Earlier quoted context omitted.
> when a husband and wife marry and then the kids turn out looking nothing like the parents. Doesn't seem like a bad thing, just means that there should a good market for plastic surgery for the next generation.
Yeah, I'm not sure what the common 20-something intellectual culture has with plastic surgery. We're all assigned a certain level of genetic prettiness at birth, out of our control (as measured by how people perceive you, facial symmetry, etc.) Isn't plastic surgery a great equalizer?
On Being Black in China
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: On Being Black in China
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The real civil war, revolution, and turmoil pre-date most of those deaths. Mao killed people during his rule by creating unnecessary turmoil and revolution. These things don't suddenly disappear with the official end of the war. It's a country of a billion people, a regime change, trouble with neighbors, fight for the leadership etc. So, "X is in power all turmoil can stop now", is not really how it works. > As for…
"Majority" means over half. The word you're looking for is "plurality". Mao's government was strong enough, within just a few years, to fight the US military to a standstill in a foreign war. What's the excuse for the millions who died after that?
That will do, yes.
Although:"relative majority (Brit) - the excess of votes or seats won by the winner of an election over the runner-up when no candidate or party has more than 50 per cent.
>What's the excuse for the millions who died after that?
Political and social struggles in a huge empire state that had made a huge change in the way it has been run for millenia?
Re: On Being Black in China
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Majority" means over half. The word you're looking for is "plurality". Mao's government was strong enough, within just a few years, to fight the US military to a standstill in a foreign war. What's the excuse for the millions who died after that?
> Majority" means over half. The word you're looking for is "plurality". That will do, yes. Although:"relative majority (Brit) - the excess of votes or seats won by the winner of an election over the runner-up when no candidate or party has more than 50 per cent. > What's the excuse for the millions who died after that? Political and social struggles in a huge empire state that had made a huge change in the way it ha…
Re: On Being Black in China
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Majority" means over half. The word you're looking for is "plurality". That will do, yes. Although:"relative majority (Brit) - the excess of votes or seats won by the winner of an election over the runner-up when no candidate or party has more than 50 per cent. > What's the excuse for the millions who died after that? Political and social struggles in a huge empire state that had made a huge change in the way it ha…
And who exactly was responsible for making that huge change?
A lot of people seem to ascribe to the "cult of personality", but with or without Mao, it would have been done.
That's why it was done almost in parallel in other countries too.
Lots of people have the crazy theory that some guys, maybe because they had too much swag or because people were of lower IQ back then or something, managed to rise from nowhere and get hundrends of millions to follow them, changed their countries etc.
The real story is that the historical currents had formed to move those countries out of their aggrarian past. They had to do something or perish in the modern age, and due to mix of circumstances and need, those kind of figures emerged to deliver that change.
It was a time of huge changes all around -- the colonial struggles, WWI, WWII, communism rising, right wing dictatorships -- those things did not happen all in parallel because some guys managed to dupe billions into following them.
Re: On Being Black in China
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
And who exactly was responsible for making that huge change?
History. A lot of people seem to ascribe to the "cult of personality", but with or without Mao, it would have been done. That's why it was done almost in parallel in other countries too. Lots of people have the crazy theory that some guys, maybe because they had too much swag or because people were of lower IQ back then or something, managed to rise from nowhere and get hundrends of millions to follow them, changed t…
Re: On Being Black in China
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a Holocaust - millions died - and you did deny it ("didn't intentionally set out to kill people...a bad system...history is quite complicated"). Zero hyperbole involved. Exactly the same weasely language as you'd find with respect to WW2. What you said here was wrong, factually and ethically. The people Mao murdered should indeed be remembered over Mao himself, and mentioned whenever his name is mentioned. The…
while we're at it, no one should ever be allowed to mention any pre-Civil War leader without a discourse on slavery, or Columbus without mentioning his murders and barbaric practices. There are enough historical atrocities to go around, no one should have to risk having a discussion without their personal one being overlooked.
Re: On Being Black in China
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> First, the huge majority of those deaths were due to famine. Sir, that famine was in large part due to movements commandeered by Mao - such as the Great Leap Forward which completely decimated Chinese farming and agriculture.
Yes, but that does not make it a deliberate policy of killing people. It was what it was thought at the time as necessary to bring China in the modern age. One has to ask if without it China would be what it is today -- or perhaps some broken half-aggrarian society, more third-world than one of the world's economic powers. Same way, as one has to ask if without Stalin's forced industrialization, USSR would be able to…
The best one can say is, China was a basket case before Mao, he established a strong system of central control and a level of human development ie literacy and medical care, and those paved the way for development after Mao.
Re: On Being Black in China
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
History. A lot of people seem to ascribe to the "cult of personality", but with or without Mao, it would have been done. That's why it was done almost in parallel in other countries too. Lots of people have the crazy theory that some guys, maybe because they had too much swag or because people were of lower IQ back then or something, managed to rise from nowhere and get hundrends of millions to follow them, changed t…
Didn't a lot of countries manage to make this transition without starving millions of people to death in the process?
Russia has a long history of serfdom, an authoritarian regime, young people passionate about change, a huge territory and large population etc. China, about the same, only much larger.
In fact, if anything it's the opposite: most countries failed to ever make the transition (most of the third world for example, Africa, Asia, Latin America).
As for the Western countries that made the same transition:
a) some made it peacefully (those that were in better position to do so, namely: small and manageable, with an established social order from before, no dangerous neighbours and plenty of money rolling in).
b) others had no "starving of millions of people to death" mainly because they got a good deal out of starving millions of OTHER people to death. E.g France, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, financing their industrial age with looting and enslaving their colonies in Africa, Asia, etc.
(And we should not forget the bloody continental European wars and revolutions that got a lot of countries out of agrarian feudalism and aristocracy and into the modern type industrial republic. Millions died in the French Revolution, the Napoleonian wars and the subsequent turmoil than made France into a modern republic, and then there was WWI. The difference is that China, more slow moving, went through a similar situation well in the 20th Century).