[QuickTidal]

Hey Abyss, I split this off into the discussion forum as I felt it might be annoying people that it was in the happy thread. Let me know if that's offsides.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Today, 05:38 PM

[QuickTidal]

I feel like I come across as really dejected and disillusioned with what our status quo has become in Canada, and again I'm not trying to defend China on any of the human rights abuses they have perpetrated in the last 60+ years, or are currently committing (the main thrust of my initial comments really do surround the advances they make despite their govt)....but the fact that I'm middle aged and my wife I together make quite a bit more money (adjusting for inflation ) than my dad did supporting us on his single salary while my mom stayed home in the 80's in big house in Oakville (already a wealthy community at the time) with a pool, trips, extra life stuff, two cars [one of them a sports car]...and we basically have to penny pinch each month to make sure that we have enough to buy food and whatever else, live in a modest house in an outlier smaller community more than an hour from the city..and things like the cost of summer camps for the kids is causing us deep anxiety about paying our bills this month...tells me that something DRASTIC has changed in our country. I was sold a lie that if I worked hard and made enough that I could live decently...and if it bothers me I cannot imagine the people lower on the that ladder. It's no wonder the misinformation campaigns appeal to so many, it's giving them emotional answers to their shittier than promised lives that allows the powers that be to skate by doing what they have aways done.


I want Canada to be a leader in things like Clean Energy...but I feel like we never ever will, and we roll around in the political-will muck instead. And it's just so dispiriting.

[the broken]

I wonder...


Deepseek has been out like three days, It's far too soon to make a judgement, and even if it is, it doesn't mean that much by itself. It's only a big deal because people are reacting 'wait, China did something well That's not true, that's impossible' when even if it is true, it's only a big deal if you think anything not from the US must necessarily be inferior by default. It is normal to not be at the cutting edge all of the time in all things.

China is pretty opaque by design, it's hard to determine what the truth is. It's difficult to make comparisons when so much information is not available. It's easy to go. wow, that's so great' when you don't see the full consequences. It might be that the assumed consequences are overblown, but it also might be that they're not.We don't know, because of all the censorship.

The West allows people to complain about how oppressed they are, the CCP does not. So it's difficult to say that we have the full picture one way or the other.

They build things fast? Consequences (that we know about? Massive Forced displacement.

Good Covid Lockdown? Even if you assume their numbers are real, sealing people in their homes for months has a host of negative consequences like that urumqi appt fire.

Climate Change? China builds more new coal plants than rest of the world : NPR

Foreign visitors will usually go to the rich prosperous places, visiting a tech hub and calling that representative is like going to Silicon Valley and calling that representative of the average person, it doesn't mean much by itself.

I'm pretty wary of 'getting things done is all that matters, no matter how many dissidents are crushed in the process'. That's how you get dictatorships.

[Cause]

I think one of the truest metrics we can examine is how people vote with their feet.

People from the Middle East, Africa, south east Asia, India, Central America and southern America want into Europe Canada and the us.

We don’t really need to examine the why (economic reasons, rights, freedom, security) but we can see the effect.

How many westerners, Arabs, Africans are immigrating to china for a better life?

Americas greatest immigration mistake isn’t the southern border it’s that it has the opportunity to steal nearly every great mind in the world with a green card and tells them no instead.

That west will lose its dominance yes, but it’s not going to be eclipsed anytime soon. America could be better and so can Canada, the uk and Europe. Competition may be what’s needed to provide the impetus to do so.

In the meantime I don’t want to work a six day work week with 12 hours a day. I don’t want to be disappeared by the government or re-educated. China absolutely can build, they make all our iPhones thanks to Foxconn and suicide nets but they also have a reputation for building apartment towers that are so substandard the concrete can be broken by hand.

If china does have a strengh it’s that it’s one party leadership and president for life let it plan long term. Far longer than the wests maximum of 4-10 years. Case in point trump is dismantling and replacing everything Biden did. When trumps gone the pendulum may swing again.

Chinas glaring weakness, Xi Jinping must increasingly hold the reins of power tighter and tighter. His hand picked generals and politicians get removed and replaced. What will the next ten, twenty years be like who can say?

[the broken]

Quote

If china does have a strengh it’s that it’s one party leadership and president for life let it plan long term. Far longer than the wests maximum of 4-10 years.

Theoretically, but for this to happen the dictatorships have to put their countries interests ahead of their own. I don't know that we've seen a dictatorship actually have any good long term plans. Mostly they just purge their rivals/dissidents/random people or create disastrous agricultural reforms.