ITT: "Everyone downvoting this hilarious meme must be really mad!"
this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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Nifty propaganda we got here
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, its also downvotes on Lemmy
Poverty is such a weird concept when applied like this.
Much of chinas population were deemed as living in poverty, despite just... Living oldschool farming village lives like they always did. Might not have had much money, but they just lived like farmers and villagers.
Then a bunch of people invented a bunch of stuff, looked at these people who didn't have those things, and said "man, are you poor! We better create some jobs for you..." and are now patting themselves on the back for taking these people out of their villages, and giving them the possibility to live for ABOVE 1.90$ a day.
Oh wow.
Cool thing is that Poverty isn’t just money:
Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one's food or a job to earn one's living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation.
There are plenty of other definitions, but they all revolve around these things: food, clothing, shelter, clean water and air, etc. All basic human needs.
In short: To be considered not poor in China you have to have full access to healthcare, edcuation a relatively decent income, solid housing and so on.
They did not "pat thremselves on the back" for givcing them the "possibility" of making above 1,90 bucks a day.
What you described is ABSOLUTE poverty(not the possibility of making that money, but actually doing so is the definition. Just the possibility would be considered a failure by chinese standards), the form of poverty(also called relative poverty) which China has fully eradicated not too long ago. China defines relative poverty much more broadly.
For sure its probably propaganda but the irony is that most people downvoting you are probably just influenced by the opposite propaganda.
That's primarily why most people on lemmy that critically support the CCP post; to get people to realize their reflexive EvIlCHiNaMeNcOmMiEs bad is influenced by the propaganda they've been consuming for decades.
Its a democratic state made up of more people than the entirety of North America and Europe combined. There is no magic brainwashing power that exists in any version of our reality that affects 1.4 billion humans perfectly. So either they're not people or maybe most of them genuinely enjoy their country and the good it's managed to do for them.
Oh and since this is ml and facts can be said; the uighur population isn't under going genocide. We know what a 21st century genocide looks like in a fascist state. The few thousand (out of tens of millions) arrested and allowed reeducation for legitimately going to Afghanistan and becoming terrorists does not a genocide make.
I get that China isn't as bad as alot of news sites say, but isn't it common knowledge that China is a one-party state? Where is the democracy exactly?
You have to agree communism is the goal, that's the party. Within that party are hundreds of factions that are all striving for votes so china gets to communism in the way they think is best. That's the democracy.
Its like if the US formalized an oath to continue being loyal to the US into a single party that you have to join in order to be in politics; and from there split into dem/rep parties. You'd still vote for factions and reps, but all of them would be required to at least have the same ending goal in mind.
It prevents people like trump from getting far, as keeping up appearances isn't really possible the longer you spend in the party.
There are of course downsides to this approach, but a lack of choice isn't really one of them; you just don't get to vote for the destruction of the government or country.
Except they have a very tiered system, where elections only occur for positions at the lowest level, and the higher tier the position is the less accountable they are to the will of the people. There is no governance by the people there, I would argue there isn't in most countries that claim to be democratic, but its even more blatant in a system where the rulers aren't even representatives of the people, just representatives of a slightly lower tier of the only legal party.
The lower tiers vote for the higher tiers, and anyone can join government.
As far as your concern, there's a reason the government in china actually works, vs the US that stagnates for decades.
Only actually qualified people have power. You prove yourself over years. Xi, for example, has a doctorate and decades of proven experience; and that was after winning his external elections.
to compare to to western democracy, you don't vote for prime minister, the people you voted for votes for prime minister. Just add a few layers with publicly auditable and contestable elections.
I'm not saying it doesn't work, there are alot of things I think China does right, and I by no means think these representative republics of the west are anything more than veiled oligarchies, as China is a veiled technocracy. I just don't think its right to call any regime that isn't accountable to its population a democrarcy, I don't think its even right to call republics with infrequent or no referendums a democracy.
Looks like you triggered some Western chauvinists 🤷
- Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says [UN] Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s Founding
- China’s Energy Use Per Person Surpasses Europe’s for First Time
- At 54, China’s average retirement age is too low
- China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data
Are these western chauvanists in the room with us right now?
As of now, it's just one person getting some clarity on the definition of poverty from another person and you. You must really want to peddle your paywalled links because that's quite the comment hair-trigger you got there
Should be "everytime i send uyghurs to reeducation camps i do 1 pushup"
Then They'd have done no pushups in the last 6 years and thus had atrophied muscles.