I’m moving my posts from Reddit to Lemmy before delete them.

This post is from 2021-03-06.

  • Einar
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    1511 months ago

    Better overwrite with a message than delete. And do it twice to be safe. That seems to make it harder for Reddit to restore what you don’t want there.

    • @muhybOP
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      11 months ago

      Didn’t have this conversation on Reddit so here I go:

      Seeing this accusation made me think and worried me so I looked into it. Originally I used the typo because it was also a meme that I didn’t consider racist since many people on the world have this kind of problems linguistically so I really thought it was an innocent joke, apparently not. I’ll be more careful about this in the future. Thanks for your insult I guess. (Btw can we change the title here? We can, great.)

      Also this is what ChatGPT said about this, putting this here as a reference in case someone who thinks like me checks this post:

      If someone makes such a statement with the intention of demeaning or mocking Chinese people based on their language abilities, it can be considered racist, as it perpetuates negative stereotypes and reinforces harmful biases. Stereotyping or generalizing an entire group of people based on their language or accent is unfair and can lead to discrimination.

      However, it’s important to note that discussing linguistic differences or challenges faced by certain language speakers is not inherently racist. Linguistic variations exist across different languages and cultures, and it is natural for individuals to have different pronunciation patterns based on their native languages.

      The key lies in how such observations are made and communicated. It is crucial to approach the topic with respect, cultural sensitivity, and an understanding that language differences do not imply any superiority or inferiority.

  • @[email protected]
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    111 months ago

    Talking real shit for someone living within walking distance from an overseas CCP police station.

  • queermunist she/her
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    -911 months ago

    I’ll preface this with saying I understand China probably lied about its numbers. There’s no way the zero COVID policy actually resulted in zero COVID.

    According to that article, COVID may have resulted in a million deaths in China above the long-term trend line in the last 3 years. This is known as the excess mortality rate, which we can directly compare to other countries even if China lied about COVID mortality (and hey, maybe they did - it would be in their own interests so it’s plausible)

    According to this article, since the pandemic began the US’s excess deaths have also sparked sharply even as the COVID mortality rate falls in official government data (sound familiar?) FTA: Since the pandemic began, excess deaths are up by more than 1.25 million in the U.S., about 15% higher than in the pre-pandemic years. That’s worse even when you don’t take populations into account!

    Now we can do excess deaths per capita to compare these two policies:

    • China’s population is notoriously huge, with currently 1.412 billion people living in China. 1 million excess deaths among 1.412 billion people gives us an excess death rate of ~0.07%

    • America is a much smaller country, with 331.9 million people. 1.25 million excess deaths among 331.9 million gives us an excess death rate of ~0.38%

    That means America’s policies were 5x worse on a per capita basis. The zero COVID policy wasn’t perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than the Let 'er Rip! policy of the rest of the West.

    If China had responded as badly as the US and had an excess death rate of ~0.38% then over 5 million people would have died. Zero COVID saved so many lives that Chinese life expectancy actually rose above American life expectancy!

    America is the worst of its cohorts, but the rest of the West failed too!

    • France had 151,000 excess deaths. At that rate China would have lost over 3 million

    • Germany had 254,000 excess deaths . At that rate China would have lost over 4 million

    • Britain had 237,000 excess deaths. At that rate China would have lost just under 5 million.

    In fairness, China only barely outcompeted South Korea at 42,000 excess deaths - at that rate China would have lost 1.14 million instead of a measly 1 million. That’s still 140,000 lives that were saved because of zero COVID that would have died with the extremely effective South Korean policies.

    In conclusion, China is a positive force in the world and I know which side I’m on in the next Cold War.

    Pick a side liberals. 😘

    • @[email protected]
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      1111 months ago

      Is this a joke??? You are aware that the death toll in China vs other states is not the sole or even biggest reason their government is criticized right? And that for the first, most critical year of the pandemic, America had a president that liberals hated and was HEAVILY criticized. Especially how he handled COVID at literally every step of the way and anyone else who agreed with it. Because you know, it lead to so many deaths.

      Ugh can’t we go back to the old school edgelords who think they are vampires and wanna drink blood instead of making excuses for fascist governments and movements?

      • queermunist she/her
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        -2111 months ago

        Biden’s policies were just as bad! The majority of the deaths occurred after Trump left office!

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          What policies specifically did biden implement that caused public health saftey? And keep in mind ALL of 2019 trump spent it downplaying the virus in every way conceivable and that other republican lead states and citizens listened to and adopted this. If the start runner does a terrible job it really doesn’t matter how well the next person does, they have hurdles no one else has to jump over. Including people believing that the virus is a hoax, masks don’t work, vaccines are dangerous, and even more. That’s an uphill battle. Context matters. And like China literally boarded up or even welding peoples homes shut without consent to keep them from breaking quarantine.

          So yeah I get a little fucking pissed off when some comfortable westerner tries to play devils advocate that an authoritarian state that impacts people I love is some sort of intellectual thought experiment of how could it be better than the very bad USA (which also sucks but for completely different reasons!!!) I noticed you completely skipped over someone else’s point that we are free to speak out in America and not really face any consequences but nitpicking some other quotes.

          Fuck this shit. I’m seeing so much more pro CCP shit on Lemmy and it is squicking me out. I’m not making this comment to convince you because you have made up your mind and have your own motives for sharing. Here is my movitve for repsoding… anyone reading this don’t believe what this person is saying without some critical thought. All the major governments suck right now to some degree. Be wary of anyone telling you that a government that has historically been horrible TO ITS OWN PEOPLE is for some arbitrary reason better than the west (and oh my gosh did everyone collectively forget HK protests and the human rights violations that happend there ?!!)

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            Be wary of anyone telling you that a government that has historically been horrible TO ITS OWN PEOPLE is for some arbitrary reason better than the west

            The government that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other government in the world? How dare they not imprison people and force them into slave labour. There’s a reason that the CPC is overwhemingly popular amongst the people.

            The government that hasn’t been at war with another country in over forty years, and builds railroads and hospitals instead of bombing them? Ask Laos whether the US or China has been better to work with.

            It’s not really arbitrary reasons, there are a lot of concrete reasons. It’s not perfect, they are still working on a lot of things, but most things are constantly improving and it isn’t hard to see why people might prefer it.

            If you are advocating others use critical thought, I would argue the same. Step outside the “China bad” propaganda for just a second.

          • queermunist she/her
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            11 months ago

            Biden had a majority in the House and Senate and he didn’t do anything with it to mandate vaccines or masks or social distancing or remote work or anything - worse, he didn’t even try. He just continued the same Trump-era policies and waited for the vaccine to fix everything.

            I can certainly say it’s not all his fault! America is becoming ungovernable and essentially Balkanizing, with fascists passing all sorts of laws to force minorities to flee to other states. Biden isn’t superhuman and there’s no way he could force this shithole country to stop killing itself.

            I’m only saying China is the lesser evil. How can you uncritically bring up Hong Kong protests and not the BLM uprising? Or the fact that America’s prison population is comparable to China’s despite being dwarfed in size?! America oppresses its own people, think critically!

            EDIT Like, fuck, I’m trans in a red state. Am I going to end up in a fucking camp after Trump steals the election?

    • @muhybOP
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      911 months ago

      I made this meme because I got that result in Plague Inc and also China had stopped updating numbers. It’s a meme so I wouldn’t take it serious.

      Interesting nickname btw. :)

      • queermunist she/her
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        11 months ago

        I actually wrote that comment out a while back when arguing with someone about zero COVID and wanted to make sure it carried over to this lemmy profile lol

        thx btw :3

        • @muhybOP
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          511 months ago

          Everyone’s moving out on their ways I guess. :)

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        You made the mistake of posting your meme in an instance that is dominated by tankies. They don’t take it too kindly when the target of the joke is one of their overlords.

        • @muhybOP
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          111 months ago

          Not sure I follow, what’s tankies?

    • @[email protected]
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      711 months ago

      The gap between your conclusion and the rest of your comment is larger than the mariana trench, just because Chana got this right doesn’t say anything about almost anything else, and I know the US is awful too but COVID alone is not enpugh to draw a conclusion this big.

    • @[email protected]
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      611 months ago

      To say they lied would be an understatement, and that’s probably not all they lie about. Consider my side picked

      • queermunist she/her
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        11 months ago

        Better to die free than be lied to, right? 😂

        And America definitely hasn’t lied at all about its COVID numbers! 🤣

        • @[email protected]
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          711 months ago

          I didn’t die though, because I got vaccinated. Why brush off the fact that China is a lying, information-suppressing authoritarian state? Based on the idea they maybe had a lower infection rate

          • queermunist she/her
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            -711 months ago

            We got lucky with COVID being something we can make a vaccine for - it could have been a lot worse!

            I brush off China lying because they definitely, unarguably had a lower infection rate. We know the surplus death rate because they can’t hide that, and that’s literally the worst the COVID death rate could possibly be. In all likelihood there are other factors that account for surplus deaths during the pandemic, so assuming literally every excess death was from COVID isn’t even correct! The numbers are in fact probably better than my rough math, because I was just assuming the worst case scenario for the sake of argument.

            China’s COVID response was absolutely stellar and saved millions of lives and they should be praised for it. They probably lied (to maintain social cohesion and keep up public support for the extremely effective zero COVID policy) and I don’t agree with that choice, but I recognize that they blew everyone else on the fucking planet out of the water even though they were literally ground zero! That’s amazing!

            Meanwhile, the West sacrificed us all for the money line and also lied. Objectively worse.

            Even if you don’t think China is good, it’s pretty clear they are a lesser evil.

            • @[email protected]
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              -211 months ago

              I’m pretty sure a total lockdown in the US would’ve failed because it’s not authoritarian. Pandemics are an area where authoritarian nations have the opportunity to shine because it all comes from the top. Don’t like what the government says? Too bad, you’re going on lockdown. I have yet to be convinced, however, that this type of consolidated power is ideal in most conditions.

              • @[email protected]
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                611 months ago

                failed because it’s not authoritarian.

                I know you’re responding to a tankie, but just to be clear… the US is about as authoritarian as it gets - they don’t call it the Prison-Industrial Complex for nothing.

                • @[email protected]
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                  011 months ago

                  That’s due in part to lengthy prison sentences and the war on drugs. I expect those things will improve going forward and it’s really not hard to avoid committing crimes. That aside, we get to openly mock our own leaders on public TV. We have local governments that can in many cases override the federal government. And like it or not, we have pretty unrestricted access to just about anything. Power is not centralized here and I like it that way. Much harder for dictatorships to take root. Unfortunately it’s also the reason we don’t move in lockstep when it matters.

              • queermunist she/her
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                -411 months ago

                I guess we’ll see if China’s life expectancy stays above America’s over the next few years.

                2020 to 2021 to 2022, it’s gone down every year. Will this year buck the trend? I really hope so! I doubt it.

                • @[email protected]
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                  -111 months ago

                  That’s certainly quantifiable if everyone tells the truth. I wish you luck moving there if you don’t live there already, but I’ll probably stay put for now.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 months ago

        Can you be more specific as to what you mean? Considering Beijing has a LGBTQ Center, that’s not strictly true.

        I mean, there are medical centers that specialize in sexual resassignment surgery.

        Rights can definitely be better, but I don’t see it as being accepting of LGBTQ rights is banned.

      • queermunist she/her
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        11 months ago

        Not really, some groups get banned for being anti-Chinese (and usually fronts for US imperialism lol), but I’ll grant that the current state of queer rights and acceptance is behind the West. It’s mostly kneejerk anti-Western culture war bullshit (that is being inflamed by the US using us as political pawns), but there have been recent moves towards acceptance that I’m hoping lead to more progress on the issue. There are reasons to be optimistic about China’s future.

        Are there reasons to be optimistic about America at this point?

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months ago

          I’m optimistic about America because the people still have the freedom to speak frankly and critically of their government without fear of imprisonment, torture, or death.

            • Nyantifa
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              11 months ago

              And MLK.

              And Malcom X.

              And Fred Hampton.

              Hell, many people were arrested during McCarthyism simply for being communist. Lucille Ball and many others had to stand before the HUAC because they were members of the Communist party.

              Freedom of speech (unless that speech poses a threat to the status quo)

          • queermunist she/her
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            11 months ago

            Except for the Black protesters that keep turning up “”“mysteriously”“” murdered.

            This country has a long history of silencing people who speak frankly and critically of the government, especially (but not limited to) when minorities speak out against systemic oppression. They’re banning books that talk about those struggles! Surely you see it?

            • @[email protected]
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              11 months ago

              And black people in China are all totally accepted? If not can they protest for acceptance and not get murdered ( unlike the US ) ?

              • @[email protected]
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                211 months ago

                Despite being an extremely diverse country, nobody is going to try to tell you that China has magically solved racism, they haven’t. You hear stories like that horrible washing machine ad that went out, but the government also cracks down on things like that. I feel like there is a lot ignorance-based racism as opposed to malice-based racism. Still an issue, but people are usually more willing to change in the former case.

                I have black friends that left the US to live in China and I can say that they definitely feel safer. To be totally fair, that’s just a few anecdotes and not a wide study or anything like that. I don’t think that is exclusive to China though either, I have heard nearly the exact same things from people who have come from the US to my country.

    • @[email protected]
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      211 months ago

      Why make any statements about who has a worse track record when not a single thing China says about their stats is backed up by any facts? Their excess deaths could be 50 million, nobody has a clue. All we know is that they get caught on lies time after time.

      • queermunist she/her
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        211 months ago

        The World Bank and the United Nations seem to trust China’s raw/crude death rate. That’s why, by looking at that death rate, the article I linked was able to find 1 million excess deaths that China isn’t reporting as COVID mortality. It’s pretty convincing?