:some-controversy:

Upgraded from a comment

  • DoghouseCharlie [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Whatever, tankie. Chyna only makes people live that long so they can have more years to oppress them. Unlike you I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free to die early.

    • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Communism is like that paperclip AI, the only goal is "most man-hours lived under communism"

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I constantly like to point out that the life expectancy started going up DURING the revolution because conditions were so bad that they were literally getting improved in the middle of a revolutionary civil war and a fascist invasion.

    Like, shit was so unbelievably bad under capitalism that the wars were actually an improvement in life expectancy.

    • Fuckass
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

  • wombat [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    the maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry

  • Infamousblt [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Inb4 some lib comes in here and says "akchtually what changed is China started making up numbers during that period"

    • FlakesBongler [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I wish I had copy of that tweet where the guy said that when Mao took over "The real oppression began"

  • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Reminds me of the opposite effect with the dissolution of the USSR. Right after '91 life expectancy took a nose dive that took years to recover

    • very_poggers_gay [they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      dissolution of the USSR

      i hate how it's always framed like the Soviets caused the death and suffering after it "collapsed", like it doesn't even question the role of mass-liberalization of post-soviet economies and Western-endorsed "shock therapy"

      :soviet-huff:

      • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I always thought it was a pretty direct example of what capitalism does to to countries, but then again people are still blaming the soviet union for the effects of capitalism 30 fucking years later. Shit's frustrating

        • very_poggers_gay [they/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Right? Also, if excess mortality *after * the fall of socialism / liberal revolutions in post-soviet states is the fault of socialists, then surely the excess mortality linked to the socialist revolution should be attributed to the capitalists who predated socialism

          :debate-me-debate-me:

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            Or feudalists, since Russia and China were at best a mix but China especially was mainly feudal

      • DoubleShot [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        The neoliberal rationalization at the time - and still used to this day - is that the socialist economy was so inefficient that all that pain and suffering was necessary in order to make the economy more productive in the long term. Which is a brilliant excuse (in an evil way) because it’s all unprovable and ideology driven.

        My response to that is, just look at where the economy of the USSR was in 1991 and imagine they never break up and adopt neoliberal capitalism. Even if you assume anemic growth… hard to see how the economy still wouldn’t have been better under communism. And then you’d also avoid all that needless suffering.

        Of course liberals just blame “corruption” on why the capitalist turn hasn’t worked out so well for the former USSR. It’s not true but it helps them not think about it any further.

    • jackmarxist [any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Damn it's like communists care about the people or something. Such evil should not be allowed to exist.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        1 year ago

        communists care about the people or something

        Caring about people so they can USE THEM. Its all an insidious trick to tyrannize each of the good people of China for 30 years longer.

  • very_poggers_gay [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Recent economic and social changes in China are perhaps the most successful suicide reduction campaign ever conducted. Whereas suicide-rate in the USA has increased by about a third since the 2000's, the suicide-rate in China has decreased by over 60%.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6775931/

    It's crazy what improving people's material conditions can do for their wellbeing, but us in the west get more gaslighting from the media and medical system, and mental health apps that sell your data to train shitty AI models :xi-pog:

      • barrbaric [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Smh, denying people the freedom to commit suicide, where will the tyranny end?

    • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      Average life expectancy can get extremely low when you have high infant mortality. Like if you survived childhood you could expect to live well past 32, but your data point gets outweighed if someone who has like 5 kids who don't survive to puberty. Without modern medicine a lot of shit can happen between "getting pregnant" and "your child turns 6." Of course there was also food precarity, frequent famines, and theft by landlords against peasants in extreme poverty.

      • Boisterous [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        War contributes too. Not as much obviously but China is famous for millions dying in wars, usually young men under 30.

        Don't start thinking you're the next incarnation of Jesus, folks.

        • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
          hexagon
          ·
          1 year ago

          I believe war is the reason it dips below 32 at certain points. Ofc there is a bit of historical guesswork bc it's not like we have accurate comprehensive data from 1850.

      • anaesidemus [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        in many cultures children were often not named until they turned at least 6

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Fanshen by William Hinton has a lot of first-hand accounts of 30s and 40s rural China. Terrible conditions, and highlights how Chinese "landlords" of the time were far closer to feudal lords than some guy renting out his parents' old house in Milwaukee.

      • doctor_sociology [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        yeah. your shitty yuppie landlord will evict you to settle a debt.

        your chinese "landlord" will sell your children to settle a debt. the two are not the same.

        the basis of CCP power was not inveighing against the urban bourgeoisie, of which the majority of chinese had no idea even existed let alone felt oppressed by. it was actually mao that suggested allying with the patriotic, national bourgeois and small producers against the compradors and the landlords.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Going back to back with civil war, famine, genocide, civil war, famine again will do that to you.

    • PKMKII [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Unless they use them making a “see how much global quality of life factors have increased under the last 40 years of neoliberalism” argument, then not only do they count but liberals take credit for them.

    • kristina [she/her]
      ·
      1 year ago

      there arent 1.4 billion people in china, its just one guy moving really fast

    • elgonzalors [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      And then they quote some bullshit statistic called "Burger freedom index" from the "Liberty Eagles Mcdonalds Institute"

  • Finger [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    the maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry

    • Gimasag [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      IIRC a big reason why life expectancy improved so much during the Cultural Revolution was because of the barefoot doctors program which made medical care much more widely accessible for rural villagers.

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Evil Demon King Mao killed 130% of all Chinese residents between 1945 and 1950, which - as all statistician people know - makes the life expectancy of the survivors go up. This is survivorship bias of the handful of Chinese people left after killing 100 zillion people.