Rednote right now

There's a bunch of Chinese posts asking if the stuff about school shootings, fires, homelessness are exaggerated propaganda only to be told otherwise. It's both hilarious and sad.

People of the US and China are both unsure of what to believe about the other, because both are so propagandized lol
- Who told you that the people of China are propagandized, especially to hate other countries and peoples as much as the US does?
School shootings is something uniquely american. Even México doesn't have them and we have a decent amount of narcojuniors (rich sons of drug dealers) that would have plenty access to guns, the only time i remember a school shooting happening it was in a private school in Monterrey like 7 years ago, which is pretty much the most americanized part of México.
- Wow that's crazy
I'm reminded of that ex Soviet joke about how they always knew the government was lying about their own countries but were shocked to learn it was telling the truth about america

If banning tik tok ends up galvanizing demand for healthcare reform I'm going to laugh my ass off

Good comrades like Lady Izdihar are taking off in a big way, might help radicalize a lot of people towards Marxism even.
- Rednote's algorithm seems very receptive to communist content, at least compared to what I'm used to. Hope it stays that way.

Eh, there's truth and lies on both sides. Coming from someone that lived in china for 4 years and was able to engage with Chinese primary news sources. But basic healthcare in china is faster and cheaper, but then again I went to get a wart removed and they prescribed me acorn paste that accelerated the growth of the wart. So win some lose some.

Everyone pretending Europe doesn't exist? Most countries have most healthcare for "free" (mandatory healthcare taxes).
- The kinda people joining Rednote right now are not the same kinda people who know alot about geopolitics, or honestly anything beyond their personal bubble. Yeah, they're just gonna keep pretending Europe doesn't exist.
- Eh... as someone living in western Europe, I can't say it's free. I would say that it's subsidized at most. We still have to pay a part of our healthcare, we can get a private health insurance to complete the government coverage, but it's still not enough to cover all of it.
  Mental health isn't covered at all, ophtalmology barely (still gotta pay 200€ for a pair of glasses, after public + private coverage), dental only the very basic is covered...
- Not a single hospital I went to in that country had hand soap in the bathrooms, to give you an idea about the level of hygiene. But going for my yearly sinus infection was a breeze and I got antibiotics. Not a zpack but it cleared up the infection. And no appointments necessary. Breeze in and breeze out an hour later with what you need. And dirt dirt cheap, and on my visa I didn't pay into the national health care system, so my cost was 100% out of pocket.
- We are just enjoying the show and eating popcorn, don't give them ideas!
Trying to dodge Chinese traditional medicine in Asian countries when you go to the doctor is such a pain in the ass.
I had to go to three different Japanese doctors before they would give me something other than herbal powder.
- I had a colleague who had been a nurse and I'd show my prescriptions and ask "BS or actual medicine" and she'd tell me. I just started asking her first and she'd type out what I need before I went to the doctor.
The wart had to grow so it could be killed
- If you'd have left it @caboose2006@lemm.ee, it would've become a mighty oak. You Westerners are weak. Who wouldn't want a mighty oak growing out their dick?
- Wart fertilizer perhaps

Circle jerking about China is as ridiculous as circle jerking about the US. We've been here before with US vs USSR, but this time everyone has a megaphone and an IQ that can be measured with a ruler.

I mean isn't this more "circle jerking " about dismantling state propaganda? Interacting with those you were told are your enemy?
Besides, people should always celebrate the positives, and look towards them as something that is possible in their country too.
And as an fyi: when we were here before, the workers revolution in Russia was new. The achievements were so profound that workers in North America began demanding similar concessions from our governments. There was a real threat of overthrowing the existing power structures. And what happened? Weekends, literacy, healthcare, just generally improved living conditions. To dismiss cultural exchange as circle jerking is to ignore history and the power that comes with knowing things are better elsewhere, and that you can have that too.
- Fuck yeah
- when we were here before
  🎶Couldn't look you in the eye 🎶
You keep on coping there little buddy. What's happening is that regular people from both countries are now talking directly to each other, and finding out what life is actually like.
- Uhhh, not exactly regular people. From what I've seen from the Rednote, at least my feed is wealthy upper-middle or upper class, while the Americans are from low to middle class.
- what was preventing them from doing it before?
Niether Moscow or Washington, but somehow Washington actually
If what you're trying to get at is that whereas it is very important to unlearn the lies and exaggerations one was told about a country, that people also need to avoid replacing these lies with an overly simplistic and uncritical understanding of that same country, and that the current social media landscape makes it very difficult for many people to have the necessary nuance to avoid this pitfall... Then I would agree with you, but I'd also tell you that mentioning the eugenicists' favorite way of measuring "intelligence" is a very bad way of phrasing this idea, and that your standards of what counts as "circle-jerking" about a country are probably not nearly as inviting of nuance as you'd think.
- ...mentioning the eugenicists' favorite way of measuring "intelligence" is a very bad way of phrasing this idea...
  100% agree. The IQ thing is a tired and lazy joke. I need to work on a replacement for that old jab.
Wow those sure are some thoughts you managed to have. Big boys and girl and gems usually like to talk to each other and listen. You should try it. Use your words. What is your critique of the USSR and why do you perceive "realising we've been propagandised about china" as being akin to a circle of people masturbating?
- As a Polish person, if you say anything good about USSR without acknowledging it was shit stealing, people murdering, generation destroying piece of shit, I'd like to invite you to talk to some of the old people who remember, read diarys or fucking analysis.
  Do you know they even decimated our fucking cuisine?
  Sorry if you weren't implying anything positive about USSR, I have short fuse here.
Make a point you verbose idiot. You said literally nothing of enough substance to know what's in your little rat brain.
Sorry for being pedantic, but those foldable work rulers are exactly 2 m long (at least in MetricLandia), which is, incidentally, the span of IQ values (0-200).
So yeah, it literally can be mapped one-to-one to a (common type of) ruler.
- 200cm, the american one is up to 80 inches 😁
- This is a common ruler where you live?
  In my country we have rulers with 12 in/ ~30cm as the most common. We also have "yardstick" which is more often a meter stick now. But no foldable rulers.

It's honestly very wholesome to see this kind of interaction. On top of cute moments like Chinese users telling the new US users that they are their "spies," seeing a lot of blatant myth dispelling surrounding the PRC is great to help tear down the Red Scare.

I was told that I was a spy in RL. Why would a European person learn Chinese? Clearly spy.
- My own father asked me unironically if I was a "Chinese sympathizer" over dinner last night, and that was not the end of it.
- It really is like 50s anti-soviet paranoia

.

I think there's a simple desire to move to pastures new. "Use Instagrmam or Youtube Shorts or Snapchat" No, we've been there and done that.
Imagine allowing citizens to be so free that they can go to your biggest rival's social media to read narratives favouring them, get influenced by rival propaganda, and then shit you on your percieved weak points.
- Imagine allowing citizens to be so free that they can go to your biggest rival's social media
  So free that they they banned TikTok and only haven't banned RedNote with it because they overestimated the strength of their anti-China propaganda.
- Perceived weak points, huh? So the brutal genocide of Gaza is just a little whoopsie that we should.move past? Fuck no. This isn't weakness or a mistake, this is America pulling off the mask, and anyone making excuses for it this late in the game is close enough to a fascist as makes no difference.
- It’s never too late to discard your patriotism to a state that doesn’t give a fuck about you. You don’t owe it your allegiance, be it Burgerland or India or whichever shitty capitalist state.
- eagle noise
- Court Jester mindset.
- How does the US ban on TikTok thatbmakes people switch to rednote now fit this description?

Lmao

Kek even
They could, but they dont want to.
The ban discussion originated during the 2020 election when Trump didn't like the information being spread there as he thought it aligned more with left wing policies. So he wanted it banned. People kept pushing the "it's bad for kids" bullshit to keep it rolling until it finally went into effect. The Democrats didn't try to stop it, and the people voted back in the person who wanted it banned. So effectively, they did vote for it in a way.
- Trump wanted the ban when he was in office, Biden actually did the ban when he was in office.
  Who could I have voted for to keep it from being banned?

People are people no matter where they live, which also means you can't trust any government anywhere. Propaganda is powerful.

The idea of a social credit score has always been hilarious to me, like yo bros we have credit scores over here and they legitimately fuck us over since you need good credit to do alot of things like renting a place to live.

- The comparison is wild because financial credit score is much worse. Imagine you are a model citizen but big corp keeps you poor so youre denied basic human needs. On the other hand you are a murderer but as long as you have the moneyz you can do whatever you want.
  Of course, social credit score can be misused to push agendas and manipulate the whole popularity if the wrong people implement it. Not trying to defend it in any way, it is a terrible idea. But financial credit score is suppression of the poor by design.

No. So many goods cannot be produced by children, it is inefficient.

New tagline dropped

That's a banger
- Who must I harass to get it enshrined?

wow the level of cope in this thread (thankfully not that many tho) arguing over stats - which are probably made up anyway.

some people can't handle that most humans just wanna be friends regardless of gov politics bs

yep most genuinely don't care, people just hate to be a part of something lol
some people can’t handle that most humans just wanna be friends regardless of gov politics bs
Yes exactly. There are lots of internet weirdos trying to spread culture war nonsense, but if you actually go outside every once in a while, you realize that most people just aren't like that. I work in a restaurant that has a lot of ukrainian and russian visitors (migrants). At one point, a large group of russians came in for a birthday party, and they asked the owner to put on a playlist of russian music. Like, really cheesy russian pop. After some time, a girl from a smaller table of ukrainians calls me over and complains about the music. I relay it to the owner, and he asks them what they would rather listen to instead. They tell him, and he adds their songs on the queue. The rest of the evening was spent playing and dancing to russian and ukrainian and armenian songs (the owner is armenian, and there were some armenian guests too) and the atmosphere was just generally very chill. Not a single fuck was given about politics that evening.
- Now if we could just get rid of all those power-hungry dicks who keep poisoning the human spirit, let it be with Capitalism, Maoism, Neoliberalism and whatnot…
  Thing is, the concern about RedNote is completely valid. Even if you strip away any overarching US propaganda or whatever, we know that the CCP does really, really shitty things as well and take heavy, manipulative influence (yes yes, the US and its defacto Feudal Lords owning Meta etc. do so too).
  I'm just angry people won't take their time to look into this whole topic and go with more propaganda-resistant, federated alternatives. Not perfect, but better than a centralized service that can be influenced by either China or the US. Or Russia… or literally anyone. So that we can, in the end, just dance to some nice human music.

As a civ player, I know a cultural victory when I see one.

My people are now ~~listening to your pop music and wear your blue jeans~~ eating your noodles and use your social media apps.

Norway actually does.
Source: Am norwegiam. Am parent.
In the US? Lol, no.
Source: I work with a bunch of Texans.
If only...
:lionel-hutz: oh whoops, they forgot the punctuation. It's supposed to say
"Americans have a year paid? Maternity? Leave!"
"And our tests have concluded, that this is, in fact, a lie."
If by maternity leave they mean mysteriously fired before they can have the baby then yes?

For real imagine living in a country where a faceless entity logs all of your financial activity without your consent and distills that information to summarize a person's character into a numerical score used to lock people out of securing housing or finding work, dystopian nightmare
Edit: the removed comment said that the social credit score existed based on this Wikimedia article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
In the Wikipedia article itself:
There has been a widespread misconception that China operates a nationwide and unitary social credit "score" based on individuals' behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low. Media reports in the West have sometimes exaggerated or inaccurately described this concept.[7][8][9] In 2019, the central government voiced dissatisfaction with pilot cities experimenting with social credit scores. It issued guidelines clarifying that citizens could not be punished for having low scores, and that punishments should only be limited to legally defined crimes and civil infractions. As a result, pilot cities either discontinued their point-based systems or restricted them to voluntary participation with no major consequences for having low scores.[7][10] According to a February 2022 report by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), a social credit "score" is a myth as there is "no score that dictates citizen's place in society".[7]
no "Winnie the Pooh" refs
"they won't let me call the chinese man yellow" good, die mad
It really is astounding how much every sinophobes source is inevitably just Wikipedia.
- Which in turn its Adrian Zenz 😂
- More and more I see them just sending either a duckduckgo search, or the first few links from that search, which is of course always from anglo-supremacist news sources.
- It's too bad the people of China aren't allowed to edit Wikipedia, and correct the facts, because of their oppressive state.
To be clear, it is overwhelmingly Westerners that wish to depict a Chinese man as a yellow bear. You can talk about Pooh, just not in the way westerners tend to want to.
As for the Social Credit system, the version reported in western media is false and exaggerated. There is a credit system, but it's largely for businesses and other social entities, not some Orwellian big brother system.
- Did you read your own link, or just grab the headline from a google search and call it "good enough?"
  It’s true that, building on earlier initiatives, China’s State Council published a road map in 2014 to establish a far-reaching “social credit” system by 2020. The concept of social credit (shehui xinyong) is not defined in the increasing array of national documents governing the system, but its essence is compliance with legally prescribed social and economic obligations and performing contractual commitments. Composed of a patchwork of diverse information collection and publicity systems established by various state authorities at different levels of government, the system’s main goal is to improve governance and market order in a country still beset by rampant fraud and counterfeiting.
  Under the system, government agencies compile and share across departments, regions, and sectors, and with the public, data on compliance with specified industry or sectoral laws, regulations, and agreements by individuals, companies, social organizations, government departments, and the judiciary. Serious offenders may be placed on blacklists published on an integrated national platform called Credit China and subjected to a range of government-imposed inconveniences and exclusions. These are often enforced by multiple agencies pursuant to joint punishment agreements covering such sectors as taxation, the environment, transportation, e-commerce, food safety, and foreign economic cooperation, as well as failing to carry out court judgments.
  These punishments are intended to incentivize legal and regulatory compliance under the often-repeated slogan of “whoever violates the rules somewhere shall be restricted everywhere.” Conversely, “red lists” of the trustworthy are also published and accessed nationally through Credit China.
- To be clear, it is overwhelmingly Westerners that wish to depict a Chinese man as a yellow bear.
  Really? Because all sources that I can find trace the origin to Xi’s visit to the Philippines back in 2017.
  http://hongkongfp.com/2018/11/20/filipinos-flood-social-media-winnie-pooh-memes-xi-jinping-visits-manila/
  https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2018/11/21/2003704655
  https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/11/21/1870392/winning-pooh-images-flood-social-media-xi-jinping-arrives
When they reference Xi negatively they use Palpatine or some literary villain as a comparison. Using a yellow bear beloved by most of the world seems counter productive. Imagine if people compared Hitler to Charlie Chaplain due to likeness and not, say, Satan.
- I mean, he did actually portray him...
I have some sources on the child and slave labor, if that helps.
https://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/genocide-of-the-uyghurs-in-western-china/china-tibet-and-the-uyghurs
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/01/china-carmakers-implicated-uyghur-forced-labor
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nz0g306v8c/china-tainted-cotton
This last one is ‘Western propaganda’ but is very helpful in identifying the types of products to avoid. It’s near impossible in the US, unless you make your own textiles/clothes or only buy second-hand.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods-print
- Your first link is a few paragraphs with no sources whatsoever.
  The second one sources Human Rights Watch, who got bodied even on reddit the last time they tried to spread this line. They pretty much source only from Zenz (a far-right anti-semitic christian evangelical who thinks birth conrtrol is genocide).
  The third link has Zenz again as its main source.
  Its so exhausting to have to debunk the same recycled sources over and over, so here's a megathread:
  https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#whats-going-on-with-the-uyghurs
- wow you have a LOT to learn. I recommend you start at the grayzone on youtube.
Wikipedia
Can you site a source more credible than a crowd sourced encyclopedia run by Americans
- The invisible white supremacy at the center of liberalism: "You can't believe what those people say about their country; they're inherently untrustworthy. Only the word of white people is credible."
- *feds. and the criteria for a credible source for them as they need to be western-aligned media. it's a complete joke.

Few things blew my mind even though I've been a big fan of Chinese economic and political policy for a while

They actually really like Soviet Culture, the marching soldiers and flags etc. Soviet rock like Kino and the like is very popular!

They're casually Marxist, its not something they have to fight to learn about so socialism is a casual existence for them. I figured the youth would be "too cool or hip" but doesn't seem to be the case

They're very similar as gamers, they really like shooters like battlefield and cs go. I assume their MMOs are different but I'm asking about that

It truly is a massive cultural exchange the likes of which have never been seen before. I'm trying to find out if they grew up on the same games, Morrowind Deus Ex Thief Ultima Online D&D etc

Oh yeah they really like Soviet culture. My first post on there is of some Soviet artwork and it got 1.3k likes, on a brand new account. Wouldn't see that happening on Insta or Xitter.
- Knowledge will break the chains of slavery!

I still don't believe the TEMU bit though

I like how one person said they don't use child labour because they are inefficient. If they were efficient though ...
- I totally believe child labour is inefficient.
  I also believe it's cheap and capitalism doesn't care.
- TBH I expect it to be the same as everywhere where there are a lot of people with imperfect oversight.
  There is going to be some children working just like in the southern US.
Why? You just assume TEMU uses child labour because... vibes?
- "It came to me in a dream"
You believe the rest lol? I mean it can be true but its just made up internet memes.

I spent $82 USD on cold, flu and bronchitis treatment last year!

The fact that this is considered expensive there made me do a choking double take in the same way as learning that an actual mansion in the 70s used to cost like 20 grand.

i mean they do have lower incomes
the median income in China is around 26,800 Yuan (USD 3,855) per month. $82 USD (492yuan) is actually expensive. Since it is median income, you can expect a lot of people are not making that amount especially in the inland regions.
Comparing it to the States is not the good flex that people think it is.
- As a portion of median income it's still far far better than the out of pocket costs in the US (just like pretty much every other country on earth)
- What about purchasing power or whatever that metric is called?
  Edit: and it is still a flex. Being able to talk to a doctor without taking a loan is pretty good compared to the us
- I know this isn’t exactly relevant, but that’s more than I’ve ever earned in my entire life. The most I’ve ever earned in a month is like 2K.
- This is not true, 26,800 RMB per month is Senior Developer in Shenzhen (Shenzhen is China Silicon Valley, But the salary is only half of Google L3. and Daily work 9+ hours, six or seven days a week, plz search 996.ICU).
  Real china mainland are 600 million people who earn less than 1,000 RMB (136.39 USD) per month (year 2020) by Li Keqiang say (former Prime Minister has passed away).
  Trade union? Strike action? No, You'll go to jail, plz search "Jasic incident".
  Absolute majority Rednote user is children of the bourgeoisie (Real china is Kuaishou and douyin (But algorithms have created echo chambers that isolate people) or search "whyyoutouzhele" on twitter).
  They don't even know that 120 is a paid service, or maybe they're just bragging...
  In Jining (former capital of Shandong) Base fare: 100 RMB for the first 10km, 150 RMB for 10-20km, and an additional 10 RMB for each kilometer over 20,
  There's a 50 yuan charge for using things like stretchers and oxygen tanks.
- It costs me $60 just to see my family doctor, after insurance kicks in, and before paying for any prescriptions.
  I do not make 30 x $3,855 per month, which is the cost proportion we’re referring to.
- Per wikipedia (I know, but I don't think this kind of data is political enough to be subject to the NATOpedia treatment, it's originally from the census bureau), the median income for workers in the US in 2023 was 40,480 USD. That's 3373.33.

Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: Misinformation

Truths you find inconvenient are not misinformation, reporter.

- Purely for the purpose of fairness/general interest, here's what I've found from Dessaline in this thread re: debunking on various topics. What you make of them and their merit is up to you, I'm just here cruising this thread for jokes myself.
  Will say I think they'd be better served with adding the links when saying this, or under deleted comments saying "topic was x, debunked here [link]", but that's just me. I also cannot say for certainty I've captured every relevant post, particularly re: the content of removed comments [going into the mod log is an extra step I'm not doing rn, but you could if you wanted and try cross-referencing]
  https://lemmy.ml/comment/16149912
  https://lemmy.ml/comment/16149886
  https://lemmy.ml/comment/16136497
  https://lemmy.ml/comment/16135781
  Edit: Removed one link, as it's a different instance of the same message. Again, think I'm missing stuff but I'm about go offline, so out of time.

Lol people actually believed that social credit score bullshit?

American here, yes. To be fair I don't think about China a lot.
- Just goes to show you how deeply permeating the Red Scare is. Reminds me of that "exploding helmets" story that was obviously bogus but peddled as though it was true.
- Try to keep in mind that is far from the only thing you've been lied to about. Not just about China either. The US propaganda machine is massive, and far reaching.
- You have credit scores in the US?
But... social credit literally is real... There are government legislations on this. It is not a conspiracy theory.
On the other hand Western media definitely has exaggerated and demonized it a lot. The social credit is basically your credit score, but it is more expansive and uses information some might see as encroaching on their personal privacy and freedoms.
- The credit score in China is to keep tabs on businesses to prevent corruption and excesses, just basic things the US used to do back in the 1950s, but would now be considered "authoritarian".
  The credit scores in the US are used to prevent regular people from getting housing.
Plenty of people also still believe the secret Chinese police stations bullshit.
- Never heard of mintpress. Looked it up and ooof. What a record
- In America we call it the credit score...
I mean I feel real stupid reading into it, but up until now, yes
Social credit scores were a thing. People were punished for low scores. It only happened in a few cities and it was described as a pilot.
Obviously the pilot got a lot of bad press in and outside China and it is no longer happening
does it surprise you when a non neglible amount of americans believe the earth is flat? or that vaccines have nanomachines to control your brain? 😂
Indeed.
And they believe Uyghur genocide too. They're fucking brainwashed. They completely lack critical thinking capabilities.
- A great way to get people to understand is to insult them. That always works well

Truth: the strongest propaganda.

Well tbf, even though it's strictly banned in China there are still some cases of it happening in rural areas.

But in the US it's legal. In a bunch of states all you need is parental consent for a teen barely out of puberty to marry an adult, and some will lower the age if the child is already pregnant.
- Yall ever seen the documentary series, keep sweet, pray, and obey? Pretty terrifying that the US allows these evangelical child sex cults to exist.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States
  Huh. In California the legal minimum is 0?
  Also are these map colors impossible to read correctly on your screen or is it just me?
We tried banning it but failed. My girlfriend was a teenager married to a marine when she was 17
- Why the fuck you marrying 17 yos

I didn't think child labor still existed in China, just harsh labor conditions and low pay.

China's government's strict control of the media did, however, lead to me not questioning the social credit score thing.

harsh labor conditions and low pay
As opposed to how it is in the US...?
- US media loves to go on about the horrible working conditions in China, claiming 11-hour days and all kinds of other sweatshop working conditions because nothing sells like a good tragedy, but nobody talks about the working conditions at home and talking amongst ourselves is often made difficult, either by cultural or business practices. It's illegal to punish employees for talking about how much they make with each other, but that doesn't stop businesses from doing it anyway, because people here simply don't know their rights as a worker and companies love to take advantage of it. So we think we have a clear grasp of how the Chinese live while still believing that people here work 40-hour weeks and somewhere in the cultural zeitgeist is still the belief that people can afford a house with a white picket fence, a dog/cat, and 2.5 kids on one person's salary.
- They're both bad governments just in their own special ways
Pretty naive to think that child labor dosen't exists in China tbh. Maybe not at the scale of child factory workers that some western media like to depict, but at a smaller scale, in farming, family owned business and small isolated factories.
- In farming and small business’s it’s very common to see kids working in the us
- According to a couple news stories I've seen pop up from time to time, we have child labor in the US too. It's not legal and the children are usually the children of illegal immigrants. Maybe it's sort of the same deal over there i.e. desperate people doing desperate things despite the norm.
- As a parent, I would prefer this to modern western environments for children that include TVs, video games, phones and no idea what I do for a profession.
- China is fucking rich dude.
Purchasing power is rising dramatically, labor conditions as well.
- 996 sounds like amazing labour conditions
Same.
Not hard to believe when there's camps for uyghurs.
Happy to be wrong.
- I maintain this, but other comrades like @davel and @yogthos keep better megathreads about this topic.
  https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#whats-going-on-with-the-uyghurs
I mean america has wage slavery. I just think the detail are just different
- USA have literal slavery, and it's even straight up called slavery in 13 amendment to constitution. Which also makes US afaik the only country that did enshrined slavery in constitution. Land of the free my ass.
labor conditions actually aren't very bad at all. equivalent to first world countries. pay is relative

I just want to point out that the attempt to compare medical costs in a direct comparison in US dollars isn't exactly easy as it does ignore purchasing power and base wages.

The point would probably be better made with hours of labor at a base pay to pay off treatment which I do think American healthcare would probably still lose quite handedly.

This is exactly what governments around the world are afraid of. Every government wants us to blindly accept that every citizen of the nation is profoundly evil and must be obedient to its government.

Russia wants its citizens to believe every single lie about itself and other nations. That everyone in Ukraine is a bloodthirsty Nazi, and Russia is liberating Crimea.

America wants its citizens to believe every single lie about itself and other nations. Every brown person is a terrorist waiting for its Manchurian candidate call sign to do a second 9/11, and that the economy is the greatest in the world.

No nation tells the entire truth, from lying from omission via national security, to straight up war time propaganda, to funding and owning news networks. From Radio Free Europe to Sputnik, a government will lie to your face and tell you its an unabridged raw truth.

The only way we could actually learn the "truth" (if there is such a one when anyone could be as brainwashed as their government wants them to be) is by directly talking to the citizens of each nation. The internet is a great equalizer, the only limit is language and translation. That's why governments censor the internet, or even shut it down when it gets too much for a government to manage.

We all have more in common with the random citizens of China, Russia, Germany, Japan, South Korea, America, Mexico, Canada, Uganda, South Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Ukraine, Brazil... We have more in common with being human and being subjugated and redistricted in doing what makes us happy and free.

And the government and rich of each of those nations and beyond have more in common each other than to the citizens they try to control like dogs. They all disagree on why they do it, but the end result is the same. Status quo, monopoly on violence kept in place with whoever is at the top. The set dressing and costumes change, but the stage play goes on.

You and I have more in common than with the president or prime minister or dictator we are under. The only thing we share with the top 1% and our governments is the lanauge we share and the citizenship. I have friends around the world, and I have more in common with random geeks in Japan and China, than the leadership of my nation.

The governments want you to think that you have nothing to share and love with another human being outside the lines drawn in the sand by people out of touch with the people inside those lines.

The unexpected propaganda win for the PRC too lol. Anyone who might have been doubting the benefits of the dictatorship of the proletariat will now have first hand evidence that life is absolutely not better in capitalism

Remember that "Grapes of Wrath" completely backfired as a propaganda piece because Russians were amazed that poor Americans could still afford cars

What do you mean propaganda piece? Stienbeck didn't write that for Americans to read?
Just a bit of context as someone from Eastern Europe - it was not that people couldn't afford cars, it was that they were in short supply. People - fewer people than in the West, but still a lot of people - bought cars, they just got them 30 years after the fact.
- That's not how I remember it. The average persin in Eastern Europe couldn't afford to buy a car and cars were in short supply, resulting in significant waiting periods (we're talking years). The average citizens in the USSR and the Warsaw Pact had much less purchaisng power compared to their counterparts in the West. Soviet-made cars were much more expensice relative to Western-made ones, and of considerably lower quality, generally speaking.

Not everything! For instance, we don't wear shoes to bed.

Wait, no? I'm not even chinese and I believed.
- Seriously? We aren't completely insane... Yet.
"What if you stepped on dog poop out on the street, and you went home without realizing it? What if the American father and mother and eldest son and eldest daughter all stepped on poop and went home without realizing it?"
You wear them indoors though, right?
Boots only

Despite the unhappy circumstances, it's kinda nice Chinese and Americans interacting on social media.

The fact this isn't typically possible because of bans in China is not so nice. Neither is the fact the US is going down the same road instead of proper privacy laws.

But still, kinda nice

The social score thing isn’t really propaganda as much as it is idiots believing whatever they read. It started from what was essentially thinly veiled racism, and became “true” because people kept hearing it.

They really need to add a translation feature though. It's getting a bit annoying running everything through a translate app, for both english and chinese speakers I imagine.

Perhaps it will get added, but it's important to note that this is a Chinese app for Chinese users, the English influx was an accident.
Still, China's overall geopolitical strategy is to trade and be friendly with literally anyone who will do the same, so I imagine a translation feature may come.
- They're defnitely seizing the sudden opportunity to cater to a global audience though, Rednote ads are everywhere right now.
There are a heck of a lot more Chinese people that speak English than there are English speakers that can speak Chinese
- China is a big place stuffed with folks.there are a lot more Chinese people doing whatever than most lol
- Most of the Chinese speakers seem to be the youth
  Source: I live near their timezone, and used to spend time on chat roulette and Chinese students wanted to practice their English there
It should be in the next update they already announced it
- Oh, neat!
We wouldn't need a translation feature if cxiuj lernis Esperanton, just sayin'
(I mean, we would, but)

Wait, China's not a dystopian nightmare?

I imagine it could be if you were a minority or a political dissident.
The fact that so many people went through sexual and gender self discovery on Tiktock, but such things are discouraged by the government in China says a lot that makes me uncomfortable.
Not being able to openly criticise the government and its policies also doesn't sit well with me.
It's not my government though, so that's where my criticism ends. If that's what the majority of people want, that's just democracy by another avenue. So long as people are allowed to leave if they choose, then that's fine.
I just assumed everywhere was
It isn’t if you are privileged, the same as the US
- China is responsible for most of the world's reduction in poverty in the 30 years. If you exclude China, world poverty is increasing.
- Suicide nets installed by a company based in Taiwan that also operates in mainland China at a factory located in a special economic zone, one specially reknowned by people for its liberal policies. A company that China's own state funded propaganda said was bad, and that the situation was being assessed. If the company was not based in Taiwan it would be a little easier for them to handle because they wouldn't have to deal with a rabid dog breathing down their neck ready to declare war for even looking at the island. I'm not saying what happened wasn't terrible, but I am saying you should dig a little deeper than the headlines. I found all of this information on Wikipedia after like 40 minutes of research, but please respond and call me a tanky or CCP bot because it would be pretty funny.
- You can go and ask if you want, but you will be mocked because of how ridiculously brainwashed you'll sound.
- Wow, you're really just running down the checklist of anti China propaganda
- Go try it.
- What happens if keywords, like uyghur, are mentioned?
- Nazi Germany became pretty bad for the Nazis too in the end. Fascist warmongering usually ends that way.
It is, but they're not allowed to talk about it. Social credit.

Some of this stuff is dated. Chinese healthcare used to be less available and more expensive until the government put efforts in changing that fact. China's a nation that seems to believe that they can use their government to make things better.

I love this so much

"The jews are secretly controlling the world. Don't look at the chemtrails, they inseminate you with 5G!!"
- My phone is constantly losing signal, can you help me get another one of those 5G vaccines?

picture 2: not real and technically imposible to do that cause we have 1.4 billion people

This makes me imagine how social credit score department people hands look like if social credit score is real

Don't they have computers and mass surveillance?
- Big data n shiet
Just that no one claimed that they would have a social credit system surveiling 1.4 billion people.
It was an experimental system in some pilot cities in, of course, a limited scope.
So it was real, in some city in some scope.

It's funny that Xiaohongshu is popping off right on the cusp of a TikTok ban. They're not even flocking to established US alternatives.

我爱小红书！I love rednote! So many cool people and I'm brushing up on my mandarin 😎

This is breaking my brain... world news told me it was bad and told me what "experts" say about privacy.

OPSEC-wise you should avoid most mainstream social media anyway unless you're using Tor or a VPN, whether it's Xitter, Insta, or Rednote
- Said social media blocks you from using tor. Reddit back in the day freaked out when the apparent ip keeps switching and forces you to login again and again.
Which world news? Makes a big difference.

I always thought social credit thing is just in memes

Hey. I want you to Google the name Fred Hampton and find out what America does to it's minority who speaks out.
Maybe consider we have a larger prison population than the 1.whatever billion people. Largely made of our minorities.
Take a mirror to yourself before you throw stones.
This isn't to say China doesn't deserve criticism. The point is that many of your "they are an evil dictatorship who slaughters minorities!" Doesn't hold up when we, a democracy, is doing the same thing but worse.
- Some Americans believe we're screwed in Europe. I had a US boss trying to "save me" from the "socialist hellhole" that is Switzerland by trying to convince me to move to the US. Some believe Islam is going to sweep across Europe and turn us all into jihadists.
- What's the difference in democracy or dictatorship if both are committing crimes against humanity just one does it by committee
Yes China is a dictatorship and theres a lot of censorship. I would still choose living in China over the US 1000 times.

Social misdeeds also remove you from being able to fly in the US, maybe I'm missing something...
- In another comment, I have stated that myself.
  I am saying that the social credit system was attempted and they had people banned for e.g. flying. Which makes it reasonable to assume that a really bad social credit score would ban you from flying as well. As the social credit system was experimental, and apparently failed, it is impossible to say what it could have been.
  When international news talked about the social credit system and it being in pilot cities, they asked themselves what could be and communicate it as such. But people meme'd it and people believed the meme nonsense version.
- If I talk about the trail of tears, gaza or criticise Biden I will get put on the no fly list?
- I don't see the "positive" spin in my comment.
  I guess if you think that the us is "positive", it would be positive.
  Imagine your understanding of the world is so black and white that the idea of similarities makes you unable to think what is actually said.
  Edit: wait! Do you think me saying that it is just true that you don't go into debt for an ambulance, is a positive spin? Do you think having actual access to an ambulance is a positive? Sorry but that is part of a basic functional medical system. That is like "they have schools" that ain't a positive, that is the basic.

They're obviously saying all of this to up their social credit!

You are uneducated.
Edit because I hate people talking about debates. There is nothing to debate, you are just propagandised. Debating you would be like debating a climate denier. All you have to say (and I know this before you even say anything because you lot are carbon copies of the same tired long-disproven state department talking points) would be better if you at least had the humility to entertain the notion you are in the wrong, and therefore should present your statements as questions.
Double edit: Define tankie without using "totalitarian" or "authoritarian". Then define those words
can you explain what you actually disagree with? and are the tactics in question just using wojaks and being a little rude sometimes?

"now kiss"

82$?! That's ~8200 roubles! Holy golden expensive fuck!

So total brain rot absolutely everywhere?

Is this chinese punishment for banning tiktok?

More like USians pushing back against the US State Department, China is just winning without doing anything here.
- Doing nothing and winning, how is this strategy called? Gabe Newell uses this strategy too btw

You'll be seeing alot more China "shills" as Americans keep realizing the amount of propaganda they've been fed lol
What counts as a "shill?" Approval in leftist spaces of the PRC is rising overall, which makes sense given that they are a Socialist country, but in the broader western landscape Red Scare propaganda is still dominant.
Shill=/= people you disagree with

Trying to talk about the conversations on Rednote while on .ml is kind of hilarious.

So many removed comments...

American propaganda in tatters ban it quick!!!

Cringe

Thanks for the flags, I needed them /s

China good, US bad! It is known!

Quick! Somebody link to one thing the US government has said about China.

You lose points by googling, because everyone upvoting surely has seen the US government say something about China and knows where to find that document.

The fuck are you even on about? Please broadcast your mental inferiority somewhere else.
The US gov just banned an app because they say China wants to use it to sabotage our country.
The president, the Senate, and the supreme Court all declared China to be a national enemy who can't be trusted with the info of American customers

I'm getting tired of all this propaganda... I honestly may leave Lemmy if this keeps up.

"Everything" we've heard about China is a lie? Are you people for fucking real?

It must be so easy being an anti-communist, you can just make to whatever unfounded bullshit you like and expect people to believe you
- In communist China everyone gets a daily ration of 5 crickets and tree bark scraps, that you're only allowed to eat after giving Xi Jinping a sloppy kiss in the mouth.
- To be fair, it's really easy to be anti communist if you believe the USSR was or China is communist and not were/are dictatorships.
- China isn't communist in the slightest
It's usually westerners that love to depict the Chinese president as a yellow bear in a deragatory manner.
- Massive reach.
I don't think most Chinese people are racist crackers like you anyway
- Chinese people can be racist af. Source: am 華人
So offending the state in China invokes the punishment of getting to experience the American reality?

Daamn, it's so nice that nobody invented lying on Chinese internet yet, otherwise shit would be so embarrassing

what a privileged comment
- They are an American. It's not like 900 dollars is some insurmountable of money to pay off in 5 years. 180 bucks a year. 15 bucks a month.
  That's literally a Spotify subscription.