this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026
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China seems to have positive and negative characteristics. For the non-rich it seems slightly better than the US and worse than (say) Norway. They’re still imperialist although they seem more inclined to use soft power and economic relationships rather than warfare.
Greetings from Hanoi. China kills Vietnamese and Philippine fisherman and other mariners each year using their paramilitary shadow fleet. China is also a big place and the difference between non-rich in a developed province and non-rich in the rural provinces is extreme. In the last decade, the size of the middle class in places like Shanghai has shrunk dramatically and was arguably never even on par with similar level workers in the USA.
The point is not that you need to unquestioningly think that China is the most evil country on earth. The point is that there absolutely are a notable subset of leftists (just wander over to .ml if you want to find them) who will dismiss literally any criticism of China as "Western propaganda" and basically act like they're absolute paragons of good. Those are the people being called out here.
Turns out geopolitics isn't simple.
Unless we're talking about nuking France.
Maybe we could discuss around a croissant first?
Carful, France is the only nuclear power with an explicit nuclear first strike doctrine.
fire ze missiles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides
BYD.
Not sure how accurate the numbers are but this seems to show suicide rates per 100,000 are at 8.9 for China, and 15.6 for the U.S.
That might actually be more about the guns than the despair
True, but people who want to die will find a way. When I was younger I remember there was a sudden influx of people who realized you could speed into the back of an 18 wheeler and the hood/bottom of your car would go under, and the payload crate would crush your head/upper body near instantly.
When you're really depressed, simple barriers like that can make a big difference. I believe antidepressants can sometimes cause suicide because the patient finally feels ready to go out of their daily routine and get it done. And I can tell you anecdotally that if my mom kept a gun in my house I'd have been dead for over 20 years now. But all my options were unreliable or painful, so I just hid in my hole instead.
I agree. I've been 18 for near 19 years now, and have owned at least 1 gun for 17 of them. The 1 year was a choice when I was depressed, not the only time I was... But I understand your thoughts there.
Hope you're doing better now. Depression and suicide fucking suck, I've lost too many close family and friends to it. I'm fighting that black dog now too.
Human behaviour is formed by both individual traits and their environment. When there are easy and effective suicide options available, suicide numbers tend to be higher. See e.g. https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/about-740000-global-deaths-suicide-occur-annually-thats-one
That number probably doesn't even count the suicide by cop. Lots of black men do stupid shit to get people to shoot them too, Ive heard it said
Yep. Twice I've had black dudes try to suicide-by-cop on me and twice they failed to achieve it. They apologized afterward, admitting that they assumed the stereotype was true and not only was their death guaranteed but I wouldn't feel anything about it.
Both would have likely just been recorded as "attempted murder" on me and "justified shooting" without their words after the fact indicating they were attempting suicide.
I also wonder if drugs are as widely available? Some people just take a bunch of pills.
Not sure about pills, but most of East Asia has a special hatred for drugs because of the opium crisis back in the 1800s or so. Sometimes I wonder if all the fentanyl coming from China or made with Chinese precurso ingredients is subtle revenge.
ok, so significantly better than the US
Yeah, that was 16 years ago and I think that was actually highly publicized and ended up changing things in favor of workers.
China also has a very fast justice system where there's no jury so they just put you in front of a judge and then shoot you out back.
But I've just read stuff on the internet and don't have much first hand experience so hopefully people with more first hand knowledge can correct this. Also open to new kinds of propaganda, both sides ya know
Yes, I'm sure their workers rights are so much better now. I'm sure BYD in China is totally different from the near slavery from BYD in Hungary.
Definitely no wage slavery in the US
We have problems to work on. Things here are far from ideal.
But China is not the right direction. I'd rather be here than China.
I doubt working for BYD is any worse than working for Amazon. China just has more manufacturing jobs which tend to suck more than other jobs and exploit workers in more visible ways. It is still the case that by most metrics (quality of life, affordability of homes, income inequality, etc.) China is better. That doesn't mean they don't exploit workers or that we should adopt their system, because it has flaws of its own that we can learn from. IMO it was a mistake to require that all labor unions be formalized under the ACFTU (All-China Federation of Trade Unions). By banning independent unions the state becomes a magnet for corruption and a barrier to working class progress. The business community forms relationships with government and is able to exert influence over the ACFTU to control workers. That being said, even a bureaucratic union constrained by the state is better than no union at all because they at least have to maintain the appearance of protecting the interests of the working class.
84 hours a week is worse than anything Amazon has done. And we need to fix Amazon.
This is a perfect analogy. Amazon is bad. BYD is much worse.
People work multiple jobs and can still barely afford rent, our homeless population is way higher, we have the highest amount of incarcerated %of the population in the entire world, etc etc.