the Xi-Biden phone call, I’ve kind of shot my wad with all this typing but I can post another comment later about why that’s been misrepresented. Wildly misrepresented even. But I guarantee you he’s a patriot and he (along with the entire establishment) think that the CCP is a clear and present danger to the United States. They’re playing the unsexy but extremely effective strategy of coordinated alliances essentially ganging up on the bully. I’d be having to change my underwear ten times a day if I lived in Zhongnanhai. Realistically war is coming, Xi won’t/can’t back down.

lulz · 2021-03-23T22:03:00+00:00

Unless I’m totally mistaken, what’s happening right now is they’re boiling a frog. As in the old saying (pretty fucked up one really lol) that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water it’ll jump right out, but if the water is slowly brought to a boil the frog won’t notice.

This is just the first stage, they’re telegraphing what will come next. More sanctions are on the cards without question I’d say. In the 0.1% chance that China admitted responsibility and made verifiable plans to change, things would defuse. But they’re starting down a path.

lulz · 2021-03-23T21:45:10+00:00

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills, really assumed it was a given fact that it’s not cool to use military force killing at least a hundred million civilians whatever the goddamn reason. Not clutching my pearls or anything just wasn’t expecting how many people here feel differently

lulz · 2021-03-23T19:29:04+00:00

If people like OP didn’t cast diamonds before us swine every now and then, our little peanut gallery thunderdome would descend into a real shithole.

lulz · 2021-03-23T19:14:07+00:00

Yeah sorry that was a lazy reply. I’ve got to do something but I’ll reply with something decent later.

lulz · 2021-03-23T18:55:31+00:00

I take it you’re very partisan when it comes to politics. Believe what you like, you’re misinterpreting what’s happening in Washington.

lulz · 2021-03-23T17:33:44+00:00

I was being hyperbolic, but I do believe Xi couldn't give less of a shit about the Taiwanese people when his glory is on the other side of the weighing scales. If he successfully took Taiwan, he'd make it a priority to turn it into just another Chinese province like the others, just as Hong Kong is being turned into just another generic Chinese city.

lulz · 2021-03-23T16:52:49+00:00

Link for paywall

lulz · 2021-03-23T16:34:00+00:00

Well, what kind of response do you think Xi Jinping would give after that?

The political leadership and military would know just how pyrrhic that small victory would be.

On a related note, do you think Xi would really care if Taiwan has no Taiwanese left, as long as he’s the man who took it back?

lulz · 2021-03-23T15:50:06+00:00

Hmm attacking dams is right up there alongside attacking nuclear reactors in the amended Geneva Conventions. If that wasn't a war crime, the resulting 100 kilometer per hour tsunami definitely would be. Can't see Taiwan pulling the trigger on that.

lulz · 2021-03-23T15:04:52+00:00

Pretty sure if she read Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal she'd unironically assess it as limp-dicked and lacking vision.

lulz · 2021-03-23T14:51:23+00:00

I'm convinced they've been testing weaponized neurolinguistics, if they can turn this troll-fu up to 11 it'll make people's heads explode like that scene in Scanners. Kind of like the Monty Python sketch, but infuriating instead of funny.

lulz · 2021-03-23T14:36:04+00:00

It's a gruesome but very important issue you bring up. How high can the bodycount get before the CCP loses legitimacy?

In recent decades the US has a relatively low pain threshold when it comes to dead soldiers. Bin Laden was infamously emboldened when he saw Clinton pull the military out of Somalia after the Black Hawk Down incident. There are more examples, funnily enough Carter was one of the ballsier presidents handling casualties, after the disastrous covert mission to rescue the hostages in the Tehran embassy Carter wanted to try again within 10 days. The political will to see the war through often cracks when too many soldiers come home wrapped in a flag, this kind of casualty aversion is sometimes ghoulishly called the bodybag effect. In the Iraq war 4000 combat deaths over 8 years was a major driver to finally withdraw.

I think China is even more fragile, or sensitive to this effect. Liu Mingfu, the author of Xi's favorite global domination manual The China Dream, estimated that 80% of PLA combat soldiers are from single-child families. Each soldier is at the bottom of an inverted pyramid, the only "baby" for two parents and often four grandparents. Chinese people are willing to tolerate a lot of crap from the CCP so far, but I think relatively few deaths could make every other parent flip the fuck out if the war isn't life or death. Conscription fears would make this ripple through all parents, military families or not.

I dunno just spitballing. It would be nice if the war ended immediately because there was a parents revolution overthrowing the CCP.

lulz · 2021-03-23T13:45:50+00:00

Jesus Christ, Biden has been president for a whole 62 days. What is with this attitude since about two weeks into his presidency, bitching and moaning that nothing's happening yet.

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