Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by alando46 3027 days ago
While this is certainly troubling in terms of what it means for our fellow Chinese humans, I'm not sure it makes sense to compare this to the U.S. We have a leader who didn't receive the majority of votes. Our government blatantly disregards what people want in favor of the elite (1 example being net neutrality), we support policies that have been shown to systematically oppress non-wealthy whites ("war" on drugs), millions in our country have no affordable healthcare options, we have more gun violence per capita than any other nation that's not at war, etc. This shouldn't become a China vs America discussion. Both China and America have big things to improve on. At least in China, the quality of life for the average person is increasing. In the U.S. many people can no longer afford to buy a house, have no savings, and are at risk of losing middle-class status.
3 comments
alando46 3027 days ago
Of course there are many scary things happening in China as well (censorship, power consolidation, etc), but all I'm saying is it isn't productive and doesn't make sense to use this news as another reason why the USA is the best ever (or some version of that)
link
mr_spothawk 3027 days ago
serious question: who's better?

that's the topic for a great series if you want to write it. figuring out who's better is a hard thing.

it's not actually a competition though. what we (i) want is more peace, more compassion, more comfort.

the US is (in effect) the oldest democracy on the planet, and arguably, the most likely place for the population to affect national change.

link
unethical_ban 3027 days ago
>At least in China, the quality of life for the average person is increasing. In the U.S. many people can no longer afford to buy a house, have no savings, and are at risk of losing middle-class status.

I cannot believe you are anything but an agent of a foreign power, or a naive, misguided adolescent, to suggest that the political structure of China is more liberal and achieves a better ends than that of the Unitd States.

link
pmarreck 3027 days ago
The entirety of your comment is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism fallacy. The Chinese are experts at this sort of bullshit.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-is-whataboutism_us...

link