Random News Article Discussion II
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My take away from his thoughts in that video is perhaps the problem in Western Democracies comes down more to political parties in the US, and not actually being culturally or politically united in the EU.
China has a level of efficency going on…sort of...but that aspect doesn't sound like authoriatarianism as it does a sort of lack of football team style factionalism.A one party state rids that problem, and of course in exchange you have a dictatorship. Which in Singapore's de facto case survives I think more on comfort and size (I also think it's laughable to assume Singapore couldn't handle democracy lol).
So why not abolish out and out parties? No lazy factionalism, and no dictatorship! Yay?
At the same time...I kinda hate to say this, but to some extent a working authoritarian state in the post-Mao Chinese model may actually be a decent way to emerge from absolute poverty. When I look at India and China I see one mess and one success.
But that important distinction is between types of authoritarianism. Deng Xiaoping's China is the one we have these days, it's a sort of council led meritocracy yeah. It's gone on to be copied by the communist parties in Vietnam and Laos. Iran kinda has this too.
Even though it hasn't always produced economic success, it seems to at least breed stability yes even in Iran's case (which under a Putin model would likely be far far far worse and as dangerous as people make it out to be). Some degree of consensus government even involving some degree of people power exists and likely has moderated things time and time again.But the ego driven authoritarian model is pretty much disaster waiting to happened, working by luck when it does, and more likely failing. Basically the modern version of monarchies to some extent. Russia is like this, most such countries are. Syria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Belarus. And the countries people talk about as backsliding away from democracy? Well they ain't sliding toward council run consensus driven meritocracy, lookin' at you Venezuela and Turkey.
And for evidence of that? Just look at Mao's China. The two massive traumas it endured were direct results of ego and fear driven politics. The Great Leap Forward became a race to impress the great leader, and be afraid to question any issues it might have because it was his neat idea! Wham, worst famine in world history.
The Cultural Revolution was….well the cultural revolution if anything was Mao getting old and noticing the bastards who ranked under him were actually trying to build the results oriented council meritocracy thing, and uh, turned the country upside down entirely with the power of his ego and personalit cult.
Which brings me to something I think John Green is overlooking about modern China.
We look at the way things are there and think "Oh they're worried about democracy ruining things.". And wellllll, yeah that's part of it.
But Deng and Chen Yun and the other dudes in the politburo who drove the whole "Fuck Marx let's make cash" thing were survivors of the Cultural Revolution, which is the greatest exercise in the disaster of ego driven authoritarianism short of the major genocides and famines.Modern China is a product of RUNNING AWAY from large parts of the authoritarian experience as much as it is about national pride being restored or being skeptical of western democracy. Nor do I even think many of the Chinese dudes including Deng were necessarily all gung ho about authoritarianism.
Among the highest members of the party during the Tiananmen Square events you had a near 50/50 split between the dudes who were like "Put the fuckers down", and guys who were generally interested in engaging with the students and strikers.
I just think it's skepticism! Like down the road I bet there's a sense that political reform will be ready, but not yet. And yeah, maybe not exactly democracy in the western form, but certainly not endless authoritarianism. -
Well the thing about India is that it isn't really a country so much as it's a conglomeration of different races, religions, and linguistic groups who prior to being united by the Mughal Empire and later the British East India Company had no history of being together. It's natural that such a place would be fundamentally less stable that an ancient nation like China.
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Well, i still haven't watched all the video but the cornerstone of "holy shit, we are not dying!" is a pretty powerful tool for governments and China, for example, is a country that goes into really terrible periods of "Holy shit, we are all dying" and "I have to eat human hair to not die" to "Holy shit,we are not dying" and "Man, this dishwasher is convenient. I would like more things like this" so people will support governments as long as they gave them peace of mind.
Bottom line, people move on the compass of stability but this concept isn't the same for everyone. Some define it as just being able to live while others have even a whole outline of their dream society. Of course, if we follow how history has worked out after the minimum stability (variable span of time) we see the rise of an educated class that intends to rock the current government (Which can go from "We hell-a want better living" to "We hell-a gonna topple you") and promotes changes in variable scale (The government can go from "We hell-a listen you" to "We hell-a murder you").
Or something. I'm watching Empire of the sense so i'm sorry if a lewd word ended up there.
Well the thing about India is that it isn't really a country so much as it's a conglomeration of different races, religions, and linguistic groups who prior to being united by the Mughal Empire and later the British East India Company had no history of being together. It's natural that such a place would be fundamentally less stable that an ancient nation like China.
I think i'm having a stroke.
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http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/03/revenge-porn-site-operator-sentenced-to-18-years-in-prison/
https://31.media.tumblr.com/51c212af21536e6fc43a915ee4f95544/tumblr_inline_mgi278keEy1rbnwwd.jpg
steeples fingers Yeeessss . . . . . . .
In sort-of-similar news: What happens when a Republican senator preaches abstinence? His teenage daughter gets pregnant, of course.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/10/republican-abstinence-only-crusaders-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/Have they learned NOTHING from Sarah Palin?
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Well, i still haven't watched all the video but the cornerstone of "holy shit, we are not dying!" is a pretty powerful tool for governments and China, for example, is a country that goes into really terrible periods of "Holy shit, we are all dying" and "I have to eat human hair to not die" to "Holy shit,we are not dying" and "Man, this dishwasher is convenient. I would like more things like this" so people will support governments as long as they gave them peace of mind.
Bottom line, people move on the compass of stability but this concept isn't the same for everyone. Some define it as just being able to live while others have even a whole outline of their dream society. Of course, if we follow how history has worked out after the minimum stability (variable span of time) we see the rise of an educated class that intends to rock the current government (Which can go from "We hell-a want better living" to "We hell-a gonna topple you") and promotes changes in variable scale (The government can go from "We hell-a listen you" to "We hell-a murder you").
Yeah that's the other part of the China story.
In East Asia the process has seen three stories.
1:Japan: When revived after WW2 as a democracy Japan found immense success.
2:SouthKorea/Taiwan: Built their current first world status during periods of results oriented authoritarianism, but as they became middle class reforms happened and resulted in democracies (though in very different ways).
3:China/Singapore: Authoritarian or at least benign one party rule for the latter building up results oriented success.Couldn't China just be walking the road walked by South Korea or Taiwan? Eventual democracy when things economically stabilize broadly enough? South Korea protested and rocked the boat until it's leaders gave in, and in Taiwan's case the leaders began reforms themselves. China could go both ways couldn't it?
I think i'm having a stroke.
There's some errors and flaws in that post, but I think the basic idea isn't wrong. And it a nice way to counterbalance the idea that INDIA IS EVIDENCE DEMOCRACY SUCKS, CHINA IS EVIDENCE AUTHORITARIANISM ROCKS. China is a politically historical idea, India has only ever been geographical aside from a few instances.
It's also a bit odd when you consider pieces of the India region have been variously broken off in the independence process and seen wildly different fates.Nepal: Absolute shithole that is quite quite backwards even for the region, ruled by a deeply conservative monarchy that eventually fell apart.
Bangladesh: Seething mass of people on terrible geography.
Pakistan: So you break off from India on religious grounds, but retain the ethnic instability
Sri Lanka: Defying the entire region and their own 25 year civil war, a success that might become first world in our lifetimes or even the next 20 years. Seriously, they're about as nice a place as Mexico is. Which for South Asia is INCREDIBLE.Soooo the picture there is like…if the Indian states became independent would it even work? The pieces that broke off show such wildly different stories. Some would probably thrive, some would fall apart. So break up India and you'd bless some, and hurt others.
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@Monkey:
Yeah that's the other part of the China story.
In East Asia the process has seen three stories.
1:Japan: When revived after WW2 as a democracy Japan found immense success.
2:SouthKorea/Taiwan: Built their current first world status during periods of results oriented authoritarianism, but as they became middle class reforms happened and resulted in democracies (though in very different ways).
3:China/Singapore: Authoritarian or at least benign one party rule for the latter building up results oriented success.Couldn't China just be walking the road walked by South Korea or Taiwan? Eventual democracy when things economically stabilize broadly enough? South Korea protested and rocked the boat until it's leaders gave in, and in Taiwan's case the leaders began reforms themselves. China could go both ways couldn't it?
There's some errors and flaws in that post, but I think the basic idea isn't wrong. And it a nice way to counterbalance the idea that INDIA IS EVIDENCE DEMOCRACY SUCKS, CHINA IS EVIDENCE AUTHORITARIANISM ROCKS. China is a politically historical idea, India has only ever been geographical aside from a few instances.
It's also a bit odd when you consider pieces of the India region have been variously broken off in the independence process and seen wildly different fates.Nepal: Absolute shithole that is quite quite backwards even for the region, ruled by a deeply conservative monarchy that eventually fell apart.
Bangladesh: Seething mass of people on terrible geography.
Pakistan: So you break off from India on religious grounds, but retain the ethnic instability
Sri Lanka: Defying the entire region and their own 25 year civil war, a success that might become first world in our lifetimes or even the next 20 years. Seriously, they're about as nice a place as Mexico is. Which for South Asia is INCREDIBLE.Soooo the picture there is like…if the Indian states became independent would it even work? The pieces that broke off show such wildly different stories. Some would probably thrive, some would fall apart. So break up India and you'd bless some, and hurt others.
China has historically had various attempts at moving in a "Smooth" transition towards democracy. All of them have ended in bloodshed or worse (Tiananmen, The struggle before the communist party advent and i think there was one during…dunno if it was Tang o Qing dynasty). They have the problem of being too big of a country and that they vary too greatly to move politically towards one goal (well, my opinion i guess).
And the part that gave me the stroke is that that definition of India that Tainty gave might as well apply to China in a different time period. They've had a long history filled with contempt towards other ethnicities on their territory. A few years ago they had that huge problem with the Uguir and they are not the only ones. At times it seems only the money and the Putonghua (Well, more like putongbun i guess?) is the thing keeping them together. China had at one time the problems India Currently has.
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@Monkey:
Soooo the picture there is like…if the Indian states became independent would it even work?
It probably would for the countries that had access to the coast; they have sizable populations and access to outside resources. The landlocked ones would probably be boned though.
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Tamil Nadu would be fine, because it's already a mostly homogenous state with a sucessful economy. Some northeastern states would probably join with Burma, so they'd be okay.
The rest would be a mess. Any breakup of India would cause many wars and result in enormous ethnic cleansing.
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China has historically had various attempts at moving in a "Smooth" transition towards democracy. All of them have ended in bloodshed or worse (Tiananmen,
The only time in history China actually attempted to pull off democracy it wasn't smooth, it was in the aftermath of the downfall of the monarchy.
Which lead to one of the guys involved in the revolution pulling a coup and sort of pushing himself to be the new monarch.
Which exactly happened in France with Mexico's one time nemesis Napoleon III! And as we all know France went on to not be a democracy?That's it! Just the Xinhai revolution! Which assuredly was not smooth.
The Tiananmen Square incident was not an organized or specifically democratic movement, it was many things gathered together and challenging the status quo among which interest in democracy existed. But it wasn't an attempt at transitioning democracy of any kind, let alone smooth. It was a bunch of unsatisfied students and urban strikers gathering spontaneously.The struggle before the communist party advent
Nope. Chiang Kai-Shek was noooo democratic leader. He also didn't really control all of China so much as controlled some of it and variously influenced warlord run areas. China was in hell of chaos between the fall of the monarchy and Communist control. The one true good thing Mao achieved was unifying China again (aside from Taiwan).
and i think there was one during…dunno if it was Tang o Qing dynasty).
The Xinhai revolution against the Qing. The only actual example.
They have the problem of being too big of a country
In what sense? Geography or population?
China is remarkably stable and whole across the board given both factors. Tibet and Xinjiang are large geographically but have very little contribution to China's population. Especially Tibet. Not to mention the restive Uyghur area is only really southern Xinkiang. The north part was uh…emptied awhile back of most of the natives.and that they vary too greatly to move politically towards one goal (well, my opinion i guess).
I can't think of any example of this in the Han population, which is 92% of China. Like even less than the US has lol. Like in spite of several civil wars in the past 200 years nothing was so geographically/culturally divisive as the American Civil War.
Like sure North and South China have cultural and other such differences, but not in that sort of way of having a thorn like that between them.–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Tamil Nadu would be fine, because it's already a mostly homogenous state with a sucessful economy. Some northeastern states would probably join with Burma, so they'd be okay.
Minority ethnicities joining Burma, is it opposite day?
The rest would be a mess. Any breakup of India would cause many wars and result in enormous ethnic cleansing.
The entire southern part is much more successful than most of the north, not just Tamil Nadu. Kerala is the frontrunner by a longshot.
Ethnicity is a confusing topic in India in the north, it gets very blurred where one ends and another begins. In the north central plains I don't even know what to call the people. A big bunch of Hindus who speak Hindi dialects?
I'm not sure on what fracture lines you expect ethnic cleansing, depends on what lines you expect a split.
Instead of states, what if India downsized and split along the Indo-European/Dravidian border?
Not sure the Indo-Europeans would be thrilled, the Dravidians would probably be happy though. -
@Monkey:
The only time in history China actually attempted to pull off democracy it wasn't smooth, it was in the aftermath of the downfall of the monarchy.
Which lead to one of the guys involved in the revolution pulling a coup and sort of pushing himself to be the new monarch.
Which exactly happened in France with Mexico's one time nemesis Napoleon III! And as we all know France went on to not be a democracy?That's it! Just the Xinhai revolution! Which assuredly was not smooth.
The Tiananmen Square incident was not an organized or specifically democratic movement, it was many things gathered together and challenging the status quo among which interest in democracy existed. But it wasn't an attempt at transitioning democracy of any kind, let alone smooth. It was a bunch of unsatisfied students and urban strikers gathering spontaneously.Nope. Chiang Kai-Shek was noooo democratic leader. He also didn't really control all of China so much as controlled some of it and variously influenced warlord run areas. China was in hell of chaos between the fall of the monarchy and Communist control. The one true good thing Mao achieved was unifying China again (aside from Taiwan).
The Xinhai revolution against the Qing. The only actual example.
In what sense? Geography or population?
China is remarkably stable and whole across the board given both factors. Tibet and Xinjiang are large geographically but have very little contribution to China's population. Especially Tibet. Not to mention the restive Uyghur area is only really southern Xinkiang. The north part was uh…emptied awhile back of most of the natives.I can't think of any example of this in the Han population, which is 92% of China. Like even less than the US has lol. Like in spite of several civil wars in the past 200 years nothing was so geographically/culturally divisive as the American Civil War.
Like sure North and South China have cultural and other such differences, but not in that sort of way of having a thorn like that between them.-Man, that's why i put quotations on smooth and aftewards talked about bloodshed. I guess it wasn't obvious. My bad.
-I wasn't referring to Chiang but to some reforms that were proposed during The Boxer rebellion (Of course, calling them a step towards democracy it's too big a generalization and my main souce of info there is Gene Lueng Yang). I refer to big geographically as in "The development of the country isn't totally uniform"
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-I wasn't referring to Chiang but to some reforms that were proposed during The Boxer rebellion (Of course, calling them a step towards democracy it's too big a generalization and my main souce of info there is Gene Lueng Yang). I refer to big geographically as in "The development of the country isn't totally uniform"
China's un-uniform development really has more to do with ocean/river access than anything else.
Are you talking about the Hundred Days Reforms? Those were before the Boxer rebellion and like a tiny grain of suggestion among them that never even got anywhere was sort of democratic.
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http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1750_reform.htm
Saying they never got anywhere is kinda losing a lot of what happened.
Edit: Oh wait, let me add disclaimers. "As i said previously this is one of the times something resembling of a transition to democracy was tried. I'm not affirming it was a succesfel or devoid of problems movement of reforms. I am only pointing towards a movement in history that can be used as an example of a movement that had democracitic tendencies of some sort (in the same way i'm not saying all players in this tended to what we are calling democracy Nowadays. Lego Figurines should only be played by children accompanied by adults since it can containt small pieces that can be swallowed and cause asphyxia. All Characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons,living or dead, is purely coincidental. This ride can't be accesed if you aren't at least 1.20 m in height. Caution, this toy may contain sharp edges. Jay-z Is an Illuminati. Happy Endings shouldn't have been cancelled. Treehouse of horror III is the best Halloween episode.
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@Monkey:
Yeah that's the other part of the China story.
In East Asia the process has seen three stories.
1:Japan: When revived after WW2 as a democracy Japan found immense success.
2:SouthKorea/Taiwan: Built their current first world status during periods of results oriented authoritarianism, but as they became middle class reforms happened and resulted in democracies (though in very different ways).
3:China/Singapore: Authoritarian or at least benign one party rule for the latter building up results oriented success.Couldn't China just be walking the road walked by South Korea or Taiwan? Eventual democracy when things economically stabilize broadly enough? South Korea protested and rocked the boat until it's leaders gave in, and in Taiwan's case the leaders began reforms themselves. China could go both ways couldn't it?
There's some errors and flaws in that post, but I think the basic idea isn't wrong. And it a nice way to counterbalance the idea that INDIA IS EVIDENCE DEMOCRACY SUCKS, CHINA IS EVIDENCE AUTHORITARIANISM ROCKS. China is a politically historical idea, India has only ever been geographical aside from a few instances.
It's also a bit odd when you consider pieces of the India region have been variously broken off in the independence process and seen wildly different fates.Nepal: Absolute shithole that is quite quite backwards even for the region, ruled by a deeply conservative monarchy that eventually fell apart.
Bangladesh: Seething mass of people on terrible geography.
Pakistan: So you break off from India on religious grounds, but retain the ethnic instability
Sri Lanka: Defying the entire region and their own 25 year civil war, a success that might become first world in our lifetimes or even the next 20 years. Seriously, they're about as nice a place as Mexico is. Which for South Asia is INCREDIBLE.Soooo the picture there is like…if the Indian states became independent would it even work? The pieces that broke off show such wildly different stories. Some would probably thrive, some would fall apart. So break up India and you'd bless some, and hurt others.
The states won't survive the massive financial debts it owes the central govt and dependant on for providing even the basic commodities. Many of the commodities are widely subsidized ever since the independance and the green revolution by the central government which has continually burnt their pockets (denting progress in other vital projects) and unwittingly prevented the states from going autonomous. There is also very less motivation to do that too.
Tamil Nadu would be fine, because it's already a mostly homogenous state with a sucessful economy. Some northeastern states would probably join with Burma, so they'd be okay.
The rest would be a mess. Any breakup of India would cause many wars and result in enormous ethnic cleansing.
The southern states got pretty much no reason to consider breaking up from the country apart from the differences in ideology and random state nationalism. Albeit the numerous amount of religious clashes that has been signified in the media (aided by an over sensationalism by the media too), the south has quite a lot of peaceful states as compared to their northern counterparts. Ethnic cleansing as I see it now can only occur between the majority hindu nationalistic groups against muslims and other religions if the leaders are idiotic enough to pursue such actions or support it. Thankfully the big guys are still a bit cautious till date to avoid any major backslash from the foreign leaders. RSS and some other right wing hindu fundamentalists can easily pursue fascism if not for the steady scrutiny of media and the PM keeping them in check. North eastern maoists and other rebels have been contained enough to not make them get involved in any significant uprising. So yes, statewise wars inside India is far from being a possibility than a religious uprising.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
@Monkey:
Instead of states, what if India downsized and split along the Indo-European/Dravidian border?
Not sure the Indo-Europeans would be thrilled, the Dravidians would probably be happy though.Although there is a lot of love-hate relationshil between the north/south sects, India is a lot dependant on the southern dravidian states due to the IT and manufacturing boom complimentd by the state govts' business friendly atmosphere. They would panic if states wanted to split up but its close to impossible. Also, due to the IT boom from the early 2000's north and south have pretty much mixed quite well and cultures have beem adopted breaking old stereotypical traditions. Its far from being chaotic.
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http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1750_reform.htm
Saying they never got anywhere is kinda losing a lot of what happened.
They never got anywhere.
The Qing dynasty was stubbornly conservative all the way up to the Xinhai revolution no matter how many Prince Gong's and intellectuals tried to complain about it.
The political reforms were failures in that they tried to reform the monarchy, which didn't really work, and then the monarchy was overthrown outright.
The military reforms were uh….do you want me to post all the major battles of the first Sino-Japanese war so we can all do collective spittakes at the grossly lopsided fatalities of each and every single one?
And then the cherry on top of the Boxer Rebellion where China essentially just looses it's mind at all the trauma caused by foreign powers, and it's own stagnant puttering government and then gets collectively bitchslapped by all the powers for it.
And was it the white guys that made it worst? Oh no no no. Because Japan, little baby backwards island fawning vassal state Japan, had now become stronger, more modernized, and more regionally relevant than CHINA.
Imagine if say...Guatemala suddenly rocketed to far greater riches and technology than you and then completely and inarguably kicked your ass and took the whole Yucatan. Now multiply that sense of "wtf" and national shame by five thousand.Ask pretty much any Chinese person about the 19th century up to the Xinhai in the 20th and they'll just bury their face in their hands and groan.
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@Monkey:
They never got anywhere.
The Qing dynasty was stubbornly conservative all the way up to the Xinhai revolution no matter how many Prince Gong's and intellectuals tried to complain about it.
The political reforms were failures in that they tried to reform the monarchy, which didn't really work, and then the monarchy was overthrown outright.
The military reforms were uh….do you want me to post all the major battles of the first Sino-Japanese war so we can all do collective spittakes at the grossly lopsided fatalities of each and every single one?
And then the cherry on top of the Boxer Rebellion where China essentially just looses it's mind at all the trauma caused by foreign powers, and it's own stagnant puttering government and then gets collectively bitchslapped by all the powers for it.
And was it the white guys that made it worst? Oh no no no. Because Japan, little baby backwards island fawning vassal state Japan, had now become stronger, more modernized, and more regionally relevant than CHINA.
Imagine if say...Guatemala suddenly rocketed to far greater riches and technology than you and then completely and inarguably kicked your ass and took the whole Yucatan. Now multiply that sense of "wtf" and national shame by five thousand.Ask pretty much any Chinese person about the 19th century up to the Xinhai in the 20th and they'll just bury their face in their hands and groan.
"I'm not affirming it was a succesfel or devoid of problems movement of reforms. I am only pointing towards a movement in history that can be used as an example of a movement that had democracitic tendencies of some sort"[1]
A big (sic) for all the typos lol. I would say i had to write "just Saying they never got anywhere is kinda losing a lot of what happened." But yeah, something is really lost in there and i don't even know anymore, lol. I mean, i think the editor lets me remark parts of the post in red.
[1]Vid. Previous post in the disclaimer right before i gave up on life. Jeezus.
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Why are even white guys mentioned? lol
Because predominately European powers smashed China all together to put down the Boxer Rebellion. But the one that hurt the most was Japan being part of that too.
Here have a funny picture of average soldiers from each nation that punched China's dick, also including a British Raj trooper for the heck of it.
Look at how much taller Americans and Brits were than everyone else back then lol.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Troops_of_the_Eight_nations_alliance_1900.jpgL-R: Brit, American, Australia, British Raj, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan
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So El país has an interesting article (even if succint) of how the media gives a lot of coverage to some tragedies and only skim others. Of course, they do this referencing the Univeristy Massacre of a few days back (Some photos of it have come up but holy shit i'm not linking those :( too horrible). Of course, you guys can't read spanish (Jesus, get on schedule guys :p ) but the article references some old articles that talk about this phenomena. I'm linking all.
http://verne.elpais.com/verne/2015/04/04/articulo/1428142200_147673.html (learn Spanish guys, a recent study says we are the happiest language :p )
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/06/ignore-congo-atrocities-africa-drc-horror
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So El país has an interesting article (even if succint) of how the media gives a lot of coverage to some tragedies and only skim others. Of course, they do this referencing the Univeristy Massacre of a few days back (Some photos of it have come up but holy shit i'm not linking those :( too horrible). Of course, you guys can't read spanish (Jesus, get on schedule guys :p ) but the article references some old articles that talk about this phenomena. I'm linking all.
http://verne.elpais.com/verne/2015/04/04/articulo/1428142200_147673.html (learn Spanish guys, a recent study says we are the happiest language :p )
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/06/ignore-congo-atrocities-africa-drc-horror
Spanish can't even win "Best Romance Language", how you gonna act like you're the world champion?
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@Monkey:
Spanish can't even win "Best Romance Language", how you gonna act like you're the world champion?
Jesus Pi Ma Wen, it was a joke. I reckon you and i will never be able to go have a beer together cause you will jump out of a window when i say something like "Pff, get out of here".
Also, the third link has graphic descriptions (some people here faint when they see that) but they are descriptions of something that really happened.
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Italian isn't as bitchy about the spelling vs pronounciation bit, and it sounds smooth.
They obviously take the crown
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Damn Zephos is having a ball.
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There's a reason my grandpa left China. Or several reasons.
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German for most fun language to be angry in
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@Monkey:
Spanish can't even win "Best Romance Language", how you gonna act like you're the world champion?
Geez, people likes to bombard on Spanish. What's up with that? And how does a language has to be the best?
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I really don't think MK was taking it that seriously…
His response was equivalent to rebutting a claim on who the most handsome guy in the world was. It's just banter, lol.
I swear I wanted to learn Spanish because it's soooo prevalent here in the U.S. but it hasn't worked out for me. I'm just going to leave it up to my future kids.
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I thought writing about how he would jump out of a window was a sure sign of not taking it seriously.
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German for most fun language to be angry in
After curbstomping Brazil in the World Cup why be angry anymore?
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German for most fun language to be angry in
Everything sounds so ominous.
rainbows, kittens, candy, puppies, Christmas, cartoons (English)
Regenbogen, Süßigkeiten, Kätzchen, Welpen, Weihnachten, Karikaturen (German) -
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Haha, Scientology is taking all the hits lately with the new documentary Going Clear out recently and SNL taking jabs at it too.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/news/snl-slams-scientology-scathing-skit-missing-members-040017994.html
Scientology hasn't been in the news this much since that South Park episode.
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Italian isn't as bitchy about the spelling vs pronounciation bit, and it sounds smooth.
They obviously take the crown
Italian far and away.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
@joekido:
Geez, people likes to bombard on Spanish. What's up with that? And how does a language has to be the best?
Jesus Pi Ma Wen, it was a joke. I reckon you and i will never be able to go have a beer together cause you will jump out of a window when i say something like "Pff, get out of here".
Beign a romance language is already being ranked realy high, no idea wtf you and primersu are complaing about??
the only reason english has any style at all is because it's like 50% romance (though skeleton is straight germanic)
fucking germanic languages are all doofy sounding things, or cold and awkward at besst maybe
dutch sounds like 60's batman sound effex, swedish and them sound like rubber rocks, and german is also known as the black speech of Mordoryou in the fukin country club and you two bitchin about not being as rich as italian??
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Everytime i expect less and less of the hang of AP on figure of speeches or even everyday talk and still i get dissapointed*
*I'm not being serious guys. Please don't think i'm even complaining….You're not even here anymore are you?
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@Monkey:
Among the highest members of the party during the Tiananmen Square events you had a near 50/50 split between the dudes who were like "Put the fuckers down", and guys who were generally interested in engaging with the students and strikers.
Oh and in keeping with this theme, and maybe offsetting the "LEE KUAN HEW SYMBOL OF SINO AUTHORITY", Zhao Ziyang has finally been allowed an official burial ten years after his death.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1757115/late-chinese-leader-zhao-ziyang-can-be-laid-rest-decade-after-death
Zhao Ziyang existed, and existed within the CCP party structure, and was one of the major movers and shakers who carried out Deng's economic reforms in the 80's.
And he wasn't even alone in consideration of the protesters concerns.Here's the leadership of China when Tiananmen happened minus Deng Xiaoping who to his credit was busy directing China from an unceremonious sort of vague non-official position of leader and in that respect helping kill the insane history of leadership cult Mao had used.
Zhao is the top left. Other dudes who had sympathies with the protests of one sort or another were Hu Qili in the top right, the guy in the top center right and the crazy haired looking dude below him also had sympathies to smaller extents. The top center right guy is Qiao Shi, who made his agenda reform toward rule of law.
However see the guy in the top center left? That's Li Peng, it's he who represented the conservative factions and the one who supported the crackdown. You can consider it Zhao vs Li, and unfortunately the pendulum in Deng's mind swang toward Li.Check this article here on internal politics at the time.
Choice quote.The records reveal that if left to their own preferences the three-man majority of the Politburo Standing Committee would have voted to persist in dialogue with the students instead of declaring martial law. At the crucial Politburo Standing Committee meeting of May 17, two of the five members, Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili, voted against martial law. The third-ranking member, Qiao Shi, abstained. We can see from his remarks that he was not in favor of using force. But Qiao, by abstaining, and Zhao, by offering his resignation, deferred to the elders' decision in favor of martial law.
I do not believe in the inevitable authoritarianism of China.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
china is importat no matter who or where yu are, so they go, so does much of the worlds fate
if neo-authoritarianism is on the rise, as soon as china doesn't do it it will not be on the rise lol
if china becomes first world, 1/5 of the world has entered the first world, if they dont fix their pollution we all gonna suffer that issue
if this all seems exhausting and conmplex its not really so bad,china 20th cnetury fastinating stuff!! Cultural revolution is like a crazy insane movie that couldn't happened but did, the rise in so few years is also cartoonis
modern china is great thing to be nerd about–- Update From New Post Merge ---
also once they get their cultural soft power engine running (which kinda needs the government to be less authoritarian by a lot), imagine what we've seen from japan and sk times a billionb
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Cool, thanks for the info. Will check it out.
Also if you guys want some retelling of the china story culturally through 20th century you can check this book. I put on the spanish version cause i don't know if it exists in english but it's a pretty famous author and musician so i reckon it must be (The cultural revolution part still makes my blood boil and shed a few tears). There's also a comic telling through a personal viewpoint by a chinese cartoonist. Let me search it and i will edit it later.
Here it is. There are three volumes. I've never found the second one so i can't really judge the whole serie but from what i've read it's pretty solid.
Edit: ooooh, a review http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/12/chinese-life-li-kunwu-p-otie-review
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One does wonder how Swedish sounds to foreign ears.
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One does wonder how Swedish sounds to foreign ears.
To a Hungarian, it sounds like you're singing all the time. At least, the basic dialect. Finno-Swedish sounds more familiar to our ears (it's like an easier to pronounce-version of Swedish).
Norwegian sounds like pairing up Swedish and English.
And Danish still sounds like they're trying to talk with a potato stuck in their throats. -
One does wonder how Swedish sounds to foreign ears.
Beautiful in both writing and speaking. However, once swedes begin talking english, that's a different story.
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Small but important/funny news: GOP nominee for NC senate is outed as a former drag queen.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/05/05/drag-queen-gop/"Ohhhh, so you support this anti-gay marrige bill, sir? Tell that to your gay bar friends."
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One does wonder how Swedish sounds to foreign ears.
I'm sorry you so walked into this one.
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http://nypost.com/2015/04/06/shows-like-black-ish-perpetuate-racist-stereotypes/
[qimg]http://media.giphy.com/media/3o85xtIET2NiGMYzHG/giphy.gif[/qimg]
Hmm….
Guhh, the only thing equally as stupid as the far right is the far left tendency to scream at everything and call it racist, sexist, homophobic or whatever is on the list that day.
Or at least I'm assuming this is the case due to the quality of the piece.
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Hmm….
Guhh, the only thing equally as stupid as the far right is the far left tendency to scream at everything and call it racist, sexist, homophobic or whatever is on the list that day.
Or at least I'm assuming this is the case due to the quality of the piece.
That article is right wing as heck dude. It's whining about talking about race and quotes Donald fucking Trump.
“We find it racist, socially damaging and offensive based on the concept that nonstereotypical black people are less their race than others, that hip hop culture is all blacks are supposed to embrace, and that culture and race are one and the same,’’ the petition reads.
You have to be the absolute most white bread came over on the Mayflower motherfucker around to not understand or have experienced even a smidgeon of the matter of cultural assimilation in regards to generational differences in your family. Which is the whole fuckin' joke and genuine topic of interest that that show (which I barely even watch) is about. But of course, Donald Trump.
Even random white Southerners probably these days could relate to "Hm I sure seem to talk with more of a general American accent than my parents and their parents" or whatever.
The show isn't damning anyone lol. -
@Monkey:
That article is right wing as heck dude. It's whining about talking about race and quotes Donald fucking Trump.
I can see what you're getting at, but this reads far too much like any of the hundreds upon hundreds of Tumblr blogs, posts, ect that go on and on about "cultural appropriation".
But I guess that's where horseshoe theroy applies.
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The article was posted in the New York Post, so there's pretty much no way it'll be far left