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Neither should be popular. Ppl should be suspicious of both.
More popular. I don’t think China is popular in general. It speaks to how deeply unpopular the US is right now.
China is authoritarian, but if you look only at the material conditions for democracy like prosperity, peace, education they are better than the US. People fundamentally want to exist and raise families in peace without constant terror, confusion and economic hardship. That is because even they are authoritarian, they can still “afford” to have pro-human or pro-national ideology. In the neoliberal countries choosing that over profit gets you fired or sidelined.
China is authoritarian
“Authoritarian” doesn’t even mean anything as a word, beside being maybe vaguely synonymous with “enemy”. Any actual attempt definition of the word is either hypocritical and/or so wide and universally applicable to every state, making it useless.
Also why positive view of US in places like Eu and Canada is sliding is not because people really think America is sliding into non-democracy, or because people see US no longer as an shining example of prosperity, or have people really awoken the reality that US is the worlds largest rogue state and sponsor of terror (Israel, etc.). nor is china really seen as an better alternative.
Those people who most espouse having lost faith into US since 2024 are mainly the liberal-internationalists who are in power in these places (and in the media) would love nothing more than return to the pre-war status quo where EU is the junior partner in the American enterprise called west. They hate Trump and everything he represents, not America. They hate Trump not because he is incompetent or giving bad leadership per se, but because he makes people in places like Brussels and London nervous and makes “the west” look bad or atleast give it a look that more mask off and undignified look than they would like.
What I meant is “having much power / authority without being accountable to some third party”. And yeah, taking the mask off is the only good thing about Trump. The US will never get their image back.
PS: The other good thing might be crashing the global economy might be positive for lowering GHG - but at what cost??? (haha)
“having much power / authority without being accountable to some third party”
A useless definition. Truly useless. You are going for the “But we can voot the bad people out of the system, so we are better than Chyna” shtick, aren’t you? A liberal narrative of democracy vs authoritarianism that has nothing to do with reality. Any sure way for people only can get accountability even in the west if they protest and riot on the streets. Otherwise the interest of the rulers will always overrule the interests of the people when there is a conflict between the two. And when talking change I’m not talking about promises or shuffling one talking head out to be replaced with another, I’m saying that real systemic change within the system has become nearly impossible, much less having accountability. The politicians, party machinery, institutions, the media and the 1% funding all of them are so deep in bed with each other.
I’m more interested in the evolution of systems or game theory than ideology. Or nitpicking about word definitions, after all most words have different meanings depending on context (how authoritarian of you to try to deny the meaning of my words haha).
And yeah you’d need a large scale purge in the US. Nationalize all news and social media and turn them into democratic cooperatives with regulations and some kind of fund backing them, removing state control again. And maybe sortition to bypass the mechanisms in elections and politics that filters for those who are selfish and best at gaining power, but generally not good for other people. Getting money out of politics isn’t enough, you need to get politics out of elections.
I believe the general myopia in these times is partially because we’re out of ideas in what to try. While a respect China’s achievements, I wouldn’t want to live there - and can’t anyway because they just don’t allow any immigration. Partially the CCPs success is because their and the people’s goals are aligned (prosperity, education). So while I’m a socialist at heart, I don’t believe in any of the various types of socialism or anarchism as a panacea either. Basically we’re running out of time until climate change leads to global collapse and we do not even have any new system to try for after yet.
I guess I’m mostly interested in “harm reduction” based on specific rules of a system, and based on new technology. E.g. a planned economy using modern IT, crowd polling, AI would be infinitely easier, more efficient and more democratic.
how authoritarian of you to try to deny the meaning of my words haha
If you needed more proof that ‘authoritarian’ is meaningless.
The US is more authoritarian, if anything, especially if you live in a country that’s been on the receiving end of its foreign policy.
I agree but using it that way just creates confusion. Just call it imperialist or terrorist state. Or even outwardly fascist / nationalist. Authoritarian is used to denote how they treat their own citizens.
The concept that treating people differently based on whether or not the government decides they are “citizens” or not is authoritarian in its own right; it’s an ideological position being unilaterally forced on people by the government, with lethal violence if needed.
Not that the USA isn’t authoritarian towards its own citizens, it has the largest prison population on the planet - comparable to the gulags at the height of Stalin’s rule - for a reason.
if I’m from, say, Ghana, I’m judging China based on how China affects Ghanaian people, not on how China affects Chinese people
That’s important too, but that isn’t just moving the goalpost, it’s a completely different metric. But even if you’re a staunch nationalist you might look at how Chinese people feel about the system and if you could replicate that system in Ghana.
Have you been to China?
I haven’t. Please elaborate.
The Chinese people do not exist in a state of peace with the CCP, that political monstrosity is one of the many reasons why there has been a rush of Chinese citizens leaving the country. The pandemic fully exposed how destructive and nefarious the CCP is. First they denied it started in China, followed by a weak attempt to blame foreigners for covid-19. It ended with the CCP welding people into their homes, caging Chinese citizens and allowing human beings to literally starve to death.
While the Chinese government pushes a very nationalistic message, It really isn’t pro-human in the slightest. The CCP top brass has been content to exploit the poverty of its populace in order to enrich themselves.
Compared to that (strictly enforced quarantine for sick people) the US not only failed to stem the spread of the pandemic, the president and his cult expressively espoused dangerous quack medicine.
Generally China organized regular food delivery to people in quarantine and had countless teams tracing infection. Meanwhile the US forced the “essential” lowest class workers to expose themselves and even encouraged their maga cult to spit on people to infect them.
Countless preventable deaths are the result, plus even more people with lowered mental faculties from Covid. And then you elected the same cult leader again!
I haven’t been to China but that would only give you anecdotal stories. I also don’t speak chinese or read chinese social media, but I can read statistics. But yeah, there is no “peace” but an uneasy acceptance of censorship in China.
Your reply falls in line with my beliefs. Does anyone else reading this have any rebuke?
It’s like comparing diarrhea to poop.
Thanks Trump.
If your “ally” becomes hostile to you then its no surprise.
That’s a low bar to cross
Rivals, opponents, enemies… A traitor trumps them all.
