General News Thread

[Trubo]

Please clap

[SpoonyViking]

Right. I said nothing about letting it slide. Just not also becoming a human failure.

At what point do you become human failure, though? I mean, an armed revolution in the US is probably impossible, but just as a thought exercise: if it were possible, where should the lines be drawn?

[Twelveseal]

Yeah, an actually successful armed revolution is unrealistic, even with the current pandemic. If anything, the lack of one in North Korea is probably a good indicator of the viability of one here, in China, or most other advanced nations these days. Conditions have to get a lot worse for anything more than riots and terror cells.

As for drawing the line... frankly, that's really hard to say or do. I can give you a response on where I would like a line to be drawn as a sort of ideal, but we're talking about war. And a drastically imbalanced conflict, besides. Just from a practical standpoint, the underdogs would almost certainly have to resort to tactics that those in power wouldn't. I'd have to think about it more, rather than just running off my internal sensibility of "don't do unnecessary, horrible things to people." What constitutes "unnecessary" for some might not for others.

[Zurvan]

At what point do you become a human failure, though?

I'll let you know when I finish my autobiography!

[RoydGolden]

At what point do you become human failure, though? I mean, an armed revolution in the US is probably impossible, but just as a thought exercise: if it were possible, where should the lines be drawn?

The thing about an armed revolution is, who decides who gets sent to the chopping block? Even now at least 40% of Americans still support Trump, so would you really be willing to kill every last one of them for the sake of your ideals? The US may be a flawed democracy, but it still loosely is one. It's hard for a leading establishment to take power without at least a fairly broad swathe of the population agreeing with and supporting it, which kind of takes the moral force out of any "populist" revolution (unless you redefine "populist" to mean just "agreeing with my definition of the people's good").

It's not like the old days where you could have the king that everyone hates but still hangs on to power just because nobody had any choice to get rid of them save violent revolution. Of course it's easy to divide people into categories like the "bad rich people" and the "good poor people" and say only the latter represents "the people", but in reality a lot of even lower income people buy into the capitalist/neoliberal dream, not just the rich. (As the saying goes, America isn't filled with poor people, but "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"). You'd have to fight them for the sake of your revolution as well.

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Yeah, an actually successful armed revolution is unrealistic, even with the current pandemic. If anything, the lack of one in North Korea is probably a good indicator of the viability of one here, in China, or most other advanced nations these days. Conditions have to get a lot worse for anything more than riots and terror cells.

As for drawing the line... frankly, that's really hard to say or do. I can give you a response on where I would like a line to be drawn as a sort of ideal, but we're talking about war. And a drastically imbalanced conflict, besides. Just from a practical standpoint, the underdogs would almost certainly have to resort to tactics that those in power wouldn't. I'd have to think about it more, rather than just running off my internal sensibility of "don't do unnecessary, horrible things to people." What constitutes "unnecessary" for some might not for others.

A revolution founded on blood can continue justifying any number of evils as long as it claims to have a "higher cause". That's the lesson at least the French Revolution teaches.

[rxrx]

Double standards are fine as long as it is applied to China. That's the common norm. When we go the other hand, we are blasted with using whataboutism. Nice.

[AsGryffynn]

At what point do you become human failure, though? I mean, an armed revolution in the US is probably impossible, but just as a thought exercise: if it were possible, where should the lines be drawn?

Excessive force to suppress protests or mass incarceration count. By the latter, I mean arbitrary detentions leading to prison.

[asterism42]

Double standards are fine as long as it is applied to China. That's the common norm. When we go the other hand, we are blasted with using whataboutism. Nice.

Bruh, your reaction whenever someone posts a 'China did a naughty' article is always, always, ALWAYS whataboutism

[asterism42]

[Twelveseal]

Speaking of China... looks like it's time for another round of protests against laws.

[SteelBeowulf]

In a way giving Hong Kong more autonomy is harder than building a secret democratic base in China.

[rxrx]

In a way giving Hong Kong more autonomy is harder than building a secret democratic base in China.

They decide to pass the Homeland Security Law after it was discovered that some schools are teaching fabricated history to primary school children (Opium War erupted because Great Britain is trying to stop Qing China from smoking opium) and guiding secondary school kids to support the Japanese occupation and invasion of China. The protests erupted since the Legco can do nothing to stop the laws from passing, and since USA played with those Hong Kong related bills, it seems unlikely that China will back down now.

We believed that no matter the truth, the West WILL blame China for their own lousy handling of the virus, so there really is no need to save face when dealing with Hong Kong which is developing into a hub for anti-Chinese activities. This view is enforced when it is reported that USA is considering to start nuclear tests again, so there is a need to prepare for the worse when Trump decides to nuke us.

[Ratman]

Man, it's really building up to another thing that never happened over there, huh.

[Mcjon01]

Man it never fails to amaze how China can have so much power and still nurse such a huge fucking victim complex

[aldeayeah]

Most good superpower gimmicks were already taken, such as Manifest Destiny and the like

[rxrx]

Man, it's really building up to another thing that never happened over there, huh.

Depends on what you are talking about. Teaching fabricated history is very real right now and is a problem already.

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Man it never fails to amaze how China can have so much power and still nurse such a huge fucking victim complex

Many were fooled by the propaganda of the West, believing that justice will be served dealing with Japanese Invasion and the Eight Nation Alliance. We once thought we were weak and not part of the world and thus ignored, then we realized nobody ever cared about that even if we become strong.

[Twelveseal]

Huh, I was under the impression Andy Beshear was rather well-liked as a Governor, despite the fact that he leads an otherwise red state. I'd heard his Coronavirus updates were actually pretty popular, both within Kentucky and beyond.

Kind of a shock, finding out that he was lynched in effigy in front of his own home as part of a protest by gun rights advocates over the lockdown earlier today. Not a good Memorial Day event, methinks. Instead of remembering those we lost, how about protesting measures meant to protect more lives and threatening those who implement them? Truly, I live in a strange nation.

Meanwhile, some of the courts at least are siding with California's governor over his order for religious institutions to not hold indoor services. That'll almost certainly run afoul of the President, what with his stance of religious institutions as essential services. Time for more appeals there.

And this guy keeps building up to contest the election should he lose. Yay.

[aldeayeah]

Huh. Here in Spain we stopped churches from holding Mass for over a month, including all of Easter, and nobody batted an eyelash (not even the clergy)

[rxrx]

Huh. Here in Spain we stopped churches from holding Mass for over a month, including all of Easter, and nobody batted an eyelash (not even the clergy)

Nobody complain that this is heresy, or that God is bigger than the virus?

[aldeayeah]

The virus being so vicious against old folks was an effective deterrent, I think

although Spain as a whole has pretty much eschewed organized religion in recent decades so there's that