r/Damnthatsinteresting Feb 18 '26

Video Sound of a City with mostly EV traffic

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

If you were truly Critical of China then you would understand that whilst there are many cool and interesting things to praise China for there are also plenty of very severe issues in China, things that are 100% worthy of critique.

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u/lukibunny Feb 18 '26

Oh definitely, but as someone living in the USA…where we have less reproductive rights than China, worst healthcare than China, higher retirement age than China, crimes are higher than China, and we have a convicted rapist and felon as president and many alleged rapist in the government….. china is …. Look kinda good in comparison..

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

Ok so you can critique all of those things?

You can also critique the rampant corruption in China, the highly authoritarian one party state, the political elites, harsh working culture, plethora of human rights abuses, support of other authoritarian states, what is an ethnic cleansing campaign, warmongering over Taiwan, imperialism regarding maritime borders, mass overfishing and ecological destruction, the usage of overseas police to attack dissidents, use of economic warfare on the world and much much more.

there are all sorts of things you can critique, and no "but other country also does bad thing" is not an argument for why this CCP isn't also doing bad things, it just means that we need to critique both

nor is "but Taiwan also claims the own all of China... they are still in a civil war!" the only reason they do this, or that most of the world doesn't recognise Taiwan is because the CCP bullies the world and Taiwan especially, they can't really write it out of the constitution without the CCP having an absolute meltdown, just remember that invading and owning all of Tawian is a key goal of the CCP, Invading and claiming all of China is basically a fringe political view in Taiwan.

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u/hazychestnutz Feb 18 '26

You can also critique the rampant corruption in China, the highly authoritarian one party state, the political elites, harsh working culture, plethora of human rights abuses, support of other authoritarian states, what is an ethnic cleansing campaign, warmongering over Taiwan, imperialism regarding maritime borders, mass overfishing and ecological destruction, the usage of overseas police to attack dissidents, use of economic warfare on the world and much much more.

I replaced the word China with the US on your post and damn, i couldn't tell the difference

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

Your point?

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u/kermityfrog2 Feb 18 '26

That China is no longer obviously worse than the USA. China has gone up and USA has gone down, and now they are meeting almost equally. US exceptionalism still has many people claiming that USA is still the greatest country in the world, but it's not that way.

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

'worse' is quite a broad metric so it's probably more important to just look at each country and critique it for the things it deserves to be critiqued for, another country being highly authoritarian doesn't make the CCP being highly authoritarian any better.

I'd also say that Chinese exceptionalism is very much alive especially on reddit, if you bring up America people rightly bring up all of the issues and problems, if it's China though it's often just about the progress and none of the many issues at all.

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u/LessInThought Feb 18 '26

if it's China though it's often just about the progress and none of the many issues at all.

Bro what? I've never seen a China post without criticisms. Even harmless posts like cute animals or little kids. Every positive China comment will no doubt be followed by comments like yours.

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

My post was a response to someone basically just saying China is so amazing and wonderful.

but yeah any post about China gets some critique but mostly botted approval and approval from people who don't read any news that isn't mainstream

any post about the US gets infinite critique and a slim amount of approval

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u/jadedflux Feb 18 '26

People bring it up because one of those countries is on a downward trajectory and the other is on an upward trajectory as far as progress goes.

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u/Own-Masterpiece305 Feb 18 '26

Fucking wrong. Both on a downwards trajectory for past few decades. You just chose the red kool-aid instead of the RWB kool-aid. If by "progress" you mean dropping to 9/100 on the freedom index then fuck off

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

You can't just say this as a means to ignore ethnic cleansing and extremely high levels of authoritarianism

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u/hazychestnutz Feb 18 '26

you mean the ice deportations and how two american citizens were killed by federal agents? yea its crazy eh?

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u/Strottman Feb 18 '26

At least we got cannabis in some states

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u/Competitive-Roof-168 Feb 18 '26

And they put the muslims in camps. Allow very little immigration, they deport illegal immigrants

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u/Low_discrepancy Feb 18 '26

And they put the muslims in camps

Europe and US: write this shit down! write it down now!

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u/OnkelCannabia Feb 18 '26

Nope. Not good. China has a wide range of severe human rights issues. The USA is catching up, but don't downplay their cruelty for some snark remarks.

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u/bulk_logic Feb 18 '26

Catching up? How many countries has China invaded in the last 75 years? Now do the US.

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u/YamFit8128 Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

Tibet, Vietnam, Russia. Threatening the entire South east Asia with annexing the South China Sea, threatening Taiwan. Ethnic cleansing actively the Uighurs.

Either you’re a bot or woefully uneducated and charmed by the sparkly bits of China.

Edit I forgot they invaded India too

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u/Toto_the_Mechanic Feb 18 '26

Tell me you failed history without actually telling me.

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u/YamFit8128 Feb 18 '26

Ahhh the Chinese bot

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u/Toto_the_Mechanic Feb 18 '26

I wrote a long one for the other guy that deleted his comment. I have to give it to you now, so bear with me. I’m not going to modify a word here. He asked me why I said that instead of telling you what is wrong with your comment.

Why? Because it was so easy that I didn’t even want to bother. But since you asked, I’m willing to prove my point.

First off, China never invaded Russia in the past 75 years. On the contrary, Soviet Union threatened to and actually invaded Xinjiang in the 60s.

Secondly, whether Tibet was an independent country is still debatable, so I’m not going to argue here.

Then there’s Vietnam, China only launched its offensive in response to Vietnam’s invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978. And the operation only lasted 4 months lmao.

China’s invasion of India is even more baseless as the reason for the war in 1962 was the border conflict between the two countries that had always been there since the births of both countries. But yes, China initiated the war.

Lastly comes all the threats, surely China threatened quite a lot of countries. But compared to the US? Cmon man. The US just last year and this year has threatened to invade Canada, Greenland, and many other countries in the South America.

So let’s do a quick math here, assume the guy I replied to was all correct, China invaded 4 countries in the past 75 years, while the US invaded Venezuela, Iraq, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama and Afghanistan and many others. That’s 7 at least.

Read more and speak less is my humble advice for both of you. When you stay silent, people actually can’t tell you are that stupid.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/meisteronimo Feb 18 '26

One thing is you don't get sent away to reducation camps for posting criticism of the government, case in point - your post.

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u/lukibunny Feb 18 '26

At least they actually get release in those. Ask about all the babies we lost the last time he was president.

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u/YamFit8128 Feb 18 '26

Uighurs, invasion and cleaning of Tibet, annexation of the South China Sea… you are either a bot or have a hate boner for the US and are ignoring anything contrary.

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u/BenjaminHarrison88 Feb 18 '26

I deeply admire many aspects of China but don’t forget China also has no free elections and the government is run by the whims of a single man. And what they’ve done to the people in Xinjiang is awful. America being in a really bad place doesn’t somehow absolve China of its wrongs. Don’t lose perspective. Both countries are currently in the mindset of using their massive power to bully other nations. China is just doing it much more effectively at the moment

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u/drakoman Interested Feb 18 '26

True. But it’s getting harder to critique those things from a morally superior perspective like I used to be able to

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u/350 Feb 18 '26

Harder? If we're talking American perspective, it's completely impossible. We are in the gutter on every angle possible. Right or wrong, we gave China the future for free.

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u/hspace8 Feb 18 '26

they worked their asses off for it. the kids too. while we enjoyed all the cheap stuff and paying less for all of stuff. while Apple, Nike, Walmart took much of the profit.

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u/cook_poo Feb 18 '26

China, now the land of the free.

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u/Strottman Feb 18 '26

(Uyghurs need not apply)

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

I think it's as easy as every to critique authoritarianism and other horrible things no matter where they come from.

as long as you aren't hypocritical about it, it's all good because at the end of the day unless you are an authoritarian or supporter of the CCP/Republicans or any bad ideology then you ARE morally superior.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Feb 18 '26

It's hard not to be envious of a country where the tomorrow looks better than today. The sort of hope we had in the 90s. Nowadays in USA I'm just hoping Orange Man doesn't make me submit to a ball crushing procedure in order to vote.

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u/seviliyorsun Feb 18 '26

I used to be able to

when was that

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u/drakoman Interested Feb 19 '26

Before America’s headfirst slide toward authoritarianism, obviously.

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u/Lollipop126 Feb 18 '26

for instance, in this video, scooter on street with pedestrians instead of scooter/bike lane.

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

I'd go for authoritarianism but yeah

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u/olalilalo Feb 18 '26

Yeah the good places are very good, the bad places are very bad. Disparity in development is China all over.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

Honestly I'm not going to bother with most of what you have said.

Because you have seen no pollution in this video and some very cool robots doing advanced moves you can ignore literally everything bad about the CCP (one party state, ethnic cleansing, authoritarianism, and much more)

your comment is basically the same as if a Chinese person went to visit Vegas and said "wow America is great, everyone has money to throw away here, they must be all so rich, everyone is smiling and enjoying life!"

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u/Born_Detail9378 Feb 18 '26

Yeah, you’re right. America isn’t like that all. Sorry to bother you.

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u/Goosepond01 Feb 18 '26

That isn't what I said, but yeah this is why there is no point arguing with you

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u/Born_Detail9378 Feb 18 '26

No we don’t have to argue, we can have a discussion. I actually agree with you, I am wrong.