So the latter two are fairly easily explainable by racism and homophobia and are actually easier to avoid if you don’t have a democracy. China’s done well, they not had a real refugee crisis lately and don’t have too many black people to hate (they DO still be hella racist over there, somehow Africans were even at fault for COVID according to some Chinese officials).
There was a huge social media outcry about refugees in much of Europe about a decade ago that the conservatives kept milking for a long, long time. Then they’ll claim black men are rapists and take the one example that keeps doing it again every time he gets out of jail as if that’s representative of every African. Then the outcry about LGBT people trying to groom your kids and whtaever. This is all for conservatives to get votes. They get almost half a country thinking that the damn librul communist (yes, they consider those to be the same thing, I’m not even going to get into that) government is out to erase straight white people… In a country with 10 black people and 5 muslims (okay, I’m exaggerating, but there REALLY aren’t a lot of them here, whereas the conservatives will tell you that they’re completely taking over and they’re all getting billions from the government in aid and whatnot)
If the people don’t actually have a choice (like in China, where there’s literally only one party allowed), there’s no need for manufactured outrage about foreigners. Which is great because then there’s less hate, but it also means you literally don’t get to choose the political ideals of the people who govern you. If you have a bad faith opposition party to worry about, they will make up shit to get into power.
TL;DR: Completely subdue your people politically so there’s no competition, then there’s no manufactured outrage, then people won’t think literally all their tax money is going to a single refugee center that in reality holds 10 families.
I have no doubt that people would like the government in my country a lot more if it wasn’t for the conservative opposition working to drive hate against anything progressive that the government is actually achieving from time to time. Being gay was never illegal, but the law was antiquated and said that marriage is between a man and a woman. Literally just changing that so that two people of the same gender getting married would be possible, was an absolute media shitstorm. I wonder how it would go in China if they tried legalizing gay marriage now - there’s simply no opposition party to campaign off it.
That’s why I say that it’s easier to have better satisfaction ratings when people have 0 choice. There’s just no reason to sow division in the first place.
Liking the government doesn’t imply having a democracy, though. And also thinking that you have a democratic country doesn’t mean that you do live in one
It’s not that China bad, it’s more that China is good at creating great conditions for a majority of their citizens, but this doesn’t imply that it’s heaven on earth, still
There’s a difference between propaganda and selectively presented facts.
The first graphic is misleading because it compares US war spending with Chinese infrastructure spending while ignoring American infrastructure investment and Chinese military spending. It’s a false comparison.
The second graph is from the legitimate Democracy Perception Index 2024. The numbers aren’t fabricated, but they measure how democratic people think their country is, not how democratic it actually is.
Oppressive authoritarianism? But tankies told me that China is a place of unbridled liberty. A land of milk and honey. Unlike the evil West which is always horrible and terrible.
China hasn’t dropped a bomb in 50 years. America started their latest war by triple tapping a little girls school during peace talks. 200 dead little girls.
People who have never experienced democracy and have only been fed lies by their authoritarian government think their country is democratic and equal. Shocker.
To some extent… But in the USA until recently people never had reason to fear speaking out against their government.
Which people? The FBI killed Black Panther organizer Fred Hampton in his bed, back in the 60s.
The Red Scare was a decade before that.
And the back in the 1930s, The Bonus Army, a movement of World War 1 veterans demanding payment for their service from the government, was violently crushed by the united States military.
There’s also been a certain “Soviet democracy”, the democracy perception of which in the polls would be sky high especially under dear Stalin and Voroshilov leading it with iron hand, and less when dissent stopped getting you executed.
Same thing with China. Dissent gets punished brutally. Young protesters are dying in camps in the thousands. The Chinese government just doesn‘t let the tanks roll in anymore. Instead they utilize mass surveillance to track down each and every protester and deport them from home. Tiananmen square massacres are happening every day behind closed doors. That‘s why the public thinks it‘s a democracy despite one party controlling everything openly, down to who may run against them in local elections. Or they‘re too afraid to say otherwise.
And then one can think one step further and realize that western nations are not very far from similarly detecting dissenters before they do anything useful, and they don’t need camps, just subtly directing them in life onto paths not harmful to the establishment and unlikely to bring offspring. Big data and social media magic.
The Russian psyche is one of pessimistic resignation. Its also true that Russia has never experienced free democracy. There are many who believe the fall of the USSR was a terrible thing and they blame “democracy” for their current circumstances. This is part of why Putin gets away with authoritarianism.
Given the exponentially oversized influence that rich capitalists have on politics everywhere that is not socialist, it is evidently more democratic to not allow them to participate in politics at all.
You know, governance of the people, by the people, and all that.
Elections being postponed during wartime is pretty standard. If he won’t voluntarily leave office when the war’s over then we can talk about it not being a democracy.
It’s really funny to me seeing someone using a chart showcasing oppressive authoritarianism a gotcha against an accusation of oppressive authoritarianism.
Your belief that China is an authoritarian oppressive regime seems to be unfalsifiable. If approval ratings are high it’s because the people are being silenced and secretly hate their government. If approval is low it’s because they hate their government. If the approval ratings are real then they’ve been brainwashed by nationalism.
Like everything indicates the approval ratings are real, there were studies conducted by Western universities that didn’t have stake in the matter and most Chinese citizens had a positive opinion of the PRC. There’s no way to fake this kind of stuff as well as you’re describing for decades.
There are various reasons for why I can understand Chinese citizens like China. They’re entering the golden age of their economy right now and legitimately have competitive quality of life when compared to Americans. Their country is becoming a superpower and that could be a source of national pride for some Chinese citizens. I think those reasons can explain the results without adding in coercion.
Your belief that China is an authoritarian oppressive regime is unfalsifiable.
you are taking a logical leap here. it’s more accurate to say my belief that China is an authoritarian oppressive regime is not falsifiable by a public opinion poll. there are plenty other options that may falsify it.
So then why in the same study do we see abysmal ratings for other authoritian dictatorships? Iraq, Kazakhstan, Cameroon, Russia, etc… If your point is that civilians in authoritarian regimes are coerced to show support in these types of polls, the results prove that notion wrong.
Using personal opinion of crowds is notoriously very bad and people are easily misguided. ALL this says is the Chinese BELIEVE they’re democratic and all equal. Not that they actually are.
You’re right, and I see that opinion poll as a indicator of the direction that America has been going: a place where many people think they are in a democracy, while actually living in a country that is more authoritarian than it was in the past.
Also, westerners like myself tend to complain about trump/etc without acknowledging the continuum of raising fascism. We should focus on the lies we have been fed, it’s not easy, nor late ;)
the image shows perception of democracy is much higher in china than other countries generally considered to be developed democracies by western discourse. i thought this was self-evident.
In that case, we are in agreement. People in authoritarian countries will definitely say they are happier with the government than people in freer countries
But you are not posting this to talk about the perception, instead to suggest that there somehow is democracy in a state where only one party is allowed to exist.
Chinese who don’t say these opinions are labeled a dissonant and oppressed by their government. Just like how elections are completely staged in dictatorships.
These are great proof of China’s superiority! Until you see the Chinese questionnaires:
Choose an option:
[ ] My government serves the people
[ ] I want my social credit score to take a nosedive. No more bank loans, government permits, study or career opportunities for me, please!
There have been widespread misconceptions in media reports about a unified social credit “score” based on individuals’ behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low or rewards if the score is high.
The social credit system is a broad governance strategy to track businesses, individuals, and government institutions and enhance their perceived trustworthiness rather than a single system
Awesome, just a broad strategy, not yet a single unified system. There’s still a chance to escape specific punishments.
The punishment is having a bad monetary credit score. Like with credit score all over the world. There’s nothing more sinister about the Chinese system than anywhere else, where credit scores are a thing. Granted, credit scores, especially for private persons, are pretty sinister in the first place.
What let to this misconception about social credit in China is that there were people suggesting to extend it to more general behavior. You can find people everywhere suggesting crazy shit. Like just this week a part of the conservative party in Germany suggested using the army against protests, but nobody is drawing the conclusion that Germany is preparing Tiananmen 2.0 in the capital. It was lunatics suggesting it anyway.
They really are beating us at everything.
They did beat America in the race towards oppressive authoritarianism, but under Trump, the U.S. has caught up a great deal. So much winning!
So the latter two are fairly easily explainable by racism and homophobia and are actually easier to avoid if you don’t have a democracy. China’s done well, they not had a real refugee crisis lately and don’t have too many black people to hate (they DO still be hella racist over there, somehow Africans were even at fault for COVID according to some Chinese officials).
There was a huge social media outcry about refugees in much of Europe about a decade ago that the conservatives kept milking for a long, long time. Then they’ll claim black men are rapists and take the one example that keeps doing it again every time he gets out of jail as if that’s representative of every African. Then the outcry about LGBT people trying to groom your kids and whtaever. This is all for conservatives to get votes. They get almost half a country thinking that the damn librul communist (yes, they consider those to be the same thing, I’m not even going to get into that) government is out to erase straight white people… In a country with 10 black people and 5 muslims (okay, I’m exaggerating, but there REALLY aren’t a lot of them here, whereas the conservatives will tell you that they’re completely taking over and they’re all getting billions from the government in aid and whatnot)
If the people don’t actually have a choice (like in China, where there’s literally only one party allowed), there’s no need for manufactured outrage about foreigners. Which is great because then there’s less hate, but it also means you literally don’t get to choose the political ideals of the people who govern you. If you have a bad faith opposition party to worry about, they will make up shit to get into power.
TL;DR: Completely subdue your people politically so there’s no competition, then there’s no manufactured outrage, then people won’t think literally all their tax money is going to a single refugee center that in reality holds 10 families.
Or you just provide increases in the standard of living and people will like the government, lol.
I have no doubt that people would like the government in my country a lot more if it wasn’t for the conservative opposition working to drive hate against anything progressive that the government is actually achieving from time to time. Being gay was never illegal, but the law was antiquated and said that marriage is between a man and a woman. Literally just changing that so that two people of the same gender getting married would be possible, was an absolute media shitstorm. I wonder how it would go in China if they tried legalizing gay marriage now - there’s simply no opposition party to campaign off it.
That’s why I say that it’s easier to have better satisfaction ratings when people have 0 choice. There’s just no reason to sow division in the first place.
How do Chinese elections work? You don’t think they get a choice?
You get a choice between candidates approved by the party and you’re not allowed to even start a competing political party. I wouldn’t call it choice.
Liking the government doesn’t imply having a democracy, though. And also thinking that you have a democratic country doesn’t mean that you do live in one
It’s not that China bad, it’s more that China is good at creating great conditions for a majority of their citizens, but this doesn’t imply that it’s heaven on earth, still
There is no heaven on earth lol.
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Excuse me, why did my comment get removed? How was I not being excellent?
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Maybe you could explain why it’s flawed, or even why my other link is incorrect.
There’s a difference between propaganda and selectively presented facts.
The first graphic is misleading because it compares US war spending with Chinese infrastructure spending while ignoring American infrastructure investment and Chinese military spending. It’s a false comparison.
The second graph is from the legitimate Democracy Perception Index 2024. The numbers aren’t fabricated, but they measure how democratic people think their country is, not how democratic it actually is.
Cope
It’s actually a fine comparison, because the US didn’t spend 1.8 trillion on infrastructure, and China didn’t spend 1.7 trillion on military, lol.
The second graph is fine as well, as “how democratic a country actually is” isn’t really a measurable metric.
Oppressive authoritarianism? But tankies told me that China is a place of unbridled liberty. A land of milk and honey. Unlike the evil West which is always horrible and terrible.
China hasn’t dropped a bomb in 50 years. America started their latest war by triple tapping a little girls school during peace talks. 200 dead little girls.
The USA is doing all they can to discredit the USA
Mask is finally off!
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Lmao
https://pnhp.org/news/gilens-and-page-average-citizens-have-little-impact-on-public-policy/
People who have never experienced democracy and have only been fed lies by their authoritarian government think their country is democratic and equal. Shocker.
You’re talking about the US, right?
One can say the same about the US… Just saying.
Why would I when it‘s so off-topic? The fact you guys still do blatant whataboutism is telling. Try to be innovative for once.
I mean… China learned most of what they do from the US. Same with Nazis in Germany, they took their playbook from the US.
To some extent… But in the USA until recently people never had reason to fear speaking out against their government.
I mean…
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/WTO_protests_in_Seattle_November_30_1999.jpg
That’s from 1999, in the US.
Unless you were black, a woman, gay, socialist, communist, etc lmfao.
You ever read a history book?
Which people? The FBI killed Black Panther organizer Fred Hampton in his bed, back in the 60s.
The Red Scare was a decade before that.
And the back in the 1930s, The Bonus Army, a movement of World War 1 veterans demanding payment for their service from the government, was violently crushed by the united States military.
Probably because it accomplishes nothing.
https://youtu.be/J9INnMMwvnk
Lmao, you know the US has never been a democracy right? Literally an oligarchy
For managed democracy!
Happy Liberty Day!
There’s also been a certain “Soviet democracy”, the democracy perception of which in the polls would be sky high especially under dear Stalin and Voroshilov leading it with iron hand, and less when dissent stopped getting you executed.
Same thing with China. Dissent gets punished brutally. Young protesters are dying in camps in the thousands. The Chinese government just doesn‘t let the tanks roll in anymore. Instead they utilize mass surveillance to track down each and every protester and deport them from home. Tiananmen square massacres are happening every day behind closed doors. That‘s why the public thinks it‘s a democracy despite one party controlling everything openly, down to who may run against them in local elections. Or they‘re too afraid to say otherwise.
And then one can think one step further and realize that western nations are not very far from similarly detecting dissenters before they do anything useful, and they don’t need camps, just subtly directing them in life onto paths not harmful to the establishment and unlikely to bring offspring. Big data and social media magic.
So then why did Russians in the same study claim abysmal democracy? Aren’t they afraid of the KGB?
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The Russian psyche is one of pessimistic resignation. Its also true that Russia has never experienced free democracy. There are many who believe the fall of the USSR was a terrible thing and they blame “democracy” for their current circumstances. This is part of why Putin gets away with authoritarianism.
The American psyche must be fat as fuck and dripping with the blood of the innocent, if we’re generalizing.
Non sequitur that has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of the graph.
I mean… Can Chinese people vote out the current party and pick something else?
Yes? No? No. How the fuck is it a democracy then.
Given the exponentially oversized influence that rich capitalists have on politics everywhere that is not socialist, it is evidently more democratic to not allow them to participate in politics at all.
You know, governance of the people, by the people, and all that.
The party? No. The people? Yes.
the people? the people what? the people voting out the current people? that makes no sense.
The party cannot be voted out, the people in the party can be voted out.
So then you’d concede Ukraine is not democratic since they can’t vote out Zelenskyy, right?
The point here being - democracy isn’t just “the presence of multiple political parties”.
Elections being postponed during wartime is pretty standard. If he won’t voluntarily leave office when the war’s over then we can talk about it not being a democracy.
In what countries?
All of them?
Specifically?
So people in a nation where disagreeing with leadership is punished all agree with leadership. Interesting…
I asked a man from North Korea how he felt about living in such a place. He replied: “eh, can’t complain.”
I asked someone from Switzerland and he said “Well the flag is a big plus.”
Nope
You think the CCP is going to punish 140 million people over a poll?
I’m sure you’ll get similar results if you ask people in North Korea.
It’s really funny to me seeing someone using a chart showcasing oppressive authoritarianism a gotcha against an accusation of oppressive authoritarianism.
You don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that China lifted 800,000,000 people out of poverty in 40 years?
Or that over 90% of Chinese adults own their own home?
Your belief that China is an authoritarian oppressive regime seems to be unfalsifiable. If approval ratings are high it’s because the people are being silenced and secretly hate their government. If approval is low it’s because they hate their government. If the approval ratings are real then they’ve been brainwashed by nationalism.
Like everything indicates the approval ratings are real, there were studies conducted by Western universities that didn’t have stake in the matter and most Chinese citizens had a positive opinion of the PRC. There’s no way to fake this kind of stuff as well as you’re describing for decades.
There are various reasons for why I can understand Chinese citizens like China. They’re entering the golden age of their economy right now and legitimately have competitive quality of life when compared to Americans. Their country is becoming a superpower and that could be a source of national pride for some Chinese citizens. I think those reasons can explain the results without adding in coercion.
you are taking a logical leap here. it’s more accurate to say my belief that China is an authoritarian oppressive regime is not falsifiable by a public opinion poll. there are plenty other options that may falsify it.
Okay true.
What’s your point?
That disagreement with the government is not popular there.
Edit: don’t know why I’m getting downvoted, I’m confident that that was the point, you’re shooting the messenger lol
Why not?
Because the government disappears dissenters.
So then why in the same study do we see abysmal ratings for other authoritian dictatorships? Iraq, Kazakhstan, Cameroon, Russia, etc… If your point is that civilians in authoritarian regimes are coerced to show support in these types of polls, the results prove that notion wrong.
Using personal opinion of crowds is notoriously very bad and people are easily misguided. ALL this says is the Chinese BELIEVE they’re democratic and all equal. Not that they actually are.
You’re right, and I see that opinion poll as a indicator of the direction that America has been going: a place where many people think they are in a democracy, while actually living in a country that is more authoritarian than it was in the past.
Also, westerners like myself tend to complain about trump/etc without acknowledging the continuum of raising fascism. We should focus on the lies we have been fed, it’s not easy, nor late ;)
I agree with that, yeah.
get outta here with your facts.
What fact do you believe is presented in this image?
the image shows perception of democracy is much higher in china than other countries generally considered to be developed democracies by western discourse. i thought this was self-evident.
His American eyes can’t comprehend anything that doesn’t fit his propagandized brain.
sounds like they get mad whenever it happens lolol!
In that case, we are in agreement. People in authoritarian countries will definitely say they are happier with the government than people in freer countries
what? no they won’t lol
I don’t need a .ml telling me shit
jimmies rustled
Perception is a tricky business.
But you are not posting this to talk about the perception, instead to suggest that there somehow is democracy in a state where only one party is allowed to exist.
You do know that they just have one less party than Americans right?
not American, but hearsay says there’s also a green party.
I’ve heard the legends, lol.
Chinese who don’t say these opinions are labeled a dissonant and oppressed by their government. Just like how elections are completely staged in dictatorships.
This graph is completely useless.
These are great proof of China’s superiority! Until you see the Chinese questionnaires:
Social credit score doesn’t apply to regular people in the PRC. It’s for corporations and sometimes politicians. https://youtu.be/wYaKoDyIvWA
Check up on the social credit score
Awesome, just a broad strategy, not yet a single unified system. There’s still a chance to escape specific punishments.
Have you read about the punishments in the Wiki article?
Dude what’s the point of a system that enforces behavior when there’s no punishment?
The punishment is having a bad monetary credit score. Like with credit score all over the world. There’s nothing more sinister about the Chinese system than anywhere else, where credit scores are a thing. Granted, credit scores, especially for private persons, are pretty sinister in the first place.
What let to this misconception about social credit in China is that there were people suggesting to extend it to more general behavior. You can find people everywhere suggesting crazy shit. Like just this week a part of the conservative party in Germany suggested using the army against protests, but nobody is drawing the conclusion that Germany is preparing Tiananmen 2.0 in the capital. It was lunatics suggesting it anyway.
Aw dude
Ohh hey, opinion poll, like a toilet paper.