this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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General note: Most authors publishing critical material of the west in the (free speech) west don't get silenced (edit: although professional blacklisting is all too common). Yes, I'm sure there are exceptions. You might not want to do that openly in China, Iran, or Russia these days, because the risks are well known/accepted. It definitely makes life harder for scholars and historians.
Do you have any evidence of China suppressing criticism? We know the western media openly brags about making up stories about the east.
I can find plenty of stories of publishing houses declining to publish material. That is effectively censorship but because it is done by a company we don't care
Russia and Iran are more like the US than China so considering them as one unit is not helpful.
China seems to be far more about censorship and self-censorship. When public figures disappear from the public eye, they often reappear at some point. I hold great hopes for China's future, and its potential as a successful & peaceful role model. Xi worries me a bit though.
They are not liberals. Here in America the anivaxx movement has kill tens of thousands to millions depending on how you do the math. In a better world stuff like that would have been censored. It only causes hardship and wastes resources. China does censor stuff like that. Now, does China have boomers that take that instinct too far? Probably. However they don't have school shooters ever single day. They have 3x the population of us and that doesn't happen there. So something is working there and something isn't working here. A full rejection of their system is silly given how well it seems to work for most of them most of the time. Especially since, in every single case we can observe our system failing us most of the time.
I'd rather have big fat warning labels than censorship, to be honest. The issue is that many governments and people end up in a spiral of distrust & broken trust (justified or not).
Covid was/is a shitshow though. Where was the world class PsyOps then? Perhaps too busy scaring the hell out of everyone to notice that it might not be the smartest strategy.
I know you want that. I want to eat cookies for breakfast. Some things just aren't good for you however. Ask any person drowning to death in their own lungs if they were happy they had the freedom to choose to smoke. Given a sober assessment of the situation they would have chosen other than their wants. The world would be better if cigarettes were banned. Their blood is on the hands of the people who gave them freedom they weren't responsible enough to handle. Science has proven we are not fully rational creatures. We have biases and we need to protect and take care of eachother as we can to prevent that from causing harm.
The psyop around covid was to keep people from masks and vaccines. The million plus dead prove that was very successful.
Too many smokers continue to smoke after developing serious symptoms. People continue with poor diets and too little exercise despite their own doctor's advice. We stare at screens for many hours per day. I'd still rather big warnings and community health initiatives than forced exercise/diets/screen-time-limits. Human rights / self determination is important. But organised efforts to appropriately highlight bullshit in public forums isn't bad at all. In both approaches, the Q is how categorization happens, and can it be trusted.
Who was behind the anti-vax/mask psyops campaigns? To me, it seems to have been rolled up together with pro-trump, pro-russia/anti-ukraine, anti-LGBTQ, climate-change-denial streams. At least, these talking points are what a few older people (non-US-based) that I know started repeating. It looks like a giant pot of discontent, with a few usual suspects adding ingredients, no doubt with some profit opportunities along the way.
Except we know that mostly doesn't work. It is weird to me that your preference is to waste resources and not help people.
It is a combination of antivaxx and general pro business types. If covid isn't real you don't need to stay home. You can go back to work and make your boss some money.
I'm not against effective measures, but I've seen too many kind and well-meaning people make a lot of bad decisions over the years. I think this is often the case for politicians too, for which we expect high standards and judge harshly when they inevitably fail. I like to leave room for people to make mistakes, and the opportunity to admit & correct mistakes.
Maybe we need fewer politicians and petty dictators on soap boxes making claims and promises and more no-nonsense elbow grease bureaucracy, with more direct feedback loops, and KPIs that benefit the population.
I don't belive that. I belive you have seen people who say they have good intentions. I simply think they weren't telling the truth. Or they were wrong in obvious ways that that didn't care to hear about.
The problem with politicians is to be one you have to be good at capitalism. Which is amoral at best and immoral most of the time. So the same people that decide them making money is more important than children having food and medicine are the ones that get to make policy. Unsurprisingly all their policy ends up with them making more money and the needs of people unaddressed.
That last thing you said, that sounds nice. However in terms of how the world actually works it is meaningless. The assumption that makes is that politicians simply don't understand how to fix problems. They do, they just are the most highly bought into the capitalist system. The only problem they actually care is fix is how to make more money for them and theirs.