China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

I have lived in Mainland China and the West both equally long. What's happening in the West now is of course not exactly the same but it's absolutely comparable. There is a trend towards authoritarianism that did not even start with the pandemic, but it was a massive catalyst which suddenly made the problem much bigger. For many people in the system, this isn't apparent to them at all. Ask the average Chinese person and they will tell you nothing's wrong, things are going fine. They just restricted overseas travel and have stopped issuing passports in China. Many locals don't even know that because it wasn't reported much. Similarly, as someone who cares about civil rights, I notice that a lot of people in the West are not well informed about all the very concerning developments since the corona crisis. This goes to absurd levels like in Australia where the majority will tell you the government is handling things great, all the while protests are forbidden under threat of $5000 fines and jail time, people have been issued $1000 fines for talking to each other in public, parliament in Victoria is suspended, people get arrested for "illegaly" crossing state borders of their own country, etc...

No, the West isn't find. Mild tyranny isn't cool and how temporary these measures are is debated. If they actually were temporary, why is there no restriction for how long they can last? How much longer will it go? Nobody knows.

This is a loophole in our constitutions, they can use "emergency" situations to suspend civil rights indefinitely. This very same method has been used many times in history to establish dictatorships and totalitarian systems, so it's a very legitimate concern.

If one were to have an addiction, I'd pick video game addiction for them - the side effects are not like drugs, and it's possible to recover from it without major side effects, and in addition you can get a penchant for solving problems and learning quickly if you break out of the addiction cycle.

I'm not sure what you mean about relevance, but I'll attempt to answer.

This thread is debating whether we should be appalled at China for this law, or whether it's morally similar to some of our own laws (like banning drinking and gambling for minors). Bogwog suggested the difference is we banned minors from drinking democratically, while China's "supreme leader decided he knows what's best". The parent to Bogwog's comment suggested they're similar and we're holding China to a higher standard (possibly due to our biases).

As you say, in both cases children under 18 aren't allowed to vote. That seems like a similarity between here and China. If children could vote here, that would strengthen Bogwog's argument.

(If it makes a difference, I'm against governments restricting minors from playing video games more than 3 hours per week. But I also don't think democracy is what would make it okay.)

A lot else could be said about this. Just to list a few possible objections to the democracy argument:

- It's kind of easy to just throw the word "democracy" around without actually establishing why the law is just and good and moral. For example, if a democratic country decided to ban Muslims, would people think it was moral and justified?

- Maybe the commenter feels democracy justifies it because the people (indirectly) chose the law. But in this case, the majority (people over 21) are placing restrictions on a minority (people under 21). That's a possible failure of democracy: a majority can abuse a minority, even if the minority is overwhelmingly against the proposed law.

- On top of that, most of the people being restricted (people under 18 or 21 depending on which law and which state we're discussing) weren't allowed to vote at all. They can't choose representatives in Congress.

- The comment overstates the difference between the US and China and makes it sound like this law is solely the whim of a dictator. While the US is certainly much more democratic than China, the US isn't completely democratic, and China isn't completely undemocratic. China has elections (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China). Video game addiction is a popular concern in China. South Korea democratically passed a similar (though less severe) law restricting video games for minors. This is a position of the communist party, with a lot of public support, not just a personal whim of Xi Jinping. (People exaggerate how much China is ruled solely by Xi Jinping instead of the party as a whole. Xi is powerful, but he can be replaced by the party and he's only been leader since 2012, and no person governs alone.) Meanwhile, there are many reasons why US politics don't always perfectly reflect the will of the people.

Without commenting on the specific issue at hand, if playing "a part in legislation" is a literal criterion for democracy, I think the direct democracy in a place like California (or Switzerland, and possibly 1-2 other places) which allow for public votes on essentially everything including constitutional amendments place a decent number of US voters ahead of most OECD counterparts.

Anecdotally, I think there are far more significant issues with US democracy than lobbying given that legislators still largely seem to do what they campaign on, lobbying-influenced or otherwise, and voters elect them in almost universally accepted elections. If the disconnect were between the expectations of voters (from campaigns, etc.) and actual legislation, I would be more inclined to place further blame on lobbying, but I'm not sure that's the case. I wouldn't say lobbying isn't a problem, obviously.

> It depends on your environment. Say if you are at a university or something with students it will be very different than if you are working for a tech company with your Chinese co-workers.

That's what I thought before I went there but it turned out to not be the case. What I am about to say is anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt.

I actually worked in Beijing. The work I did involved both tech companies and students, and I took the time outside of work to mingle with the locals at restaurants and shops. The amount of people who don't agree with the government was generally "surprisingly" high across all groups.

I should also point out that I never took the initiative to talk about politics, so in all cases it was either people being curious about the culture outside of China or, presumably, I was an outlet for them because I was clearly not affiliated with the government in any way.

I'm just going to leave it at that because anything I say past this point are even more subjective opinions.