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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

#611

Post by andrewflnr »

blitzar wrote: post #404
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.

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

Yeah, same honestly. Though I still don't think America is as bad yet. We did try to build actual nations in Afghanistan and Iraq, we just suck at it. Trump is unlikely to actually pick fights with Denmark or Canada. And our internal freedoms aren't gone yet. We can still criticize the president without immediately going to jail... Give it a year or two.

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

#612

Post by hollerith »

zigzagger11 wrote: post #610
somenameforme wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way would they be horrifying? The Romans advanced public works, infrastructure, and other such things on an absolutely monumental scale. Many roads built by the Roman Empire are still even in use today! And I think Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the best example in history of a genuinely socially motivated leader. And the lands under their rule were completely able to maintain their own unique identity so long as…

The Roman Empire was a ruthless slave state, and the poor were subject to constant exploitation with no recourse.

Also, it routinely interfered destructively in the market sector (e.g., price controls, e.g., overspending on showy public works); its taxation system was oppressive and often arbitrary; and it routinely debased its currency

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

#613

Post by tomhow »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #429
tomhow wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please avoid generic tangents and flamebait on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's neither of those. If I plant a tree near my house, but cut down all of my neighbor trees, it would show that I have planted one tree while my neighbors none.

The comment was downvoted and flagged by several other community members so I don't seem to be out of step with community sentiment on this. I can accept that you sincerely felt it was an important thing to write, but all we can go on is what it looks like on the page, and what it looks like is trying to activate reactions in people with out-of-context controversy.

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

#614

Post by yonaguska »

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.

For me it happened when I was growing up and I watched my family bankrupted and pushed to near homelessness with zero legal recourse due to a corrupt local government. There are countless others that have found themselves at the mercy of a large government, with unlimited money and resources.

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

#615

Post by yanhangyhy »

graemep wrote: post #574
yanhangyhy wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> This year I just completed my first trip overseas, visiting the UAE So you have only ever visited a country that is very definitely NOT a democracy, and you have never lived in a democratic country. > In the end, a large number of the responsible personnel were punished or sentenced. The problem was resolved, and it did not implicate the Party itself. How is that "gaming many other freedoms". If the party was not t…

> So you have only ever visited a country that is very definitely NOT a democracy, and you have never lived in a democratic country.

i belive no country is democratic. its would be a fool to believe the two-party-voting-system=democratic.

> How is that "gaming many other freedoms". If the party was not to lame fine, but what happens when they are to blame?

its the freedom of accountability, people do wrong things, they get punished or sentence to death. most country dont have.

> So if something like HS2's cost overruns happen would you even know about it? Does everything get done at the planned cost?

yes. no, but things like HS2 would never happen in China. its just too Absurd. In China, at most the leaders might embezzle some money, but they still get the project done.

> That is not the reality of living in Europe. I lived most of my life in the UK and those sorts of crimes are rare.

Compared to China, it is still a very unsafe place. if i have travel to most of the relative-safe countries, i might go to EU. After all ,i read so many books about it, it's still a must-to-go place

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

#616

Post by yanhangyhy »

dgfl wrote: post #605
yanhangyhy wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the supposed “decay of the west” is mostly internal propaganda from our very own anti-migration right wingers. it's not propaganda, i am talking some thing like 'yelp', real people share real experience after travel to EU. sure there are many good ones, but lots of bad ones. > unable to acknowledge your sexual orientation you can. but not in the public media. people share LGBT content on the Internet all the ti…

Thank you for your clarifications. I don’t really know what to make of these experiences, I know for sure that it can’t be much more than a small percentage of tourists getting pickpocketed. Plausibly, the people with negative experiences are a loud minority. I also now realize that my original comment may seem harsher than I intended. I fully understand your point of view since I was also born in a comparatively poo…

I was also somewhat emotional, after all, relations between China and the EU are more hostile than before, and that naturally affects how people view each other. As for Naomi Wu, she was never that popular in China to begin with—after all, ordinary people don’t really know much about things like open-source licenses. As for her disappearance, well, she disappeared, and not many people really care. Other comments have already pointed out that she was involved in many issues, including violations related to open-source, and possibly some interactions with Linux; it’s hard for me to sort out exactly why she was “banned” on the Chinese internet. Her videos are still there; I don’t know if she still updates them, but indeed, no one really talks about her anymore.

Personally, I don’t quite agree with this kind of action, unless there’s a clear law that she violated. But China isn’t very transparent about such matters, so sometimes what the government does is right, sometimes it isn’t. Each case needs to be studied specifically. However, this lack of transparency is indeed a weakness.

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

#617

Post by yanhangyhy »

seethedeaduu wrote: post #583
yanhangyhy wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China, the process requires passing a strict psychological evaluation and surgery before one can change their legal identity and be recognized by the state. Since I used to be know some people from the community, so I have some understanding. I don’t know the policies of other countries, but for those who truly want to transition, I think this is necessary. The requirement to be unmarried is reasonable, since Chin…

This is horrible and only seems to show that voidUpdate was in fact right. > I think this is necessary Are you trans?

I’m not, but I know quite a few people who are. I’ve seen too many people regret it after surgery. Sometimes I even think the evaluation requirements aren’t strict enough.

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

#618

Post by somenameforme »

Arainach wrote: post #598
somenameforme wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern politicians are really good at framing everything as being the most socially motivated thing in the world. And I think LBJ is the grandfather of this stuff. When you read of his private discussions, socially motivated is just about the last thing he was. He wanted absolute political power and understood that he could create systems of dependency to achieve it. It just so happens that systems of dependency can…

>When you read of his private discussions, socially motivated is just about the last thing he was. This isn't true. I cannot recommend Robert Caro's works on LBJ enough. Johnson had plenty of flaws, but he cared deeply about people, especially the poor. He taught immigrant schoolchildren and saw their plight. He grew up before the Hill Country had electricity and saw the reality of true poverty, and when he had power…

And we're back to framing. LBJ didn't teach. He was immediately assigned as principal, with no relevant experience at all, as a gig to earn some cash for school. In other words - connections. And he was so moved that he quit after his first year never to return to anything education related ever again.

There's been a large effort to reimagine LBJ because having an exploitative racist as the progenitor of many of these things (which you mentioned) is kind of awkward, but reality is always so much more interesting than fiction, precisely because of such things.

---

In the future you'll see something similar with the Amish. There's about 400k Amish in America growing at about 2.5% per year, thanks to healthy fertility rates. And they do, when they see it as necessary, vote (as they did for Trump). As their population continues to swell, and election margins continue to narrow, they're going to be capable of deciding elections in the US in the foreseeable future.

And so you're going to see a Republican suddenly become a hero for everything the Amish care about. Is it because he cares about the Amish? No, but that's certainly how it'll be framed. As an aside, I find the idea of the Amish as kingmakers hilariously appropriate. I guess the meek truly will inherit the Earth!

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

#619

Post by citizenpaul »

somenameforme wrote: post #322
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.

Not to be coy, but what do you mean by that? The reason I ask is because I think many of us use these terms, but without ever thinking about exactly which behaviors we're critiquing, or how they relate to what we truly value. For instance both the Roman and Greek Empires deserve immense respect, yet they were both often imperial empires ruled by dictators. The same is no less true of many societies that played key ro…

We are 1000+ years from permanent off planet settlements. If its even possible for us to biologically live off earth. Which we don't actually know. China might not be a country by then.

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

#620

Post by Stevvo »

Liftyee wrote: post #531
Stevvo wrote: post #402

I'm curious how much of it is fake; at-least some of it is. To get financial incentives from the central government, local governments have pained rocks green and planted plastic trees to make it look like they planted trees in satellite photos.

Interesting... where can I read more about this?

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1159907.shtml

Trees pop up on Chinese social media all the time, the rocks were a particularly egregious case.

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