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China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

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

#401

Post by brabel »

Arainach wrote: post #284
leodler wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow we (the United States) accomplished generational projects that are currently out of the realm of possibility such as the interstate system without risking anything like a famine. I think a lot of people in America have been overly-empowered to stand in the way of the most modest progress through NIMBYism, litigation, local government, etc. To a lot of people it increasingly feels like a form of private author…

"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.

There’s a good argument for America having been able to do all it did despite being a democracy without a strong central government, not because of it. Look around the world and see how many countries managed to achieve similar success using the same liberal principles? Most of Europe became rich under imperialist, authoritarian governments not with their current system. I would love to see a good counter argument that’s convincing since I find this realization extremely sad as for all my life I believed the propaganda about democracy and liberalism being the route to success just to see most countries that tried to emulate that fail miserably.

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

#403

Post by iberator »

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…

[flagged]

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

#404

Post by blitzar »

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.

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

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

#405

Post by questionableans »

GolfPopper wrote: post #349
Arainach wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I agree. Of the two major US political parties today, one is primarily radical right with a small conservative branch that is struggling to stay in their party. The other is conservative to moderate with a small liberal branch that is fighting to make their party stand for something.

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

#406

Post by [deleted] »

iberator wrote: post #403
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…

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#407

Post by dgfl »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #357
vishnugupta wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really curious to better understand what aspects of China’s government would hurt your day to day life. From what I read online the people there are free to rant and get things fixed. Their local government representative is held accountable if the people in his/her province are unhappy. Not too different from a typical democratic setup I guess? But this could be off because I don’t know anyone personally there.

I can answer this question. I’m a native-born Chinese, and I’ve never studied abroad. This year I just completed my first trip overseas, visiting the UAE. First of all, I don’t think China is a fully democratic system, but it’s not an outright dictatorship either. At the same time, I don’t think the two-party voting system in the U.S. qualifies as democracy either. One of the biggest drawbacks of Western criticism of…

Don’t you think you’ve been influenced by propaganda? You have admitted yourself that you couldn’t even find information on Naomi Wu.

I’ve lived in Europe my whole life. I’ve never been robbed or felt unsafe. It’s also a very diverse region so it’s hard to generalize. But the supposed “decay of the west” is mostly internal propaganda from our very own anti-migration right wingers.

But regardless, I’d take having a 0.001% chance of my wallet (which contains zero valuables) being stolen versus being silenced by the government for criticizing the regime or being unable to acknowledge your sexual orientation. Let alone all the history rewriting and censorship.

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

#408

Post by blitzar »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #373

I think they’re doing a great thing. My area has seen some wildfire smoke season near the end of summer. It never happened when I was a kid. Now every summer there’s wildfire smoke for several days or several weeks. The climate appears to be changing and heavily forested areas of midwest US and canada are on fire every summer. Planting trees could be great for the environment, but without the moisture it could become…

Wildfires are only a problem for the matchboxes filled with trinkets we build adjacent to the pretty trees and live in - the forest likes the cleansing.

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

#409

Post by msl »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #329
londons_explore wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all propaganda is deceptive. The best propaganda is 100% true and still achieves it's goal.

Propaganda is deceptive or misleading by definition.

What definition is that?

Merriam-Webster: "the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person" and "ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause" [1]

Cambridge Dictionary: "information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions" [2]

Wikipedia (quoting Encyclopedia Britannica): "Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented." [3]

Wikipedia further quotes NATO's 2011 guidance for military public affairs definition: "information, ideas, doctrines, or special appeals disseminated to influence the opinion, emotions, attitudes, or behaviour of any specified group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly" [4]

I think that OP's use of the word is well in line with each of those definitions.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propaganda

[2] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/propagan...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#Definitions

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

#410

Post by Unearned5161 »

zdragnar wrote: post #379
GolfPopper wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The predictions of Ehrlich in "the population bomb" and the club of rome were undone within a few years with the "green revolution" which saw massive increases in food production. Ehrlich in particular was suggesting mass starvation by the 1980's. Conceivably, it is possible that too many people will cause problems, but nothing like what they actually predicted has come to pass.

I encourage you to revisit what you know about the club of rome and what was actually published in the Limits to Growth paper. We have been disturbingly on track for a lot of the variables that were of interest back then in the “business as usual” model.

People tend to dismiss anything and everything around resource constraint thinking by doing the quick Ehrlich quip, and never really dig deeper into where people like Ehrlich ever got their ideas to begin with.

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