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In America, the rich controls the government. In China, the government controls the rich.
(lemmy.ml)
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Although that uses many of the same words I used in that sentence it is a fundamentally different sentence from what I said.
Secondly, when I make my point ("my moral code does not allow me to accept that certain means, especially those based on cruelty, can be justified by any number of material results measured by any metrics") you keep rebutting it by pointing me back to those very result-metrics. It means I feel we are just talking past each other in a failed dialogue on that point, meaning the only constructive response is to just "agree to disagree" on baselines regarding it.
Thirdly,
On this point I agree with you entirely. Fundamentalist Capitalism (especially the end-stage variants we are seeing in some places, and the inevitable Disaster Capitalism facilitated by certain politicians) is an absolute cancer. Just as much as Fundamentalist Utilitarianism is a cancer. It seems you keep trying to use that as a gotcha, for some ideological banner I am not even waving.
I suspect my comments are frustrating you (?) because, on the one hand you are championing a political system and inherently accepting that its expediencies are acceptable, whereas I am arguing from a moral standpoint which explicitly considers many of those expediencies to be unacceptable, irrespective of the political ends. You have made many strident criticisms of many political systems and governments, many of which i concur with. I just also include the Chinese government in those criticisms along with the others.
You dismissed my moral standpoint with:
Conversely, I think all governmental implementations which think they can get away with sidestepping those moral baselines in the name of expedience are destined for corruption and collapse, while leaving a trail of cruelty in their wake. Not just one governmental implementation, all of them. That is why I think the presently constructive action is to accept that our respective "lines in the sand of acceptability" on these issues are different, and just agree to disagree on those points.
Again, there is zero evidence that cruelty is state policy in China. Meanwhile, if you think that society can completely eliminate individual acts of cruelty and other human vices then you're once again engaging in fantastical thinking.
Your comments are frustrating to me because they're born out of ignorance. You have not spent the time to actually understand how Chinese system works, and your criticism is rooted in idealistic thinking that ignores the realities of the world we live in.
Nobody is arguing that the system in China is perfect. What's being argued is that it is a system that actually works in the interest of the majority, and it's a preferable real world alternative to what the west is doing. It's a tangible improvement.
Again, if you bothered to learn a bit of history you'd see that the general principles of the Chinese model has proven to be very stable historically. China has enjoyed centuries long stretches of peaceful existence, while the west has been drenched in blood and violence. I urge you to actually spend the time to learn about China instead of regurgitating demagogy.
That is a very causatively specific thing you are claiming I said, which I didn't. Again.
That's making quite a few assumptions and accusations about someone you've never met and know nothing about. Have you genuinely considered that many of those assumptions and accusations might be wrong? And no, I won't (and shouldn't) fall into the same "courtier's reply" trap by itemising first-hand experiences, interactions, etc here because A) that would be inappropriate and should be irrelevant to a healthy discussion-focused dialogue - free of such "appeal to authority" logical fallacies, B) as stated before it is clear you keep arguing past what I'm actually saying - to how you reinterpret what I am saying, and C) after working through your false assumptions, false accusations, ad hominems, and misreading it seems you didn't actually say anything else for me to reply to.
I made statements about various global systems of government, in general, and when you redirected and contextualised every statement to being consistently only about China, at first I did you the debater's courtesy of addressing that, but unfortunately that courtesy has a limit, especially when you don't reciprocate. As much as people displaying Said's concept of Orientalism irreparably bias and taint global-context discussions, Occidentalism is also harmful for the same reason. Both of them often veer discussions into two-sided, one-dimensional (and often zero-sum) arguments to be "won", rather than multivariable, multidimensional, fallibilistic and constructive debates. I have only been here for the latter but you are either only able or only willing to participate in the prior, so I say again it makes sense to just agree to disagree and move on. Anything else is just browbeating.
Lastly, I would have thought those ad hominems alone should be delete-worthy due to rule 1, no?
@rowanthorpe @yogthos Yogthos is a doomscrolling troll I wouldn't engage in conversation with. The points that Yogthos makes are based on some idealistic viewpoint while also arguing with anyone that responds that it is they, in fact, who are idealizing.
I will not respond to anything Yogthos writes back.