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I had a similar experience chatting to my former coworker (who moved recently from China) regarding Taiwan. I said Taiwan is pretty much an independent country

I had a similar experience chatting to my former coworker (who moved recently from China) regarding Taiwan. I said Taiwan is pretty much an independent country given it has it's own currency, military and democratic government. She looked at me like I was telling her the earth was flat. She was smart and good natured, and didn't have any opposing reasons, but she insisted Taiwan was simply another province of China. Really made an impression on me. I bet most of my beliefs are baloney too, but I have no idea which ones they are.

1propionyl 7y ago
I had a similar experience meeting a friend of a coworker at a social function. Someone brought up the Dalai Lama and Tibet, and she seemed completely unable or unwilling to accept that Tibet had even ever _not_ fully and totally willingly been an administrative division of China, or that China had acted in any way inappropriately. As far as she was concerned, Tibetans were Chinese, not a distinct group. It was eye opening.
- markus_zhang 7y ago
  It just says how different views different people can have. I'm pretty sure it was eye opening for her too... I have been living in the West long enough to not argue those stuffs. The Chinese government has its bad and its good, but so far it's doing OK, and I can't imagine any other government could do better, or even on par.
  - wrs 7y ago
    "I can't imagine any other government could do better." Well, that's exactly the point, isn't it?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - ryanobjc 7y ago
    So "better" entirely depends on your values, right? Ever heard of the phrase "better to die on your feet, than live on your knees?" Not everyone shares the ethos that a full belly is happiness and goodness. There is more to life than mere material goods. What makes a life worth living even? I guess if you have a job all is good, at least as per your line of argumentation.
    - markus_zhang 7y ago
      Of course it depends on my own values. Aren't you the same? I'm sorry I don't accept your values, but I'm OK if you don't accept mine.
    - morpheuskafka 7y ago
      Not only is there the inherent moral value of freedom, but from a purely material standpoint, if the government has the right to take away your precious job and full belly for any reason, you don't really own it at all.
  - Joakal 7y ago
    How do you know it's doing good when they have a reputation for censor and change narratives to suit their agenda?
    - markus_zhang 7y ago
      They also have a reputation of carrying billions of people out from poverty and to prosperity. Of course the credit mostly goes to the people, but still it's something. Sure I don't like the censorship and change narratives, but most governments do the same thing. Let me know if you find one government that is both competent and honest.
      - Joakal 7y ago
        There's none. That's why people rely on elections and news to hear about events even if they are not favourable to the government. Better informed people can then keep the bastards honest. When you don't have either, what can you do about it?
        markus_zhang 7y ago
        We do have both. The election doesn't work the same way as in other countries, but I'd be lying if I say there is none. For the news, you can find quite a lot of news that are not favorable to the government on weibo/wechat if you read Chinese. I don't fully agree with censorship (they do serve some good I must say that), but it's not black and white. I'm also very pessimistic about "better-informed" people. Receiving news from different sources doesn't make you just. You can't receive A and B and just average them.
        shkkmo 7y ago
        > I'm also very pessimistic about "better-informed" people. Receiving news from different sources doesn't make you just. You can't receive A and B and just average them. ... you don't average them. You use critical thinking to evaluate the information with regards to its sources, their agendas and integrate those sources. When there are contradictions you try to understand why.
  - PixyMisa 7y ago
    China is a one-party state where even the army belongs to the party. It's possible to imagine something worse; we've had plenty of examples, unfortunately. It's easy to imagine something better.
    - markus_zhang 7y ago
      I'd love to imagine, but in reality TBH I don't see a lot of positive examples. If you hate the one-party idea, just think one more layer -- there are factions inside the party, probably more than 2 actually.
      - EarthMephit 7y ago
        New Zealand, all the Nordic countries, many western democracies all provide very good examples of good government without jailing people who speak up against their rulers and without strict censorship laws They are all really nice countries to live in too
        umeshunni 7y ago
        New Zealand and all the Nordic countries can fit into a suburb of Shanghai. I think most westerners don't realize the magnitude of China and that managing/ruling/governing a country of 1.3B diverse citizens with thousands of a years of history is a larger challenge than managing a small country.
  - zwaps 7y ago
    Why can't you imagine anyone do better? It is easy to see all the good things that happened in China in the last decades, and see the things that work. But I can very easily imagine a better government in China, much like I can do so for the US and in EU countries. The CCP is running literal concentration camps, is suppressing free speech, using (possibly) questionable economic measures, strongarming other independent countries, censoring and even harvesting organs of prisoners for profit (probably for political elites). And most of those things on a scale previously unimaginable. Furthermore, one might argue (and I am not saying this is black and white) that the process of raising people out of poverty has as much to do with technical progress, foreign trade and China's geographical and demographic makeup, as it has to do with actual policy (and one could therefore imagine even better outcomes!) I think it is indeed very easy to imagine things going better in China! That's the entire point, I think. Citizens should be willing and able to be unhappy with their governments, and be able to express this without disappearing. That you can not imagine anyone doing better in China is what the OP was talking about. Edit: Just to make this clear, I do not want a discussion on the merits of the CCPs policies - everyone can have their own opinion on that - much like for any other country. But the worry is the well rehearsed narrative that China is somehow unique and requires, basically, an iron fist rule. This I have seen many times in discussions with Chinese - saying that all these criticisms may be good and well for other countries, but not for China. And this in the end amounts to unwillingness to question the CCP in any way. And that, I think, is not good.
    - markus_zhang 7y ago
      I can't any imagine any other real government can do better. Sorry forgot to put real. I don't follow ideas unless it's actionable. You can imagine a lot of good things for sure, but won't be useful if not actionable. Like I said, it has its good and bad, but generally I think it's OK. I didn't say it's all good. Now let's look at the list: 1) Concentration camps and organ harvesting: I'm not going to argue about these as I'll say you don't have true proofs and you will say I'm brainwashed, we will never agree to each other. Organ harvesting actually does happen, I can say for that, because I just read a report (in Chinese btw) a few days ago, but it was not large scale and definitely not in the ideology. 2) Suppressing free speech: Yes that's one of the bad, but TBH you can blame the government online as much as you want because so many other people are doing the same...people seldom got caught JUST because of that. For example. the protesters in HK was not even put into prison for some of their violent actions, and if that's not enough I really can't say more. 3) Questionable economic measures: Not a new thing, pretty much every government of the world is doing the same thing since like...beginning of civilization? 4) Strongarming other independent countries: Not a new thing, pretty much every government of the world is doing the same thing since like...beginning of civilization? Just the real world, more the reason that people should work hard instead of dreaming about vacations to fight off these strongarmings. TBH with the economic strength of China it is quite peaceful... In short, citizens are indeed able to express their unhappy with the government, and a lot of people (in the mainland) protest, too. The weird thing about my western friends is that they seem to be pretty scared about China, and I honestly can't tell why...
  - seppin 7y ago
    > The Chinese government has its bad and its good, but so far it's doing OK Are people really just ok with concentration camps in 2019?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
justicezyx 7y ago
Isn't it simply the propaganda and talking about different concept? You are referring to effective situation. The Chinese student is talking about his perceived mental recognition. You need first get straight to the point that your notion of independent nation is such and such. The Chinese student needs to say regardless the Taiwan situation, we believe it's part of China. That's why I believe Taiwan likely will never be part of China formally: I.e. the separation is so long and so deep that remedy it would be economical and politically too costly. On the other hand, when China finally become the an order of magnitude more powerful nation than, presumably the second in rank. I predict Taiwan will be effectively part of China's paper sphere, but never formally to integrate.
tlb 7y ago
Any entity involving millions of people is never just one thing. So if you start with the premise that an entity like Taiwan "is" something and therefore "is not" another thing, you're setting yourself up to be wrong no matter which thing you decide it is. The only thing it "is", for sure, is complicated.
- markus_zhang 7y ago
  Upvoted. Not sure why you got downvoted.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
srcmap 7y ago
You should also ask US State Department and United Nation that question?
codeswap 7y ago
To be fair "Taiwan simply another province of China." is the official positive of the Taiwan government also
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  That is the official stance of the ROC, along with outer Mongolia. It isn’t the popular perception among the 70% of Taiwanese who do not consider themselves mainlanders, including many of those currently in political office.
- pas 7y ago
  But they also officially state that all the other provinces are currently being occupied by the PRC.
scarmig 7y ago
Something could have easily been lost in translation--on your end--there. For Taiwan in particular, there's a lot of nuance and purposeful ambiguity in its relationship with mainland China. The ROC's official policy is that Taiwan is just another province of China, which the ROC administers (along with part of Fujian province); the ROC, furthermore, is the legitimate government of all of China, including the island, current mainland, many of the PRC's disputed territorial claims, and even Mongolia. This is more or less identical to the PRC position. There are many Taiwanese who do see it as a totally separate country, but that's controversial even within Taiwan. If you had asked her the more concrete question about whether Taiwan is currently administered by an entity calling itself the ROC, I guarantee there wouldn't have been such a manifest gap in understanding.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The ROC's official policy is that Taiwan is just another province of China, which the ROC administers (along with part of Fujian province); the ROC, furthermore, is the legitimate government of all of China To be fair, part of the reason that is the official policy is because the PRC is perceived to be (because it's pretty openly said this) more willing to be tolerant of dispute over which one governs all of China (which the PRC can't reasonably lose barring some radical inversion of power) than Taiwan declaring independence, such that the latter would be more likely to lead to war to settle the dispute.
  - scarmig 7y ago
    Of course. And if China pledged to respect the results of a unification vs independence referendum, independence would likely win in a landslide. But the concrete disagreement mentioned in the comment I was responding to seemed to imply that the writer thought that his coworker might literally think that the ROC did not currently administer Taiwan, while she certainly does know that; it's a gap in understanding because the comment writer didn't realize that whether Taiwan a province of China is not how mainlanders conceptualize the dispute. I would be curious to know if the average mainlander recognizes that most Taiwanese see themselves as having a separate identity and would ideally have a separate country, which is a real on-the-ground fact that I can imagine being glossed over in education and media.
bidluo 7y ago
My girlfriend is the same, this Hong Kong issue has been quite the discussion point whenever something news worthy happens. I'm pretty sure some of my beliefs has been swayed by western propaganda but she believes China is not in the wrong here, she knows loosely about 1984 and is aware of what's happening with muslims but with HK she and a lot of my other mainland friends think the protesters are destroying everything, who knows how their opinions shape if China decides to start cleansing HK but it's interesting to see how deep this ideology is rooted and it's even more interesting to see her opinions change the longer she lives in a democratic country (like she tried talking about Xi Jinping to her mainland friends but they told her to cut it out since she forgot about the lack of free speech over there). I think everyone has different definitions of freedom, some might think it only means to be physically free but lack of free speech and lack of proper human rights are a-ok because they don't know any better.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Everyone feels a lack of free speech about issues they want to discuss. The hard part is establishing a shared understanding that some issues you'd like to discuss will always end up being inconvenient to the powers that be. Most Chinese citizens I've seen discuss the issue argue that they're simply immune to the problem; that as long as you're a responsible person just trying to live a good life, the government won't end up strongly interfering with what you want to say.
  - markus_zhang 7y ago
    True. Actually discussing the leaders doesn't do anyone any good. For one, how do you know the things you being fed are real? And what are you going to do if it's real/not real? Just venting? If you don't like the leadership, there are plenty of other ways to improve that, but talking is the cheapest.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      And that all sounds well and good to most people, until it's their dad who the leaders decide should be shipped off to a re-education camp. But it's too late at that point; even if I go around yelling to everyone that my dad's not a terrorist, they know just as well as I once did that yelling at government leaders means I'm a cheap agitator with nothing better to do.
naringas 7y ago
I wonder what a person from Taiwan might think
- est 7y ago
  Taiwan is a province which currently under control Republic of China, another province is Fujian. So yeah technically Taiwan is a province of China.
Tiktaalik 7y ago
Otherwise "smart" people can be completely boneheaded politically if they actively choose to be unread about politics, current affairs, history, the arts etc.
ci5er 7y ago
> I bet most of my beliefs are baloney too, but I have no idea which ones they are. This is waaay off thread-topic, but this is very very important to recognize and learn to internalize at deeper levels that you probably recognize. I just wanted you to know that I know that you just made a very important first step (and it never stops).
- pas 7y ago
  Skepticism, indeed, should be more common. Unfortunately a lot of people fall through into some conspiracy black hole. The proper way to look at this is of course the rationalist/epistemological framework of belief updates (which is better called model fitting). Skepticism is not just doubting everything, it's trying to find the model of the world that consistently maximally fits the data/observations/experiences. China doing brainwashing is consistent, but the moon landing was a hoax is not. (Because that model in which everything is a hoax and the deep state is controlling everything is too simple, so it's useless, kind of like Pascal's wager without the afterlife part.)

1propionyl 7y ago

I had a similar experience meeting a friend of a coworker at a social function. Someone brought up the Dalai Lama and Tibet, and she seemed completely unable or unwilling to accept that Tibet had even ever _not_ fully and totally willingly been an administrative division of China, or that China had acted in any way inappropriately. As far as she was concerned, Tibetans were Chinese, not a distinct group. It was eye opening.

markus_zhang 7y ago
It just says how different views different people can have. I'm pretty sure it was eye opening for her too... I have been living in the West long enough to not argue those stuffs. The Chinese government has its bad and its good, but so far it's doing OK, and I can't imagine any other government could do better, or even on par.
- wrs 7y ago
  "I can't imagine any other government could do better." Well, that's exactly the point, isn't it?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- ryanobjc 7y ago
  So "better" entirely depends on your values, right? Ever heard of the phrase "better to die on your feet, than live on your knees?" Not everyone shares the ethos that a full belly is happiness and goodness. There is more to life than mere material goods. What makes a life worth living even? I guess if you have a job all is good, at least as per your line of argumentation.
  - markus_zhang 7y ago
    Of course it depends on my own values. Aren't you the same? I'm sorry I don't accept your values, but I'm OK if you don't accept mine.
  - morpheuskafka 7y ago
    Not only is there the inherent moral value of freedom, but from a purely material standpoint, if the government has the right to take away your precious job and full belly for any reason, you don't really own it at all.
- Joakal 7y ago
  How do you know it's doing good when they have a reputation for censor and change narratives to suit their agenda?
  - markus_zhang 7y ago
    They also have a reputation of carrying billions of people out from poverty and to prosperity. Of course the credit mostly goes to the people, but still it's something. Sure I don't like the censorship and change narratives, but most governments do the same thing. Let me know if you find one government that is both competent and honest.
    - Joakal 7y ago
      There's none. That's why people rely on elections and news to hear about events even if they are not favourable to the government. Better informed people can then keep the bastards honest. When you don't have either, what can you do about it?
      - markus_zhang 7y ago
        We do have both. The election doesn't work the same way as in other countries, but I'd be lying if I say there is none. For the news, you can find quite a lot of news that are not favorable to the government on weibo/wechat if you read Chinese. I don't fully agree with censorship (they do serve some good I must say that), but it's not black and white. I'm also very pessimistic about "better-informed" people. Receiving news from different sources doesn't make you just. You can't receive A and B and just average them.
        shkkmo 7y ago
        > I'm also very pessimistic about "better-informed" people. Receiving news from different sources doesn't make you just. You can't receive A and B and just average them. ... you don't average them. You use critical thinking to evaluate the information with regards to its sources, their agendas and integrate those sources. When there are contradictions you try to understand why.
- PixyMisa 7y ago
  China is a one-party state where even the army belongs to the party. It's possible to imagine something worse; we've had plenty of examples, unfortunately. It's easy to imagine something better.
  - markus_zhang 7y ago
    I'd love to imagine, but in reality TBH I don't see a lot of positive examples. If you hate the one-party idea, just think one more layer -- there are factions inside the party, probably more than 2 actually.
    - EarthMephit 7y ago
      New Zealand, all the Nordic countries, many western democracies all provide very good examples of good government without jailing people who speak up against their rulers and without strict censorship laws They are all really nice countries to live in too
      - umeshunni 7y ago
        New Zealand and all the Nordic countries can fit into a suburb of Shanghai. I think most westerners don't realize the magnitude of China and that managing/ruling/governing a country of 1.3B diverse citizens with thousands of a years of history is a larger challenge than managing a small country.
- zwaps 7y ago
  Why can't you imagine anyone do better? It is easy to see all the good things that happened in China in the last decades, and see the things that work. But I can very easily imagine a better government in China, much like I can do so for the US and in EU countries. The CCP is running literal concentration camps, is suppressing free speech, using (possibly) questionable economic measures, strongarming other independent countries, censoring and even harvesting organs of prisoners for profit (probably for political elites). And most of those things on a scale previously unimaginable. Furthermore, one might argue (and I am not saying this is black and white) that the process of raising people out of poverty has as much to do with technical progress, foreign trade and China's geographical and demographic makeup, as it has to do with actual policy (and one could therefore imagine even better outcomes!) I think it is indeed very easy to imagine things going better in China! That's the entire point, I think. Citizens should be willing and able to be unhappy with their governments, and be able to express this without disappearing. That you can not imagine anyone doing better in China is what the OP was talking about. Edit: Just to make this clear, I do not want a discussion on the merits of the CCPs policies - everyone can have their own opinion on that - much like for any other country. But the worry is the well rehearsed narrative that China is somehow unique and requires, basically, an iron fist rule. This I have seen many times in discussions with Chinese - saying that all these criticisms may be good and well for other countries, but not for China. And this in the end amounts to unwillingness to question the CCP in any way. And that, I think, is not good.
  - markus_zhang 7y ago
    I can't any imagine any other real government can do better. Sorry forgot to put real. I don't follow ideas unless it's actionable. You can imagine a lot of good things for sure, but won't be useful if not actionable. Like I said, it has its good and bad, but generally I think it's OK. I didn't say it's all good. Now let's look at the list: 1) Concentration camps and organ harvesting: I'm not going to argue about these as I'll say you don't have true proofs and you will say I'm brainwashed, we will never agree to each other. Organ harvesting actually does happen, I can say for that, because I just read a report (in Chinese btw) a few days ago, but it was not large scale and definitely not in the ideology. 2) Suppressing free speech: Yes that's one of the bad, but TBH you can blame the government online as much as you want because so many other people are doing the same...people seldom got caught JUST because of that. For example. the protesters in HK was not even put into prison for some of their violent actions, and if that's not enough I really can't say more. 3) Questionable economic measures: Not a new thing, pretty much every government of the world is doing the same thing since like...beginning of civilization? 4) Strongarming other independent countries: Not a new thing, pretty much every government of the world is doing the same thing since like...beginning of civilization? Just the real world, more the reason that people should work hard instead of dreaming about vacations to fight off these strongarmings. TBH with the economic strength of China it is quite peaceful... In short, citizens are indeed able to express their unhappy with the government, and a lot of people (in the mainland) protest, too. The weird thing about my western friends is that they seem to be pretty scared about China, and I honestly can't tell why...
- seppin 7y ago
  > The Chinese government has its bad and its good, but so far it's doing OK Are people really just ok with concentration camps in 2019?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

justicezyx 7y ago

Isn't it simply the propaganda and talking about different concept? You are referring to effective situation. The Chinese student is talking about his perceived mental recognition. You need first get straight to the point that your notion of independent nation is such and such. The Chinese student needs to say regardless the Taiwan situation, we believe it's part of China. That's why I believe Taiwan likely will never be part of China formally: I.e. the separation is so long and so deep that remedy it would be economical and politically too costly. On the other hand, when China finally become the an order of magnitude more powerful nation than, presumably the second in rank. I predict Taiwan will be effectively part of China's paper sphere, but never formally to integrate.

tlb 7y ago

Any entity involving millions of people is never just one thing. So if you start with the premise that an entity like Taiwan "is" something and therefore "is not" another thing, you're setting yourself up to be wrong no matter which thing you decide it is. The only thing it "is", for sure, is complicated.

markus_zhang 7y ago
Upvoted. Not sure why you got downvoted.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

srcmap 7y ago

You should also ask US State Department and United Nation that question?

codeswap 7y ago

To be fair "Taiwan simply another province of China." is the official positive of the Taiwan government also

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
That is the official stance of the ROC, along with outer Mongolia. It isn’t the popular perception among the 70% of Taiwanese who do not consider themselves mainlanders, including many of those currently in political office.
pas 7y ago
But they also officially state that all the other provinces are currently being occupied by the PRC.

scarmig 7y ago

Something could have easily been lost in translation--on your end--there. For Taiwan in particular, there's a lot of nuance and purposeful ambiguity in its relationship with mainland China. The ROC's official policy is that Taiwan is just another province of China, which the ROC administers (along with part of Fujian province); the ROC, furthermore, is the legitimate government of all of China, including the island, current mainland, many of the PRC's disputed territorial claims, and even Mongolia. This is more or less identical to the PRC position. There are many Taiwanese who do see it as a totally separate country, but that's controversial even within Taiwan. If you had asked her the more concrete question about whether Taiwan is currently administered by an entity calling itself the ROC, I guarantee there wouldn't have been such a manifest gap in understanding.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> The ROC's official policy is that Taiwan is just another province of China, which the ROC administers (along with part of Fujian province); the ROC, furthermore, is the legitimate government of all of China To be fair, part of the reason that is the official policy is because the PRC is perceived to be (because it's pretty openly said this) more willing to be tolerant of dispute over which one governs all of China (which the PRC can't reasonably lose barring some radical inversion of power) than Taiwan declaring independence, such that the latter would be more likely to lead to war to settle the dispute.
- scarmig 7y ago
  Of course. And if China pledged to respect the results of a unification vs independence referendum, independence would likely win in a landslide. But the concrete disagreement mentioned in the comment I was responding to seemed to imply that the writer thought that his coworker might literally think that the ROC did not currently administer Taiwan, while she certainly does know that; it's a gap in understanding because the comment writer didn't realize that whether Taiwan a province of China is not how mainlanders conceptualize the dispute. I would be curious to know if the average mainlander recognizes that most Taiwanese see themselves as having a separate identity and would ideally have a separate country, which is a real on-the-ground fact that I can imagine being glossed over in education and media.

bidluo 7y ago

My girlfriend is the same, this Hong Kong issue has been quite the discussion point whenever something news worthy happens. I'm pretty sure some of my beliefs has been swayed by western propaganda but she believes China is not in the wrong here, she knows loosely about 1984 and is aware of what's happening with muslims but with HK she and a lot of my other mainland friends think the protesters are destroying everything, who knows how their opinions shape if China decides to start cleansing HK but it's interesting to see how deep this ideology is rooted and it's even more interesting to see her opinions change the longer she lives in a democratic country (like she tried talking about Xi Jinping to her mainland friends but they told her to cut it out since she forgot about the lack of free speech over there). I think everyone has different definitions of freedom, some might think it only means to be physically free but lack of free speech and lack of proper human rights are a-ok because they don't know any better.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Everyone feels a lack of free speech about issues they want to discuss. The hard part is establishing a shared understanding that some issues you'd like to discuss will always end up being inconvenient to the powers that be. Most Chinese citizens I've seen discuss the issue argue that they're simply immune to the problem; that as long as you're a responsible person just trying to live a good life, the government won't end up strongly interfering with what you want to say.
- markus_zhang 7y ago
  True. Actually discussing the leaders doesn't do anyone any good. For one, how do you know the things you being fed are real? And what are you going to do if it's real/not real? Just venting? If you don't like the leadership, there are plenty of other ways to improve that, but talking is the cheapest.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    And that all sounds well and good to most people, until it's their dad who the leaders decide should be shipped off to a re-education camp. But it's too late at that point; even if I go around yelling to everyone that my dad's not a terrorist, they know just as well as I once did that yelling at government leaders means I'm a cheap agitator with nothing better to do.

naringas 7y ago

I wonder what a person from Taiwan might think

est 7y ago
Taiwan is a province which currently under control Republic of China, another province is Fujian. So yeah technically Taiwan is a province of China.

Tiktaalik 7y ago

Otherwise "smart" people can be completely boneheaded politically if they actively choose to be unread about politics, current affairs, history, the arts etc.

ci5er 7y ago

> I bet most of my beliefs are baloney too, but I have no idea which ones they are. This is waaay off thread-topic, but this is very very important to recognize and learn to internalize at deeper levels that you probably recognize. I just wanted you to know that I know that you just made a very important first step (and it never stops).

pas 7y ago
Skepticism, indeed, should be more common. Unfortunately a lot of people fall through into some conspiracy black hole. The proper way to look at this is of course the rationalist/epistemological framework of belief updates (which is better called model fitting). Skepticism is not just doubting everything, it's trying to find the model of the world that consistently maximally fits the data/observations/experiences. China doing brainwashing is consistent, but the moon landing was a hoax is not. (Because that model in which everything is a hoax and the deep state is controlling everything is too simple, so it's useless, kind of like Pascal's wager without the afterlife part.)