Alucard Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > there is no way of getting through that thick > scull of yours is there? > you didn’t read anything that I wrote, or you just > can’t admit that you’re wrong? > > Come visit me in Venezuela chief, drinks on me, > revolution on you… > > anyway, very cool story comrade, very cool. I like this guy ova here. Black Swan is a numbskull Alucard, theres no getting through to him.
the least I can say is the article is so badly written that it is definitely not an A article nor anywhere close to be sueprior.
“Why Chinese Drywall is Superior” by mar350 1. Its cheap due to the devalued yuan and affordable child labor. 2. Its ‘exotic.’ 3. Its from an emerging market and by buying it your supporting the burgeoning global ecomony. 4. Only a handful of people have complained of lung disease after installing it. 5. Those people have been ‘relieved’ by the govt. 6. It isn’t made out of dogs. 7. You don’t need to understand mandarin to use it. 8. It comes in a variety of communist gray colors; as long as you pick communist gray. 9. By buying it, you’re keeping your tax dollars from that crazy, out of control us congress. 10. It REALLY works!
Alucard, So putting the argument aside for a moment, as a whole, what’s the atmosphere like in Venezuela? Like in terms of support for Chavez is it realistically like 80/20, 50/50, 20/80? It’s always hard to tell from anecdotal accounts and media bias, reporters have a tendency to go somewhere and interview 5 isolated extremists and present that as the norm.
marcus phoenix Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > FYI…the author of the book says she received > death threats. WTF? Obviously a xenophobic teabagger
I don’t think we can apply Cesar Chavez and other activists to China. China is really good at suppressing political movements that they don’t approve of. I’m sure there are many would be Cesar Chavez’s of China who we never heard of because they just “disappeared”.
It’s Hugo Chavez, dictator president of Venezuela. Cezar Chavez is the immigrant agricultural workers’ organizer.
Bchadwick, You might be right about an oppressive influence of the totalitarian regime, although there are examples of much more closed regimes where creativity and talent were not dead, like the former USSR. China now is a very capitalist country, where the greed is the most important value. People work long hours, and have just 2 weeks per year of holidays, and may be some more separate festive days. There is nothing free for citizens, medicine, education, one has to pay for everything. Pensions are like 30 dollars per month, that’s why people try to save and not spend. That’s opposite of a socialist country. Actually that sounds familiar. Oh, wait, isn’t it just like the US? Back to the quality of education. In my opinion, one of the influential factors is the Chinese script. It’s hardly possible to learn characters without practicing to write them. The students might spend an hour writing just one character, not very creative, right? There are 10000 characters to learn for a math student, and 20000 for a philosophy student. Classes are mostly structured as lectures, even language classes. The role of a student is to memorize and repeat word in word.
I did say authoritarian, not socialist. Not all socialist countries are authoritarian (i.e. Sweden). Not all authoritarian countries are socialist (i.e. Iraq under Saddam, Brazil and Argentina under the Generals, Zaire under Mobutu/Kabila). I agree entirely about the script, but thought my post was already way too long to get into that. I do think that if you have to memorize 10,000 characters to read an ordinary book, AND those characters really don’t have all that much to do with anything you learned while learning to speak (other than that they have the same grammatical rules regarding word order), you are going to train the memorization part of your mind and become good at it. Which raises an interesting question. In English, it is possible to invent new words, like “inventabilification.” Inventabilification, while not a word, would fairly obviously mean “the process of making something able to be invented.” In a character-based language, how would one come up with a character set for an invented word.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It’s Hugo Chavez, dictator president of > Venezuela. > > Cezar Chavez is the immigrant agricultural > workers’ organizer. I think he’s a boxer too.
Bchadwick, I understood you meant totalitarian. I just wanted to point out that China claims to be communist, and it’s system is capitalist. It also is ruled by a Communist party. But how totalitarian actually is it? People can freely travel around the world, which is near to impossible in a classical communist regime. People are allowed to have property, and even become filthy rich. People are allowed to freely trade with anticommunist countries. It doesn’t sound more totalitarian to me than modern Russia. Except, there is only one party. It might sound strange but the majority of the Chinese are superpatriotic, and many of them still “love Mao”. They profoundly respect the party, as only the cream of the cream can join. They are not politicized, they like money, and the current system let’s them have it.
Bchadwick, In a character based language that’s even easier to create words. A lot of modern words are created by a combination of two or three different characters each, obviously, means something related. “diannao”, “electronic brain” - guess, what’s that.
Totalitarianism is different from authoritarianism. Under an authoritarian regime, you are not allowed to organize any kind of resistance to the government or participate in any meaningful way, but you can have a private life as long as you decide to keep out of politics (e.g. South American Bureaucratic Authoritarianism, Samosa’s Nicaragua, Taiwan under Chiang-Kai Shek). Under a totalitarian regime, you are, in addition to all the authoritarian restrictions, obliged to subscribe to and defend an ideology and the current leadership (e.g. Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s USSR, Saddam’s Iraq, Mao’s China). A totalitarian regime tries to control your total life, including your thoughts (though may not in practice be able to do so), whereas an authoritarian regime simply demands that you stay out of politics if you are not specifically in the political class. Totalitarianism is not compatible with a market economy, but authoritarian regimes are (to some extent). China today is an authoritarian regime with a primarily market economy (note that a market economy is not necessarily a ‘free market’ in the Larry Kudlow sense, but it is an economy where prices and quantities for most goods aren’t fixed by central planners). Russia is bordering on an authoritarian regime with democratic window dressing. All that really remains to push it over the edge is for Putin to decide that elections are no longer really necessary, or to create a structure where only incuments have any chance for continuing in high office. It is no longer the totalitarian regime it was under the Communists, though.
I think the title should be: “Why Chinese mothers are INFERIOR.” You bring a freaking sentient being into the world and dominate him/her to satisfy your own insecurities and ambitions? WTF does “success” mean? Totally bullshit things like an advanced degree, respect of strangers, being the “best” at a freaking instrument? If/when I have a kid, I won’t give a fuck if they “achieve” and be successful, as long as they are happy and feel loved. True success is being able to feel happy about yourself and your life despite any external shit that can happen to you, anything that has been done to you, or what anyone thinks about you.
Things I learned from this article: -There are no plays in China -Spending the night at someone else’s house during childhood severly retards one’s intellectual development -Playing the cello expertly (since it’s not the violin or piano) is akin to picking your noise expertly -Individuality and the original thought that goes along with it is the work of the devil -Insulting a child is not insulting -Chinese mothers are flippant
I believe seriously that there is an ongoing effort to demoralize Americans and make them believe that the end of their empire is near. If the Chinese are so great why is it that I have never met a happy Chinese ? Not at school, not at work, not one of my neighbors ( the Japanese neighbors are very happy though, the Vietnamese co-workers as well, it’s just the Chinese and the Koreans who are always sad and angry).
^ they are sad and angry because their kids got A minuses.
mo34 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I believe seriously that there is an ongoing > effort to demoralize Americans and make them > believe that the end of their empire is near. > > If the Chinese are so great why is it that I have > never met a happy Chinese ? Not at school, not at > work, not one of my neighbors ( the Japanese > neighbors are very happy though, the Vietnamese > co-workers as well, it’s just the Chinese and the > Koreans who are always sad and angry). Huh what? Are you serious? I think you are weird. Also, you probably just don’t know many Chinese/Korean people.
ohai Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > mo34 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I believe seriously that there is an ongoing > > effort to demoralize Americans and make them > > believe that the end of their empire is near. > > > > If the Chinese are so great why is it that I > have > > never met a happy Chinese ? Not at school, not > at > > work, not one of my neighbors ( the Japanese > > neighbors are very happy though, the Vietnamese > > co-workers as well, it’s just the Chinese and > the > > Koreans who are always sad and angry). > > Huh what? Are you serious? I think you are weird. > Also, you probably just don’t know many > Chinese/Korean people. Why the anger ? Is it a language thing ? Maybe they’re happy in their country, I have to admit I have never visited the Far East.
Bchadwick, I still think China is a totalitarian country. Until at least they officially get rid of the communist ideology. I have mentioned that people there “love Mao”. Do you love Obama? It’s a typical expression of the totalitarian regime. They do sincerely love Mao, although I never heard that anybody loved Hu (almost like “who is Hu?”). But even so, in order to succeed in this country, better be a communist, and then be sure that your private life is controlled like hell. And in some remote places, the private lives of ordinary citizens are also controlled. In big cities the party leaders are too busy managing money, but go to the provinces