3 ms·

The other side is that rulers in China likely encouraged this apathy to make people more pliable and controllable

• mantas 3y ago
  Just like nowadays. There's a famous columnist-wannabe-politician in my country. A part of one of his columns stuck with me. It was along the following lines: > Just think what would happen if people stopped caring about saving for the latest iPhone. And got into philosophical debates instead. What a terrible world would that be. Looking at context, it was 100% not sarcasm.
  • Liquix 3y ago
    Having trouble understanding the context in which this is not sarcasm. Would you mind linking the column if possible?
    • kortilla 3y ago
      Depends on how you interpret the “stop saving” part of the phrase. If it’s just for an iPhone sure, it’s definitely sarcasm. If it’s a comment about not saving money at all and just scraping by enough to sustain and argue philosophy, then there are a lot of people that would agree with the non-sarcastic take. The phrase would have been better replacing “saving for” with “coveting” or something that better disambiguates a statement against materialism from one supporting selfish financial recklessness.
      • mantas 3y ago
        It was the later. I linked the article in a comment in adjacent comment if you're interested. Good tip on saving for vs coveting.
    • mantas 3y ago
      The column is in Lithuanian. Hopefully deepl or google translate does good enough job. The title translates to „The world, which doesn't need a newer iPhone, is destined for wars and genocide“ https://www.delfi.lt/news/ringas/lit/romas-sadauskas-kvietkevicius-pasaulis-kuriam-nereikia-naujesnio-iphone-pasmerktas-patirti-karus-ir-genocida.d?id=90905093 https://www.delfi.lt/news/ringas/lit/romas-sadauskas-kvietke...