r/politics • u/sweatycat New York • 1d ago

California to Negotiate Trade With Other Countries to Bypass Trump Tariffs

https://www.newsweek.com/california-newsom-trade-trump-tariffs-2055414
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u/mitkase 1d ago

And really, the odds of Russia being able to turn any of this into a big win is not very likely, at least to my eyes. Russia is overplaying its hand, Trump is eating paste, and China is sipping oolong in the background waiting for the Lil Tyrants to tire themselves out.

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u/VonSchplintah 1d ago

It always gets worse for the Russian people.

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u/oldmaninparadise 1d ago

Mostly if you stand close to the hospitals upper floor windows. For some reason, a hugely high chance of somehow falling out.

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u/RedditTrespasser 1d ago

Russian culture takes a sort of perverse pride in misery, always has. You aren’t a real man unless your life is ugly, brutish, short and drenched in vodka.

I guess it makes sense when you consider the climate.

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u/RedditTrespasser 1d ago edited 1d ago

Say what you want about China, but that is one stable fucking country. The current PRoC has been getting nothing but stronger since the end of WW2, and China as a culture has existed in some form since before the time of Rome.

Despite what Sinophobics would want you to believe, China will be around long after the US has crumbled to dust, and may well outlive any European states.

Eastern philosophy values social harmony, collectivism and reverence towards the traditions and values of past generations. Western philosophy prizes individualism, competition, and dominating your environment. Guess which one is more prone to sparking conflict and hoarding of resources?

I’ll give you a hint- China actually punishes- severely- billionaires when they commit crimes.

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u/Tiruin 1d ago

Plenty of issues especially with housing and birth rates, Great Firewall goes both ways, you only think it's this stable monolith because you never hear otherwise.

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u/RedditTrespasser 1d ago

China isn’t North Korea, lol. Chinese people travel literally everywhere, for everything from tourism to business. I agree that China has its problems, especially when it comes to issues of censorship, but I think you may be guilty of some degree of propaganda-influenced bias if you argue that it’s dystopian.

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u/Neverendingwebinar 1d ago

That censorship has benefits too. They don't have a fox news causing 30% of their population to live in a cult and another 30% to handwave bothsiderism.

Their propaganda keeps the state strong as a whole.

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u/Tiruin 21h ago

Only someone who doesn't know the consequences of a dictatorship and state controlled media would be so mistaken or say something so appalling. It's also not even true.

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u/Tiruin 21h ago

It's not a matter of propaganda (not in this case anyway) but little sharing of information and logic. I talk to japanese and koreans so much more often than chinese despite china having so many more people. Logic as well, no country is perfect, if you think it's "strong" and stable it's because you're not hearing otherwise, but it doesn't mean it's true. Same as Japan, very good in some aspects like the high-speed rail system but terrible in others like work culture, the difference is there's a lot more information available and a lot more people interested in Japan encountering and sharing this information. Even for how "advanced" China is, yeah, of course it looks like it when you cherry-pick the locations, things look a lot different when you follow youtubers who travel rural China.

As for whether it's dystopian, I don't see how you can argue otherwise, it's a dictatorship with a social credit system.