This is such a good comment. I was in China for a friend's wedding and his fiance's family was adding another floor to their house. I asked what kind of permi

This is such a good comment. I was in China for a friend's wedding and his fiance's family was adding another floor to their house. I asked what kind of permission they needed. They said they didn't need anything. They just went ahead and did it. Contrast that to the US and, depending on the place, you could spend months arranging to get the proper paperwork and inspections to be able to do something like that. So while the Chinese person may not have the freedom to strongly criticize their government, in this case they did have more freedom to make an individual improvement to the quality of their immediate life. I think it's a huge issue when someone brings up "freedom". What does that even mean? In a society you're never truly free. There's always some form of constraint. You could go live as a hermit and be free but then you're constrained by the physical limitations of the environment. While walking to work (pre-covid) I'd see homeless people and wonder "Are they freer than me?" They can wake up and do whatever they want for the day. I'm the one that has to stick to a fairly regular schedule.