5 ms·

Why is it unsettling?

by yazzku 2y ago

burnished 2y ago
A common refrain in american homes and schools is about american superiority over all other countries, especially their rivals like china.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Is that perception why everyone online constantly shits on America and proclaims that every other country is superior? For as much as people like to accuse Americans of being "'Merica, fuck yeah!" the truth sure looks like it is mostly other countries with the arrogant attitude.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    Capacity for self criticism is part of what lets America reïnvent itself.
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    yes and it's deeply ironic that you just quoted an American film which was satirizing that attitude twenty years ago! if anything I feel like Americans have become extremely self loathing in the passing generation since the release of Team America: World Police
    - r14c 2y ago
      Americans may feel that way, but "Team America: World Police" still applies to US foreign policy in 2024.
    - Nasrudith 2y ago
      Interesting that the self-loathing seems to be associated with waging unpopular and losing wars. I didn't live through it but the Vietnam War seemed to have some similar impact that persists to this day with the utter loathing of conscription. It seems to be the same underlying cause: that bad leadership essentially permanently burned credibility for their country for no gain for their country.
      - soperj 2y ago
        Lots of gain for those in charge, and their cronies.
dyauspitr 2y ago
Stop playing dumb, superiority is everything.
typon 2y ago
Xenophobia
uses 2y ago
China - under Xi specifically - doesn't have rule of law, acts as an agent of chaos on the world stage, doesn't care about international order, bullies its neighbors, and critically, has become a 1-man dictatorship in the past ~10 years. Under Xi, it's an aspiring evil empire that considers all humans of Han ancestry to belong to it, and genuinely doesn't care about the rest. Pre-Xi, China was on a positive trajectory. Post-Xi, hopefully that'll return.
- ridiculous_leke 2y ago
  Unlike several other authoritarian regimes, this is very much constitutional in China. Every institution pretty much reports to the CCP.
  - yazzku 2y ago
    Really? That's fantastic. In the US, three-letter government agencies work outside the scrutiny of the law.
    - fakedang 2y ago
      In China, "there are no three-letter government agencies".
- juunpp 2y ago
  Your first sentence is exactly what the US has done since the Cold War through recent history. Why is it different when China does it, which it also hasn't to the scale that the US has?
  - rustcleaner 2y ago
    It's not different. Peace is always a temporary illusion, a cloaking of the war, and one shouldn't expect any consistency in these cases (akin to the peacock's tail-feathers, too much consistency costs).
  - fyrn_ 2y ago
heroprotagonist 2y ago
Because of how they treated Hong Kong. The way they curb free speech, even projecting that internationally. Their announced intention to become the world's superpower and displace the US militarily, technologically, and economically, and the risks to US interest which tie to that. Their active pursuit to enact that claim, specifically with rapid military technology development, and international organization of BRICS. Their aggressive tendencies towards US allies. Their aggressive spying on US military and industrial facilities.
- throwaway14356 2y ago
  We deserve this treatment. Their entire personality on the international stage was created by the west. It could of course be that they would be much worse without us but that didn't happen.
  - SJC_Hacker 2y ago
    It depends on how long you're willing to roll back US interventionism. If you're talking about pre-WW1, maybe. But even by the mid-late 19th century the US started sticking its nose in the Pacific (which alarmed Japan, which contributed to that countries subsequent militarism). So I'd say you'd have to go back even further. If not the US, it would probably be Europe and/or the Soviet Union. China and the Soviet Union nearly came to blows in the 60s. Europe decolonized largely because Hitler wrecked major continental colonial powers France and the Netherlands) and put Britain with their backs against the wall such that it had to partially abandon its empire in order to defend itself and avoid a complete disaster. So they let India go, but tried to hold on elsewhere. This worked to some extent, but not in others. What remained tried to morph into the Commonwealth, this was only partially successful. The US assumed the crown, this time with a different model, hegemony vs. colonialism. They had a rival in the Soviet Union, which funded Communist revolutions in many parts of the developing world. With the exception of Vietnam, something the Chinese did not do. They valued North Vietnam as a buffer against Wester imposition, but were not too keen on a reunified Vietnam, indeed they invaded a few years after South Vietnam collapsed.
- Prbeek 2y ago
missinglugnut 2y ago
Well for starters, Xi Jinping being the most powerful person on Earth is probably a bad sign for democracy. In their time as the dominant world power, the US hasn't always used their influence for good, but at least its a democracy with some form of constitutionally protected human rights in charge. I much prefer that to having a country with a permanent ruling party where critics go missing being the dominant force in world affairs.
- soperj 2y ago
  > the US hasn't always used their influence for good This is a bit of an understatement for anyone in latin america. > but at least its a democracy with some form of constitutionally protected human rights in charge as far as i can tell, those only apply to US citizens, not humans in general.
- juunpp 2y ago
  If you want to see how much the US cares about democracy, read Noam Chomsky's How The World Works. Or just look down south to Latin America.
- 0x457 2y ago
  America only cares about spreading democracy if some country they have beef with isn't democratic. America had no issue replacing democratic (and sometimes secular) goverments with dictatorships if dictatorship was more friendly to the US.
pessimizer 2y ago
The US thinks of Chinese prosperity as a threat in and of itself. The US wants to call the shots, and the reason it has been able to since WWII is because it is wealthy (due to its innovation of not being a country in Europe during WWII.) It's not simply racism, though. The US also thinks of European prosperity as a threat. These sentiments are not hidden. They are openly spoken during policy discussions and in policy papers. Fake concerns about the nature of Chinese governance have nothing to do with it - the problem the US has with Chinese governance is that China is not governed by the US. The US is jealous of China's tools for censorship and the tight top down political control. edit: the US government is not at all concerned about the citizens of China. It also did not invade Afghanistan for women's rights, and it is not helping Israel to preserve gay rights. These are barely even serious pretenses. It is not in Ukraine because it cares about the freedom of 2/3rds of the population to suppress the other third. These are stories for children.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  This right here.

Why is it unsettling?

by yazzku 2y ago

Why is it unsettling?

A common refrain in american homes and schools is about american superiority over all other countries, especially their rivals like china.

rootusrootus 2y ago
Is that perception why everyone online constantly shits on America and proclaims that every other country is superior? For as much as people like to accuse Americans of being "'Merica, fuck yeah!" the truth sure looks like it is mostly other countries with the arrogant attitude.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  Capacity for self criticism is part of what lets America reïnvent itself.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  yes and it's deeply ironic that you just quoted an American film which was satirizing that attitude twenty years ago! if anything I feel like Americans have become extremely self loathing in the passing generation since the release of Team America: World Police
  - r14c 2y ago
    Americans may feel that way, but "Team America: World Police" still applies to US foreign policy in 2024.
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    Interesting that the self-loathing seems to be associated with waging unpopular and losing wars. I didn't live through it but the Vietnam War seemed to have some similar impact that persists to this day with the utter loathing of conscription. It seems to be the same underlying cause: that bad leadership essentially permanently burned credibility for their country for no gain for their country.
    - soperj 2y ago
      Lots of gain for those in charge, and their cronies.

dyauspitr 2y ago

Stop playing dumb, superiority is everything.

typon 2y ago

Xenophobia

uses 2y ago

China - under Xi specifically - doesn't have rule of law, acts as an agent of chaos on the world stage, doesn't care about international order, bullies its neighbors, and critically, has become a 1-man dictatorship in the past ~10 years. Under Xi, it's an aspiring evil empire that considers all humans of Han ancestry to belong to it, and genuinely doesn't care about the rest. Pre-Xi, China was on a positive trajectory. Post-Xi, hopefully that'll return.

ridiculous_leke 2y ago
Unlike several other authoritarian regimes, this is very much constitutional in China. Every institution pretty much reports to the CCP.
- yazzku 2y ago
  Really? That's fantastic. In the US, three-letter government agencies work outside the scrutiny of the law.
  - fakedang 2y ago
    In China, "there are no three-letter government agencies".
juunpp 2y ago
Your first sentence is exactly what the US has done since the Cold War through recent history. Why is it different when China does it, which it also hasn't to the scale that the US has?
- rustcleaner 2y ago
  It's not different. Peace is always a temporary illusion, a cloaking of the war, and one shouldn't expect any consistency in these cases (akin to the peacock's tail-feathers, too much consistency costs).
- fyrn_ 2y ago

heroprotagonist 2y ago

Because of how they treated Hong Kong. The way they curb free speech, even projecting that internationally. Their announced intention to become the world's superpower and displace the US militarily, technologically, and economically, and the risks to US interest which tie to that. Their active pursuit to enact that claim, specifically with rapid military technology development, and international organization of BRICS. Their aggressive tendencies towards US allies. Their aggressive spying on US military and industrial facilities.

throwaway14356 2y ago
We deserve this treatment. Their entire personality on the international stage was created by the west. It could of course be that they would be much worse without us but that didn't happen.
- SJC_Hacker 2y ago
  It depends on how long you're willing to roll back US interventionism. If you're talking about pre-WW1, maybe. But even by the mid-late 19th century the US started sticking its nose in the Pacific (which alarmed Japan, which contributed to that countries subsequent militarism). So I'd say you'd have to go back even further. If not the US, it would probably be Europe and/or the Soviet Union. China and the Soviet Union nearly came to blows in the 60s. Europe decolonized largely because Hitler wrecked major continental colonial powers France and the Netherlands) and put Britain with their backs against the wall such that it had to partially abandon its empire in order to defend itself and avoid a complete disaster. So they let India go, but tried to hold on elsewhere. This worked to some extent, but not in others. What remained tried to morph into the Commonwealth, this was only partially successful. The US assumed the crown, this time with a different model, hegemony vs. colonialism. They had a rival in the Soviet Union, which funded Communist revolutions in many parts of the developing world. With the exception of Vietnam, something the Chinese did not do. They valued North Vietnam as a buffer against Wester imposition, but were not too keen on a reunified Vietnam, indeed they invaded a few years after South Vietnam collapsed.
Prbeek 2y ago

missinglugnut 2y ago

Well for starters, Xi Jinping being the most powerful person on Earth is probably a bad sign for democracy. In their time as the dominant world power, the US hasn't always used their influence for good, but at least its a democracy with some form of constitutionally protected human rights in charge. I much prefer that to having a country with a permanent ruling party where critics go missing being the dominant force in world affairs.

soperj 2y ago
> the US hasn't always used their influence for good This is a bit of an understatement for anyone in latin america. > but at least its a democracy with some form of constitutionally protected human rights in charge as far as i can tell, those only apply to US citizens, not humans in general.
juunpp 2y ago
If you want to see how much the US cares about democracy, read Noam Chomsky's How The World Works. Or just look down south to Latin America.
0x457 2y ago
America only cares about spreading democracy if some country they have beef with isn't democratic. America had no issue replacing democratic (and sometimes secular) goverments with dictatorships if dictatorship was more friendly to the US.

pessimizer 2y ago

The US thinks of Chinese prosperity as a threat in and of itself. The US wants to call the shots, and the reason it has been able to since WWII is because it is wealthy (due to its innovation of not being a country in Europe during WWII.) It's not simply racism, though. The US also thinks of European prosperity as a threat. These sentiments are not hidden. They are openly spoken during policy discussions and in policy papers. Fake concerns about the nature of Chinese governance have nothing to do with it - the problem the US has with Chinese governance is that China is not governed by the US. The US is jealous of China's tools for censorship and the tight top down political control. edit: the US government is not at all concerned about the citizens of China. It also did not invade Afghanistan for women's rights, and it is not helping Israel to preserve gay rights. These are barely even serious pretenses. It is not in Ukraine because it cares about the freedom of 2/3rds of the population to suppress the other third. These are stories for children.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
This right here.