7 ms·

> they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen

> they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen to extremist propaganda? Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. The instability of American culture is currently seen as an intrinsic virtue. China is not causing any change. They're just apparently exploiting what was already the dumbest part of America. Even America's allies do this. If America finally grows up it would be a good thing and the only way that will probably happen is more self-inflicted disaster.

eloisius 3y ago
> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. Tell that to historians, especially Chinese historians, regarding Britain’s opium trade.
- bigger_inside 3y ago
  I was about to comment on the obvious projection inherent in the "the Chinese are forcing drugs on the US" narrative. But it's a classic. If you want to know the nefarious things the US is doing, just look at what the claim their adversaries are doing.
  - pigeonhole123 3y ago
    I think GP's point is the opposite. Most people agree that Britain's opium trade in China was exploitative.
    - bigger_inside 3y ago
      I was seconding the comment I replied to, not arguing against a misreading? Though I might be misunderstanding who you mean by GP. I'm confused, sorry
jraby3 3y ago
There’s a pretty strong connection to them supplying fentanyl to the US through Vancouver. https://www.jordanharbinger.com/sam-cooper-how-the-west-was-infiltrated-by-its-enemies/ https://www.jordanharbinger.com/sam-cooper-how-the-west-was-...
- diordiderot 3y ago
  Hell the police import it themselves https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/us/california-police-union-executive-drug-scheme-opioids/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/us/california-police-unio...
  - skeeter2020 3y ago
    there's several magnitudes of difference between a couple of criminal cops and the wholesale import from China though
- Dah00n 3y ago
  Anyone being unbiased who claim to know enough about PRC to point at the state being behind it doesn't use the wrong and derogatory term for the Communist Party of China ("CCP", it's CPC). That's like 60 minutes making a documentary about the Federal Investigation Bureau or the Party Republican.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    That's like claiming it would be derogatory to label the URSS as USSR or the KPD the German Communist Party. Then again, I don't care if someone thinks that a reference to a communist party is negative, as long as the negativity is about the communism aspect (as opposed to the ethnicity or general culture of that country). Just like I don't care if the NSDAP would find it insulting if I call their party the Nazi party.
    - Dah00n 3y ago
      >I don't care if someone thinks that a reference to a communist party is negative The communist part is not the point. Look at Wikipedia's talk page for a discussion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chinese_Communist_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chinese_Communist_Party
ChoHag 3y ago
[dead]
CommitSyn 3y ago
4 out of 5 pharmacy-filled prescriptions are opioids.¹ In almost every single case, those using these drugs are trying to escape the physical and/or emotional pain. They didn't wake up one day and say "I want to have fun, I'm going to do heroin" Almost every fentanyl user I've talked to in harm reduction work started out on prescribed painkillers. Whether they got the taste and moved up quick, or just couldn't get their fix and couldn't deal with the horrible weeks of withdrawal and found a place to get it, they didn't just up and start shooting fentanyl one day. 1: https://drugabusestatistics.org/prescription-drug-abuse-statistics/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/prescription-drug-abuse-stat...
- sublinear 3y ago
  4 out of 5 pharmacy-filled prescriptions is not 4 out of 5 prescriptions, let alone 4 out of 5 patients, nor does that statistic say anything about unfilled pharmacy prescriptions or the rate at which people did not develop an addiction. Also you would expect the proportion of pharmacy-filled prescriptions for opioids to go up if the more common prescription for pain is not opiods from a pharmacy.
  - CommitSyn 3y ago
    > 4 out of 5 pharmacy-filled prescriptions is not 4 out of 5 prescriptions As opposed to the non-pharmacy filled prescriptions people pick up? Your argument is that the statistic only works because so many people don't pick up meds their doctor calls in for them? I'm not a statistician so maybe I'm not understanding correctly, but that seems like a very weak argument.
    - hervature 3y ago
      While 4/5 is shocking any way you look at it, the stronger argument for why this stat is misleading is because it does not take into account how long the prescription lasts. Anecdotally, I was given basically a week's worth after all 3 of my surgeries. Tough to find stats on these things but I could see opiod prescriptions being 2x the number of prescriptions because the number of "doses" are half what other non-addictive substances are. Still, that would make opiods 2/3 of pharmacy-filled "doses".
dirtyid 3y ago
Yeah, PRC isn't so much doing an opium war on US as watching US doing an opium war on herself and not helping. Which PRC did when relations where good. Now the relationship is bad, there's no reason to waste PRC domestic resources to assist the US war on drugs. Also important to note it wasn't the Opium in Opium War that led to the century of humiliation - the humiliation was due to the War that weakened the Qing mandate and economic consequences of the unequal treaties. Great Britain via gunboat diplomacy forced Qing to open trade to opium that Qing tried to ban domestically by seizing stocks from British merchants. The shame/damage wasn't having citizens tripped up on drugs and the social ills that entail, but loss of sovereignty/state capacity over economic affairs that drained silver reserves and reversing trade surplus, which had knock on consequences. Wasn't addicts that brought down Qing, but the throne being weakened due to loss of sovereignty and inability to put down multiple uprisings due to loss of treasure. PRC waging opium war on US comparison only works if PRC was militarily coercing the US to not enforce domestic drug policies. As if that can happen. Does PRC propaganda benefit from US inability to curtail drug use domestically? Yes. But not enough to not cooperate with the US on drug trade when the relationship was good.
- trashtester 3y ago
  > PRC waging opium war on US comparison only works if PRC was militarily coercing the US to not enforce domestic drug policies. Things can be similar even if they're not identical. If a state actor supports criminal forces to transport harmful substances into a country, it's not so different from supporting the East India Company in doing so. Also, the purpose matters. When the EIC sold opium in China, the motive was probably profit. If China sponsors sale of opioids in the US, it's more likely to be motivated by a desire to cause harm, which most would consider worse. > Does PRC propaganda benefit from US inability to curtail drug use domestically? Yes. But not enough to not cooperate with the US on drug trade when the relationship was good. Well, this implies that you agree that the main purpose is not their own gain, but the harm they can inflict on their perceived rival. What would it look like if the US developed the same kind of desire to inflict pain and suffering in China, as a goal in itself?
  - dirtyid 3y ago
TeMPOraL 3y ago
> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. Not only this is counterproductive, it would be definitely something those hypothetical Chinese agents would say! This sentiment is what you call "the dumbest part of America" - one of personal responsibility when facing dangers that are by design above most people's threshold of self-control. If there is one thing that's likely to destabilize and destroy the western society, it's marketing and advertising industry - it's your own companies that rely on and encourage people blaming failures on themselves, because it lets them use psychological tricks to move wares. Also: > Who is being forced to (...) listen to extremist propaganda? These days, everyone consuming the Internet and western mass media? There are (at least) two extremes in the US politics and culture, and while listening to one may be a choice, it's partly because the other extreme won the meme spreading battle.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  You call it 2 extremes, from European point of view there are just mild variations of the same right wing approach, and result differences are even milder (ie democrats starting/expanding wars, conservatives allowing recreational cannabis etc). Not criticizing or anything, but actual extremes look significantly different, wake me up when a proper anarchist sits in White house for example
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    I call it two extremes because a lot of people insist on viewing them as Completely Different Things. After all, they have opposite names - "right wing" and "left wing". I'm from Europe too, and to me the extremes both look the same. The specific beliefs may be opposite, but that's just a free variable. The intellectual dishonesty, the belligerence, the hatred, they're all the same.
    - faangsticle 3y ago
      Hate to break it to you but the 2 party system is and has been broken for a very long time. You're choosing between two choices that are mostly identical. Introduce some extra parties if you want healthy politics.
zod-was-right 3y ago
> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control ... I hope you're not in charge of anyone's life
chaostheory 3y ago
> They're just apparently exploiting what was already the dumbest part of America. China is not causing any change. So just like what the British empire did to China during the century of humiliation with opium? Mainlander hypocrisy is comical
trashtester 3y ago
> That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen to extremist propaganda? Do you feel the same about he Opium Wars?

eloisius 3y ago

> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. Tell that to historians, especially Chinese historians, regarding Britain’s opium trade.

bigger_inside 3y ago
I was about to comment on the obvious projection inherent in the "the Chinese are forcing drugs on the US" narrative. But it's a classic. If you want to know the nefarious things the US is doing, just look at what the claim their adversaries are doing.
- pigeonhole123 3y ago
  I think GP's point is the opposite. Most people agree that Britain's opium trade in China was exploitative.
  - bigger_inside 3y ago
    I was seconding the comment I replied to, not arguing against a misreading? Though I might be misunderstanding who you mean by GP. I'm confused, sorry

jraby3 3y ago

There’s a pretty strong connection to them supplying fentanyl to the US through Vancouver. https://www.jordanharbinger.com/sam-cooper-how-the-west-was-infiltrated-by-its-enemies/ https://www.jordanharbinger.com/sam-cooper-how-the-west-was-...

diordiderot 3y ago
Hell the police import it themselves https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/us/california-police-union-executive-drug-scheme-opioids/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/us/california-police-unio...
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  there's several magnitudes of difference between a couple of criminal cops and the wholesale import from China though
Dah00n 3y ago
Anyone being unbiased who claim to know enough about PRC to point at the state being behind it doesn't use the wrong and derogatory term for the Communist Party of China ("CCP", it's CPC). That's like 60 minutes making a documentary about the Federal Investigation Bureau or the Party Republican.
- trashtester 3y ago
  That's like claiming it would be derogatory to label the URSS as USSR or the KPD the German Communist Party. Then again, I don't care if someone thinks that a reference to a communist party is negative, as long as the negativity is about the communism aspect (as opposed to the ethnicity or general culture of that country). Just like I don't care if the NSDAP would find it insulting if I call their party the Nazi party.
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    >I don't care if someone thinks that a reference to a communist party is negative The communist part is not the point. Look at Wikipedia's talk page for a discussion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chinese_Communist_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chinese_Communist_Party

ChoHag 3y ago

[dead]

CommitSyn 3y ago

4 out of 5 pharmacy-filled prescriptions are opioids.¹ In almost every single case, those using these drugs are trying to escape the physical and/or emotional pain. They didn't wake up one day and say "I want to have fun, I'm going to do heroin" Almost every fentanyl user I've talked to in harm reduction work started out on prescribed painkillers. Whether they got the taste and moved up quick, or just couldn't get their fix and couldn't deal with the horrible weeks of withdrawal and found a place to get it, they didn't just up and start shooting fentanyl one day. 1: https://drugabusestatistics.org/prescription-drug-abuse-statistics/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/prescription-drug-abuse-stat...

sublinear 3y ago
4 out of 5 pharmacy-filled prescriptions is not 4 out of 5 prescriptions, let alone 4 out of 5 patients, nor does that statistic say anything about unfilled pharmacy prescriptions or the rate at which people did not develop an addiction. Also you would expect the proportion of pharmacy-filled prescriptions for opioids to go up if the more common prescription for pain is not opiods from a pharmacy.
- CommitSyn 3y ago
  > 4 out of 5 pharmacy-filled prescriptions is not 4 out of 5 prescriptions As opposed to the non-pharmacy filled prescriptions people pick up? Your argument is that the statistic only works because so many people don't pick up meds their doctor calls in for them? I'm not a statistician so maybe I'm not understanding correctly, but that seems like a very weak argument.
  - hervature 3y ago
    While 4/5 is shocking any way you look at it, the stronger argument for why this stat is misleading is because it does not take into account how long the prescription lasts. Anecdotally, I was given basically a week's worth after all 3 of my surgeries. Tough to find stats on these things but I could see opiod prescriptions being 2x the number of prescriptions because the number of "doses" are half what other non-addictive substances are. Still, that would make opiods 2/3 of pharmacy-filled "doses".

dirtyid 3y ago

Yeah, PRC isn't so much doing an opium war on US as watching US doing an opium war on herself and not helping. Which PRC did when relations where good. Now the relationship is bad, there's no reason to waste PRC domestic resources to assist the US war on drugs. Also important to note it wasn't the Opium in Opium War that led to the century of humiliation - the humiliation was due to the War that weakened the Qing mandate and economic consequences of the unequal treaties. Great Britain via gunboat diplomacy forced Qing to open trade to opium that Qing tried to ban domestically by seizing stocks from British merchants. The shame/damage wasn't having citizens tripped up on drugs and the social ills that entail, but loss of sovereignty/state capacity over economic affairs that drained silver reserves and reversing trade surplus, which had knock on consequences. Wasn't addicts that brought down Qing, but the throne being weakened due to loss of sovereignty and inability to put down multiple uprisings due to loss of treasure. PRC waging opium war on US comparison only works if PRC was militarily coercing the US to not enforce domestic drug policies. As if that can happen. Does PRC propaganda benefit from US inability to curtail drug use domestically? Yes. But not enough to not cooperate with the US on drug trade when the relationship was good.

trashtester 3y ago
> PRC waging opium war on US comparison only works if PRC was militarily coercing the US to not enforce domestic drug policies. Things can be similar even if they're not identical. If a state actor supports criminal forces to transport harmful substances into a country, it's not so different from supporting the East India Company in doing so. Also, the purpose matters. When the EIC sold opium in China, the motive was probably profit. If China sponsors sale of opioids in the US, it's more likely to be motivated by a desire to cause harm, which most would consider worse. > Does PRC propaganda benefit from US inability to curtail drug use domestically? Yes. But not enough to not cooperate with the US on drug trade when the relationship was good. Well, this implies that you agree that the main purpose is not their own gain, but the harm they can inflict on their perceived rival. What would it look like if the US developed the same kind of desire to inflict pain and suffering in China, as a goal in itself?
- dirtyid 3y ago

TeMPOraL 3y ago

> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. Not only this is counterproductive, it would be definitely something those hypothetical Chinese agents would say! This sentiment is what you call "the dumbest part of America" - one of personal responsibility when facing dangers that are by design above most people's threshold of self-control. If there is one thing that's likely to destabilize and destroy the western society, it's marketing and advertising industry - it's your own companies that rely on and encourage people blaming failures on themselves, because it lets them use psychological tricks to move wares. Also: > Who is being forced to (...) listen to extremist propaganda? These days, everyone consuming the Internet and western mass media? There are (at least) two extremes in the US politics and culture, and while listening to one may be a choice, it's partly because the other extreme won the meme spreading battle.

saiya-jin 3y ago
You call it 2 extremes, from European point of view there are just mild variations of the same right wing approach, and result differences are even milder (ie democrats starting/expanding wars, conservatives allowing recreational cannabis etc). Not criticizing or anything, but actual extremes look significantly different, wake me up when a proper anarchist sits in White house for example
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  I call it two extremes because a lot of people insist on viewing them as Completely Different Things. After all, they have opposite names - "right wing" and "left wing". I'm from Europe too, and to me the extremes both look the same. The specific beliefs may be opposite, but that's just a free variable. The intellectual dishonesty, the belligerence, the hatred, they're all the same.
  - faangsticle 3y ago
    Hate to break it to you but the 2 party system is and has been broken for a very long time. You're choosing between two choices that are mostly identical. Introduce some extra parties if you want healthy politics.

zod-was-right 3y ago

> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control ... I hope you're not in charge of anyone's life

chaostheory 3y ago

> They're just apparently exploiting what was already the dumbest part of America. China is not causing any change. So just like what the British empire did to China during the century of humiliation with opium? Mainlander hypocrisy is comical

trashtester 3y ago

> That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen to extremist propaganda? Do you feel the same about he Opium Wars?