this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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I have seen that the lemmy.ml mods will openly ban discussion about the CCP. I am wondering if the sh.itjust.works team allows criticism of government bodies, while still banning racism.

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[–] scrollbars@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yup, the flip side of the coin is that reddit really has a hate boner for China. The anti-CCP side has its own collection of nutty people, with a lot of the talking points tracing back to the ~~cult~~ nice people that send out all those Shen Yun flyers.

Shit's complicated. That said, banning all criticism of the Chinese government isn't the answer. We need to be smarter about the information that we digest.

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

It really isn't that complicated. If Chinese politics is to be taken seriously, then there is a ton of low hanging liberal fruit for the picking. There is no reason for the Chinese legal system to not have public trial, for starters. There is no reason for China to censor the internet or speech or free association the way it does. And most importantly, there is no reason for China to not confront the very real sins of Mao and Deng in public.

I agree there is complexity which exists beyond this kind of stuff. But these are first principles for free society, and political agency, and should be taken seriously.

[–] scrollbars@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sympathetic to what you listed, and it would be nice to see those things come to pass. I'm just cynical about anything that starts to sound like "regime change" after watching the US campaigns in the middle east these past couple decades.

Even though Tiananmen was a long time ago, there have been more recent cracks in the facade like the unrest over lingering COVID zero policies. It's encouraging to know that people do have limits, but I don't know how popular those sentiments are across the broader population.

It's always nice to hear from someone else that recognizes how similar all this saber rattling is to the buildup to the first iraq war. All of a sudden after years of radio silence, everyone seems to care really deeply about the situation in another country.

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[–] god@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You're somehow implying that being an anti-ccp "fanatic" is basically crazy, and that people should reconsider their position... because... ? hate boner for china? what does disliking the CCP have to do with "hating china"?

[–] scrollbars@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can dislike the CCP without hating China, or being fanatical about it. There are people that have trouble with it, though. As an example you could say that the CCP sponsors campaigns of corporate espionage on a large scale to steal technology from other countries. That one is pretty uncontroversial. But some people have trouble preventing themselves from taking it further and making generalizations about how creative the country's citizens are, as an example.

[–] god@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haven't seen that. First time I see a suggestion such as that you're mentioning, that the Chinese could be uncreative. I read lots of Chinese books all the time and if anything I'd say they're more creative than western authors in many respects.

[–] scrollbars@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Glad to hear, I've been meaning to pick up some Chinese sci-fi myself now that more of that stuff is getting translated.

[–] god@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (38 children)

novelupdates.com has a lot of translations of asian novels in general, most terrible quality bc they're done by amateurs but some are great, and sometimes it doesn't matter cuz the stories themselves make up for the shitty translation.

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[–] nLuLukna@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think he's talking about the people who don't do anything but look for hateable things about the CCP

[–] god@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

why should we look for likeable things about the ccp when they're committing genocide? lmao. and why should we spend effort looking for likeable things about the ccp when they have millions of genzedongers around the world (example: lemmygrad.ml) to do it for them?

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think instead we should balance it with posts appreciating Chinese culture. They have a long artistic and cultural history that goes way beyond the current gov.

[–] god@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thing is, I'm not talking about China or the Chinese people. If I say "CCP is committing genocide" am I talking in any way about "The Chinese People"?? I'm not. Talking shit about basically Hitler2.0 has absolutely nothing to do with The Chinese People. Why should I go around randomly yelling good stories about the Chinese culture any time I wanna talk shit about Xi Jinping or his posse of evil? Makes no sense right?

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You don't have to, and I probably won't either. It's just a nice idea. Too many crazies take it too far into racism. (not you)

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