I’m pretty pro-urbanism and train infrastructure, but none of that means anything if you commit a thought crime and can’t buy a train ticket. Let alone the mass internment of the Uighur population and forced organ harvesting of dissidents. Its literally a “Mussolini made the trains run on time” argument.
Also, everything you mention is basically post Cultural revolution but pre-2008. China has become increasingly totalitarian again towards its own citizens and a bad-faith actor within its region, not to mention the predatory lending and building its taken abroad to South America and Africa.
I could take your posts and hyperlink them to the words graveyard or some shit in my post.
That wouldn’t change the rest of it. Most people in China are happy with their government. That’s not really arguable, it’s just an observation about the world.
That’ll work for some people but if that was the state of the average Chinese citizen, the CCP would be no more. Unfortunately there’s not a whole list of Chinese people I can point to to prove this, most streaming services and video services can’t leave the country. However Naomi Wu is an example of someone seemingly not terribly bothered by the possibility of re education. Actively preferring living in Shenzhen despite having ample opportunity to move to NY. If you really want I’ll find her writings on the subject. I just briefly looked and couldn’t so I’m only gonna bother if you say you’ll actually read them.
Also, that take is really ignorant of the reasons why someone may actually want to live there, rather than being coerced to live there. See the published works of the economist Richard Wolff on the subject.
This is one of those interesting things I see people doing all the time these days. Imaging what life is like for others without even bothering to actually listen to them and let them tell you what life is like themselves.
They sure are stubborningly ignorant aren’t they Naoz? When white dudes start posting communism death figures that they pulled out of thin air you aren’t dealing with a reasoned conversation.
I’m not making apologies for the terrible things done within and by China over the last 50 years. While I’ve not studied them specifically, I’m not gonna pretend like it’s all sugar and rainbows.
What I request in return is them not pretend it’s all doom and gloom either.
I got interested in this topic in 2008, when I first learned about how Chinese tech savvy teenagers were proxying around the great firewall and getting outside China internet. I saw this and related to it knowing full well in their shoes I’d be doing the same exact thing.
Since then I’ve been interested in what life may be like for an average Chinese person and I’ve found quite a lot that contradicts the common western narrative.
China uses high speed rail like the british used steam ships. It’s a great way to spread populations around, to overwhelm minority groups with the influx of majority ethnic groups and ideologies.
Wasn’t she super worried and even went dark for a while, because she was worried about both government reprisal and attacks from citizens, after VICE screwed her over, and a few similar incidents, including when some folk tried to bait her into different arguments that the government would view less than kindly? I remember she certainly seemed to be pretty worried about just vanishing, if you get what I mean. I also remember she was extremely concerned because it was going to severely impact her ability to make a living, or even just continue living in the manner she was accustomed to, due to similar reprisals.
(Kinda stopped paying attention to anything other than her builds, though - she kinda glommed onto the Alt-right quite a bit when they tried to turn her situation into a bludgeon against the left, and now has a rather unfortunate set of views that are basically your standard alt-right shit about feminism, the left, socialism, etc, etc.)
Can’t blame her, Shenzhen is pretty great. Well, except getting hauled in by the cops and all that, but you know what I mean. Definitely one of my favorite places in china.
Yeah way to miss the point white dude. Citing death figures is the laziest form of non arguing in an attempt to derail a conversation with macabre utilitarian ledger mongering. No one denies that people died in China but that doesn’t get even begin to address the substance of the original point in the thread.
Yeah because they can’t use infrastructure for anything else.
It’s strange, but I feel like I understand marginalized folks a tiny bit more now than I did before when they say they don’t like when other people speak for them. I’ll learn from this and always try not to act the way you are acting right now.
I’m a marginalized person on many axes so I would have to agree that it is good that you take a step back sometimes. Like it isn’t ideal that everytime the other white people say bigoted things you stand idly by and worry about what they think about more than justice but you do not have to jump into every fight every time.
In the states, the biggest obstacle obtaining the existing land rights and the fact you’re involving 3 levels of government.
At this point, the push would need to come from major metropolitan areas wanting to connect with each other. I’d consider a major step forward connecting Philadelphia to Pittsburgh by high speed rail with a possible stop over in Harrisburg. As it is right now, it’s takes 8 Hours by Amtrak which isn’t much faster than taking a bus.
We already have that push. What’s blocking it is the small towns in between. The northeast corridor literally needs to raze a number of towns to build modern tracks. There’s no other way.
Most people in the region want it. The cities desperately want it. But the local minority will continue to stonewall indefinitely.