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one of the biggest advantages of china over uSSa is that they don't have such rampant anti intellectualism. imagine being elitist while being anti intellectual.
growing up in the dumbass soup of shithole america, i did not recognize how pervasive anti-intellectualism is here. i read some article maybe 10-15 years ago about the phenomenon from an outsiders perspective and it was eye opening.
authority to speak on a topic here is recognized as having access to a platform and an audience. rigorous study, demonstrated expertise, peer recognition are all easily handwaved away as belonging to a corrupted process, but having a single benefactor that can put your face or voice all over the landscape is treated as a mandate if enough people stop to look/listen.
and its been this way here apparently since the earliest days of carnival barking snake oil salesmen, confidence artists and ink-by-the-barrel printers pitching the latest magic cure-all.
people want to blame tiktok and facebook and podcasts, but these are just the latest tools. talk shows, talk radio, periodicals, pamphlets & papers played a similar role.
and, sadly, there are people out there looking for factual answers that totally exist, but have been indoctrinated by the powerful not to trust anything but how some voice of the spectacle makes them feel... while maintaining pure cynicism against anything that reeks of education.
it's like that post about how somebody's grandfather was immune to communist propaganda because they were illiterate.