Prelude to the Apocalypse

[MintyTheCat]

God, Minty you're saying extremely ignorant crap here. You obviously don't know shit about China besides the tabloid-level crap found on the internet.

Also you're distorting what Skykid wrote.

Snap out of your fantasy, it's valid for many countries but China is definitely not a place and people you can jusdge without going there for some time and learn.
It's fucking huge in every possible field, you have no idea.

You must be joking. You have said yourself how bad the pollution is:

You know I love China, but I won't refrain from saying when there's something really bad about it (I wouldn't before a Chinese because that's very rude, but heh) air pollution in big urban areas can easily reach a point where you can collect a sticky black substance just by rubbing your skin, fucking days straight, or see your laundry stained in black because the rain carries that shit. Black-fucking-rain.

Sure, it is a big country. I would never step foot in China or India personally.

Let's stick to some facts shall we rather than attempting to cloud your judgement, my judgement, etc.

How many ways can what you wrote be interpreted, Xyga? Is there pollution or is there not pollution? Has the chinese state forbade people from leaving their homes or has it not?

Neither I nor SkyKid denied the issue, you're being stupid here really.

Suggesting he's being somewhat brainwashed, and you looking down on the Chinese again comparing their crap to our superior European standards is very much like you.
You probably also missed all the parts about that country's circumstances, their challenges and that it's not like that everywhere all the time.

Is the world like an ensemble of uniform, black and white blocks to you ? You must like Huntington then...

You must be joking - I am being stupid here - really? Grow up.

It is our superior european standards that you can thank for giving you the life that you have in this world, Xyga.

I am not a tabloid reader your your information.

Have a read on how many chinese workers contract mercury poisoning each year or the number of industrial accidents.
I think that as a set of policies they are running before they can walk. I dislike that they are willing to make all the mistakes that England made during its industrialisation phase.

I know a lady who is chinese who contracted cancer when she was twenty and I doubt that the pollution was any help in that sense.

It is very easy to call me ignorant but as far as I can see you are disregarding the obvious and allowing yourself to be deluded.

Mercury poisoning:

http://www.science20.com/make_love_not_ ... cern-71812
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/s ... l-of-China

Tell me exactly what is ignorant what I raised and how dare you call me ignorant.

You dare to sidestep this:



http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33844084

You must have a very short memory span or are you being stupid now?

You may been too young to remember but I remember it well. I cannot trust a system that does that to its own people:



Would you like to take opportunity to deny the Tiananmen Square catastrophe too?

[Xyga]

Holy crap, you miss SkyKid's or mine points so much it's ridiculous, and you're so blinded by the all-dark picture western media draw of China and obviously bearing an European superiority complex, I can't even... you're too much.

[Skykid]

This is really getting embarrassing. I feel the need to apologise to Chinese people on your behalf.

You're an outsider touting observations that appear to be gleaned from what sounds like very tatty tabloid news media. If that isn't one guaranteed way to be ignorant on a subject I don't know what is.

You really have absolutely no idea what you're saying, except that Beijing has a pollution problem. That is indeed, a fact. And I'd suggest leaving it there because you don't seem to have digested any of the information I spent a long time writing for your benefit.

I can't believe you posted a Tiananmen square picture ha ha! Is that what you think it's like in China today?

[BulletMagnet]

The point I made is that the Democrats ABSOLUTELY have the gall to take things as far as Republicans, HAVE taken things so far, because the party leadership of both are remarkably similar.

Did a highly polarizing political class and their media muckrakers seek to take everything he said as ammunition for their culture wars? Who could deny that?

It also amazes me that you conflate his legal opinions with "contempt for a large swath of the population." If that isn't a willful delusion, what else is it supposed to be?

for as much of an incompetent RINO Boehner was

this baller approach

Ha ha, "get over it" indeed!

When one side of this discussion is coming from a place like this I'm honestly not sure where to even begin...if someone else wants to attempt to sort this out feel free, but methinks I've had enough for the moment.

[MintyTheCat]

We are aware of how well you are prepared to defend the chinese state, Skykid - all the reams and reams of pages support that notion. More of a case of not wanting to bite the hand that feeds you or is it a matter of having your investments in China and the state?

But we are also aware of how you play things down. The system that was in place in China in the 80s is the same one that is in place today.
It is a country where you have to be rather careful of what you say and to whom. A country where people disappear and one hell bent on reaching and then surpassing the West. And one that has its fair share of corruption. And indeed one where homosexuals are executed from their crimes.

You can tell me that we have all got it wrong as outsiders and we are all missing the real situation. This reminds me of many other tacks that are not worth mentioning here and would put a negative stance on things.

If it also a country with a pretty poor human rights record which conveniently is forgotten when it suits by both of you two.
I have seen this happen fairly often, in the 80s is was all so much better in Japan and today I hear the same about China.

The people of Hong Kong certainly are aware of how changes affect them even if you happy tourists are blinded.

If both Skykid and Xyga wish to be a part of that then good luck to them, I shall stay in Europe with my superiority complex and let you chaps suck it all up for over there

If you look closely the BBC for one and many of the UK papers have become very pro China. I am not sure where you get your notions of it all being propaganda from - to my mind this appears to be position progaganda on the BBC's part and I wonder if it has anything to do with the UK selling itself out and allowing that Nuclear Power station to be built?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34587650

Because the chinese state has the very best in safety standards and our interests are heart right?

No need to apologise to any Chinese people, Skykid - my criticisms are firmly targeted at the chinese state. Don't try and dress this up as anything else. You should always be mindful of what the state does and does not do as a matter of policy.

I have met a number of chinese people over the years and found them to be fine and easy going.

[MintyTheCat]

Holy crap, you miss SkyKid's or mine points so much it's ridiculous, and you're so blinded by the all-dark picture western media draw of China and obviously bearing an European superiority complex, I can't even... you're too much.

You haven't got a leg to stand on, chum.

On the one hand you talk about the black rain and how ill it made you feel then you tell me I am too much - what is the word for fickle in French again?

You are confusing my right to have my own opinion with having a so called european superiority complex.
Are you saying that anything not pro chinese state or pro your opinion is wrong? Your tact is weak and would not stand up to debate.

I suggest you work on facts and you'll earn more respect in discussion when you can balance an argument.

All that I have stated is fact that you both have conveniently disregarded.

[EmperorIng]

When one side of this discussion is coming from a place like this I'm honestly not sure where to even begin...

I would start by cultivating a healthy skepticism towards political parties, then you might start to see where I'm coming from. I tend to look beyond what color tie a politician wears for whether or not I approve of him.

[Xyga]

...

I haven't seen anyone make a fool of himself this hard in ages, seriously Minty this is golden ! Thanks for the laughs, you made my day.

[Ed Oscuro]

What are you guys arguing about, anyway?

I would start by cultivating a healthy skepticism towards political parties, then you might start to see where I'm coming from. I tend to look beyond what color tie a politician wears for whether or not I approve of him.

I'm sure it was in the service of promoting this kind of understanding that you rushed to white knight for Scalia and accuse me of getting my news from Salon, Ing the Merciless One

Excuse me if I am not impressed with your apparent high regard for your own opinions and lack of inquisitiveness regarding opinions and facts that challenge them.

[MintyTheCat]

...

I haven't seen anyone make a fool of himself this hard in ages, seriously Minty this is golden ! Thanks for the laughs, you made my day.

The black rain must have rotted your brain or something. Laugh it up.

A new word for me, thanks to Xyga's example: "fickle" is "inconstante" in French - cheers, Xyga.

[Skykid]

...

I haven't seen anyone make a fool of himself this hard in ages, seriously Minty this is golden ! Thanks for the laughs, you made my day.

It reads like parody. It's so hilarious I'm not sure whether to tear him a new one or just let him keep posting for the lulz.

[Xyga]

Nah, the party will send specialists to reeducate him, let's leave the job to them, comrade SkyKid.

[BulletMagnet]

I would start by cultivating a healthy skepticism towards political parties, then you might start to see where I'm coming from. I tend to look beyond what color tie a politician wears for whether or not I approve of him.

If there's one figure wherein this approach almost inevitably comes into play, at least for me personally, it's Scalia: IMO, at least, he falls into the same category as a Gingrich or a Cheney (for a conservative, perhaps Gore Vidal would serve as a rough equivalent), as someone whose politics I not only find disagreeable, but whose personal application of those politics strikes me as especially crude, self-serving, and gleefully corrosive. It's the difference between "I feel differently than you about this, and here's why..." and rarely failing to add "...so screw you, jackass" to the end of the statement, and moreover being constantly lionized by his supporters for the latter (who, unfailingly, bemoan the "lack of civility in politics" whenever they get a taste of their own medicine). In short, yes, my views on Scalia go a good ways beyond his political affiliation, to an extent rarely applied even to other hard-line conservatives.

That all being said, I continue to reject the notion that "which guy would you want to have a beer with" should come before "does what he's saying make any objective sense" when judging anyone's suitability for support; Scalia's "originalist" interpretation of the Constitution not only goes against much of what the founders (a quote from Jefferson about laws needing to follow the evolution of society comes most immediately to mind) openly intended, but could be totally abandoned whenever it came to any long-standing precedent he felt like overturning, whether Citizens United or the rollback of the Voting Rights Act. In short, in my eyes he largely failed to live up to his potential as both a public servant and a private individual, so feel free to come at it from whichever angle you please; I make few apologies for my politics, mind you, but my hesitation to set aside a kind word for the likes of Scalia even in death goes far beyond even that; moreover, the fact that so many of his fellow conservatives (again, at least at the top...has anyone in the trenches dared to say "c'mon guys, we're better than this"?) have no problem with using his death to send one last, big "screw you" to both the left and to the constitutional process they all claim to love so much leaves me even more soured when it comes to the legacy he leaves.

EDIT: Some related thoughts to that end.

[MintyTheCat]

...

I haven't seen anyone make a fool of himself this hard in ages, seriously Minty this is golden ! Thanks for the laughs, you made my day.

It reads like parody. It's so hilarious I'm not sure whether to tear him a new one or just let him keep posting for the lulz.

I am sure I have seen a denialist like this before:

Just so we understand here:

1. Industrial accidents have not happened in China.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35149263
http://time.com/3995600/china-tianjin-b ... disasters/

2. Lawyers, book publishers and human rights activists have never gone missing in China at the chinese state's hand.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/j ... ts-lawyers
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongk ... 2A20160110

3. Tiananmen square did not happen.
4. There is no corruption in chinese governance.
5. Black Rain is not a problem even though it makes people ill.
6. The chinese state never, ever censors its people and anyone can say what they like about the state without any repercussions.

Let's have that explosion again, you know, the one that never happened in safe as mother's milk old China last year:



And just look at that crater, the one right next door to those residential housing blocks that the state gave the all clear to build:



Well as you said, Skykid, it is a big country - maybe some others will suffer.

I would love a pint of whatever you blokes are on

Nah, the party will send specialists to reeducate him, let's leave the job to them, comrade SkyKid.

Speaking of parties, what did you take at the last one, Xyga and when did the Black Rain become an issue and how did it no longer bother you?

Some serious double-speak from our token comrades Skykid and Xyga tonight.

You guys I bet are full party members; do you show each other your little red books or what?

The best example of rose-tinted tourists I have seen for a while - well done.

[trap15]

Saying that it's not a dystopian hellhole doesn't mean it's perfect.

[MintyTheCat]

Saying that it's not a dystopian hellhole doesn't mean it's perfect.

It has a long way to go. The concern is that all the same mistakes that England, Germany and others made in becoming industrialised have been repeated and will continue to be repeated but on a much larger scale in China.

Some people, suffering from a rather limited disposition can only see the world in yes/no, right/wrong extremes. You have a right to criticise any system that you wish to and after all constructive criticism leads to improvements. To be blind and passive is your ticket to oblivion.

If I do not agree 100% that does not mean I am anti this or that, it means I question and I don't suck it up, Skykid.

One of the major issues that I hear from native chinese whom I have met, and Russians for that matter, is the level of accountability that the state is held to in those countries - there isn't any.

I think that it is very important to distinguish a nation's people from its state.

We are playing a very dangerous game when we blindly support our state and never question it. For them to silence their own people and indeed get heavy handed - as has happened - and for there to be no accountability, that's when things have gotten scary.

If bigotry is your chief tool to survive then things are very wrong.

[Xyga]

Please go on John Sn...er, Minty !

You know they eat kittens, right ? (live!)

[MintyTheCat]

Please go on John Sn...er, Minty !

You know they eat kittens, right ? (live!)

Wake up!

[Ed Oscuro]

I still am trying to figure out what you guys are arguing about

Remember the public toilets thread? Good times.

[MintyTheCat]

I still am trying to figure out what you guys are arguing about

Remember the public toilets thread? Good times.

We have some chaps here blindly besotted with the chinese state who can see no wrong what so ever.

I have an issue with this, as I have an issue with a state not being accountable for and to its people.

This is not, it appears, to be a problem for our favourite rose tinted, red tourist comrades: Xyga and Skykid who think it's all bloody marvellous.

Standard tactics employed but not limited to by our tourist chums:

1. psychological splitting.
2. psychological proofing.
3. elitism.
4. denial.
5. mockery.

I am trying to work out why Xyga is still based in France given his conviction and why he is not bang smack in the middle of Beijing. He said something about becoming very ill from all the pollution in Beijing but seems to have forgotten that.

Still, a funny pair of chaps on anyone's bet.

Let's humour them.

Right, I shall be off for some shmupping now - Jesus, you come on here to discuss Shmups and you end up talking about how to debunk how amazing the chinese state is - only on Shmups.org...

[austere]

CHINA BAD

Explosions due to stored chemicals which kill 100s of civilians and many fire fighters have never happened outside of China. Oh wait except they actually did.

Industrial disasters happen. Higher density of industry and fewer regulations? Many more industrial disasters. The world outside China had plenty of time to learn why safety matters and is well worth the additional costs. Some never did, in fact, one oversight in Cyprus even cost it 10% of its economy in one blow.

In fact even if you follow all safety regulations, even if you carry out risk assessment, accidents will still happen often in a manner you couldn't have predict. If they didn't, we wouldn't have emergency contingency planning or insurance. All engineers (and operators, safety regulators etc.) can do is minimise their frequency and try to make the worst foreseeable scenario less costly.

China is far from perfect, in some regards, it can be awful, but some people rail on it like it's the worst country on Earth. It really isn't. There is an ocean of realities between "China sucks" and "China is perfect".

[Hagane]

Minty:

Uh, I've seen Skykid and Xyga accept many problems with China. To me you are the only one looking extremist here; seems like you think it's a hellhole without any redeeming qualities, and make it look as if Europe right now doesn't have some serious problems.

As someone down here says, he's neither bald nor he has two wigs.

[Ed Oscuro]

CHINA BAD

Explosions due to stored chemicals which kill 100s of civilians and many fire fighters have never happened outside of China. Oh wait except they actually did.

[...]

China is far from perfect, in some regards, it can be awful, but some people rail on it like it's the worst country on Earth. It really isn't. There is an ocean of realities between "China sucks" and "China is perfect".

Glad to see you contributing to the forum in general! This really gets to the heart of the problem - on the face of it, it can seem ridiculous to compare something that happened in 1947, decades before OSHA (started under Nixon) and at a time when the basic knowledge of materials handling was considerably less advanced than it is today. However we've been "lucky" - it's been just 10 years since the Texas City Refinery explosion at a plant with infrastructure even older than the 1947 port disaster. Oil refinery disasters seem less likely to be mass casualty events than those behind the Tianjin explosions or the Texas City disaster, but it still highlights that the US has often been ineffective in following best practices we have had decades of experience with.

As a really rough generalization, industrial accidents are caused by cost-cutting: In one case we have old infrastructure being exploited as a source of cost cutting, and in another we have infrastructure that was badly built to begin with. In both cases local governments, always keen to please local industry for the collective good, failed to impose proper rules.

The refinery disaster in Texas City is even worse than its casualty count implies due to the extensive safety analyses BP undertook at the site, which were then ignored by management. In the US we almost always can count disasters like this as being due to failure to make use of resources and regulations that have been in place for decades, and people have gotten complacent about the safety of typically low-paid workers in dangerous jobs.

The old storyline is that China has been sacrificing safety to make the best of economic good times - there is some slight truth to this but it's hardly a Chinese problem. It was only the '80s before the US environmental lobby won significant victories in Washington, but soon after the Kyoto Protocol the Western nations were impatiently waiting for China to get to speed on these issues (I can't comment about how much local attention there was to these issues, of course, the history of China's public participation is such that one couldn't expect or measure strong public advocacy). Even so, China and India are moving in the right direction as this has become catastrophe by any measure.

China (and India) do merit international criticism insofar as their pollution problems are an international problem. This is not a way of saying "we like TEPCO better than Sinochem," just an acknowledgement that the harms are indeed greater in this case. I don't think the Chinese stance on censorship is very helpful in these cases, but I can't fault their regulatory structure.

Above all, I think it's good to remember where China is coming from, but at the same time we have to keep pushing not just for a level playing field, but for best practices worldwide - China can't be held up just to the level of the US in 1947. Of course, neither can we. And for that matter, Europe needs to stop its backsliding with the reemergence of fascists, anti-Jewish rhetoric, and the demonization of immigrants in the political landscape. (We get a lot of that here in the US too, as I've unfortunately discovered recently.)

[Skykid]

Minty you sound like someone's mum.

Would you like to take opportunity to deny the Tiananmen Square catastrophe too?

Actually I wouldn't mind having a go at that one.

Several years ago cables and transcripts from CIA operatives in Tiananmen square during the incident surfaced on Wikileaks. They reported a completely different story where the square was 'mostly empty' and there 'wasn't much going on', to paraphrase.

Outside of the square in the surrounding streets is where clashes actually occurred - although it was actually the opposite to the news reports, in that it was the increasingly antagonistic students who actually attacked the military, overturned trucks, and started killing soldiers.

You can read all about it here:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-really-happened-in-tiananmen-square-25-years-ago/5385528

And here:

Wikileaks: No bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square

And here:

Wikileakes

And an excerpt for you:

Inside the square itself, a Chilean diplomat was on hand to give his US counterparts an eyewitness account of the final hours of the pro-democracy movement.

"He watched the military enter the square and did not observe any mass firing of weapons into the crowds, although sporadic gunfire was heard. He said that most of the troops which entered the square were actually armed only with anti-riot gear – truncheons and wooden clubs; they were backed up by armed soldiers," a cable from July 1989 said.

The diplomat, who was positioned next to a Red Cross station inside Tiananmen Square, said a line of troops surrounded him and "panicked" medical staff into fleeing. However, he said that there was "no mass firing into the crowd of students at the monument".
According to internal Communist party files, released in 2001, 2,000 soldiers from the 38th army, together with 42 armoured vehicles, began slowly sweeping across the square from north to south at 4.30am on June 4. At the time, around 3,000 students were sitting around the Monument to the People's Heroes on the southern edge of the giant square, near Chairman Mao's mausoleum.

Leaders of the protest, including Liu Xiaobo, the winner of last year's Nobel Peace prize, urged the students to depart the square, and the Chilean diplomat relayed that "once agreement was reached for the students to withdraw, linking hands to form a column, the students left the square through the south east corner." The testimony contradicts the reports of several journalists who were in Beijing at the time, who described soldiers "charging" into unarmed civilians and suggests the death toll on the night may be far lower than the thousands previously thought.

There's a lesson in the truth about the Tiananmen Square incident that, in a roundabout way, addresses all of your concerns and fears about foreign countries in general.

You see, propaganda is all pervasive, and you're a victim of it. It's magically surreptitious, and usually about creating divisions between peoples, whether by country or race, to serve an agenda with some political ramifications.

Tiananmen Square certainly isn't the first time we've discovered history was distorted - it's actually fairly commonplace. The important thing is to try to identify propaganda in the present rather than the past. Ask why is it that there are a million news articles about Beijing pollution, which gives rise to parrots like you harping on about it, when it doesn't even register on the 20 most polluted cities in the world, but absolutely no-one is interested in writing articles about them?

News media agenda is smart because it's almost invisible. Between stories about drunk people and celebrities not wearing makeup, you get something about pedophile muslims and Chinese health and safety standards. It's almost exactly the same as subliminal messages, in that you don't directly pick up an opinion, but one is casually created for you. It's a cherry pick of negativity designed to leave you with an impression that ultimately results in what's known as public sentiment - and that's good for major political movements, like war.

The reality is, you don't know anything about the places you talk about. You're inexperienced and incredibly naive because you take sensationalist media at face value rather than finding a way to broaden your horizons. China is much bigger and much more than a tragic accident in Tianjin (one of many chemical and factory explosions that happened globally in 2015), and it's bigger than Beijing's pollution problems. What you're not aware of is the wonderful revolution taking place. China's three-decade rise has been unprecedented, and it's getting more impressive by the day. In fact, there's so much to celebrate, one wonders why there's not more of that being reported. The truth is they don't want people living in Hackney, Brixton, Tower Hamlets, Whitechapel and Woodgreen to feel any more negatively about their lives than they already do. They don't want people living in estates, unemployed, in the gutters of greater Manchester to think that there are Chinese people one-upping them. They don't want Glaswegians in 60s council blocks living on benefits and feeding six children to know that Shenzhen is a comparative paradise. They don't want people living in trailers and tents in the US to know that there are Chinese people with five houses. They don't want English people taking National Rail on the commute at 5 miles an hour to know China is being connected by bullet train links up and down the country, or people on London underground to know Guangzhou subway is one of the cleanest and most efficient in the world.

Instead they want you to know about the pollution. And the poor people. The farmers still in rural areas. The one-child (now two) policies of the past. They want you to remember Tiananmen Square the way it didn't happen.



I'm not blaming you though, you're both victim and perpetrator by proxy.

[quash]

Not remotely a Scalia fan, glad Citizen's United is going to be gone without a constitutional amendment, feel like crap it's over someone's death.

Ultimately, it is the only way anything changes. Nothing to feel bad about.

[Rob]

.

[Skykid]

that there are Chinese people with five houses.

I'm sure things look really rosy for some. What's the highest minimum wage in China...?

It's like the worst aspects of America cranked up a few notches. It's seriously frightening to me how obsessed Trump is with China.

Survey in China Shows a Wide Gap in Income

Average annual income for a family in 2012 was 13,000 renminbi, or about $2,100.

In Alaska you can do jack shit and get a $2100 check in the mail (PFD).

How can the pollution and poor people not be mentioned when speaking of China?

Sometimes I feel like I'm having a debate with Bill O'Reilly.

I'm sure things look really rosy for some.

Really rosy, for a lot.

It's like the worst aspects of America cranked up a few notches.

But it's not America is it? It's not even directly relatable. The developmental history of both countries is broadly unique. China's minimum wage is low, most people want more money, something needs to be done to see it increase. At the same time, do you think Beijing's minimum wage has been set to ensure people starve to death? I spent all that time above talking about how propagandist media moulds public opinion, and then like clockwork you go and spout more of it.

If you insist on a comparison to America, or the UK, ok, let's do that. Can you take a Taxi across an entire city in the US for £4? Can you eat a meal for one for 60 pence? Can you feed six people in a nice restaurant for £12? Can you feed two in a 5 Star restaurant for £22? Can you take a bus for a 20 pence flat fare, or the Subway for 20 - 60 pence? Can you buy a new car for £500? Or an electric bike for £200? Can you take a high speed bullet train through four major cities (in this case Nanning, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong) for £16? Can you stay in a luxury hotel for £10 - £13 a night? Can you go clubbing at every major night spot (and I mean major) with zero cover charge? Can you decorate an entire apartment for £200? Can you open a shop for £1200? Can you buy a 120sqm 3 bedroom apartment with three balconies and two bathrooms for £80,000? Can you rent a studio for £25 a month, or an entire apartment for £200?

We can flip all this too. White folk who want to finger wag about what they determine to be problems with other people's countries seem oblivious to the fact that criticism is easily reversed.

Beijing pollution = US education
China minimum wage = Detroit, Louisville, Boston, Philadelphia, Milwaukee
Chinese government = George W Bush, Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Kissinger
Chinese domestic policy = American foreign policy
Chinese censorship = The Patriot Act, Rupert Murdoch, Western media, Tiananmen Square
Chinese history = The Bay of Pigs, The gulf of Tonkin, The sinking of the Lusitania, Timor massacre, Vietnam, Weapons of Mass destruction
Chinese health and safety standards = American healthcare
Communist regime = Western corporate news media
Chinese farmers = Americans living in tent cities

Spoiler

There's a comfortable amount of arrogance when you're living 7000 miles away from someone else's world, culture, shortcomings and successes, to dial out what you think you know without ever taking stock of your own problems.

Personally I think Trump won't stop talking about China because he's fucking scared of it.

[Rob]

without ever taking stock of your own problems.

I spend half of my day shaking my head at America(ns).

It's just that China looks comparatively much worse, and we have a candidate preaching his Sinophilia disguised in the kind of dime-store patriotism conservatives will buy.

Personally I think Trump won't stop talking about China because he's fucking scared of it.

Or, he's a man with nothing but business on his mind and sees them making trillions manufacturing tomorrow's garbage with homegrown low wage labor and his mouth waters. Gross on multiple levels.

[Skykid]

It's just that China looks comparatively much worse

Yes, based entirely on a pinhole view which consists of decontextualised, choice picked information that's designed to make it look comparatively much worse. I meet Americans living and working here all the time, and the general line is always the same: "I thought China was supposed to be poor".

Or, he's a man with nothing but business on his mind and sees them making trillions manufacturing tomorrow's garbage with homegrown low wage labor and his mouth waters. Gross on multiple levels.

That entirely depends on how you look at it. If you replace "sinophilia" with "methods for reigniting an economy" you may get closer to where his enthusiasm stems. The fact is, Trump has been to China and he knows it more intimately than you, Minty, or any of the other vocal spectators.

Dumb as he undoubtedly is, I have a feeling he's been inspired.

[Rob]

I meet Americans living and working here all the time, and the general line is always the same: "I thought China was supposed to be poor".

Are westerners typically invited for tours of the slummiest quarters?

Trump has been to China and he knows it more intimately than you,

I wish he could spend years getting to know it intimately. Maybe he could give himself a job making his own ties and examine the world from a dorm rather than jet or hotel window.