• Lemminary@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        the hyper-individualism in western countries doesn’t make “working together” as a country easier

        I’d be careful with overgeneralizing that. Even though Latin American cultures also push for individualism to some extent, we do have tight-nit communities regardless because of the unified cultures that we have.

      • Pregnenolone@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        And also, the big population in China would never allow for a “car culture” in the firsr place, since there just isn’t room for that many cars, public transit is a must for a densely populated country.

        I’ve been to China plenty of times, I promise the car culture is alive and well.

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        And also, the big population in China would never allow for a “car culture” in the firsr place, since there just isn’t room for that many cars, public transit is a must for a densely populated country.

        I’ve been to China as part of a company visit. They took us everywhere by car. Even what I would consider walking distance.

        I did not see mass transit once.

      • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        “China has good railways because China bad” is one hell of a bad take.

        China isn’t an autocracy any more than the US is, getting to vote which party gets to erode your rights and enact genocide on your behalf isn’t democracy

        • PiousAgnostic@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Xi Jinping’s third term is literally autocracy. President Cheeto would kill for that much power.

          America as fucked up as we, are can bash our president and resist his power grabs as much as our oligarchy allows.

          In China, you can’t even post a whinnie the pooh cartoon because making an autocratic dictator look bad can’t fly.

          China doesn’t have rapid shifts in infrastructure because China bad, it’s because China has an autocratic dictatorship which allows for massive investment of resources without argument.

          • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            The US has massive investment of resources without argument too when it comes to the military industrial complex or to rescuing banks that have committed fraud, or to genocide Palestinians. The fact that it doesn’t do so with basic infrastructure is because the oligarchs in the US don’t want that, not because of a lack of oligarchs in power. They make it theatrical in congress, but look at the defense budged and the speed with which they approve multi-billion expenses that go into bombing kids in the middle east, suddenly the American democracy works expediently.

            • bluGill@fedia.io
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              2 months ago

              People talk about it and complain. there was and is debate on all those topics. You have lost in all the topics you are talking about, but it was fair and square.

          • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            A democracy would be voting for a party promising not to erode your rights and getting your rights not eroded. That’s not what you get in the ol’ US of A, anywhere in the west for that master

    • rabber@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Yeah that’s what happens when all your manufacturing is outsourced there. China is insanely insanely rich now

      • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Still not as rich as the USA.
        China’s GDP is 17.79 trillion dollars compared to the USA’s 27,36 trillion.
        There’s plenty of money to invest in public infrastructure, but no one wants to do it.

        • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Yeah, just to add, per capita the difference is even starker. The low population density in the US makes it extremely costly to build a high-speed railway from east to west coast, but there is no good reason why there is no railway between LA-Bay Area-Sacremento, and a high-speed rail connection along the East Coast is a no brainer.