4 ms·

Considering that China's current state is a repressive dystopia, it's quite hard to compare the fairly mundane prediction that this will continue to a claim abo

Considering that China's current state is a repressive dystopia, it's quite hard to compare the fairly mundane prediction that this will continue to a claim about zombies that contradicts available scientific evidence. I feel like I'm going crazy seeing people make absurd comparisons like this. Do you honestly not see the difference between an inference based on China's current behavior and ... zombies? Are you playing at some broader rhetorical point or do you literally think both claims are equally absurd?

kbenson 5y ago
> Considering that China's current state is a repressive dystopia Is it? I know that's how it's presented, and it's easy to assume that presentation is accurate, but do most the people living there see it that way? I don't doubt it's a repressive dystopia for those that are repressed, and that's horrible, but does that make it a repressive dystopia overall? Because I'm pretty sure there's quite a number of different subgroups I could pick out in the U.S. that would say we live in a repressive dystopia already. > I feel like I'm going crazy seeing people make absurd comparisons like this. It was made absurd on purpose, to not muddy the waters with a comparison to something that people could have actual questions about. > Are you playing at some broader rhetorical point I thought that was obvious with the "begging the question" part, which literally means that something is being used as fact that hasn't been proven. I'm not saying China is great, or better than the U.S. or west or anything. What I am saying is that when people throw around statements that assume China's natural end state, and what they are moving towards right now, is a repressive dystopia, I'm going to want to see some evidence or reasoning to back it up. Otherwise how do I know it's not just "everything I've read in USA Today the last few years leads me to believe that, therefore it must be true"?
- soco 5y ago
  Of course we can get into a post-modernist post-truth debate, but the facts bring one back to reality: Uighurs, suppression of speech, Hong Kong, military expansion, political influence, the Great Firewall, are all real points making it difficult to keep the discussion on the philosophical level.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    It doesn't even need to be philosophical. Has China gotten more repressive over time, or less repressive? The first step in a discussion about "beating China at Not-Being-A-Repressive-Dystopia" would be determining which way China is trending, and if there was evidence that will continue or reverse (whether that means more or less repressive). The other half is which we "we" (whoever we are, there's an international audience, but it's probably safe to say either the U.S. or the west) are trending? We're unlikely to beat China at that no matter what we do if we only focus on them and not ourselves as well. And to tie it all together, part of not becoming a repressive dystopia ourselves is not trusting the narrative put out about other countries by our government without evidence and looking for reasons why that narrative may be beneficial to put forth other than the truth. Put another way, the first step in protecting your right to question things is to actually question things.
    - themacguffinman 5y ago
      Little about this line of conversation strikes me as a coherent point about China's emergence as a repressive dystopian global power. Starting from a dismissive point that China's dystopianism is somehow absurd, two goalpost-moving comments later we've arrived at the uninsightful point that the future is uncertain and we should ask questions. Assuming charitably that you perhaps just didn't read some comments fully, "Has China gotten more repressive over time, or less repressive?" has fairly obvious answers involving "Uighurs, suppression of speech, Hong Kong, military expansion, political influence, the Great Firewall" that didn't exist before and that you've not addressed at all. Thanks for reminding me that I can actually question things. One critical component of questioning things is that you look at available information and address questions to what we think we know, not dismiss available information and say we shouldn't trust everything we read. With that in mind, what questions do you have about available information about China's repressive dystopia?
      - kbenson 5y ago
        > Starting from a dismissive point that China's dystopianism is somehow absurd Not meant to be dismissive, not what I said, and not what I was trying to convey. I'll say it again and very clearly: first prove that China is or is moving towards a repressive dystopia. > has fairly obvious answers involving "Uighurs, suppression of speech, Hong Kong, military expansion, political influence, the Great Firewall" that didn't exist before and that you've not addressed at all. Stating things that exist is not an examination of whether they they were better or worse than previously, or how periods of time compare. - Uighurs. They're being oppressed. Are the the first group China has oppressed? If not, then does their oppression seem more or less heavy handed and extreme than those examples that came previously? I don't know enough to compare them, but there has been opression of Tibetans in China for decades, possibly since the inception of the communist party there. - Hong Kong - This is China exerting control in a way similar to what it does for the rest of its country over an island they believe is part of their country. Is this China becoming more repressive, or just applying the same standards its known for to a populace that was not previously subject to it. It sucks, but is it necessarily an example of China becoming more oppressive? I'm not so sure. Any capitulation at all on China's part, even if a far cry from what people in Hong Kong want, might be a net lessening of repression in China if allowed in other locales of their country. - Military expansion - Hardly an example of one thing over another. Military expansion is orthogonal to whether they are repressive or a dystopia. If the populace supports it (and all indications I've seen are that the Chinese people are experiencing a massive surge of nationalism as their country comes to prominence), then it hardly needs to be repressive. - Great Firewall - Taken in context, this is much more ambiguous than presented I think. In 2008, only 22% of Chinese citizens had even used the internet.[1] It's only at about 71% as of 2021. When the Great Firewall was implemented in 1997, I see some indications that well under a million people even had access to it in China.[2] It's speculation on my part, but I have to think given China's goals that there would be a lot less people with access to any sort of internet if they didn't have some control mechanism in place. So is the Great Firewall an example of increasing repression, or slowly opening up to outside information and influences, but just not all at once? I imagine the average Chinese citizen has far more access to information from outside their country than they did in the past, even with the Great Firewall. > that didn't exist before and that you've not addressed at all. I didn't address them because throwing out names of things is not an argument. No argument was put forth, because if a coherent one was you would think they might examine these things as I have and acknowledge that they think they are evidence of increased oppression in spite of that. I would accept that as someone putting in the effort to understand what they were talking about, rather than just putting forth something without any real indication that it makes sense. > One critical component of questioning things is that you look at available information and address questions to what we think we know, not dismiss available information and say we shouldn't trust everything we read. With that in mind, what questions do you have about available information about China's repressive dystopia? I outlined them above. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to accept them as fact. I honestly don't know enough about China to know how the majority of those items stand up to scrutiny, but I've been hearing about China for enough decades now to realize the bad things I hear are all pretty much the same things rehashed or done over again, but there are other things I hear which I didn't use to which are promising, so I think it's something that actually deserves some attention and a fair shake at being discussed, whether it turns out they seem to be getting worse or better. And, to be clear, yet again, because this entire set of exchanges seems to be people thinking I'm defending China for no reason and think they're great or something, I have no real love for China. I think they do lots of horrible shit. I have never been there, I have no investments there, I have no relations or family involved with it in any way I'm aware of. But purely on a humanitarian level, I think there might just be cause to be optimistic on China's future outlook, because even though it's hard to get good useful information on it, to me it seems like it might just be trending in a good direction, even if it might take a long time to get to something we would consider acceptable. I would want to know if I'm wrong through, and I'm willing to accept arguments that I'm wrong, but if you look you'll see a dearth of argument provided here. I want to know if I'm wrong, but I'm not going to let people just yell "you're wrong!" at without evidence be what convinces me. And if people don't know enough to argue about those things (at least as little as I do which allows me to put them in some minimal context), what are they doing throwing them out as evidence? 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/236963/penetration-rate-of-internet-users-in-china/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/236963/penetration-rate-... 2: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Internet-Users-in-China-1997-2003_fig3_222414990 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Internet-Users-in-China-...

kbenson 5y ago

> Considering that China's current state is a repressive dystopia Is it? I know that's how it's presented, and it's easy to assume that presentation is accurate, but do most the people living there see it that way? I don't doubt it's a repressive dystopia for those that are repressed, and that's horrible, but does that make it a repressive dystopia overall? Because I'm pretty sure there's quite a number of different subgroups I could pick out in the U.S. that would say we live in a repressive dystopia already. > I feel like I'm going crazy seeing people make absurd comparisons like this. It was made absurd on purpose, to not muddy the waters with a comparison to something that people could have actual questions about. > Are you playing at some broader rhetorical point I thought that was obvious with the "begging the question" part, which literally means that something is being used as fact that hasn't been proven. I'm not saying China is great, or better than the U.S. or west or anything. What I am saying is that when people throw around statements that assume China's natural end state, and what they are moving towards right now, is a repressive dystopia, I'm going to want to see some evidence or reasoning to back it up. Otherwise how do I know it's not just "everything I've read in USA Today the last few years leads me to believe that, therefore it must be true"?

soco 5y ago
Of course we can get into a post-modernist post-truth debate, but the facts bring one back to reality: Uighurs, suppression of speech, Hong Kong, military expansion, political influence, the Great Firewall, are all real points making it difficult to keep the discussion on the philosophical level.
- kbenson 5y ago
  It doesn't even need to be philosophical. Has China gotten more repressive over time, or less repressive? The first step in a discussion about "beating China at Not-Being-A-Repressive-Dystopia" would be determining which way China is trending, and if there was evidence that will continue or reverse (whether that means more or less repressive). The other half is which we "we" (whoever we are, there's an international audience, but it's probably safe to say either the U.S. or the west) are trending? We're unlikely to beat China at that no matter what we do if we only focus on them and not ourselves as well. And to tie it all together, part of not becoming a repressive dystopia ourselves is not trusting the narrative put out about other countries by our government without evidence and looking for reasons why that narrative may be beneficial to put forth other than the truth. Put another way, the first step in protecting your right to question things is to actually question things.
  - themacguffinman 5y ago
    Little about this line of conversation strikes me as a coherent point about China's emergence as a repressive dystopian global power. Starting from a dismissive point that China's dystopianism is somehow absurd, two goalpost-moving comments later we've arrived at the uninsightful point that the future is uncertain and we should ask questions. Assuming charitably that you perhaps just didn't read some comments fully, "Has China gotten more repressive over time, or less repressive?" has fairly obvious answers involving "Uighurs, suppression of speech, Hong Kong, military expansion, political influence, the Great Firewall" that didn't exist before and that you've not addressed at all. Thanks for reminding me that I can actually question things. One critical component of questioning things is that you look at available information and address questions to what we think we know, not dismiss available information and say we shouldn't trust everything we read. With that in mind, what questions do you have about available information about China's repressive dystopia?
    - kbenson 5y ago
      > Starting from a dismissive point that China's dystopianism is somehow absurd Not meant to be dismissive, not what I said, and not what I was trying to convey. I'll say it again and very clearly: first prove that China is or is moving towards a repressive dystopia. > has fairly obvious answers involving "Uighurs, suppression of speech, Hong Kong, military expansion, political influence, the Great Firewall" that didn't exist before and that you've not addressed at all. Stating things that exist is not an examination of whether they they were better or worse than previously, or how periods of time compare. - Uighurs. They're being oppressed. Are the the first group China has oppressed? If not, then does their oppression seem more or less heavy handed and extreme than those examples that came previously? I don't know enough to compare them, but there has been opression of Tibetans in China for decades, possibly since the inception of the communist party there. - Hong Kong - This is China exerting control in a way similar to what it does for the rest of its country over an island they believe is part of their country. Is this China becoming more repressive, or just applying the same standards its known for to a populace that was not previously subject to it. It sucks, but is it necessarily an example of China becoming more oppressive? I'm not so sure. Any capitulation at all on China's part, even if a far cry from what people in Hong Kong want, might be a net lessening of repression in China if allowed in other locales of their country. - Military expansion - Hardly an example of one thing over another. Military expansion is orthogonal to whether they are repressive or a dystopia. If the populace supports it (and all indications I've seen are that the Chinese people are experiencing a massive surge of nationalism as their country comes to prominence), then it hardly needs to be repressive. - Great Firewall - Taken in context, this is much more ambiguous than presented I think. In 2008, only 22% of Chinese citizens had even used the internet.[1] It's only at about 71% as of 2021. When the Great Firewall was implemented in 1997, I see some indications that well under a million people even had access to it in China.[2] It's speculation on my part, but I have to think given China's goals that there would be a lot less people with access to any sort of internet if they didn't have some control mechanism in place. So is the Great Firewall an example of increasing repression, or slowly opening up to outside information and influences, but just not all at once? I imagine the average Chinese citizen has far more access to information from outside their country than they did in the past, even with the Great Firewall. > that didn't exist before and that you've not addressed at all. I didn't address them because throwing out names of things is not an argument. No argument was put forth, because if a coherent one was you would think they might examine these things as I have and acknowledge that they think they are evidence of increased oppression in spite of that. I would accept that as someone putting in the effort to understand what they were talking about, rather than just putting forth something without any real indication that it makes sense. > One critical component of questioning things is that you look at available information and address questions to what we think we know, not dismiss available information and say we shouldn't trust everything we read. With that in mind, what questions do you have about available information about China's repressive dystopia? I outlined them above. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to accept them as fact. I honestly don't know enough about China to know how the majority of those items stand up to scrutiny, but I've been hearing about China for enough decades now to realize the bad things I hear are all pretty much the same things rehashed or done over again, but there are other things I hear which I didn't use to which are promising, so I think it's something that actually deserves some attention and a fair shake at being discussed, whether it turns out they seem to be getting worse or better. And, to be clear, yet again, because this entire set of exchanges seems to be people thinking I'm defending China for no reason and think they're great or something, I have no real love for China. I think they do lots of horrible shit. I have never been there, I have no investments there, I have no relations or family involved with it in any way I'm aware of. But purely on a humanitarian level, I think there might just be cause to be optimistic on China's future outlook, because even though it's hard to get good useful information on it, to me it seems like it might just be trending in a good direction, even if it might take a long time to get to something we would consider acceptable. I would want to know if I'm wrong through, and I'm willing to accept arguments that I'm wrong, but if you look you'll see a dearth of argument provided here. I want to know if I'm wrong, but I'm not going to let people just yell "you're wrong!" at without evidence be what convinces me. And if people don't know enough to argue about those things (at least as little as I do which allows me to put them in some minimal context), what are they doing throwing them out as evidence? 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/236963/penetration-rate-of-internet-users-in-china/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/236963/penetration-rate-... 2: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Internet-Users-in-China-1997-2003_fig3_222414990 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Internet-Users-in-China-...