• betanumerus@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Then move to China, because the chances of a dictatorship running your way are next to zero. Dictatorship means no accountability, so once it’s set up, they do as they please no matter what you say.

    • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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      21 hours ago

      I’m in China right now, its weird how the government does more for the people than most western democracies if they’re totally unaccountable. Is it possible you don’t have any idea wtf you’re talking about?

      Here’s a place where you can go 250 miles in an hour and a half for 30 bucks. No idea who this is for if not the people.

      • teft@piefed.social
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        11 hours ago

        It’s for the party bosses. People on time means more economic production which means more global political clout.

        Let’s see the rural infrastructure and collapsing tofu dreg bridges. Bet they don’t look as good.

        • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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          10 hours ago

          It’s for the party bosses. People on time means more economic production

          HSR is for long distances, nobody is commuting 250 miles when you can live in the city because rent is <300/mo. But you are correct in that party bosses interests are selfish; they’re graded by economic development, human health, veggie prices, etc, and at the end of each 5 year term can get promoted to a bigger area, demoted from being able to run anything, or literally thrown in prison depending on their performance.

          Let’s see the rural infrastructure and collapsing tofu dreg bridges

          The buildings in less economic areas aren’t as nice, but that’s true literally everywhere. As for collapsed bridges and other infrastructure, I’ve literally never seen that.

      • betanumerus@lemmy.ca
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        12 hours ago

        I’d like to answer but you used your free speech to disqualified yourself.

    • zbyte64@awful.systems
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      24 hours ago

      You actually think there’s no accountability in China? My guy, they hold their politicians to a much higher bar then we do.

    • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Then move to China

      If I spoke mandarin fluently and had a solid support network of friends and family i would. 🤷‍♂️

      Dictatorship means no accountability, so once it’s set up, they do as they please no matter what you say.

      Show me all this accountability here in the United States. A known pedophile is in office and the previous guy in office spent four years giving a huge number of his voters the finger.

      • betanumerus@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        If it was a total dictatorship, he’d be there forever. Accountability is the elections. You have hope.

        • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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          10 hours ago

          A rotating cast of “elected” spokesmen for the ruling billionaires doesn’t result in accountability for anyone

          • betanumerus@lemmy.ca
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            1 day ago

            Tell you what, I’ll wait here until you find a question you actually can’t answer yourself.

            • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              I was making an assumption you couldn’t see your own bullshit but this is you acknowledging you’re fully aware of it.

              Losing an election isn’t real accountability for being a pedophile and you know it. And you know as well as I do Trump will never see the inside of a prison cell.

              Pathetic.

              • betanumerus@lemmy.ca
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                1 day ago

                Yep, your “bullshit” and pathetic" language checks out. You are so way off topic now I can’t even throw you a lifeline. Cheers anyway.

      • nexguy@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        You seem to like when the government heavily censors domestic media, the internet, and academic discourse, and actively suppresses political dissent, protests, or criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Movement within China is regulated. The justice system in China has a 99% conviction rate…for whichever side supports the side of the state. Mass surveillance with no legal recourse. You wouldn’t even know if you had it good or not. Unless you are fine not knowing I suppose.

        • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
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          10 hours ago

          And yet they have fewer people in prison than the US with four times the population. All these horrible things about China and yet they incarcerate people at a quarter of the rate that the US does. So if China is a fascist police state what do you call a country that imprisons people at four times the rate of China?

          • nexguy@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            No one said the US is doing anything perfectly. What about the incarceration rate in the Netherlands? Individual freedom is difficult and comes at a cost. Chinese citizend simply do not have all the freedoms others in the west have. They are not allowed to demand it wether they want it or not.

            • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
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              8 hours ago

              Idk about netherlands but you’re trying to single out china versus the west and the largest western country is far less free than china. If you say European, sure, quite frankly I have no clue about Netherlands incarceration, I’ll take your word for it. But if you want to talk about “the west” you have to answer for how your theory applies to the single largest western country.

              • nexguy@lemmy.world
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                8 hours ago

                How do you know this information? You can’t look it up on Wikipedia in China… that’s blocked. Oh, read about it in the associated press? BBC?.. nope. All blocked. Ignorance is bliss it seems.

        • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          You’re responding to my comment where I said.

          Show me all this accountability here in the United States.

          You didn’t show me where all this accountability is. Was that an oversight on your part or are you acknowledging there isn’t any?

          • nexguy@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Can you openly criticize the Chinese party in control? Can you protest without violent retribution?

            You can do these things in the usa. Accountability.

            China won’t let the full intent through. The US does. Accountability.

            • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              You can do these things in the usa. Accountability.

              You think a few no kings protests around the country means the pedophile Donald Trump has been held accountable for his crimes against humanity?

                • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  You chose to respond to my comment and I’m still waiting for you to show me where all this accountability is. 🤷‍♂️

                  • nexguy@lemmy.world
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                    1 day ago

                    Allowing open and free access to the internet. This provides accountability. China gets to mold the internet to their will. If they don’t want you to know it, you have to subvert them to find it online. Want to find out what’s going on by watching the news? You get a carefully curated version of the news and no way to fact check with independent sources outside of the country…without subversion.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          The west also heavily censors domestic media, the internet, academic discourse, and actively suppresses political dissent and protests, etc. The critical difference is that the west does this to protect capitalists against the working classes, while China does this to suppress capitalists and protect the socialist system. The class that controls the state uses it to oppress the others.

          • nexguy@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Can you openly criticize the Chinese party in control? Can you protest without violent retribution?

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              1 day ago

              People criticize, institutions are censored. Protests also do happen infrequently. China is a pretty stable country overall because the system actually works.

              • nexguy@lemmy.world
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                1 day ago

                People can openly protest the party in control in a city center? They can openly access the world wide internet?

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  1 day ago

                  Yes, and yes. VPNs are accessible. Institutions trying to foment regime change are cracked down, simple protest is not generally.

                  • nexguy@lemmy.world
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                    1 day ago

                    So the internet is openly accrssible… as long as you circumvent government authority? That doesn’t sound like “openly”.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      From the recent Perceptions of Democracy survey:

      China is one of the more comprehensively democratic countries on the list, with some of the fewest glaring weaknesses.

          • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            (No idea what they’re trying to say tbh. Is that an edited image or… are they calling you out? Seriously unclear)

            PODS is an opinion poll. The way you present it implies that it speaks in any way to the actual systems of government of the country in question, when that’s just straight not what it’s about:

            […] At the same time, more respondents said their country was moving in the wrong direction. The report finds that pessimism is especially pronounced in democracies. France, Germany, Lebanon, Puerto Rico and Nigeria were among the countries where responses on national direction were most negative. China recorded the most positive responses, followed by El Salvador, Kuwait, Algeria and Belarus.

            What the infographic you’ve posted actually shows is that Chinese citizens are among the most satisfied with their government, which is for sure something, but is decidedly not the same thing as:

            China is one of the more comprehensively democratic countries on the list, with some of the fewest glaring weaknesses.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              1 day ago

              Yes, of course it’s a survey of how people feel about their systems. Most western “democracy indexes” just define democracy loosely around whatever the Nordics are doing, and as such countries with very different democratic systems like China score very low. This shows that that’s not really accurate, the people of China like the system and believe it delivers well for what it does.

              • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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                1 day ago

                Well, yes - this is an opinion poll, it’s not a measure based on real metrics of performance, it’s entirely based on perception.

                Which is my whole point: you stating that china is among the more comprehensively democratic countries on the list is a misuse of the infographic. You might hold that opinion, it might be true, but the image you’ve posted is completely disconnected with supporting that claim.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  1 day ago

                  How would you measure how comprehensively democratic a country is, if not by asking people how well it functions in getting across the will of the majority?

                  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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                    1 day ago

                    I suspect I would start by setting out to write a report that attempts to answer that question, instead of one like this, which makes it very clear that it’s not a document which answers that question.

          • jwt@programming.dev
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            1 day ago

            Thanks for the link, my point was that posting random pictures without context/methodology/sources is not very helpful.

            So the questionnaire asks people how positive/negative they perceive the categories in their own country, I’m not really sure that methodology works very well for oppressive countries.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              1 day ago

              You can look into their methodology. While it is an imperfect method, it does track pretty well when comparing countries to each other, as well as seeing which countries have more glaring weaknesses than others. It’s already widely reported that over 90% of people support the government in China, so this tracks pretty well.

              • jwt@programming.dev
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                1 day ago

                You can look into their methodology

                I did, my opinion is that obviously that’s not a very smart way of conducting the questionnaire.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  1 day ago

                  It’s better in many ways than the standard western way of simply defining democracy by whatever the Nordics are doing, and then ranking everyone else accordingly. China has a very different democratic model than western countries, and so usually fails a lot of checks that are only checking for norms within western style democracies. This ranking helps take into account differences in model towards more socialist democracy by checking how the people feel.

                  • jwt@programming.dev
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                    1 day ago

                    I’m not comparing it to anything, I’m judging it at face value, and it doesn’t pass the smell test. It leads to countries with a one-party system getting scored +5 on pluralism. That ‘does not track’.

          • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            He definitely is elected, just not directly. The Chinese President is elected by The National People’s Congress. The Presidium, which is the body that presides over the NPC when the full body Is not in session, nominates one or more candidates, and then the whole NPC deliberates and votes

              • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
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                1 day ago

                North Korea has a nominally more direct electoral system than China, though it’s equivalent to the Chinese President is the President of the State Affairs Commission, which Kim Jong-Un holds.

                These are head of state positions which, while influential, are more insulated from the day-to-day operations of governance.

                That said, we have a much better window into what Chinese political culture is like, as well as the robustness of its institutions, as compared to the DPRK. So it’s more difficult to say, one way or the other, what the DPRK’s politics are truly like.


                That said, these thought terminating cliche’s don’t help you or anyone else. Its worthwhile to learn how these systems work.

                Also, Indirect elections aren’t inherently bad. The prime minister of the UK is also indirectly elected, but that fact alone tells us very little about the UK’s political culture, institutional responsiveness to the popular will, or how able institutions of governance are able to weather crises

                • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  You unironically are saying there are legit elections in NK. Oh boy, you are a hoot

                  • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
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                    1 day ago

                    I said there are elections. People go vote for their representatives. Whether that electoral process is effective, or those representatives truly representative of their constituents is a different question which we lack good information on. This isn’t hard to grasp