Where Do You Get Your Beliefs of Russia and China From

Two majority beliefs make me smile and raise my eyebrows and they both concern Russia and China. I know they’re beliefs because from the first line I know the poster is repeating what they read in the mass-media.

Firstly Russia.
Let’s dispel some commonly held beliefs. The USSR collapsed over 30 years ago and it’s now a democratic voting federation. There is no more KGB and the Russians lost 26m dead fighting Nazis not being Nazis.

Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe run by oligarchs and the only country that still has Nazi militias incorporated into its armed forces was never meant to defeat Russia, just as Iraq in 2003 was a forgone conclusion against NATO. It doesn’t matter what weapons the Iraqi’s had then or the Ukrainians have now, the end result was/is inevitable. Wars are not won by advanced weaponry as demonstrated recently in Afghanistan.

Ukraine is not winning anything. From Mariupol to Kherson and currently Lysychansk in Luhansk, wherever the Ukrainians stood and fought they have been defeated. Or in current double speak, have "completed their mission" (surrendered) and been "evacuated" (taken as POWs). Yet the media myth persists that they’re winning or just about to win and many still believe.

Whatever you may think about Putin, he threw out the western capitalists who plundered Russia let in by Yeltsin during the 1990’s, re-opened the Churches, introduced capitalism and kept Russia away from the European Union to stop it becoming another East European economic basket case. In the 2018 elections Putin won 77% of the vote, simply because he’s still so popular. Zyuganov (communist party) received 18.93%. The majority Russians look at the west and just like the rest of the world they don’t want what they see.

Others will say Russia isn’t democratic because it outlaws gay activism, doesn’t have open borders, there are no transsexuals or colour quotas in its government and it promotes traditional values. For good reason and in the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games Putin had to warm visiting gay western athletes and spectators to “leave children alone.” A year later on a visit to Kenya, President Obama was warned by senior political figures, including Deputy President Ruto, not to push the homosexual agenda “and other dirty things“ (Ruto’s quote) in conservative African countries. Outside the west, current western values are now almost universally condemned.

Secondly China.
The belief that China’s economy is about to collapse has been doing the rounds for decades. China’s gold reserves currently stand at 1948 tons and it owns just over $1 trillion of US debt. Its growth rate in 2021 was 8.02%, with the US at 5.97%, although not surprisingly the US continues to outrank China in GDP.

If the currency of the poorest country in the world was made a reserve currency and it was allowed to borrow and print unlimited amounts of money to the current tune of $30.5 trillion and rising, it too would provide the illusion of an economic superpower.

Trump knew this and that the illusion of wealth and prosperity is actually the result of a mountain of debt, which is why he introduced sanctions in an attempt to slow down China’s economy to give the illusion that China’s economy was declining and the US was high.

The secret of China’s rapid rise is that it took note of western failures behind laissez-faire (unregulated) capitalism and adapted an economic system that benefited the country and not just a few individuals. In doing so, the economic reforms after Mao’s death has managed to lift 850 million people out of poverty. According to World Bank statistics, China’s poverty rate fell from 88% in 1981, to 0.7% in 2015. Conversely, the poverty rate in the US almost doubled from 7.4% in 1981 to 13.5% in 2015.

Ouch, all that might have hurt a bit, but whilst the west was playing at creating genderless utopias and worrying about a slavery that ended in 1865, others were developing their economies and military might.

Of course, there’s a price to pay. For relief from poverty and economic security for the population, the Chinese stopped the freedom and greed of the individual, something of an anathema in the US, but whether we like it or not and despite the media propaganda, China will soon and inevitably become the world’s leading economy.

This is not the sign of a collapsing economy


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Russia takes other people's land.

 

And the west would never do that, right?

 

I took my beliefs about Russia from a girl I dated for a year who was Russian, she’s a physical therapist and a lovely human on all counts.
I take my beliefs about China from the girl I’m dating now who immigrated here from China. It’s a big place, not all parts are alike.
I avoid conspiracy websites.

 

Certainly not from you.​

 

I never asked you to, but it was certainly an evasive answer.

 

I take mine from having visited Russia more than once and having lived in China.

 

The old you did something wrong and that entitles me to do whatever I want argument.
The west doesn't take land from another nation and claim it now belongs to them as Russia did with Chrimea and then threaten others if they don't accept it:

MOSCOW, July 17 (Reuters) - The refusal of Ukraine and Western powers to recognise Moscow's control of Crimea poses a "systemic threat" for Russia and any outside attack on the region will prompt a "Judgment Day" response, former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday.

 

But you made it sound as if Russia had done something no one else would do.

The US bombed and invaded the Middle East for years, planning regime changes against those who it couldn’t control. Putin spent years almost begging NATO to stop funding and training the Neo-Nazi militias who were attacking ethnic Russians in the Crimea and Donbass. No way was NATO going to be allowed to occupy Crimea and put missile bases a few hundred miles from Moscow.

As history repeats itself:

“I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction-by returning to his government's own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba-by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis-and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions.” JFK, 1962.

 

To the best of my knowledge, not a single Ukrainian bomb has landed on Russian soil. Russia has practically destroyed the Ukraine.

How do you justify that?

 

Beliefs are propositional attitudes, mental states of having opinions or stances about propositions, or about the context in which propositions are true. "The snow is white" is a belief. Reading the mass media may influence beliefs, but beliefs exist independently and are not the result of the existence of mass media.

Your attempt to create a false "reality vs mass-media induced beliefs" dichotomy fails because we don't have direct access to objective reality. We use subjective models of reality, also known as systems of beliefs.

The Russians fought the Nazis only because the Nazis attacked their former allies. Google Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

The number of inaccuracies in this short text is impressive. Nothing you said justifies an invasion of Ukraine though. Try again.

In other words, Russia became a backward, primitive society, comparable with African third-world countries. Nice achievements for Putin.

Nope. China's economy is based on foreign investments and know-how. China has no chance of becoming the world's leading economy unless it becomes attractive for highly educated scientists and specialists from other countries. America is still the number one brains magnet.

 

He doesn't nor does he care. Note Russia has killed more Ukrainians in six months than the US did Iraqis the entire time we were there.

 

Certainly not from you....lol.

Why would anyone take this message seriously.

 

@Pisa

You’re echoing the political stance that there is no such thing as truth and that reality is based on individual beliefs. It’s a dangerous road to go down as the 20th century proved. If our reality becomes what someone else says it is and not what we can see around us we enter a world of make believe.

The colour of snow is white. Whether you believe it’s green with purple spots is an opinion and not based on reality. Obama was not a returning Messiah and Ukraine is losing the war against Russia. Yes, the recent change to viewing reality subjectively is a hard-left idea, but it misses reality. I can read that not just in your post but throughout the thread.

 

Each will take their favoured beliefs and nit-pick their way through the op.

Over a period of years, the assault on Iraq alone has estimated dead of between half and one million depending on sources and that’s just one country alone. Estimates in Ukraine are around 30,000 civilians dead.

The US and the west in general no longer attract the brains of the world, they attract the destitute. It’s what Trump was complaining about.

The west stood by and did nothing for years as Ukrainian Nazi militias set about ethnically cleansing its population of Russians. Not so in Serbia in 1999 as NATO attacked to stop the Serbians ethnically cleansing their population of majority Muslim Albanians.

It may have come as a surprise for many, but Russia was never going to let NATO station its missiles and troops a couple of hundred miles from Moscow itself. Just as the US would understandably never let itself be surrounded with a hostile army.

As we live in our first world consumer societies expecting others to stay at the developing stage and supply us with endless cheap products, has it come as a surprise that the others are now overtaking us in manufacturing? The world isn’t queueing up to buy our overpriced products and we can no longer afford to buy even the cheap imports. We’ve gone bust and are living on borrowed and printed money trying to convince ourselves the world owes us a living.

 

I'm not aware of any political stance that there is no such thing as truth. My stance is not political, it's based on science. I believe there is such a thing as objective truth (the reality beyond our senses), but we don't have direct access to it.

The color of snow is not white, because there are no colors in the objective reality, and that's the truth. Colors exist only in the mind.

You think I'm a leftist. Why?

I don't know how much is Ukraine losing, but the biggest loser will be Russia. The world is looking for ways to lessen, or completely eliminate, dependence on Russian natural resources.

 

Look at the socially engineered identity politics sweeping the west. It’s not the truth, it’s a politically inspired ideology. The objective truth or reality is what is actually happening, not our subjective interpretation of it.

Our minds define a consensus of terms for what we can see. Snow (a noun) is white and ‘white’ is the adjective of the noun. If we discard that consensus, it’s why Obama the politician became a ‘Messiah’ and Ukrainian POW’s become ‘evacuees.’ Language defines the way we view the world and if we all see it in individual ways, then there is no more right or wrong, good or bad, but what we each believe.

If you want to use the term ‘pancake’ to describe the colour of snow that’s your subjective opinion and belief, but it isn’t reality as understood by the vast majority.

What you’ve just said above is straight out of the hard-left totalitarian handbook and is a commonality shared by them all.

The west has just banned the import of oil and gas from a major supplier and is now feeling the results without putting anything in its place to substitute for it. There’s a reason that the west imported huge quantities of energy supplies from Russia and now having sanctioned it and as the weather gets colder, good luck with solar power and windmills.

 

Interesting how these commentators wax lyrical from the comfortable armchair of the West. Says it all.

 

Explanations never hurt anyone.

 

Isn't it wonderful to be able to say whatever you want, without a knock on the door.

 

Freedom in China.

https://www.invenglobal.com/article...have-been-disappeared-over-a-tank-shaped-cake

 

Nope.

They've invaded for sure but they left occupied land and gave it back to opposing governments.

In the case of Afghanistan it was released back to the Taliban. A leadership that is direct enemies with the United States.

Also. It is highly suspect that a properly functioning democracy elects the same dude to rule for ****ing 20 years. Who also magically happens to be one of the wealthiest people on the planet.

Got anything else or are we done here?

 

Let's not dive into philosophical definitions of "truth". Identity politics exist, that much is true. Whether this kind of politics leads to a better society or not, it's another matter altogether. Personally, I'm opposed to any kind of identity politics, from all sides of the political spectrum.

Colors don't exist in nature.
https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/is-color-a-property-of-matter-or-generated-in-our-brain.html

Yes, I'm well aware of the power of language. The Kremlin uses emotionally charged language to dehumanize and demonize Ukrainians, calling them Nazis. It's a method they have successfully applied during the Soviet years against my country and my nation, and its effects are still killing my people. Let's not forget that Putin is a product of that era. He uses the same method to try and turn the world against Ukrainians. It doesn't work.

By the way, the claim that the invasion is justified because ethnic Russians are oppressed by Ukrainians comes straight from the Nazi playbook.

 

Well, that’s a novel way of putting it. We gave back the lands we invaded and occupied and released Afghanistan back to the Taliban. I hope they were all grateful and you didn’t forget to say thanks for the stay?

Putin was President for eight years, same as Obama. From 2000 to 2008. Then a gap and Medvedev from 2008 to 2012. Then Putin again from 2012. The next elections are in two years-time and it’s unlike he’ll stand again. So no, Putin hasn’t been the president since 2000.

I don’t know how wealthy Putin is, but I bet not as wealthy as Trump.

Yes, if you’re finished you can leave the thread at any time, but if you stay can you do some homework for your next post?

 

Well of course the perception of colour is from the brain, it’s not from your leg! We use language to describe what we see and if we don’t agree we end up with all sorts of definitions called beliefs based on opinions.

You’re right, in every war countries use demonization against the enemy. Not just Russia by the way. Except in the case of Ukraine there are actual Nazis there. Don’t take my word for it, google ‘Azov Battalion’ and look at the images. NATO has been funding and training these characters for years.


So someone made this up? https://www.theblogmire.com/odessa-one-year-on-a-day-of-infamy-a-day-of-shame/

Western politicians and NATO knew since 2014 this was going on

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