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Agreed with the first part about love and what popular support means. That was also my point. As for the rest: what is the point of what you say? "May" have su

Agreed with the first part about love and what popular support means. That was also my point. As for the rest: what is the point of what you say? "May" have successfully brainwashed people. "May" have had nothing to do with successes. Even if those are true, what do they have to do with the point of whether Chinese people fear speaking up? Their truthiness don't negate the fact that anti-CCP sentiment is being actively hijacked to attack China and its people, and few people seem to care despite putting up a fascade of "loving the Chinese people and only hating the CCP". That is one of my major grievances about China discussions.

strogonoff 4y ago
> what is the point of what you say? Same point as it was in my original comment. If X was in charge during a good trend, it’s a human fallacy to post-rationalise the past as if the good trend was happening because of X being in charge (and even turn X’s downsides into X’s benefits), even if the good trend happened despite X being in charge. That’s how many Xs stay in charge while being objectively unworthy of it; especially those Xs that can use a combination of force and politics play. Regarding “loving Chinese people and hating the CCP”, I am disinclined to blame the Chinese people, much like I am disinclined to blame the Russian people—they are bombarded with misinformation from young age and are given limited individual choice. (Also one of the reasons I’m inclined to blame the respective regimes.)
- FooBarWidget 4y ago
  Yes, good times' correlation with a ruler may be total coincidence. But then again, it may not. You're strongly suggesting that the correlation is almost certainly total coincidence. But in this case, it's easily refuted by looking at data. India and the PRC started at roughly the same time, same population and same GDP. (Actually PRC had it worse than India, GDP- and infrastructure-wise.) Now compare them today. Chinese are not inherently smarter than Indians. Heck, look at emerging democracies in the past 30 years. Which ones have grown like China and have been able to give their citizen good lives? Not one. If you look at South Korea and Taiwan, then you see that most of their growth and development came during a time when they heavily relied on industrial policy — the same strategy that China today employs. Thus, there is a strong case to be made that China's success is for a significant part contributed by its government. To believe otherwise and ignore the data is to just cling onto the hope that the CCP should not have any legitimacy. Regarding blaming Chinese people for being "bombarded with misinformation": so say so is to remove Chinese people's agency. We aren't mindless drones, we can have a legitimate opinion that's different from yours, for legitimate reasons. Furthermore, there is a power problem here. If you say that you blame the Chinese people, then you leave people like me no choice but to become more supportive of the CCP. Because foreign actors won't act in the best interest of China: they claim they do ("freedom", "democracy", etc) but at the end of the day we empirically observe that the actions that foreign governments take, harm not only the Chinese state and the CCP, but also regular Chinese people. Despite all its faults, CCP is the only party that actually stands up for the interests of the Chinese civilization. Disclaimer: I make no comments about Russia. Just China.

strogonoff 4y ago

> what is the point of what you say? Same point as it was in my original comment. If X was in charge during a good trend, it’s a human fallacy to post-rationalise the past as if the good trend was happening because of X being in charge (and even turn X’s downsides into X’s benefits), even if the good trend happened despite X being in charge. That’s how many Xs stay in charge while being objectively unworthy of it; especially those Xs that can use a combination of force and politics play. Regarding “loving Chinese people and hating the CCP”, I am disinclined to blame the Chinese people, much like I am disinclined to blame the Russian people—they are bombarded with misinformation from young age and are given limited individual choice. (Also one of the reasons I’m inclined to blame the respective regimes.)

FooBarWidget 4y ago
Yes, good times' correlation with a ruler may be total coincidence. But then again, it may not. You're strongly suggesting that the correlation is almost certainly total coincidence. But in this case, it's easily refuted by looking at data. India and the PRC started at roughly the same time, same population and same GDP. (Actually PRC had it worse than India, GDP- and infrastructure-wise.) Now compare them today. Chinese are not inherently smarter than Indians. Heck, look at emerging democracies in the past 30 years. Which ones have grown like China and have been able to give their citizen good lives? Not one. If you look at South Korea and Taiwan, then you see that most of their growth and development came during a time when they heavily relied on industrial policy — the same strategy that China today employs. Thus, there is a strong case to be made that China's success is for a significant part contributed by its government. To believe otherwise and ignore the data is to just cling onto the hope that the CCP should not have any legitimacy. Regarding blaming Chinese people for being "bombarded with misinformation": so say so is to remove Chinese people's agency. We aren't mindless drones, we can have a legitimate opinion that's different from yours, for legitimate reasons. Furthermore, there is a power problem here. If you say that you blame the Chinese people, then you leave people like me no choice but to become more supportive of the CCP. Because foreign actors won't act in the best interest of China: they claim they do ("freedom", "democracy", etc) but at the end of the day we empirically observe that the actions that foreign governments take, harm not only the Chinese state and the CCP, but also regular Chinese people. Despite all its faults, CCP is the only party that actually stands up for the interests of the Chinese civilization. Disclaimer: I make no comments about Russia. Just China.