[free_rms]

Do you even know who Deng Xiaopeng is?

Changing systems without a massive, disruptive loss of life is actually a huge accomplishment. No other nation has transitioned out of communism smoothly. It had the side effect of not changing names of various things.

[smsm42]

Yes, I know who he is, but he didn't change as much as you try to represent - China is still under the full control of the CCP. It's like Martin Bormann would take control over NDSAP, denounce some mistakes made by overzealous comrades, announced some modest reforms, and proclaim the new era - while NSDAP is still in control of Germany.

> No other nation has transitioned out of communism smoothly.

China didn't either. Unless by "communism" you mean whatever Marx meant as the ultimate point of history - classless moneyless post-scarcity society with no property and no suffering and basically paradise. Obviously nobody transitioned out of it at all because it never existed. If you mean actual society built in China, it didn't transition out of anything - it allowed some modest economic freedoms, under the tight control of the CCP of course, but the idea of state-controlled centralized economy which is subject to single-party rule and complete absence of the idea of any individual rights is firmly in place.

[free_rms]

This thread started under the topic "believe it or not, Chinese people are actually pretty happy with their government given the record over the last few decades".

Can you think about what would be persuasive to such a person?

They're not American, didn't grow up on your information diet, and really don't give a shit about what's "communist" or not. Their economy is state-controlled to the tune of Norway, or a little less so. Who cares. They are all doing way better than a generation or 2 ago, and here in America, we are comparatively struggling. They see this. Why should they want our system instead?

[smsm42]

I've lived in a totalitarian state, and you can't really observe how happy the people are when their rights and means of expression are constantly suppressed. Even if some people were happy with the arrangement, I'm pretty sure people who are imprisoned, stripped of basic rights and sometimes just disassembled for spare organs aren't that happy.

> didn't grow up on your information diet

You don't know the first thing about my information diet.

> and really don't give a shit about what's "communist" or not

Hong-Kong protests showed pretty clearly they do, if they are not forcefully and violently suppressed. Of course, it's kinda hard to know if they give a shit if one gets shot for publicly admitting you give a shit.

> Their economy is state-controlled to the tune of Norway, or a little less so.

That's a lie.

> They are all doing way better than a generation or 2 ago

Generation or 2 ago Communists were literally destroying the country with Cultural Revolution, trying to purge it from any shred of old tradition and make all educated people forget all they know and go dig dirt in the fields. Pretending like stopping this and the resulting relative improvement of conditions is some great achievement of the Communists is the peak arrogance - what's the Chinese word for hutzpah? It's like if I beat you up for years and then stopped for a while and your health improved a bit and I would go around and brag that I am a great doctor - because I "cured" you from the sickness I was causing to you by beating you up!

[free_rms]

> You don't know the first thing about my information diet.

You've given some pretty strong hints about it in fact, and tripled down in this comment.

I'll go out on a very specific limb, tell me I'm wrong: Moved to the US from an eastern european country at a young age, perhaps exactly 1989, parents talk a lot about how bad it was?

And "state-controlled to the tune of Norway" is approximately accurate, thank you. You know they have gigantic private corporations there? Alongside the state-owned oil behemoths, Norway makes for a particularly nice comparison.

[smsm42]

> tell me I'm wrong

You are not wrong about me being born in an Eastern European country (no shit, Sherlock, I told about it in this very topic pretty transparently, and mentioned it many times otherwise on HN), but very wrong about all the rest. Ok, except for the fact I am presently in the US (which also doesn't require genius-level detective insight as I also referred to this fact many times). As internet telepathy goes, I give you C- - at least you could read what I write, lesser minds would conclude if I said I lived in a totalitarian state I must have been born in North Korea.

That said, I am not sure what it has to do with my information diet anyway - I assume you are not going to tell me my place of birth somehow prescribes my information sources? That makes no sense whatsoever. Even if you guessed my whole biography right - which you mostly failed at with an exception of a couple of details which I pretty much explicitly told you - you still wouldn't have any idea what my information diet is. And you do not, of course.

> And "state-controlled to the tune of Norway" is approximately accurate, thank you.

Repeating a falsity does not make it less false. Norway has plenty of socialist stuff going on, but nowhere on the level that CCP totalitarian control goes. Not even same order of magnitude.

[free_rms]

I did say I was out on a limb..

Anyways, you've made clear that your reference point for understanding China is Soviet Eastern Europe. If you check a map and a calendar, you can see some places where that reference point might be inexact.