| Yes. Xi co-opted the institutions of indoctrination to teach hyper nationalist "century of humiliation", "Xi Jinping thought", and the 3 evils. If you think that you can teach that treating humans as gods is bad, why do you think that blind nationalism can't be taught. If blind nationalism can be taught, why can't the average Chinese person be made to feel that war (to prevent the evil of separatism) is regrettable, but necessary? He did the same thing you wish to do (indoctrinate people with a no gods ideology) to indoctrinate people with a Xi is a god ideology. I think the average educated Chinese person probably isn't very happy, but I think the average Chinese fox news watcher equivalent is probably just fine, maybe a little suspicious of zero covid policy, but overall whipped into a nationalist frenzy. There's plenty of video evidence of Russians not feeling the same way as you or I. There are clearly unrepentantly evil people. > This too isn't true as flexibility exists. I don't understand this refutation. We are seeing the results of non-flexibility in abortion politics in America, in Ukraine, and in countless other examples. Making someone flexible violates the idea that you can't change someone (to be how you want). Our very existence, being male and female, binds our species to eternal conflict. Genetic propagation is a limited resource that must be competed (fought) over. It doesn't take too long watching Planet Earth before it's clear that conflict is axiomatic to genetics (in the general case). > I think you're also not giving that comment, which has a history older than our combined age, a good faith read That is disappointing to hear. How do you think I am reading it, and how do you think I misinterpreted it? > I think you see the differences in our opinions and are creating a larger divide than there actually is. I think we both are likely to agree with enough time and patience. I think we would probably agree on many outputs, given the same inputs. I think your confusion and uncertainty is a result of unresolved contradictions in the axioms you hold. I don't think you've run into a delusional person, like a manager or a parent, exercising their power over you despite every attempt made to negotiate or achieve mutual understanding, in a manner that forces you to fight rather than submit. I think your mental model of how reality works is not burdened with that experience. Trying to get your Alzheimers grandpa to remember you is an exercise in futility. No amount of wishful thinking, desire, effort, or anything else is going to make that happen. Same for trying to get some people to feel empathy. I think you feel grief over the state of conflict in the world, for which the first stage is denial, then you get to bargaining "something must be able to be done, we must be able to solve this or prevent it." I think eventually you will get to acceptance. |