Hmm…. Those “hey Jack Ma is around again guys… he’s totally ok, wasn’t detained or in danger because he was getting big enough to challenge the government so you should feel good about this!” Articles’ timings seem interesting now

Soup de day!

The number of different advertisers who sponsor them however has stayed at an even four plus the same damn ad for peoples podcasts you have no interest in listening to.

I mean you could prove me wrong really easily by condemning the crimes against humanity that the other poster stipulated. Or saying a few things that about how the zero Covid policy is overreaching and a failing policy.

Edit: lol, so to be clear you can’t say that. A clear seemingly easy option to prove me wrong and instead runs and blocks me. Weird.

Respectfully they very much do want to prove something to the world or else they wouldn’t have farms posting prepared refutations on social media, refusing to let people have unsupervised interviews with Uyghurs inside the country and threatening other countries with retaliation if they talk about it. If they’re trying to prove they don’t care and are just going to do what’s best for them they’re doing a phenomenally poor job of showing it. All of their actions scream a need for approval. You don’t need to do any of that shit when you’re strong and confident in yourself. You do that when you’re self conscious about how people view you.

All these ridiculously transparent karma manipulations and comments that very obviously aren’t trying to come to an objective and consistent argument, but just are making whatever argument seems to win even if it acknowledges crimes against humanity… I don’t know why people would do that. It seems such an admission of weakness and cringy wanting people to view them positively to everyone. Please view us as the picked on country, don’t worry about the crimes against humanity… yeesh I honestly don’t get why the people doing it don’t recognize that. I can’t imagine what bs they’re told that makes it seem worthwhile and not embarrassing.

Yes, that IS where proof comes in. Which is why it’s beyond bizarre that china is not openly and freely letting people tour the sites whenever they want without chaperones. Having chaperones that direct the investigation there fundamentally makes this a problem. China could pull a masterful turn on the west by opening up those locations completely and saying “here is proof there is no validity to your claims, we aren’t scared”.

But they aren’t.

They’re doing the stupid guilty looking thing that’s making everyone question using them as a supplier MORE than they were before. They’re demanding terms. It’s like someone being accused of stealing stuff by their neighbor and when people in the neighborhood ask to search their house they say “ok but I have to be with you the whole time, if you ask questions I don’t like then I’ll threaten you with retaliation and I get to choose what rooms you look in. And by the way if you talk about this it’s because you actually want my job”. You CAN do that, but it’s not out of bounds to say that to everyone else that makes you look super guilty of something. You can’t have both doing stuff that makes you look super guilty AND demand that people can’t talk about how you look super guilty. That’s ridiculous and deserves to be ridiculed. If china doesn’t want to be ridiculed and have this constant thing over their heads it’s entirely within Chinas power to fix that by just doing anything other than the ridiculous saber rattling and social media influencing that they’ve been focusing on instead of… yknow… solving the crime against humanity in their backyard.

I can tell you the first thing we can do as average citizens which is to not jump to saying things like “we need more proof” on social media when we’re taking it as given that atrocities and crimes against humanity are happening. Because that appears to be done in an attempt to minimize what we’re agreeing is a crime against humanity which seems a super weird thing for a person to do.

Asking anyone to figure out how to solve governmentally driven atrocities before we can begin to discuss those atrocities plainly and without hypocritical “well there are other atrocities in the world too” stuff seems a request that ONLY benefits the people doing the atrocity.

It concerns me that we’re discussing that unless the word “genocide” is used that it’s not a big deal. The words “crimes against humanity” were used. That’s still a big deal.

We are just two random people on a social media network… why on earth are we discussing “political bodies having interests”? We’re not part of the government. Why the hell would we be discussing this topic like we are?!

It’s insane that unless people are literally being gassed to death that that doesn’t warrant discussion and a coordinated effort to stop it. You’re supposed to, as a human being, stop that before it gets anywhere close to that.

I’m unclear about your last sentence. If we’re taking as fact that atrocities ARE happening then as a human being I want them called out. Period. All this conspiracy non-cited stuff about the cia doing this or that or pretending the multi country comments about Huwaii having demonstrable spyware doesn’t exist is secondary. Human beings are being involved in atrocities and we’re at the point of saying “well yeah but why do we care about this one particular atrocity so much”? Wtf?

I honestly can’t understand the sentiment of “yeah atrocities are happening but why are we interested in these atrocities in particular?” They’re atrocities! If they’re not atrocities then China should be eager to show the us for fools and invite the whole world to freely and without restrictions go to any center they wish. If they ARE atrocities then what are we talking about? None of us normies should be more for ANY government, US or china, to the point of wanting to hand wave away atrocities. I was fucking furious when information on Guantanamo bay came out and I expressed that plainly despite it being my country and despite other countries using it for political capital. Like seriously, what are we doing where atrocities don’t matter if some country might benefit from pointing them out? That’s what human beings are supposed to do. Sociopaths are the ones saying we should ignore it if someone benefits and it would make us look bad.

I’d be fine it more atrocities around the world were called out… including ones in the us. Go freaking nuts, maybe they’ll stop doing it then. That’s the only sane perspective a normal human being should possible possess.

Respectfully if your argument is “it’s a bad thing to ask why on things that don’t make sense”…. Then your argument seems pretty damn weak. If China is in the right here there should be some logically consistent reasons for those questions. And if people are convinced in the absence of those logically consistent reasons then… ok I guess but they definitely shouldn’t be portraying themselves as the ones “asking for proof”.

Like… if china wants to seem to the world like the reasonable one, this whole “just accept what you’re being told and stop asking questions” mentality is… hoping that a bunch of people are seriously subservient and easily convinced and I don’t think that’s the case for most people nowadays.

Edit: I’m not sure blocking me because you want to preemptively assume what I’m writing is wrong or pointless is the best argument for you being logical or right either…

Can they? They’re asking what the logic is for the us getting in on xinjiang’s textile industry when the investigation started. I think that’s a reasonable question for people to ask cause I don’t think the us has expressed interests in becoming a cheap textile manufacturer

I’d be more inclined to believe the logic behind these refutations if A) it wasn’t pretty apparent that some karma mucking was being done cause who on earth is looking this deep into this thread to upvote their response… and B) if the logic was internally consistent. But it isn’t… the US wasn’t interested in the industries xinjiang had when these claims first arose and if the us wanted to stir up trouble why on earth would they choose to do it with a comparably tiny minority group that’s currently as locked down as it can possibly be. Would be like trying to take down the US by riling up the Amish.

… respectfully a bunch of those statements seem very specific talking points on this subject that would be surprising for a random person just happening to comment on this thread to know…

And a lot of them, specifically the huwaii comment in particular seem like talking points in a general narrative rather than something specific to this particular topic. Are we keeping to this topic or are we peppering general statements with the hope of making an emotional argument rather than one that stays on point?

There’s no argument that makes sense in tanking xinjiang for its solar panels. The investigation into xinjiang occurred years before their solar panel developments were anywhere close to a main export. Textiles were the primary export when this investigation started and it’s unclear if your argument is that the US wants to disrupt the cheap textile market and that’s why they started these investigations…

I would argue our political objectives to do what? China getting mad over this and stopping supply of cheap goods would devastate the us economy. I keep seeing “we’re doing this for political reasons!” Used as an argument but I don’t understand how it’s a logical one. Looking too deeply into foreign cheap labor in general would destroy the us economy how is it possibly in our political interest to do so?

If the US wanted to get into a tiff with china they could point to very clear broad human rights abuses done against the citizenry at large… they don’t need to focus on one minority group that the majority of the country could care less about. It doesn’t make sense when you think about the ramifications of pissing off the supplier you politically need to sustain your own wealth. Why would any politician risk ruining the trade agreements they likely need to maintain their own rich lifestyles?

While it’s always good to question I don’t know that anyone is posting a reasonable alternative. It seems the only thing people WOULD accept is a China funded research group which… seems ridiculous on its face if they’re the ones doing it. It’s not ok if the proof comes from Australia or the US or England or… only if it comes from the groups which have a particular interest in NOT investigating this issue. The people passionate about this particular issue are of course going to be interrelated because it’s not like xinjiang Uyghur investigations are like… Harry Potter fandoms where there’s going to be multiple independent ones cropping up spontaneously. Those interested in Investigating human rights abuses in a particular region of China is going to be a pretty niche set of people.

It’s like a mule with a spinning wheel…

It’s a real Ship of Theselon style head scratcher.

At first I was like “wow that’s a real risky deep cut joke to make for the generally non comic reading crowd”…. Then I realized there was a Netflix version now for people to watch that weren’t kids bizarrely attracted to the crazy person covers of a comic in the grown up section of a comic store 30 some years ago. The normalization of people knowing about comics has been super weird.

You absolutely nailed that face paint!

I think those pics are dumb because both Ghislane and Epstein frequently appeared with celebrities just to appear with celebrities. However I don’t think it’s hate to generally be angry at child sex traffickers. It’s just silly to try to insinuate something from those pictures. However I AM angry that no one seems to be trying to see if there’s more to those pictures… we know of almost no rich people that used ghislanes services when there absolutely were some that did. I would think we’d be angriest that famous child predators ARE out there but seem be protected from exposure. I don’t give a damn if they’re democrat republican or Martian. I don’t like sexual predators regardless of political affiliation. That’s not cool… but to your point, those pictures aren’t actual evidence of anything.

It’s not hate to quote what people say or to provide statistics for the things that are inaccurate. I think what you might be seeking is equality in people praising a certain person but that’s not exactly a reasonable expectation. Some people might be going out of their way to make enemies with people, for example by saying entire races are rapists and murderers, or saying an entire sexual orientation are child predators. When you’re seeking to make enemies of people in order to be popular… you’re going to have more enemies than friends. That’s just a reality of life. It would honestly be weird if it were otherwise. Perhaps if people wanted an equal appreciation in places like r politics they could try making party platforms focused on being friendly and inclusive to people instead of making party platforms intentionally trying to say certain people are less than human shouldn’t be learned about and, in some cases, shot for being who they are.

Otherwise we’re saying there should be an equal amount of people who like the people saying some of the people on Reddit are subhuman or should have less rights. Like what do you think is gonna happen? Why aren’t bullies liked by equal amounts of people? Tons of those people up and downvote shit. If you want people liking your political stuff on Reddit maybe don’t make pissing off a group that makes up 1/5 of the population for one part of your platform and half of the population for the other!

Yeah I do. I would prefer not to. I want to go back to a time when I don’t have to care about politics. But we don’t get there by not having these conversations. We get there by discussing and talking about our fears. And I hope, by my contributions in that subreddit, by making sure those discussions aren’t just emotion based but have research backing evidence and citations for those discussions and fears and calling out when anyone regardless of political leaning makes an unfounded statement. I hope that that’s not a bad thing. I don’t know for sure, but it seems better than the alternative.

I think the difference here between your example of veganism (of which there are reasonable pros and cons) and MTG (who has repeatedly called for her political opponents to be killed and who has repeatedly gone to white supremacy rallies…) is a matter of extremism. Calling for your opponents to be killed should be a thing we all agree is wrong. Going to white supremacy rallies should be a thing we all agree is wrong. That shouldn’t be a thing anybody at any party should be saying is a topic with two sides. This person seems to be hosting their party, it’s their choice if they want to make that a discussion. I think it’s a worthwhile discussion to have.

Haha have a good one!

I’m sorry, we’re somewhat drifting here. The celebrity posts are a symptom of “everyone’s angry at politicians doing shit that isn’t (or shouldn’t be) related to politics.” Make politicians stop calling certain groups of people less than human and you’ll probably have fewer celebrities that appeal to those groups of people feeling the need to tell those people that they aren’t less than human.

Respectfully I think it’s a problem when anyone gets their house broken into. I don’t really find a need to jump to diminish it when it’s a person I don’t like. The fact that we’re at a point where some people DO feel the need to say “people get their houses broken into all the time, you only…” might point to a problem that might make reasonable people scared enough continuously that blowing off a little steam at a party seems a reasonable way to maintain sanity.

1/3 of one particular party agrees that violence is needed to solve the problems of America and 1/5 of the country believes in QAnon [1]. That’s not a minority. That’s a scary large percentage. Imagine one out of every five people you see in a grocery ok with the belief that they might need to commit violence to solve the problems america faces… I think it’s reasonable to be slightly concerned about that.

[1] https://www.prri.org/research/competing-visions-of-america-an-evolving-identity-or-a-culture-under-attack/

I think probably the best way to see fewer political posts is for politicians to not do things that piss so many people off. I would suspect we wouldn’t see nearly as many posts if politicians were just… you know… focusing on balancing the budget or attempting to bring back jobs instead of saying group X is trying to have sex with children or trying to ban books because the people we normally would all agree were assholes are made uncomfortable by Harry Potter. Politicians aren’t supposed to only appeal to half the country… the reason you’re seeing so many people mad is because they are.

Everyone loses their train of thought. Unless you’re arguing you’ve never lost your train of thought when you’ve been coasting on a few hours of sleep while traveling across the country I think it might be worthwhile to grant some people some slack, regardless of political orientation. I hate it when non republicans do it too, it’s a ridiculous thing to focus on as opposed to say, their policies.

Everyone focusing on the scope or whatever and I’m just impressed with someone’s dedication to their Thing costume from Addams family.