You need to understand that we've all been here 3 years already, we know each other, care about each other, have a real community with a real unique culture forged through bonds and laughs and drama and dumb shit. We have an actual community, not just a bunch of people that don't know each other who press updoot and downdoot and generally just see one another as faceless individuals. We trust each other and genuinely like each other.
I genuinely hope that you can create something like it and come to care about the other posters around you in time. You should try to. Build something more meaningful than a reddit clone where everyone treats everyone like a bunch of faceless anons, build a real community.
Maybe both Reddit and the rest of Lemmy are echo chambers of anti-China voices too, but believe it or not, there actually are a few users that are pro-China on there, unlike on hexbear.net where there are no anti-China voices at all. It's pretty obvious which platform is more of an echo chamber.
someone hasnt seen our weekly China struggle sessions
We only look monolithic to libs from outside because we close ranks against bullshit Western lies and propaganda. But there is ample disagreement here about China and many other topics, and we have it out with each other fairly frequently on the many topics we disagree on. We've come to refer to these arguments with one another as "struggle sessions."
For example, it's worth noting that we have anarchists here (among other non-Marxist-Leninist tendencies), who are often fairly critical of China when they have a chance to be, without annoying libs getting in the way of the discussion.
I realize you very much have a dog in the China-Taiwan fight, as it were, and I understand your reluctance to support the other side. But, while your island's history is not littered with as many atrocities as that of my own nation (the US), you really ought to consider, as I and the many Westerners here have, that your country is not on the right side, and is in fact the bad guys. Chiang Kai-Shek was a monster, and any reasonable person should want to piss on his grave. The most effective way to do that would be to work toward reunification, the one thing he opposed more clearly than anything else.
The government of Taiwan is allied with a genocidal evil empire (the US), and is capitalist, so that's a non-starter because capitalism is destroying the planet.
And Western bourgeois "democracy" is nothing of the sort; the government of China is much more responsive to its people than the US or any other supposed "democracy." (Hint: if the system always gives rich people what they want, it's not democracy, it's what we communists call a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.)
These are not points anyone here will concede, because your views on these issues are entirely clouded by Western lies and propaganda, unfortunately.
(Keep in mind that Chinese people do vote on their local government officials; those officials then vote on the officials one level up, and so on, all the way up the hierarchy. This is in fact fairly similar to the original form of government in the United States, in which Senators and presidential Electors were selected by the members of each state's legislature.)
You gave two conditions for reunification that would satisfy you. I explained why both conditions are unworkable from the perspective of people here, myself included.
Also, directly electing the head of state doesn't really mean very much. Sure the US president isn't quite elected by popular vote, but with only a few exceptions (admittedly, historically significant ones), the winner has won both the popular and electoral votes. Biden, for example, won both in 2020. And yet shit still fucking sucks here, and ordinary people have absolutely no say in government. As such, I would argue that simple popular voting for an executive falls far short of a good standard for democracy.
By contrast, in China, yes, President Xi can continue as long as the Party wants him to. Is that so bad? Don't you think the CPC would turn against President Xi if some scandal occurred that turned most of the Chinese people against him? Couldn't his long tenure simply be the result of significant popularity (perhaps owing to his apparently fairly successful efforts to root out corruption)? Was it really so bad that FDR got four terms in the US presidency? (The answer to this last one is a resounding 'no,' by the way, in case you're not well-versed on US history.)
Then there's the reasoning behind the somewhat-less-open forms of democratic government employed in socialist countries like China and Vietnam (called "democratic centralism"): if they loosened their grip on power, the US and other Westerners would seek to do to the CPC and its leaders the same thing they did to Mossadegh's government in Iran in 1953, to Allende's government in Chile in 1973, to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s, to Thomas Sankara's government in Burkina Faso in 1987: kill them, destroy their government, and undermine all of the goals they worked for by allowing Western multinationals to move in and exploit people and resources to the maximum degree possible. It happens consistently to every socialist power that tries to play by the rules of Western Democracy. Did you think they were advocating this stuff out of the goodness of their hearts? No, it's an ideology designed to allow maximal profit to capital.
As for your source, this is where Western lies and propaganda come in big-time. We have a meme here on Hexbear, "the same map," which we roll out every time there's an odious, right-wing Western source (and The Economist very much qualifies; it has a proud history that includes arguing in favor of slavery in the US during the Antebellum and Civil War eras) that puts out a map showing all the typical Western countries as "good" (by whatever BS metric the map supposedly indicates via color-coding, in this case "democracy"), and all the usual suspects as "bad." I could go to the trouble of digging into the methodology used here and point out the many ways in which it's flawed, but honestly I don't really feel the need to do so; nothing The Economist says is worth so much as the paper it's printed on.
Anyways, in my mind, a real, functioning democracy is where people can directly elect their head of state, which is usually the president
this is such a deficient view of democracy that it doesn't even qualify as democracy in my book. the word means rule by the masses - in what way does electing a head of state, someone who is in no way obligated to respect the wishes of the electorate (cf US presidents and their inability to push legislation/policy supported by supermajorities of the electorate) constitute rule by the masses. merely electing someone passes the buck on from the masses onto singular, corruptible individuals. democracy means the democratic participation of the people in government and such a thing goes so much farther than mere elections for representative. compare Cuban democracy, where elected representatives are required to hold weekly, local office hours so constituents can come share their thoughts about policy and governance, to western "democracy" where most people have no clue who their elected officials even are or what policy decisions their representatives are taking.
dream bigger. you're setting a very narrow horizon on human possibilities in the sociopolitical realm.
federation is kind of the new thing and being mean to libs is flavor of the week at the moment. people will get bored of it after a bit and we'll go back to our normal posting.
Tbf this is a very unusual time in the websites history due to the federation, and sorting by hot or new or, uh, "all time - month" will look very different.
It's also just false that there are no anti-china people. For example, we have a weird Khrushchevite who says that he and only he is the one good head of state to hold office at any point from 1950 to now.
You can also find plenty of people who have criticisms of China (myself still included) but just hate the bullshit western articles that get shared on lemmy.ml or whatever. Between
a group where 98% of relevant users are vehemently anti-china and 2% are for, but there is a profound consensus among the 98% that mediabiasfactcheck.org is a good website and the BBC is objective in its coverage of China as it puts out absolute pablum articles against it
Vs 2) a group where (let's just say) 100% of the user base at least supports China over America but they are able to have real discussions about journalistic epistemology and media bias that doesn't equate "unbiased" with "bipartisan".
I think 2 is a lot less of an echo chamber because the presence of people with absolutely moronic and uncritical responses to media are not a substantial indicator of something succeeding in not being an echo chamber. Consensus within a finite population is a real social phenomenon and the vast majority of people can be reasoned with over time.
Edit: "but you just like your own media!"
Look at what we actually talk about. There is some use of Chinese or sometimes Russian press for reference, but the focus is overwhelmingly still on western sources because you can find a lot of useful information even in spite of the author's intentions much of the time, and no one is using some Chinese NGO as a fucking measuring stick for what source is objective and what isn't (and Russian media is automatically criticized, but that is an aside).
Ngl, right now the lib dunking is the like, idk, thing we've been doing now that hexbear has been released onto Lemmy. Personally I haven't really been doing much of that myself except for dunking on some I saw being homophobic in someone's replies.
But yeah in general we're not as like universally pro China as we seem from the outside, ngl I'm like more hesitant to be all in for China than some of the other users on this site, it's just that when it comes to arguing with libs we don't split from the general hexbear line
But yeah there is a strong sense of community on hexbear, these people helped me understand and come to terms with being trans, the OP of this thread is actually mutuals with me on mastodon and in discord DMs with me and we're in a discord for trans communists together. She's given me a lot of really helpful advice and explained a lot of theory to me, and she (and several other hexbears who follow me on fedi) helped me get past my alcoholism. Like I've also seen some of the users here manage to crowdfund to avoid homelessness, get hrt, money for food when they can't work due to an injury, get medical necessities they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford and the like
@randint@lemm.ee I want you to read this.
You need to understand that we've all been here 3 years already, we know each other, care about each other, have a real community with a real unique culture forged through bonds and laughs and drama and dumb shit. We have an actual community, not just a bunch of people that don't know each other who press updoot and downdoot and generally just see one another as faceless individuals. We trust each other and genuinely like each other.
I genuinely hope that you can create something like it and come to care about the other posters around you in time. You should try to. Build something more meaningful than a reddit clone where everyone treats everyone like a bunch of faceless anons, build a real community.
I love you all
deleted by creator
lol they chose instead to post this comment to someone who was arguing with me. I'm honored tbh
Removed by mod
someone hasnt seen our weekly China struggle sessions
Removed by mod
We only look monolithic to libs from outside because we close ranks against bullshit Western lies and propaganda. But there is ample disagreement here about China and many other topics, and we have it out with each other fairly frequently on the many topics we disagree on. We've come to refer to these arguments with one another as "struggle sessions."
For example, it's worth noting that we have anarchists here (among other non-Marxist-Leninist tendencies), who are often fairly critical of China when they have a chance to be, without annoying libs getting in the way of the discussion.
I realize you very much have a dog in the China-Taiwan fight, as it were, and I understand your reluctance to support the other side. But, while your island's history is not littered with as many atrocities as that of my own nation (the US), you really ought to consider, as I and the many Westerners here have, that your country is not on the right side, and is in fact the bad guys. Chiang Kai-Shek was a monster, and any reasonable person should want to piss on his grave. The most effective way to do that would be to work toward reunification, the one thing he opposed more clearly than anything else.
Removed by mod
The government of Taiwan is allied with a genocidal evil empire (the US), and is capitalist, so that's a non-starter because capitalism is destroying the planet.
And Western bourgeois "democracy" is nothing of the sort; the government of China is much more responsive to its people than the US or any other supposed "democracy." (Hint: if the system always gives rich people what they want, it's not democracy, it's what we communists call a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.)
These are not points anyone here will concede, because your views on these issues are entirely clouded by Western lies and propaganda, unfortunately.
(Keep in mind that Chinese people do vote on their local government officials; those officials then vote on the officials one level up, and so on, all the way up the hierarchy. This is in fact fairly similar to the original form of government in the United States, in which Senators and presidential Electors were selected by the members of each state's legislature.)
Removed by mod
You gave two conditions for reunification that would satisfy you. I explained why both conditions are unworkable from the perspective of people here, myself included.
Also, directly electing the head of state doesn't really mean very much. Sure the US president isn't quite elected by popular vote, but with only a few exceptions (admittedly, historically significant ones), the winner has won both the popular and electoral votes. Biden, for example, won both in 2020. And yet shit still fucking sucks here, and ordinary people have absolutely no say in government. As such, I would argue that simple popular voting for an executive falls far short of a good standard for democracy.
By contrast, in China, yes, President Xi can continue as long as the Party wants him to. Is that so bad? Don't you think the CPC would turn against President Xi if some scandal occurred that turned most of the Chinese people against him? Couldn't his long tenure simply be the result of significant popularity (perhaps owing to his apparently fairly successful efforts to root out corruption)? Was it really so bad that FDR got four terms in the US presidency? (The answer to this last one is a resounding 'no,' by the way, in case you're not well-versed on US history.)
Then there's the reasoning behind the somewhat-less-open forms of democratic government employed in socialist countries like China and Vietnam (called "democratic centralism"): if they loosened their grip on power, the US and other Westerners would seek to do to the CPC and its leaders the same thing they did to Mossadegh's government in Iran in 1953, to Allende's government in Chile in 1973, to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s, to Thomas Sankara's government in Burkina Faso in 1987: kill them, destroy their government, and undermine all of the goals they worked for by allowing Western multinationals to move in and exploit people and resources to the maximum degree possible. It happens consistently to every socialist power that tries to play by the rules of Western Democracy. Did you think they were advocating this stuff out of the goodness of their hearts? No, it's an ideology designed to allow maximal profit to capital.
As for your source, this is where Western lies and propaganda come in big-time. We have a meme here on Hexbear, "the same map," which we roll out every time there's an odious, right-wing Western source (and The Economist very much qualifies; it has a proud history that includes arguing in favor of slavery in the US during the Antebellum and Civil War eras) that puts out a map showing all the typical Western countries as "good" (by whatever BS metric the map supposedly indicates via color-coding, in this case "democracy"), and all the usual suspects as "bad." I could go to the trouble of digging into the methodology used here and point out the many ways in which it's flawed, but honestly I don't really feel the need to do so; nothing The Economist says is worth so much as the paper it's printed on.
Do you genuinely think that Saudi Arabia is more democratic than China is? That map is absolutely ridiculous and laughable
Removed by mod
Then I just don’t even know what to say because that’s one of the most ridiculous claims I have ever heard. You must be trolling
Removed by mod
this is such a deficient view of democracy that it doesn't even qualify as democracy in my book. the word means rule by the masses - in what way does electing a head of state, someone who is in no way obligated to respect the wishes of the electorate (cf US presidents and their inability to push legislation/policy supported by supermajorities of the electorate) constitute rule by the masses. merely electing someone passes the buck on from the masses onto singular, corruptible individuals. democracy means the democratic participation of the people in government and such a thing goes so much farther than mere elections for representative. compare Cuban democracy, where elected representatives are required to hold weekly, local office hours so constituents can come share their thoughts about policy and governance, to western "democracy" where most people have no clue who their elected officials even are or what policy decisions their representatives are taking.
dream bigger. you're setting a very narrow horizon on human possibilities in the sociopolitical realm.
If Taipei has changed a lot then why are there statues being unveiled lately celebrating fascist collaborators with the Japanese invaders?
Removed by mod
It's more of a community centered around catharsis and commiseration, and occasionally changing people's minds who are open to it, but go off
Edit: oh yeah and comradeliness ofc
federation is kind of the new thing and being mean to libs is flavor of the week at the moment. people will get bored of it after a bit and we'll go back to our normal posting.
不知道你在这种语境撤这些有的没得民众感情道德绑架理念是几分意思
又没人提倡武合，大家反对的是丑国名面上打着自由民主的旗暗地里进行借刀杀人的参与和干扰东亚地区地缘政治的伪君子行为。湾湾就是美帝独裁梦的弃子，不要说两岸了，这点连这论坛上的老外都很清楚，何必在这装惨诉苦呢
殖人眼里应该只要不是资的本走狗就是粉红吧
Removed by mod
没有调查就没有发言权，起点如此不同会让沟通很积累，更何况你的口气也没谦虚到哪去。这也就是为什么另一半人不愿意和你正常交流，属于你这意识形态的人外网上真的多到已经懒得理了。我劝你还是去了解了解美帝进百年的政治历史吧，或许你会有所收获。要推荐的话可以在贴里问
Removed by mod
Tbf this is a very unusual time in the websites history due to the federation, and sorting by hot or new or, uh, "all time - month" will look very different.
It's also just false that there are no anti-china people. For example, we have a weird Khrushchevite who says that he and only he is the one good head of state to hold office at any point from 1950 to now.
You can also find plenty of people who have criticisms of China (myself still included) but just hate the bullshit western articles that get shared on lemmy.ml or whatever. Between
Vs 2) a group where (let's just say) 100% of the user base at least supports China over America but they are able to have real discussions about journalistic epistemology and media bias that doesn't equate "unbiased" with "bipartisan".
I think 2 is a lot less of an echo chamber because the presence of people with absolutely moronic and uncritical responses to media are not a substantial indicator of something succeeding in not being an echo chamber. Consensus within a finite population is a real social phenomenon and the vast majority of people can be reasoned with over time.
Edit: "but you just like your own media!"
Look at what we actually talk about. There is some use of Chinese or sometimes Russian press for reference, but the focus is overwhelmingly still on western sources because you can find a lot of useful information even in spite of the author's intentions much of the time, and no one is using some Chinese NGO as a fucking measuring stick for what source is objective and what isn't (and Russian media is automatically criticized, but that is an aside).
Ngl, right now the lib dunking is the like, idk, thing we've been doing now that hexbear has been released onto Lemmy. Personally I haven't really been doing much of that myself except for dunking on some I saw being homophobic in someone's replies.
But yeah in general we're not as like universally pro China as we seem from the outside, ngl I'm like more hesitant to be all in for China than some of the other users on this site, it's just that when it comes to arguing with libs we don't split from the general hexbear line
But yeah there is a strong sense of community on hexbear, these people helped me understand and come to terms with being trans, the OP of this thread is actually mutuals with me on mastodon and in discord DMs with me and we're in a discord for trans communists together. She's given me a lot of really helpful advice and explained a lot of theory to me, and she (and several other hexbears who follow me on fedi) helped me get past my alcoholism. Like I've also seen some of the users here manage to crowdfund to avoid homelessness, get hrt, money for food when they can't work due to an injury, get medical necessities they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford and the like
TL;DR: we have a real sense of community on