[phendrenad2]

This is the kind of flippant remark that does the gravity of the situation a disservice. Nobody burns witches out of the blue one day, they do it because they figured out that burning witches makes everyone afraid to do anything that could be remotely construed as witchcraft, and they all start being good little church attendees.

So I hate to break it to you but you're not fighting powers-that-be who are just bumbling around and decided to randomly be like China one day. You're fighting powers-that-be who did the analysis and decided that being like China was the right way to go, for the good of everyone, and they backed it up with math and logic. You're going to need math and logic to convince them otherwise.

[deaux]

> You're fighting powers-that-be who did the analysis and decided that being like China was the right way to go

Not at all. If they decided to be like China, then that would include the benefits. They're nothing like China. Xi isn't siphoning hundreds of billions to his personal account through $XI coin. He isn't giving the reigns of the country to his tech CEO buddies. He isn't destroying scientific institutions and looting the country for personal gain.

I hate to break it to you but this is the kind of surfacelevel comparison that doesn't hold up when considered for more than 2 seconds.

[phendrenad2]

I agree actually, we're trending towards China in some ways and not in others. I was just pointing out that the ways we're trending towards China are driven by people who did a bit more analysis than OP is giving them credit for. Since your real disagreement is with OP, I'll bow out of this one.

[throwaway27448]

> who did the analysis and decided that being like China was the right way to go

But again, they are not deciding to be like china, which implies a degree of competency and care for the population. This is just corruption.