Afro_Vacancy wrote: ↑6 days ago
No, China is gradually building a very impressive base of infrastructure. Not just roads but also airports, trains, universities, laboratories, and hospitals.
It is true that there are examples off buildings falling, but that happens. They're growing pains, all countries have a few infrastructure disasters. Do you know how long Massachusetts took to build the big dig? But in the big picture they are doing quite well. Their rate of growth has been high for several decades. This is a google image link for the Shanghai skyline:
It looks like a few of the buildings are still standing.
The Venezuela argument is hypothetical. We'll see how much damage they suffer from those events.
I don't know if you're unaware or it's unintentional but the real estate scams of China is a major issue in the country, and has been repeating itself for nearly 2 decades and shows no sign of slowing down. This isn't some infrastructure accident that happens here and there, it's completely intentional and part of their rip off culture with the victims being the middle classes who save up for decades and don't know better.
Is there a major city in the world that hasn't drastically changed and modernised in the last few decades? I guess Thailand and Vietnam have huge infrastructures too. That skyline you're parading is built off the exact same scams I'm referring to, and unlike in your country, those people's millions are not resulting in bank and student loans to the lower rungs of society.
When someone spends a few grand on a sweater then the extra tax goes towards fixing that pothole outside the shop, the remaining profit goes to the shop, who in turn spends that money on other goods that also slices tax from it. The money doesn't vamoose or somehow end up back in a sweatshop, it's called consumer confidence, and it's a very difficult balance to maintain, but it's really disillusioning to me that you liken it to needlessly breaking windows.
Venezuela isn't hypothetical when major Chinese diplomats have been visiting the capital for months now, as well as the government holding emergency meetings any time a news story breaks (including the recent talks of a coup).
I'm trying to get my head around how the term "hypothetical" could apply to that, really.
But even if it is nothing to you and it turns out to be nothing to the Chinese in the end, it says a lot when they are anxious and desperately monitoring the fate of a third world country.
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Afro_Vacancy wrote: ↑6 days ago
With respect to re-education camps, the USA has the world's largest prison population. A heck of a lot of Black men go to jail, for very long sentences, for trivial non-crimes such as marijuana possession. Both are awful, and neither side has the moral high ground.
Hahaha, OK so imprisoning people for breaking the law is just as bad as openly and blatantly illegal "re-education" camps where minorities are tortured. Both as bad as each other.
America desperately needs prison reform no doubt and genuinely heartbreaking judicial decisions are the norm, but you do know it's ok to realise your country isn't as shitty as some other terrible countries? It doesn't make you more enlightened, and balanced, to downplay the atrocities of other cultures, and act as if your fellow countrymen are just as corrupt and barbaric? Because they aren't, and neither are a lot of developed countries.
It just stinks of "you know we could all learn a thing or two from those wise foreigners" yeah like 95% of the country being in poverty, having a gigantic population and no clue how to prosper with it. Great.
Oh wait sorry it's actually about only half the country now that's "impoverished", because their standard of poverty is living on 3 dollars a day.
We should stop buying stupid items and stop eating our cheeseburgers and learn how a real society runs from the wise azns, look at the skyline of one of their few major cities. Fucking hell.
