• scrollbars@sh.itjust.works
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    2 years ago

    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
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      2 years ago

      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
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        2 years ago

        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.

        • socialjusticewizard@sh.itjust.works
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          2 years ago

          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.

      • iie@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        it’s also possible China censored the internet as a form of protectionism. social networks tend to form monopolies because people go wherever everyone else is. whichever state that network is based in then gets a boost to its tech industry

    • God@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      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
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        2 years ago

        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
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          2 years ago

          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
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            2 years ago

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

            • MoistBalls@sh.itjust.works
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              2 years ago

              Honestly, you’ve got some recommendations? I’m actually more into non-fiction, but I really gotta start practicing my Chinese more. I wish more books adhered to the traditional character set and the top to bottom format though.

              • God@sh.itjust.works
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                2 years ago

                I was trying to learn some Chinese the other day to read some of the raw wordings in Ascending, Do Not Disturb. The novel itself is not amazing, although I did like it a lot, but the translators left some terminology untranslated and I had some fun researching how to read that.

                I can’t recommend Chinese sci-fi or nonfiction, haven’t read any, I only read fantasy novels. My favorites are Coiling Dragon and Douluo Dalu. If you can read Chinese then why not try those lmao. I wish I could read Chinese. I wouldn’t spend so much time finding translations.

                • MoistBalls@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 years ago

                  I will say that most Westerners will find Chinese much easier to learn than Japanese. You only need to learn about 100 characters to understand 70% and then 1000 to understand like 95% of stuff.

                  I mean you probably wrote like 50 words in your reply, how hard could 100 be right?

              • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works
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                2 years ago

                There are a couple xianxia novels. Reverend Insanity (incomplete banned by the ccp but has some of the best word building and intelligent writting), Lord of Mysteries (more western fantasy lovecraftian mystery) and Forty Millennium of Cultivation (has 40k elements in it). Non fiction isn’t really popular probably because anything non fiction in China that has anything to do with history is at risk due to censors and people in the west aren’t really interested in reading ccp bootlicking.

              • scrollbars@sh.itjust.works
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                2 years ago

                Haha I can’t read a drop of Chinese, but the one that everyone tends to recommend as a gateway is The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Haven’t read it yet but I did watch Wandering Earth on netflix, which is based on a short story by the same author.

            • God@sh.itjust.works
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              2 years ago

              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.

                • God@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 years ago

                  Actuall xianxia novels

                  1. Coiling Dragon
                  2. Douluo Dalu
                  3. I Shall Seal The Heavens

                  More like a parody: My Disciple Died Yet Again

                  Western imitation: Cradle by Will Wright

                  A couple funny amateur western satires I enjoyed:

                  1. Beware of Chicken
                  2. Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4

                  My first xianxia was very shitty but I enjoyed it, it’s called Martial God Asura. “Very shitty” is not an understatement, it sucks, but I enjoyed “watching” the story’s landscapes in my mind’s eye.

                  • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works
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                    2 years ago

                    Coiling dragon is a classic. I forgot about Douluo Dalu that was a very interesting novel with the powers and assassination traps or whatever they were, pretty creative. I’ve always like Renegade Immortal more than ISSTH.

                    Mine are.

                    1. Reverend Insanity
                    2. Lord of Mysteries
                    3. World of cultivation/Avalon of 5 elements.

                    I read the first book or part of cradle and did not like it, I even got banned from novel translation because I said I found it mid because apparently Will was a “friend of the sub” 🙄. Guess the cringe mods aren’t as bad as r/progressivefantasy which is run by a bunch of authors that just banned people from posting books with AI generated covers.

                    I remember when we were getting like 20 chapters a day+ of Martial God Asura on r/lightnovels. Those were the days. Good novels good discussion good sub, too bad all that fell apart with pateron chapters and wuxiaword turning to shit.

                  • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works
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                    2 years ago

                    ahahha now ban any insults about your favorite authors and ai covers and you will have replicated reddit exactly 😂

      • nLuLukna @sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        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
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          2 years ago

          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
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            2 years ago

            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
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              2 years ago

              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?