For sure, their space program feats and plans are incredibly exciting, and things we might see in our lifetime. There’s a hopeful star-trek-esque optimism about space rn.

I’m not sure about teachers salaries, I’d have to look it up, but I do know teachers are well respected societally.

So who told you china is trustworthy?

The Chinese people. Non-anecdotal evidence, from an anglo source:

• In contrast to low US political approval ratings, 96% of Chinese are satisfied with the national government (Edelmans 2016). World Values Surveys says that 83% think the country is run for their benefit rather than for the benefit of special groups. A Harvard research center study of long-term public opinion survey finds that > 95% of Chinese citizens approved their government. How is this possible in a one-party state? (TED talk by Eric X Li)
• The real wage (IE the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet. The US real wage by comparison is lower in 2019 than it was in 1973.
• CGTN documentary - China’s war on poverty

No one knows what the story is yet?

He was a murderous imperialist and he should be tried for war crimes.

I feel like at least half of the peace prizes have been given to pro-western / color revolution “dissidents” since the 60s

“Gonna need to see a source from a white country before I’ll believe anything positive about China, the DPRK, Venezuela, Cuba. If it ain’t white, it ain’t right.”

• Average anglophone media enjoyer

Some Background: History conditions much of our thinking about our political systems and most Western democracies resemble Rome’s in 60 BC when, as Robin Daverman humorously says, three aristocrats–politician Julius Caesar, military hero Pompey and billionaire Crassus–formed a backroom alliance that dominated the elected senate. The oligarchs ensured that proletarii votes changed nothing and that the masses remained invisible unless they rioted or died in one of the elites’ endless civil wars. Two thousand years later, in Britain’s general election of 1784, the son of the First Earl of Chatham and Hester Grenville, sister of the previous Prime Minister George Grenville, and the son of the First Baron Holland and Lady Caroline Lennox, daughter of Second Duke of Richmond, offered voters offered a choice of dukes. Today, in many European countries (even egalitarian Sweden) ‘democracy’ is a mere veneer over powerful feudal aristocracies that still control their economies. American voters recently watched a former president’s wife competing with a former president’s brother being defeated by a billionaire who installed his daughter and son-in-law in important government positions and ensured that, as John Dewey said, “U.S. politics will remain the shadow cast on society by big business as long as power resides in business for private profit through private control of banking, land and industry, reinforced by command of the press and other means of propaganda”. Most Western politicians are related by marriage or wealth and have, like all hereditary classes, lost sympathy with the broad mass of their fellow citizens to the extent that, as American political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page found, ‘the preferences of the average American appear to have a near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy’: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens

• Godfree Roberts

From here

It’d be great to see a coalition of countries oppose the US bombing campaign in latin america.

Both pro-war candidates. Sanders voted to bomb like 8 countries, and AOC has supported israel many times with her votes also, like the iron dome.

Go for a walk (outside) every day. I used to try different posture exercises, running, sprinting interval training, but as you get older, nothing is healthier and easier on your body than just daily walks.

We kinda are walking machines anyway:

Bonus points for mental health if you walk in nature, without any headphones or entertainments.

Also do strength training (you can get hand barbells very cheap if you don’t have a gym close by), starting very light at first, and working up to whatever feels comfortable.

Agree, siwe is probably closer.

mi sona e toki pona, taso tenpo mute la mi toki ala e ni.

i know it, but haven’t spoken it for a long time.

Sewe, lawi

Are the russian bots in the room with you right now, contaminating your precious bodily fluids?

The long term is typically what happens to empires like Rome or Britain: a slow, whiny, unstable decline into obscurity until everyone eventually leaves.

Rome had so many civil wars, imperial overextension, political instability, famines, and an inability to cope with disasters, that by the time it fell, it hollowed out to like < 1% of its peak population.

/end doomposting

Highly recommend everyone read yasha levine’s surveillance valley for a lot of the specifics on this, looking at the internet in particular.

True. I have a decent hand-one for $50, but they can get pretty expensive.

You must buy $1600 iphone to support failing US economy.

Please don’t look at all the alternatives that are 3 years ahead in tech and 1/3rd of the cost.

The smart ones know how to avoid the shit now. I’m not testing that out tho lol.

You can find these old / used / open box pretty cheap now.

I got a 2+ year old model that originally sold for like $1500 USD, for ~200.