Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Skykid]

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.

Eh, I think that's a bit of a narrow view. He may be a buffoon but I think he's got intentions to improve his country economically. It's not too common for presidents or presidential candidates to stay in dorms. These are men of politics, not people.

Are westerners typically invited for tours of the slummiest quarters?

No, and a bloody good point that is too. As I was trying to get through Minty's titanium skull earlier, you can't judge an entire country - or even city - based on snippets of information you hear about one downtrodden or ill-befallen place.

It's not like if you take a visitor on a tour in London you're going to make a fucking beeline for Hackney, or in New York to Queens. Yet people like Minty assume the whole of China is just like Beijing.

[R79]

This seems to be the only thread left active on here these days, so wth, may as well take my shot...

Skykid, don't ever let people from Germany of all places lecture anyone about state oppression
There really isn't a country in the history of the world that hasn't used brutality on it's citizens; it's just the present Western schooling and media narrative is much more sophisticated at keeping a lid on it all.

Don Trump frankly looks and sounds like the kind of cartoon buffoon modern day America deserves, and frankly I'd be surprised by this stage if any of the USA regs left here weren't lumbering out of the gloomy basements to go tick his box on the big day.

[BulletMagnet]

He may be a buffoon but I think he's got intentions to improve his country economically.

Replace "country" with "personal finances" and you're back on the right track (you did see the tax proposal, inevitably heavy on upper-end cuts, that's going to cost us 10 trillion just on its own, with no mention of how he's going to pay for it, right?); now spend enough time conflating the two in the minds of voters and you've got yourself a candidacy!

[Ed Oscuro]

frankly I'd be surprised by this stage if any of the USA regs left here weren't lumbering out of the gloomy basements to go tick his box on the big day.

I'd say that more than half of Shmups Farm users hail from the USA, actually, and most of us loathe Trump.

[BryanM]

If you're going to run the country like a business, then you have to be willing to cut loose underperforming assets. Add "sells Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Kansas etc to Mexico for really cheap" to the list.

And wouldn't that just be a bitch.

[MintyTheCat]

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.

Read again - you are mistaken. You are also guilty of applying proofing here too - don't make it up as you go along, please.

[MintyTheCat]

A country's people and a country's state are not one and the same thing, all.

I find it amusing that Skykid sits in China telling me that I am influenced purely by propaganda when China silences even slight infractions from those who have any manner of issue with the state.

As I was trying to get through Minty's titanium skull earlier, you can't judge an entire country - or even city - based on snippets of information you hear about one downtrodden or ill-befallen place.

It is the conditions of a system that concern me; if you have free reign and no one can comment and you can pollute and let out whatever you wish to it is in my opinion endemic of a corrupt and unjust system. For the levels of pollution to be that high in Beijing given its large population this tells me that not enough has been done to protect people. What is to say that the next large city that springs up will not learn from the mistakes of recent past and follow safety and agreed upon emissions policies? It is this that causes alarm. We know that China has expanded rapidly and we also hear that in the past there was no problem with pollution in Beijing. As such, until the system takes heed and interest and actively policies and requires factories, power stations and even cars and other vehicles to conform to the standards you run a very real risk of repeating all the same issues that lead to what has occurred in Beijing.

India too is experiencing the same issues: rapid expansion, poor policies in place to protect people's health, pollution, impacts your environment and in turn reduces your human capital as people become ill and die prematurely.

You have to get the policy worked out before you scale too greatly, otherwise you end up with a massive, massive problem that you cannot rectify.

I doubt I am anything near close to the level of extremism the chinese state would employ to silence dissenters.

Again, lots of psychological proofing and splitting at work.

Plus, you all seem to be more than happy to let politics, finances and pollution cloud your judgements.

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.

Er, no. The issue is not that industrial accidents occur but rather that the state over there is happy to build residential housing there - right next to what became a mushroom cloud.

My issue is how to all intents and purposes (see the mercury poisoning of chinese workers) the chinese state appears not to give a shit in hell about its workers; I have a problem with that and I understand that many of you guys don't give a shit either - provided you get your Apple laptops and what not who cares right?

My issues with the level of pollution and the lack of safety standards, be it lead in paint, lead in children's toys, leaking light bulbs that contain mercury, mercury poisoning of workers, coal burning power stations that emit non-MCERTS and TÜV and all other agreed up on international safety standards kind of pisses me off.

You have to have a voice to raise your concerns and we know that people are simply silenced over there.

This has actually hit a bit of a raw nerve for me; I used to work in R&D on chemical analysers and I am pretty familiar with what is and what is not allowed to be pumped out into the atmosphere and what is deemed safe for humans.

MCERTS:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... ter-mcerts

I know what lengths industrial plants and manufacturers have to go to in most of Europe - western Europe, the US and the UK. What worries is when these agreed up on levels of safety are flouted and blindly ignored. It can only lead to people developing illnesses.

You cannot let so many parts per million of nitrous-oxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, mercury chloride, etc. into the atmosphere if your industrial plant has to conform to MCERTS or TÜV. What happens is the the waste emissions are processor - which costs more, true, but what is emitted is safe and people don't get ill and die unnecessarily.

If you think that it is fine to have people going down with lead poisoning, mercury poisoning, develop lung cancer due to having resided in heavily polluted environments or other circumstances that bring misery and premature death to people, I can only say from the bottom of my heart: fuck you, you selfish bastard.
I have a problem with people being overly exploited and you should too because one day it may well be you who is being exploited.

So please, read what I have raised before you come along with your sweeping statements as that's the easiest thing in the world to do.

[Xyga]

RegalSin's and IcyCalm's monster hybrid after a lobotomy.

[BryanM]

So there's a town hall tomorrow of Not Trump guys, followed the next day by a Trump and Some Not Trump guys town hall. In typical magnificent bastard style, Trump has also set up a Trump and Only Trump town hall for tomorrow scheduled at the same time so no one has to suffer sitting through a trumpless forum.

[cave hermit]

http://www.amazon.com/Trump-Temptation- ... B01AX111Q2

You're welcome.

[BIL]

Here's hoping Trump might give his blessing to an appearance in the storied Pounded By The Men Who Raised Me franchise.

[Strikers1945guy]

RegalSin's and IcyCalm's monster hybrid after a lobotomy.

At least regalsin was bloody hiarious. Almost miss that guy.

[Xyga]

Spoiler

[Skykid]

Thats brilliant.

[Skykid]

Skykid, don't ever let people from Germany of all places lecture anyone about state oppression

Ha ha, I'm not, watch!

I find it amusing that Skykid sits in China telling me that I am influenced purely by propaganda when China silences even slight infractions from those who have any manner of issue with the state.

Absolute nonsense, people are constantly trashing government and ridiculing government officials (especially where money is concerned) all the time on social media. It's a constant string of memes and poking fun at the higher authorities, and nobody "disappears" for it. It's not 1971 any more.

To pander to your paranoia however, Chinese news media is censored when it comes to certain major events that affect the country politically. Trying to get information on the Hong Kong protests was nigh-on impossible bar a few simple snippets of information, and I'll never defend that. Not ideal, but quickly resolved by a good VPN.

It is the conditions of a system that concern me; if you have free reign and no one can comment and you can pollute and let out whatever you wish to it is in my opinion endemic of a corrupt and unjust system.

Rubbish. You've polluted this thread more unjustly than China's government has polluted Beijing. Pollution in *select areas* of China has not occurred by choice but by poor management of an economic revolution that happened so quickly the paperwork and red tape literally wasn't in place. By this point it simply doesn't matter anyway, it's in the past and we're in the present. The point is: they recognise the problem and are working to fix it. My city has had a ban on petrol fuelled bikes for five years, so everyone is forced to use electric, precisely to improve air quality. And it works.

if you have free reign and no one can comment

Understanding the political system of China is fairly complicated and I genuinely don't think you're up to the task. You can't just wake up one morning and say "let's do a full blown western democracy!" when you have 1.4 billion people and a country in a state of massive economic flux - it doesn't work that way. Elements of Chinese government system work very well indeed, and if you ever needed proof of that just observe the annual GDP.

And before you start talking about communism like it's still the cold war, are you aware of the developments in East London regarding land sales? Cameron has sold council home land to private investors for redevelopment. Tens of thousands of residents have been forcefully displaced, long term communities broken down, and scattered into alternative housing in the far reaches where no-one will have to look at their poverty. The council estates have been levelled - the ones in Elephant & Castle and Clapham housed an enormous populace - and new build properties are going up in their wake.

Now: the tenants had no say, were given no voice, and no choice. And it wasn't in your news media, it wasn't on your TV, it wasn't even on the wind - it was done behind your back. It's actually a form of social cleansing by displacing the poor to allow the rich to move in and raise the profile of the neighbourhood.

Now if you want to talk about old-world communism it doesn't get much better than that - the only caveat being it's the poor being displaced for the rich, and not vise-versa.

For the levels of pollution to be that high in Beijing

You are a broken fucking record and an embarrassment to your gene pool. Did you read any of the information that was given to you? Did you see the list of top 20 most polluted cities I gave you (because Beijing ain't on it) and did you question why you don't get news reports about the state of those other cities?

In fact, did you read anything that I bothered to write out for you? What about Tiananmen Square, any comments or questions?

India too is experiencing the same issues: rapid expansion, poor policies in place to protect people's health, pollution, impacts your environment and in turn reduces your human capital as people become ill and die prematurely.

Looking forward to hearing you talk about that then, except you know very little about India, it's crises, it's government policies or its people, because it ain't in the news every second day.

I doubt I am anything near close to the level of extremism the chinese state would employ to silence dissenters.

Again, lots of psychological proofing and splitting at work.

You're living in a complete fantasy. Do you know how lawless China actually is? People do whatever they want. It drives me crazy sometimes. I recently commented that I wished the police would actually do more to enforce laws, because at the moment they're like roadside wallpaper. Nobody cares about whatever the next government or city law is, and if it even registers it's generally ignored. China needs more laws and more enforcement of those laws, and quickly. It would be a major improvement.

POLLUTION, POLLUTION, EXPLOSIONS & POLLUTION

Yeah it's getting tiring now. I will finish on this one very poignant statement thought:

So please, read what I have raised before you come along with your sweeping statements as that's the easiest thing in the world to do.

That's damn good advice, and I suggest you take it.

[austere]

To pander to your paranoia however, Chinese news media is censored when it comes to certain major events that affect the country politically

To be fair, so is the "mainstream" media here in the west (which is why it's becoming increasingly irrelevant). When an international incident happens you rarely get the full story.

Er, no. The issue is not that industrial accidents occur but rather that the state over there is happy to build residential housing there - right next to what became a mushroom cloud.

You didn't read the link did you? That's exactly what happened in Texas except the official casualties were higher.

[Skykid]

To pander to your paranoia however, Chinese news media is censored when it comes to certain major events that affect the country politically

To be fair, so is the "mainstream" media here in the west (which is why it's becoming increasingly irrelevant). When an international incident happens you rarely get the full story.

Mainstream western media is revealed as a highly efficient agenda driven propaganda machine as soon as you begin to read between the lines. It's a thoroughly impressive practice of distraction and subliminal creation of collective opinion. I'm in awe of it as much as I am distressed by it.

The only difference is Chinese mainstream media is neither as efficient nor as detailed. To be blunt, it's rather ham-fisted. As a result any Chinese resident with an internet connection is fully aware of censorship in the news media, and will tell you quite openly about it.

The question I often ponder is what's worse: To be fooled so completely that you've essentially been softly brainwashed, or not to be fooled at all, but continue to be submissive?

[quash]

Obama says Trump won't become president. This may just be the best endorsement he's received yet.

[Opus131]

To pander to your paranoia however, Chinese news media is censored when it comes to certain major events that affect the country politically

To be fair, so is the "mainstream" media here in the west (which is why it's becoming increasingly irrelevant). When an international incident happens you rarely get the full story.

Mainstream western media is revealed as a highly efficient agenda driven propaganda machine as soon as you begin to read between the lines. It's a thoroughly impressive practice of distraction and subliminal creation of collective opinion. I'm in awe of it as much as I am distressed by it.

The only difference is Chinese mainstream media is neither as efficient nor as detailed. To be blunt, it's rather ham-fisted. As a result any Chinese resident with an internet connection is fully aware of censorship in the news media, and will tell you quite openly about it.

The question I often ponder is what's worse: To be fooled so completely that you've essentially been softly brainwashed, or not to be fooled at all, but continue to be submissive?

The western media has a very easy job because their lies are based on what the people want to hear in the first place. The West is in full 1984 mode at this point. People say that communism was defeated during the Cold War, or whatever, where as it is very much alive and kicking in the West. Communist countries like China are just LARPing at this point. The real Marxism can be found in Western universities, western entertainment and western media, and westerners love every bit of it.

[Skykid]

^ Yes that's precisely what I was getting at. Now try convincing one of the subservient ignorant masses. Ain't easy.

[Satan]

When I hear Trump speak I immediately think of Thatcher and even Hitler. You have to wonder what goes on in the heads of the Libertarian crowd who get behind Trump and the rhetoric of Trump's supporters including online people like the self-styled Libertarian logic guru, bullshitter and Internet scrounger Stefan Molyneux.
They fear what they perceive to be encroaching Communism, but rally behind a man whose rhetoric spells out quite clearly that he would like to preside over an outright corporate tyranny where the billionaire class get a free reign to do whatever the fuck pleases them with nothing (almost there already) in their way.
Once again, no matter who anyone votes for the war and business party and the elites they service win.

[Mischief Maker]

The western media has a very easy job because their lies are based on what the people want to hear in the first place. [...] The real Marxism can be found in [...] western media.

The problem with western media is not at all marxism but capitalism to the nth degree. There's a truism you hear again and again in business school: Two companies are formed, identical save for their marketing strategy. One attempts to market to everyone. One attempts to market only to a very select sliver of the market pie. The business with the selective marketing strategy will almost always be the one to succeed.

There has always been bias in the media long before Fox News, but it was nevertheless aimed at a general audience, hence the sixth grade writing level. What Fox did was choose a very specific market segment (racist retired people, who incidentally were one of the biggest TV couch potato demographics for advertisers) and tell them exactly what they want to hear, delivered from the mouths of incredibly hot women wearing micro miniskirts and fuck me pumps. Was it really a gaffe when Fox called Michelle Obama "Obama's baby momma," or was it exactly what their demographic wanted to hear?

I'm sure Rupert Murdoch enjoys his tax cuts same as everyone, but I'm more than a little skeptical to hear hand-wringing about the moral decline of civilization from the man who built an empire on the shoulders of Page Three Girls. The instant Glenn Beck made advertisers (not viewers) leery, Murdoch pressed the button on his console and Beck disappeared down a flaming trap door. Fox news is pandering at its most cynic.

Fox ratings went through the roof, MSNBC copied their formula but aimed at a different demographic, and the modern media was born. It wasn't the product of some Politburo, just the product of simple greed and pandering. Capitalism at its purest.

[Opus131]

Capitalism has nothing to do with it. Marxism is the official religion of the west, and journalists are among the most ardent believers.

[Mischief Maker]

Capitalism has nothing to do with it. Marxism is the official religion of the west, and journalists are among the most ardent believers.

I know you are, but what am I?

[Opus131]

The irony is that it is precisely by going full ideologue that the left is making the right fashionable, and it is because of the left that Trump is popular in the first place. Conservaties had no chance in hell of defeating the left, until leftists themselves decided to ruin every ounce of credibility they once had. Milo Yiannopoulos said it best in one of his streams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTmBR6ZFRDI

[Skykid]

I think both statements here are correct and can comfortably coexist.

[BryanM]

Okay buddy preserving a minimum wage by allowing it to deteriorate under inflation is "marxism". Got it.

[Opus131]

Okay buddy preserving a minimum wage by allowing it to deteriorate under inflation is "marxism". Got it.

Yeah but what does that have to do with ending racism, or helping LGBT people?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/po ... .html?_r=0

The comedy just writes itself here.

[Hagane]

So, conservative governments replacing populist ones in South America, economic austerity measures destroying the Welfare State in Europe, the extreme right on the rise due to backlash against immigration, market and media corporations that can destabilize countries or outright overthrow democratically elected presidents, and the biggest economy in the world not even being able to offer something as basic as universal health care means that the West is Marxist.

I'm gonna celebrate with all my comrades at the local soviet.

[Xyga]

What, we're celebrating the downfall of human civilization and the destruction of nature every day, isn't that noice ?

Our generation in the 70/80/90's was fascinated with dystopian 21st century sci-fi, and now that we're in the middle of it with everything going full fuck, we're not even a tiny bit happy about it.