The Post Your Thoughts of the Moment Thread 2

[Ruto]

In my opinion, the best thing the Chinese government has done since communism took hold was introduce simplified characters. Makes learning the language easier.

Oh hahaha, I never thought of that. I watched some anime where they use kanji and some of my relatives who were educated before Mao can still read it. I'm just sitting there, thinking "I'm so glad I don't have to learn how to write that." But also not being married off to some guy (like in the Joy Luck Club) is a big plus too.

[DrP]

Modern China

Modern China isn't very communist at all either. I like to say that China is Communist in name only, since it served as a foundation of the Chinese society when Mao started the new government, but now it has evolved into something very different.

China's economy, for example, is fairly free-trade oriented with "Chinese characteristics". China has its own stock exchange in Shanghai which many Chinese companies list on. Before Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms in China in the 1980s, the economy was just the way that Mao started it. The Cultural Revolution brought China's economy, among other things, to a virtual standstill and state-owned enterprises were the only business entities that could legally do business in China. China's government isn't super "USSR" communist anymore. It has turned into a somewhat-oligarchy, which a ruling group of higher-ups in the Communist Party. China is unlike the USSR with leaders/dictators running the country until death, but change every 10 years. If you look at what President Xi is doing, he's working to fix China's social displacement issues, corruption and even further reforming China's economic policies.

Since Mao died and China has been evolving, religion has been something the Chinese government has looked the other way. Religion thrives in China from old folk practices, to the big religions like Islam and Christianity. Even when I was in China, I went to a Catholic church for mass and nothing felt out of place or I felt like I was going to get arrested for professing my faith. It doesn't matter anymore (unless that church is being vocal against the Chinese government or hiding dissenters).

tl;dr - China isn't all communism as everyone is led to believe.

[MaestroUGC]

You know, a certain government likes to ban the discussion of Communism. /irony

That was more pertaining to the religion discussion.

[mikey]

hey guys what'd I miss
I was at work for 5 hours so I'm guessing a lot; either way I realize now that my information may be *slightly* out of date!  I was by no means insulting Chinese people or their culture and I certainly didn't mean to start a discussion on religion and communism. sorry.

[Maelstrom]

*Yet another random tangent*

I know someone who is a strong anarchical communist. He's a little odd.

[Nebbles]

A classmate of mine was a Communist.

[Maelstrom]

Was he a genius/philosopher?

[SuperFireKirby]

Is no one else noticing Jub's descent into total madness?

Also, communism is for dirty heathens who refuse to accept the gospel of free enterprise and the mighty dollar bill into their lives!

[Sebastian]

Do we really need another Mod telling us what to do

In my opinion this is a pretty cool debate....if that.

[mikey]

Guys
the funny thing is communism as Karl Marx suggested it would actually be near utopia

[SuperFireKirby]

Every social/political/economic design out there like communism or socialism or capitalism in theory would create a perfect utopia. The problem is humans just tend to fuck everything up with our imperfect humany ways.

[Waddle Bro]

Nocturne didn't say anything stupid - he's right. When Mao took control of China, he outlawed religious practice. Of course, religion has nothing to do with the concepts of communism itself. But in this case, communism and a ban on religion came hand in hand.

But he wasn't right lol, he said Buddhists weren't allowed to practice religion. Thinking that over a billion people in one country not having the right to practice religion is silly imo.

[KefkaticFanatic]

Star Trek communism is best communism obvs

[Ruto]

But he wasn't right lol, he said Buddhists weren't allowed to practice religion. Thinking that over a billion people in one country not having the right to practice religion is silly imo.

My thoughts exactly. Did I post photos from my last vacation where I went to a Buddhist monastery in Hong Kong? And these monks were chatting it up with the cable car guys as they were boarding to go back to the city?

Besides, the idea is that most people do it in the privacy of their homes or places like temples/churches. It seems silly to me for people to preach on the streets, like those guys in the subway. But that's this country.

[InsigTurtle]

However, there are some religious movements that aren't really accepted by the Chinese government, most notably Falun Gong. Apart from that, people are pretty much free to practice what they want.