China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990 • Hacker News Board

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#341

Post by Arainach » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:02 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #340

Arainach wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Somehow" we did that back when we believed in a strong federal government working for the benefit of the people. It's no wonder that we lost the ability after decades of anti-government propaganda and regulatory capture.

It's not that people turned against the government just randomly. Who was the last genuinely socially motivated President we had? I idealize JFK, but I think that's largely because of his charisma, how he ended, and obviously the space program. Yet how did he not just immediately condemn and completely dismantle the entire CIA when the proposal for Operation Northwoods [1] reached his desk, and was one signature away…

LBJ made more progress on social issues than any President with the possible exception of FDR. Certainly dramatically more progress per year in office. Jimmy Carter was also socially motivated.

Reagan changed the game, Newt Gingrich destroyed cooperation, and now we're living in the world they created.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#342

Post by endorphine » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:03 AM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #320

andrewflnr wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really respect the hell out of the nation of China if it wasn't for the authoritarianism and imperialism.

Have you not been paying attention to what's going on this country? We're building concentration camps. We have the Gestapo rounding up brown people. We have people being deported to supermax prisons in countries they have no connection to for protesting America's material support for genocide on college campuses. We have a media that is increasingly owned by lackeys of this administration (just look into CBS and Bar…

Don't know why you're downvoted, this seems a pretty accurate take to me.

It seems most of us in the West are mostly incapable of self-criticism and have been fed so much propaganda that we forgot how to see through all the bull**.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#343

Post by andrewflnr » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:05 AM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #320

andrewflnr wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really respect the hell out of the nation of China if it wasn't for the authoritarianism and imperialism.

Have you not been paying attention to what's going on this country? We're building concentration camps. We have the Gestapo rounding up brown people. We have people being deported to supermax prisons in countries they have no connection to for protesting America's material support for genocide on college campuses. We have a media that is increasingly owned by lackeys of this administration (just look into CBS and Bar…

What makes you think I disagree with any of that? These are dark times. Honestly, the West is so profoundly stupid right now that a part of me wishes China could be a beacon of respectability. It's just a shame about their being ahead of the curve on the malicious government.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#344

Post by forgotoldacc » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:08 AM UTC

jopsen wrote: post #285

scoopertrooper wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They go hand in hand. The authoritarianism of China allows it to undertake generational projects of immense scale with mass popular support through propaganda. It works well when the government is pursuing welfare maximising initiatives, but limits self-correction when the government goes off track. A small example of it going wrong, was when Mao convinced peasants to exterminate Sparrows and other ‘pests’ only to se…

> They go hand in hand. The authoritarianism of China allows it to undertake generational projects... Lack of free press makes it easy to look successful. It was the same thing with the Soviet union, was it ever really successful at any point?

You can go to China and see it for yourself. The USSR made itself inaccessible to foreigners for the most part, but you can hop on a train and visit nearly any place in China freely. It's pretty easy with their extensive train system.

I see a lot of cope with "c-China is lying! It's not really that good!" But lots of tourists such as myself have been all over the country, and tbh, I think the "propaganda" undersells it a bit. I thought there was no way it could be as nice as the travel videos I saw, but it was even better.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#345

Post by GolfPopper » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:14 AM UTC

shubhamjain wrote: post #333

yanhangyhy wrote: post #233

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

> Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. They haven't, imo. I am from India, and I have been hearing for the last two decades how we have avoided same mistakes as China and the latter is headed for a demographic collapse. China is only marching forward, and focusing more on automation to hedge its bets. While overpopulation in India has choked almost every city in Ind…

>Just like 1970s claim "overpopulation will destroy the planet" turned out to be exaggerated

Seems to me like that prediction is pretty on track.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#346

Post by unglaublich » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:14 AM UTC

shubhamjain wrote: post #333

yanhangyhy wrote: post #233

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

> Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. They haven't, imo. I am from India, and I have been hearing for the last two decades how we have avoided same mistakes as China and the latter is headed for a demographic collapse. China is only marching forward, and focusing more on automation to hedge its bets. While overpopulation in India has choked almost every city in Ind…

The nice thing about being a growing, underpopulated country, is that you're very attractive to immigrants. China can just fill the demographic gap with migration policies.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#347

Post by ImHereToVote » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:15 AM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #251

yanhangyhy wrote: post #233

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

I would really respect the hell out of the nation of China if it wasn't for the authoritarianism and imperialism.

China isn't imperialist.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#348

Post by shubhamjain » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:18 AM UTC

GolfPopper wrote: post #345

shubhamjain wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. They haven't, imo. I am from India, and I have been hearing for the last two decades how we have avoided same mistakes as China and the latter is headed for a demographic collapse. China is only marching forward, and focusing more on automation to hedge its bets. While overpopulation in India has choked almost every city in Ind…

> Just like 1970s claim "overpopulation will destroy the planet" turned out to be exaggerated Seems to me like that prediction is pretty on track.

Partially, yes! Population is #1 strain on resources. However, the political climate around 1970s was more like population would create large scale food shortages, famines, and without interventions, population would keep on growing forever. We at least now know that population peaks with prosperity, and food is largely a solved problem.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#349

Post by GolfPopper » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:22 AM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #328

yonaguska wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe we are capable of a strong government that will also work for the benefit of the people today. Anti government sentiment didn't just spring up from a vacuum.

It sprung up from capitalist propaganda and intentional sabotage of the government by conservatives. > I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. Grover Norquist said the quiet part out loud in 2001, but conservatives have been running that playbook since the New Deal.

>*"conservatives have been running that playbook since the New Deal"

I think one of America's many failures is allowing a radically revolutionary right-wing (that is currently headed full speed to fascism) to keep calling themselves "conservatives" when that label is about as incorrect as can be. They don't "conserve" anything. They're not actually reactionary, although they often pretend to be. They are not trying to be defenders of Chesterton's Gate[1]. They're radicals, who want to reshape society to their own whims and prejudices. And they ought to be address and treated as such.

1. https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#350

Post by beloch » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:25 AM UTC

How much of this is the result of reversing the deforestation caused by the Great Leap Forward and other anti-nature policies of the mid twentieth century?

It's not a bad thing if this is mostly just restoring forests ravaged by bad policy, but it's a bit odd to compare this reforestation, quantitatively, to what's going on in countries that didn't have a "war against nature".