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China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

bbc.com

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Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#71

Post by ardy42 »

adolph wrote: post #69
ardy42 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, there are some things that need to be stopped like the endless wars on the other side of the world, the extrajudicial drone bombing of their own citizens, the lawless surveillance, militarized seat of government, ramming civilian cargo vessels with battleships, the list of things to stop goes in and on. Of course an Adolph would try to distract focus from a oppressive unashamedly authoritarian regime towards…

My apologies if I caused offense. In terms of focus I advocate for the power of "and" although I disagree with your characterization of the problems raised as "smaller inward-focused." The wars and droning are not small nor inward-focused. The ramming was referred to in gallows humor as I don't think the Navy is so incompetent that they would think ramming cargo vessels would be effective, just incompetent enough to…

> The g-parent comment asserts that "China must be stopped" and I started thinking about what aspect(s) of China do they want to stop. Certainly they don't want to end the country and its inhabitants. Maybe they want to stop some behaviors that cause harm in the world? What behaviors would those be? The comment uses the past tense "stopped" instead of "stop" so the implication is that some not-China entity performs the stopping.

> So what behavior to stop and what entity to do the stopping?

Honestly, it sounds like you're playing ignorant here. Those aren't hard questions to answer, though the post you're commenting on likely had some government/nation confusion. I suggest you spend some quality time with Wikipedia and a good newspaper.

> Are the actions necessary to stop the behavior proportionate and are they likely effective? To predict this, I look to the track record of previous attempts to "stop" nations and it isn't pretty. My comment came from thinking about what has happened in the US over the course of this century as it has embarked on ever newer crusades to stop this or that.

The US had at least couple of successes in the last century. Anyway, your thrust seems to be towards fatalism, which is perspective that should be rejected out of hand.

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#72

Post by AnimalMuppet »

david38 wrote: post #57
A12-B wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things to note here, first that this isn't really different to any other part of the world. There's always some concern about feminisation of men by (usually) older people who had a rough childhood in the war or something and now project their ideals onto others. The other thing to note, although its not particularly interesting, is that there's going to be a media bias against china from the west in general.

Unrelated to the article, but let’s not forget that leeching of estrogen into the ecosystem. This is a real thing and very measurable by ecologists. The US Army also tests such things as sperm count and has seen a rapid decline. So the real solution is less pollution :)

Hmm. Sudden off-topic thought: I regularly hear about the decline in violent crime, and hear it attributed to the end of leaded gasoline. Could it be due to falling sperm count instead (or due to the cause of the falling count)?

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#73

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ginko wrote: post #48
mytailorisrich wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, "the last 200 years" is not the same as "200 years ago". Second, history is what shapes cultures and people's views of the world. You cannot discuss and hope to make sense of what's going on in a country without understanding its history. The BLM movement, arguments about links to slavery, China's international policy, just to name a few, are all stemming directly from events that occurred in the past and cont…

>And third, there is nothing wrong with nationalism Welp, I'm out.

You might finish reading the sentence...

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#74

Post by AnimalMuppet »

toyg wrote: post #36
inglor_cz wrote: post #4

Whatever China does lately seems to be tailored to inch its society toward more expansive mode and military values. A lot of nationalism in the curriculum, the "wolf warriors" ideas etc. I do not think they are doing this for shits and giggles. They invest a lot overseas and must be aware that one day, one of their client countries will rebel and will need to be subdued militarily to protect the investments and dissu…

> Whatever China does lately seems to be ... doing what countries run by a dictator tend to do. I don't think we fully understand how much Xi Jinping has changed the PRC. The Chinese system was already autocratic, but Xi turned it into full-blown dictatorship. There are no balances to his power, there is no limit to his rule, there is no incentive for anyone in China to oppose anything he does or to develop alternati…

> From what I can see, their only major objective is still to get the South-East off American control, and that will be it.

If you go by what they say, it seems that their major objective is Taiwan.

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#75

Post by adolph »

ardy42 wrote: post #71
adolph wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies if I caused offense. In terms of focus I advocate for the power of "and" although I disagree with your characterization of the problems raised as "smaller inward-focused." The wars and droning are not small nor inward-focused. The ramming was referred to in gallows humor as I don't think the Navy is so incompetent that they would think ramming cargo vessels would be effective, just incompetent enough to…

> The g-parent comment asserts that "China must be stopped" and I started thinking about what aspect(s) of China do they want to stop. Certainly they don't want to end the country and its inhabitants. Maybe they want to stop some behaviors that cause harm in the world? What behaviors would those be? The comment uses the past tense "stopped" instead of "stop" so the implication is that some not-China entity performs t…

No, seriously, what ongoing action(s) of China “must be stopped” and what actions by whom are likely to succeed without causing more harm than that which would be stopped? Referring to Wikipedia without even a link to the “List of Internationally Recognized Chinese Bad Stuff” is a tacit recognition that there isn’t much that can be “stopped” short of an armed conflict nobody wants and nobody liked Trump’s attempts for economic sanction either. “Save the Spratleys” is a weaker rallying cry than “Save Tibet” and the navy is plenty engaged there already.

The win/loss/left-a-mess ratio of the US doesn’t engender positive predictions of future actions especially given how many are in endless overtime. Is it fatalistic to be realistic?

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#76

Post by ardy42 »

adolph wrote: post #75
ardy42 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The g-parent comment asserts that "China must be stopped" and I started thinking about what aspect(s) of China do they want to stop. Certainly they don't want to end the country and its inhabitants. Maybe they want to stop some behaviors that cause harm in the world? What behaviors would those be? The comment uses the past tense "stopped" instead of "stop" so the implication is that some not-China entity performs t…

No, seriously, what ongoing action(s) of China “must be stopped” and what actions by whom are likely to succeed without causing more harm than that which would be stopped? Referring to Wikipedia without even a link to the “List of Internationally Recognized Chinese Bad Stuff” is a tacit recognition that there isn’t much that can be “stopped” short of an armed conflict nobody wants and nobody liked Trump’s attempts fo…

> No, seriously, what ongoing action(s) of China “must be stopped” and what actions by whom are likely to succeed without causing more harm than that which would be stopped?

I literally could give some likely possibilities of what they were specifically thinking about from memory, but it's basically a list of major news stories about the PRC from the past several years, which you're welcome to research yourself.

> The win/loss/left-a-mess ratio of the US doesn’t engender positive predictions of future actions especially given how many are in endless overtime. Is it fatalistic to be realistic?

The PRC is a genuinely difficult geopolitical problem. However, you seem to be taking Iraq and Afghanistan as your main precedents for action, when they'd be poor ones even if the US had been far more successful there.

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#77

Post by User23 »

actuator wrote: post #28
inglor_cz wrote: post #4

Whatever China does lately seems to be tailored to inch its society toward more expansive mode and military values. A lot of nationalism in the curriculum, the "wolf warriors" ideas etc. I do not think they are doing this for shits and giggles. They invest a lot overseas and must be aware that one day, one of their client countries will rebel and will need to be subdued militarily to protect the investments and dissu…

Eh, I would count this just as some people not being comfortable with the social changes happening. If you look at most of the pop culture that comes out from East Asia, the typical male archetype seems to be gentle, boyish looking men who are chivalrous and act cute at the same time. Typical masculine features like beards are generally considered unattractive on males. I guess, some people might not like it.

I'm no expert on anime, but the two big examples I'm familiar with, Sword Art Online and Demon Slayer both feature many masculine adult characters[1], but usually in a mentor or antagonist role. The protagonists are literally boys, who by definition are less masculine than grown men.

[1] The Legendary Hero Bercouli in SAO and Sakonji Urokodaki in Demon Slayer are two that immediately spring to mind.

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#78

Post by adolph »

ardy42 wrote: post #76
adolph wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, seriously, what ongoing action(s) of China “must be stopped” and what actions by whom are likely to succeed without causing more harm than that which would be stopped? Referring to Wikipedia without even a link to the “List of Internationally Recognized Chinese Bad Stuff” is a tacit recognition that there isn’t much that can be “stopped” short of an armed conflict nobody wants and nobody liked Trump’s attempts fo…

> No, seriously, what ongoing action(s) of China “must be stopped” and what actions by whom are likely to succeed without causing more harm than that which would be stopped? I literally could give some likely possibilities of what they were specifically thinking about from memory, but it's basically a list of major news stories about the PRC from the past several years, which you're welcome to research yourself. > Th…

You literally can’t give any. Handwave “must be stopped” or “aighta be a law” all you want in your fantasyland of no consequences.

I’ll take a tour of things at the top of my head:

* North Korea: we have nada, nuke horse is out of the barn

* Taiwan: prop up the post-KMT status quo and hope for the best

* Hong Kong: nada

* Nine dashed line (S China Sea): pray Navy doesn’t get shot up and apologize if they do [0]

* Tibet: lost and forgotten neverland

* India: duking it out for itself

* Uighers: an “internal matter” Holocaust, see also Christians and the occasional Jack Ma

* Global Warmer: the former industrialized nations exported their industry and pollution to places like China, what are we going to do, pay them to produce the same stuff but not pollute? Could have done the same with internal industry instead of outsourcing

* Endangered species: slightly bright spot for some well loved species like rhino and elephant, too bad about the sharks and fisheries tho

* Industrial espionage: ok, there’s room for work that might not make things worse

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#79

Post by toyg »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #74
toyg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever China does lately seems to be ... doing what countries run by a dictator tend to do. I don't think we fully understand how much Xi Jinping has changed the PRC. The Chinese system was already autocratic, but Xi turned it into full-blown dictatorship. There are no balances to his power, there is no limit to his rule, there is no incentive for anyone in China to oppose anything he does or to develop alternati…

> From what I can see, their only major objective is still to get the South-East off American control, and that will be it. If you go by what they say , it seems that their major objective is Taiwan.

Taiwan is the propaganda target, but their creeping occupation of the South China Sea shows what the larger overall objective is. PRC leadership (i.e. Xi and friends) really see their future as the sole owners of South-East Asia; Taiwan will “naturally” come as part of that.

The problem is that three decades of US adventurism in the Middle East have left “us” without the moral high ground to oppose them.

Re: China promotes education drive to make boys more 'manly'

#80

Post by nomdep »

ffhhj wrote: post #58
nomdep wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, China *must* be stopped, but that has little to do with this piece of lazy reporting.

So you mean we must stop borrowing money from China, must pay our debt to them and stop trading with them.

Beign able to stop trading with them would be a previous step.

I don't want an actual war, but a cold war seems to be neccesary.

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