Fleetinglife

What about a godmother and a godfather - fitting for a multipolar world? The one teaches grace, sensitivity, and compassion, and the other strength, conscientiousness, and willpower. The U.S. can become a godmother and China the godfather for example in the future. An idealistic, utopian, and hopeful outlook from my perspective.

''The hijackers who carried out the attacks on 9/11, like all radical jihadist groups in the Middle East, spoke to us in the murderous language we taught them. The explosions and collapse of the towers, however, were, to me, intimately familiar. I had seen it before. This was the familiar language of the empire. I had watched these incendiary messages dropped on southern Kuwait and Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War and descend with thundering concussions in Gaza and Bosnia. The calling card of empire, as was true in Vietnam, is tons of lethal ordnance dropped from the sky. The hijackers spoke to America in the idiom we taught them. The ignorance, masquerading as innocence, of Americans, mostly white Americans, was nauseating. It was the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. It was the greatest act of terrorism in American history. It was an incomprehensible act of barbarity. The stunningly naïve rhetoric, which saturated the media, saw the blues artist Willie King sit up all night and write his song “Terrorized”. “Now you talk ‘bout terror,” he sang. “I been terrorized all my days.” But it was not only Black Americans who were familiar with the endemic terror built into the machinery of white supremacy, capitalism, and empire, but those overseas who the empire for decades sought to subdue, dominate, and destroy. They knew there is no moral difference between those who fire Hellfire and cruise missiles or pilot militarized drones, obliterating wedding parties, village gatherings or families, and suicide bombers. They knew there is no moral difference between those who carpet-bomb North Vietnam or southern Iraq and those who fly planes into buildings. In short, they knew the evil that spawned evil. America was not attacked because the hijackers hated us for our values. America was not attacked because the hijackers followed the Quran — which forbids suicide and the murder of women and children. American was not attacked because of a clash of civilizations. America was attacked because the virtues we espouse are a lie. We were attacked for our hypocrisy. We were attacked for the campaigns of industrial slaughter that are our primary way of speaking with the rest of the planet. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense in the summer of 1965, called the bombing raids, which would eventually kill hundreds of thousands of civilians north of Saigon, a form of communication with the communist government in Hanoi. We did not, and do not, grasp that we are the mirror image of those we seek to destroy. We too kill with an inchoate fury. The lives of Iraqis, Afghanis, Syrians, Libyans, and Yemenis are as precious as the lives of those killed in the twin towers. But this understanding, this ability to see the world as the world saw us, eluded Americans who, refusing to acknowledge the blood on their own hands, instantly bifurcated the world into good and evil, us and them, the blessed and the damned. The country drank deep of the dark elixir of nationalism, the heady elevation of us as noble and wronged people. The flip side of nationalism is always racism. And the poisons of racism and hate infected the American nation to propel it into the greatest strategic blunder in its history, one from which it will never recover. We did not, and do not, grasp that we are the mirror image of those we seek to destroy. We too kill with an inchoate fury. Over the past two decades, we have extinguished the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who never sought to harm the United States or were involved in the attacks on American soil. We too use religion, in our case the Christian faith, to mount a jihad or crusade. We too go to war to fight phantoms of our own creation.'' "The manipulation of the images, however, had already begun. The scores of “jumpers,” those who leaped to their deaths before the collapses, were censored from the live broadcasts. They seemed to wait for turns. They often fell singly or in pairs, sometimes with improvised parachutes made from drapes, sometimes replicating the motions of swimmers. They reached speeds of 150 miles an hour during the ten seconds it took before they hit the pavement. The bodies made a sickening thud on impact. All who saw them fall spoke of this sound. The mass suicide was one of the pivotal events of 9/11. But it was immediately expunged from public consciousness. The jumpers did not fit into the myth the nation demanded. The hopelessness and despair were too disturbing. It exposed our smallness and fragility. It illustrated that there are levels of suffering and fear that lead us to willingly embrace death. The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live. The story is fabricated out of the ashes of the twin towers was a story of resilience, heroism, courage, and self-sacrifice, not collective suicide. So, mass murder and mass suicide were replaced with an encomium to the virtues and prowess of the American spirit." ''The intoxication of violence, the anodyne of war, is a poison. It condemns critical thought as treason. Its call to patriotism is little more than collective self-worship. It imparts a god-like power and licenses to destroy, not only things but other human beings. But war is, ultimately, about betrayal, as the defeat in Afghanistan elucidates. Betrayal of the young by the old. Betrayal of idealists by cynics. Betrayal of soldiers and marines by war profiteers and politicians. War, like all idols, begins by demanding the sacrifice of others but ends with the demand for self-sacrifice. The Greeks, like Sigmund Freud, grasped that war is the purest expression of the death instinct, the desire to exterminate all systems of life, including, ultimately, our own. Ares, the Greek god of war, was frequently drunk, quarrelsome, impetuous, and a lover of violence for its own sake. He was hated by nearly all the other gods, except the god of the underworld, Hades, to whom he delivered a steady stream of new souls. Ares’s sister, Eris, the goddess of chaos and strife, spread rumors and jealousy to fan the flames of war.'' ''This moral fragmentation, where we define ourselves by tangential and often fictitious acts of goodness, is a psychological escape hatch. It allows us to avoid looking at who we are and what we have done. This willful blindness is what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls “doubling,” the “division of the self into two functioning wholes so that the part-self acts as an entire self.” This doubling, Lifton noted, is often done “outside of awareness.” And it is an essential ingredient to carrying out evil. If we refuse to see ourselves as we are, if we cannot shatter the lie perpetuated by our moral fragmentation, there is no hope of redemption. The gravest danger we face is the danger of alienation, not only from the world around us but from ourselves." https://scheerpost.com/2021/09/10/hedges-the-evil-we-do-is-the-evil-we-get/

This was the mess that was made worldwide by the pumping of funding and armament and positive public opinion, support, and propaganda for the mujaheddin while at the same time having a military presence and meddling in Middle Eastern affairs and was used as a justification for the crimes and legitimacy of other nationalist leaders across the globe for their vendettas and oppressions and for some to hold on to power still on the basis of using this justification to demonize others and to legitimize and paint over their own war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crackdowns, discrimination on the one hand and all this with separatism on the other: Yugoslav Wars: Bosnian mujahideen: "A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as to the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court. A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists and had lived in the area 100 km (60 mi) north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997, report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden. In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed a Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.'' Albania: "SHISH's head Fatos Klose said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organization and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organized by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawahiri. During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War." September 11 attacks: ''God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the US Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.'' — Osama bin Laden, 2004 ''After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks." Sources: All from Wikipedia The mess that was made and was consistently ignored or not given proper attention.

Yep, this: ''The lives of Iraqis, Afghanis, Syrians, Libyans, and Yemenis are as precious as the lives of those killed in the twin towers. But this understanding, this ability to see the world as the world saw us, eluded Americans who, refusing to acknowledge the blood on their own hands, instantly bifurcated the world into good and evil, us and them, the blessed and the damned. The country drank deep of the dark elixir of nationalism, the heady elevation of us as noble and wronged people. The flip side of nationalism is always racism. And the poisons of racism and hate infected the American nation...'' It can happen to any nation's people and is in fact even more pronounced and present to nations outside of America and the West. The self-bias of peoples is present more or less everywhere, the question is only to the extent of what degree and denial and alienation of other people's humanity and interests.

George W Bush on 9/11: "We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders but from the violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home, but in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols they are children of the same foul spirit and it is our continuing duty to confront them." Bush is publicly comparing 9/11 to Jan 6. Guess Bush went from his nationalist and neo-conservative arc during his presidency to his solid liberal arc in old age and retirement due to the effect the wars he helped initiate and start had indirectly on the changing circumstances and public opinion climate in his own country.

I've noticed these freedom and liberty biases in his videos and channel, but I am only recommending it since I feel people like me need a solid theoretical grounding and practical embodiment in the works and advocacy he presents in his videos to escape from, survive in, prosper in and eventually transcend stage blue societies in which we live and are governed by on an individual level. That's why I found his channel appealing and feel I lack severe embodiment of these upper-stage orange values and lifestyle in contrast to the society I live in.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, reflecting on the Soviet Union's descent into totalitarianism rule in the mid 20th century and all the things that could have been done to prevent it, wrote the following: ''If...if... We didn't love freedom enough. And even more - we had no awareness of the real situation ... we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! ... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.'' - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago. The 20th century clearly shows that totalitarianism is not the solution to any problem, but a social ill of the most horrific kind. More innocent men, women, and children were killed by totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century than by natural disasters, pandemics, or even the two world wars. If, therefore, we are unfortunate enough to be living in the world flirting with the sickness of totalitarianism, what can we do to escape? Relying on the insight of those who studied, and lived under totalitarian rule, we are going to explore what is called a forward escape from the control of cruel and twisted minds of the would-be totalitarians. To understand what this form of escape entails we will contrast it with two other ways to escape from the hardships of living through an attempted totalitarian takeover - the backward escape and the physical escape. The backward escape entails dulling one's awareness of the reality and precariousness of one's situation through the use of drugs and alcohol or by zoning out in front of screens for hours on end. The backward escape can provide short-term relief from feelings of anxiety, depression, and boredom, but the more one relies on such activities the more one's mental health deteriorates. Furthermore, the backward escape does nothing to prevent the rise of totalitarianism as it promotes docility, passivity, and apathy all traits that make people more manipulable and controllable or as Doctor Joost Meerlo wrote in his book on totalitarianism: "The cult of passivity and so-called relaxation is one of the most dangerous developments of our times. Essentially, it represents a camouflage pattern, the double wish not to see the dangers or challenges of life and not to be seen ... Silent, lonely relaxation with alcohol, sweets, or the television screen ... may soothe the mind into a passivity that may gradually make it vulnerable to the seductive ideology of some feared enemy. Denying the danger of totalitarianism through passivity may gradually surrender to its blandishments to those who were initially afraid of it." - The Rape of the Mind, Joost Meerloo. The alternative to the backward escape is the physical escape which is to relocate to a place that offers more freedom. This form of escape has many benefits, for given that we have one chance at life, why not live somewhere absent of control of corrupt and power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats. But there are problems with this form of escape. Firstly, for many people, it's not practical to pack up and move to another land. Furthermore, if we live at a time when the rise of tyranny is a global phenomenon the practicality of the physical escape diminishes further, as the sought-out pockets of freedom are few and far between. What is more, if totalitarianism is permitted to proliferate the places that are free now, may not remain so for long. Running away, like escaping backward, is not the ideal solution to the rise of totalitarianism, instead, the solution is to escape forward into a better and new reality. What does the forward escape entail? To answer this question we need to dispel the notion that totalitarianism can be defeated through compliance. Many people cede to the commands of would-be totalitarians because they believe that so doing is the quickest means to return to some semblance of normality. But this is a cowardly and ignorant way to act. For compliance only emboldens totalitarian regimes, a point emphasized by the political philosopher Hanah Arendt in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism: ... the most characteristic aspect of totalitarian terror [is that] it is let loose when all organized opposition has died down and the totalitarian ruler knows that he no longer needs to be afraid ... Stalin started his gigantic purges, not in 1928 when he conceded, "We have internal enemies," ... but in 1934 when all former opponents had "confessed their errors", and Stalin himself, at the Seventeenth Party Congress declared "...there is nothing more to prove and nothing more and, it seems, no one to fight.'' - The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hanah Arendt. Compliance is the food that feeds totalitarians. Compliance is not, and never will be, the path back to some form of normality. Rather, non-compliance and civil disobedience are essential to counter the rise of totalitarian rule. But in addition to resistance, a forward escape into a reality absent the sickness of the totalitarian rule requires the construction of a parallel society. A parallel society offers two main purposes: it offers pockets of freedom to those rejected by the totalitarian system, or to those who refuse to participate in it, and it forms the foundation, it grows the foundation for a new society that can grow out of the ashes of destruction wrought by the totalitarians. Or as Vaclav Havel, a dissident under the communist rule of Czechoslovakia, explains in his book The Power of the Powerless: ''When those who have decided to live within the truth have been denied any direct influence on the existing social structures, not to mention the opportunity to participate in them, and when those people begin to create what I have called the independent life of society, this independent life begins, of itself, to become structured in a certain way ... [these] parallel structures do not grow ... out of a theoretical vision of social change (there are no political sects involved) but from the aims of life and the authentic needs of real people''. - Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless. There are innumerable ways to contribute to the construction of a parallel society. One can build technologies that promote freedom or agoristic economic institutions that further voluntary exchange. One can run a business that resists implementing unjust laws or mandates, or one can create media or educational institutions that counter lies and propaganda of the state. Or one can create music, literature, or artwork that counters the staleness of totalitarian culture. The parallel society is a decentralized and voluntary alternative to the centralized and coercive control of the totalitarian society and as Havel explains: "One of the most important tasks that ''dissident movements" have set themselves is to support and develop [parallel social structures] ... What else are those initial attempts at social self-organization than the efforts of certain parts of society to... rid itself of the self-sustaining aspects of totalitarianism and, thus, to extricate itself radically from its involvement in the [totalitarian] system" "...it would be quite wrong to understand the parallel structures and the parallel [society] as a retreat into a ghetto and an act of isolation, addressing itself only to the welfare of those who have decided on such a course... The ultimate phase of this process is the situation in which the official structures... simply begin withering away and dying off, to be replaced by new structures that have evolved from below and are put together in a fundamentally different way". - Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless and Living in Truth. The construction of a parallel society, however, is not merely a long-term solution to totalitarian destruction, but also serves to counter the rise of totalitarian rule. The act of building parallel social structures reveals that not everyone will just roll over and submit to total state control and as was noted by Hanah Arendt, this keeps the would-be totalitarians in check. This process also counters the social atomization that comes with totalitarian rule by promoting voluntary communal bonds between those who cherish freedom. And as an added benefit, for those who partake in this process, it can serve as a healthy vehicle to escape the day-to-day feelings of anxiety, boredom, and depression that accompany living in a world teetering with a descent into totalitarianism. For if we pick a goal for the construction of the parallel society, and work towards it in a disciplined and focused manner, we give our life more meaning and we open up to attaining the peak experiential states of flow and Rausch. Flow is an optimal state of consciousness: "... in which attention is so narrowly focused on an activity that a sense of time fades, along with the troubles and concerns of day-to-day life." Natasha Dow Schull, Addiction by Design. Rausch, on the other hand, is the word Nietzche used for a peak cognitive state similar to flow. ''What is essential in Rausch is the feeling of increased strength and fullness.'' - Nietzsche, Twilight of Idols. Rausch is an emergent by-product of focused attempts to effectuate real-world change and when in Rausch, as in flow, we perform at our best, or as John Richardson explains in Nietzche's New Darwinism: ''In Rausch, the organism feels its capacities at a peak and takes pleasure in this heightened potency. These capacities are the drive to work on the world, and in Rausch, one feels oneself "overfull" with them, bursting to change things to fit oneself." - John Richardson, Nietzche's New Darwinism. Both flow and Rausch are healthy ways to escape from the day-to-day miseries of living in a sick and corrupted society. Unlike the numbing experiential zones of the backward escape which weaken us in body and mind, flow and Rausch strengthen us and increase our feelings of power. The more people who experience flow and Rausch the harder it is for those in power to herd a populace into the chains of totalitarian servitude and as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned: ''No weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower." - Aleksandr Solzhenistyn, The World Split Apart. To attempt a forward escape by contributing to a creation of a parallel society and in the process attaining the states of flow and Rausch comes with risks, and success is not guaranteed, but it is a far better option than merely sitting passively by just hoping things will get better. ''Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of men". - Nietzsche, Human All Too Human. In place of mere hope, courageous action from as many people as possible is needed to prevent the rise of totalitarian rule and the sooner people act in defiance of would-be totalitarians, the greater the chances of success. For the mistake that was made over and over again in the totalitarian countries of the twentieth century was that people didn't act soon enough. Milton Mayer, In his book ''They Thought They Were Free'', interviews an individual who lived through Hitler's rule, and his word should serve as a warning for those who live in a world at risk of being engulfed by the life-destroying machinery of totalitarian rule: ''You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you with resisting somehow... But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds of thousands will join with you, never comes ... If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest one, thousands, yes millions would have been sufficiently shocked ... But of course, this isn't the way it happens, In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next... And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible to them, all rush in upon you ... and you see that everything - everything - has changed ... Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed no one is transformed..." - Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free

BadEmpanada: Maybe when China does even a tenth of an Iraq War, we can discuss otherwise. BadEmpanada's Grievances with the Imperialism Equvocation Argument: ''There are some people on the left who really love to equivocate between U.S. and China, they try to frame them as equally bad imperialisms or whatever. They are both equally bad, they say, you shouldn't choose between one imperialism and the other! These people, tend to frame U.S. imperialism as if it could be like a force for good and that the problem with U.S. imperialism is that it does bad things rather than good things, like taking out the correct dictators as if that's not ready the way that it works. These people also love to spat out the talking point that: ''Chinese hegemony would be worse than U.S. hegemony'', or ''also that Chinese or U.S. imperialism is also just bad as each other'' or that ''China would be bad as the U.S. if it could be'' and that doesn't really make much sense if you think about it. BadEmpanada's Arguments against the Equivocation Argument: ''For one, Chinese imperialism, or whatever you want to call it, Chinese intervention, Chinese economic globalism, basically essentially the way that China participates in the neoliberal world order is not the same way that the U.S. does. Imagine let's say that you are a country in Africa, you know let's say that you had three or four U.S. sponsored coups, a couple of U.S. sponsored proxy wars in the past, your country has been completely destroyed by Canadian mining companies, you know all that sort of thing. So, I can choose between: Loaning out my port for 100 years to a Chinese company, without any additional strings attached apart from the fact that if I default on these loans they will take the port or Or I can get a loan from like the IMF, which is like a U.S., EU proxy organization with strings attached that say like: ''You must abolish all labor laws", "You must increase the workday from eight to twelve hours" etc, etc. as part of receiving the loan, so-called ''structural adjustments" they call them in order to maybe develop that port. Conclusion: So if you opt for the second path, you will be essentially be coerced into changing the nature of your state by the U.S., or in the first instance you could get a lease from a Chinese company for a similar sort of purpose without having to fundamentally change anything. Which one would you choose? BadEmpanada: Well, I would choose the Chinese one every time, considering that China doesn't have the sort of history that the U.S. does in a lot of these countries, and even if they didn't have that history in your country specifically you can look at your neighboring countries where they have done this and be like: "Well, maybe, that's a bad idea". Obviously, the ideal would be that you don't have to take that loan at all, you don't have to loan the port at all or anything like that but lamentably you often kind of have to unless you want your results to be extremely delayed, you know countries aren't lone individuals, they can't just say: "Oh, you know, I will save up money from taxes and then I will build this thing in twenty years." No. You loan, you build it now, and hopefully, you building it that much earlier will give you the capacity to make enough money off of it, you know, you're making so much profit on it that you can pay the interest on it with the profits that you are making, so you really don't lose anything, in the end, you basically gain. But the problem is that you can get a loan from China like that, which doesn't have many strings attached that you know that they are upfront with what they want from you or you can get a loan from the U.S. which is from the U.S. proxy organizations like the IMF or directly from the U.S. which comes with terms like: "Um, you have to like abolish worker's rights or introduce competitiveness into the healthcare sector or something like that" - look up structural adjustments, it's incredibly common, this is essentially the way that the IMF forced neoliberalism on a lot of countries in the Third World, especially ten, twenty, thirty and forty years ago. BadEmpanada: So, we are not talking about the same thing here, China doesn't have this history of direct intervention that the U.S. does nor does it ask for the same sort of terms but that doesn't mean that Chinese imperialism isn't imperialism or that it is good or whatever, obviously not. The exportation of capital was essentially one of Lenin's top criteria for the very definition of imperialism and they are obviously doing these sort of things. Transcript up until 4:30 mark in a 16-minute long video. BadEmpanada's response to: "Yeah, they [China] don't want to impose their system on anyone else... *if we ignore Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang." BadEmpanada: "Wow that's true, they do want to impose their system on their sovereign territory, just like the US did in Texas, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Puerto Rico... Except China actually has a much stronger claim to those places than the US does to those I listed." Comment: ''China has literally no rightful claim on Taiwan. Neither on HK. Unless you believe irridentism is legitimate...'' BadEmpanada: ''That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. HK is quite literally internationally recognized as Chinese territory by every single country in the world. Not only that, but before that, it was handed over to China in a combination of a negotiated settlement for HK proper and the end of a 99-year lease on the New Territories which both sides complied with practically to the letter. HK was also only originally taken from China through obviously coercive treaties forced upon China via military means. So calling this 'irredentism' is completely bizarre and ridiculous. What's next dude you gonna say that saying that Scotland is part of the UK is irredentism? IT LITERALLY FACTUALLY IS. Taiwan on the other hand... Literally, a bunch of fascists who lost a civil war went and holed up in a nearby island that was legally sovereign territory of China, of which the PRC was the new legitimate government. They then straight up genocided the locals when they took exception to this, and up until very recently said Fascists ruled Taiwan and EVEN THEY still considered it to be part of China, they just wanted to rule over the mainland themselves too. **Taiwan's constitution IN FACT STILL CLAIMS ALL OF MAINLAND CHINA**!! Irredentism is when you say that a country that says it's part of your country in its constitution is a part of your country, apparently. It is quite literally territory stolen by the losing side of civil war and the PRC's claim on it is perfectly legitimate by any reasonable standard of typical liberal international law. Calling this 'irredentism' is absolutely ludicrous. It's like if the South 'escaped' by annexing Hawaii after losing the US civil war and then saying 50 years later that the US government should just let them have it otherwise they're doing 'IRREDENTISM'. Ludicrous stuff, a pin of shame for both of you. Of course, though, you're not going to say that Texas being a part of the USA is 'irredentism', are you? A cut and dry case of it right there. But it's only a word for the non-whites, isn't it? Racist."

Why an Obsession with Safety creates Sick Minds and a Sick Society "Condition for being a hero. If a man wants to become a hero, the snake must first become a dragon: otherwise, he is lacking his proper enemy." - Nietzsche, Human All Too Human Our age has been called many things, but the age of cowards may best describe it, given the immense fear, anxiety, and helplessness that most people display in the face of even trivial threats. We are not a generation that moves forward into the uncertain future in a bold and heroic manner, instead, most people fear the future and prefer safety, comfort, and ease of life, to risk-taking, experimentation, and freedom. Or as the 21-st century sociologist Frank Furedi writes: "Young people are socialized to feel fragile and overawed by uncertainty [and as a result] ... the defining feature of the 21st-century Western version of personhood is its vulnerability. Although society still upholds the ideal of autonomy and self-determination, the values associated with them are increasingly overridden by a message that stresses the quality of human weakness. And if the vulnerability is, indeed, the defining feature of the human condition, it follows that being fearful is the normal state..." - Frank Furedi, How Fear Works Overawed by uncertainty, fearing the future, conceptualizing oneself as vulnerable, weak, and fragile is not a recipe for individual or social flourishing. Rather this way of life promotes mental illness and paves the way for authoritarian rule and so, as we will explore here, the world would benefit if more people were willing to live just a little more dangerously. For danger, when a by-product of pursuing worthwhile goals or in defense of values like freedom, justice, and peace, is life-promoting and as the Roman historian Tacitus put it: "The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise". - Tacitus, Annals, Book XV Not all societies, however, have ranked safety as high on the scale of values as does the modern West. Many flourishing societies of the past considered safety to be a secondary value and showed a remarkable capacity to take in the face of an uncertain future and to display courage and bravery in the presence of danger. "Historically some of the most prosperous societies - Ancient Athens, renaissance Italy, nineteenth-century Britain - were amongst those that were mostly oriented towards experimentation and the taking of risks." - Frank Furedi, How Fear Works In taking the opposite approach and showing a strong preference for safety over risk-taking the unfolding of human potential is not actualized but stunted. For to develop on an individual level, and to advance as a species, exploration of the unknown and experimentation of novel ways of interaction with the world is a necessity, and this entails taking risks and confronting danger. But such is the price that must be paid as the alternative is to stagnate in the confines of an ever-shrinking comfort zone, to regress in body and mind, and to fall victim to anxiety disorders, depressions, and other diseases of despair. A further flaw with an approach to the future that strongly favors the safe road is that creates fertile ground for tyrannical or even totalitarian rule, for as Alexander Hamilton famously stated: "...to be safer they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free." - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers. When a society elevates safety to a position of a first-order value, freedom is by necessity demoted to a position of a second-order value which can be trampled on by those in power who, throughout history, have disguised tyrannical intentions with claims of wanting to make a society safer. What makes matters worse is if a society socializes people to be fearful of the future and overawed by uncertainty, the masses will welcome, or openly call for authority figures to protect them, or as Furedi notes: ''Relieving people of the burden of freedom in order to make them feel safe is a recurring theme in the history of authoritarianism." - Frank Furedi, How Fear Works Given that a society that defies safety is also a society ripe for tyranny, it is up to those who favor freedom to take a more heroic approach to life. For when the menacing clouds of authoritarian rule darken the horizon unless more people are willing to take risks and face danger in the service of values such as freedom, justice, peace and social cooperation, the grip of tyrants will only solidify, or as John Stuart Mill put it: ''A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of man better than himself." - John Stuart Mill, Principles of the Political Economy As role models for the task of living more heroically we can look to the Ancient Greeks, a civilization that rightly held safety to be a secondary, not primary value, and which saw risk-taking and facing danger as morally commendable; "Danger makes men classical, and all greatness, after all, is rooted in risk." - Albert Camus, Ressistance, Rebellion and Death. Freidrich Nietzsche was also the proponent of this classical approach to life and he praised Pericles, the Atheninan leader who in his famous funeral speech celebrated the Athenian's "indifference and contempt for safety, body and life". Contrast this to the modern world, where, to paraphrase the author Christopher Cocker; ''...we tend to deprive [the bold risk-takers who spur safety] of the fullness of their lives in order to support the smallness of our own". - Christopher Cocker, The Warrior Ethos. Fortunately, we don't need to wait around for politicians to pass legislations to approve of the bolder approach to life, we just need to live in this manner. We need to look at the uncertain future not merely as a source of threats, but also of hope and opportunity, and we need to see risk-taking as justified when in defence of cherished values or in the pursuit of worthwhile goals. By demoting safety to it's rightful place as a secondary value, we will cease living as a helpless pawn who must be coddled from youth to old-age by an authority figure and we will regain the ability to shape the course of our life. We will mature psychologically and become better equipped to cope with whatever the future brings, for as Nietzsche explains: "Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources: our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit and forces us to be strong. First principle: one must need to be strong - otherwise one will never become strong''. - Nietzsche, Twilight of Idols While taking greater risks and flirting with danger can shorten one's life, it is helpful to remember that a long life is not necessarily a good life. A safe life, lacking real challenges and absent in adventure, is inert and leads to a withering away of body and mind into staleness, repetition, boredom and stagnation - such is not living, it is mere existing, or as the Roman stoic Seneca put it: "...there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles, he has not lived long - he has existed long". - Seneca, On The Shortness of Life In addition, to helping one live more fully, a courageous willingness to take risks and to flirt with danger can turn us into a great benefactor of mankind. For as long as the values that guide us, and the goals we pursue, are noble and life-promoting, courage reveals a caring attitude for the wellbeing of others. For unlike the coward who is concerned primarily by his or her own safety and who demands everyone else conform to his or her own neurotic ways, the hero is willing to risk life and limb in the service of values that move society forward, or as Alasdair MacIntyre wrote in After Virtue: A Study of Moral Theory: "If someone says that he cares for some individual, community or cause, but is unwilling to risk danger on his ,her or its behalf, he puts into question the genuiness of his care and concern. Courage, the capacity to risk harm and danger to oneself, has its role in human life because of this connection with care and concern". - Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue If, therefore, we desire a fulfilling life, care for our mental health and care for the future of our society we need to act with courage and not worship at the altar of safety. We need to take risks in the service of life promoting values, and not adhere to the view that a good life is a safe life. "For believe me! - the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitifullnes and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into the uncharted seas!... Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in the forest like a shy deer!" - Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Nothing special since I am only slightly informed and not educated enough on the topic to talk authoritatively on it enough or make fact-based predictions. That being said I see it from this POV as a rising great power seeking to solidify its influence and future gains in a region that's in proximity to its power and influence zone in order to ensure maximum benefit for itself and its economy in the future from the regions resources and subsequent trade and economic co-operation and exploitation with it.

Okay, read and saved your post will think about it and contemplate on it more in my free time.

Socialism in One Country with American characteristics, the anti-Stalinist libertarian reformist and co-op transitionary kind. Rest of the globe bunch of left-wing deviationists with authoritarian tendencies and anti-American alignments and biases.

I hope it will at least send a message to the U.S. public to show them there is a political alternative to fighting their own capitalist plutocrats, and also send the message to the U.S. and other global plutocrats that they are not safe and insulated in their system globally and that this move by China might inspire movements in the developed first-world democracy countries to show that it is possible by the example of the most soon to be the biggest economic powerhouse in the world that this form of capitalism under which the plutocrats are the most ones which prospered is at its soon to be deathbed and should step aside to welcome a new form of an economic system - that takes its best from the Chinese one and saves the best from the Western one.

The New Chinese Cultural Revolution against Western liberal globalism and global speculator and financialized capitalism. Note: My Aim is not to simp for China but to inform people on this post on the official Chinese perspective and source on things. ''Li Guangman, a columnist for the now-defunct website Chawang and former editor of the trade publication Central China Electric Power, first published his opinion piece, “Everyone Can Sense That a Profound Transformation is Underway!,” to his public WeChat account @李光满冰点时评. People’s Daily, Xinhua, Guangming Daily, and other prominent state media platforms promptly picked up the piece. While it is unclear whether the move was coordinated with Li beforehand, it is not unprecedented for state media to elevate nationalistic bloggers who echo, or even foreshadow national policy. In 2014, Xi Jinping promoted Zhou Xiaoping, an ultra-nationalist blogger with a particular distaste for the U.S., as a model for other writers at the Beijing Forum on Literature and Art, in a speech evocative of Mao Zedong’s 1942 “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art.” Li’s sweeping, impassioned essay used an ongoing celebrity culture “clean up” campaign as a launching point to argue that the United States “is waging biological warfare, cyberwarfare, space warfare and public opinion battles against China, and is ramping up efforts to foment a ‘color revolution’ by mobilizing a fifth column within China.” In his vigorous conclusion, Li dismisses recent reforms as superficial, arguing that it is time for a more radical transformation: China’s entertainment industry has never lacked for scandals that stink to high heaven. Taken together, the recent back-to-back scandals involving Kris Wu and Henry Huo, Zhang Zhehan’s “devil worship” at Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine, and now the rape allegation against Hunan TV host Qian Feng have made people feel that the Chinese entertainment industry is rotten to the core. Without a swift crackdown, entertainment will not be the only thing that rots—the arts, literature, culture, performance, film, and television spheres will all follow suit. What sort of feeling do we get, just by looking at the events of the last two days—the crackdown on fan groups, Zheng Shuang being fined, and works by Zhao Wei and Gao Xiaosong being banned and de-platformed? If we take a broader political perspective on this series of events, we can discern a historical and developmental trend. Consider the suspension of Ant Group’s IPO, the central government’s antitrust policies and reorganization of the economic order, the 18.2 billion yuan fine levied on Alibaba and the investigation of Didi Global, the grand commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the proposed path to common prosperity, and the recent series of actions to clean up the mess in the entertainment industry. What these events tell us is that a monumental change is taking place in China and that the economic, financial, cultural, and political spheres are undergoing a profound transformation—or, one could say, a profound revolution. It marks a return from “capitalist cliques” to the People, a shift from “capital-centered” to “people-centered.” It is, therefore, a political transformation in which the People will once again be front and center, and all those who obstruct this people-centered transformation will be left behind. This profound transformation also marks a return to the original intent of the Chinese Communist Party, a return to a people-centered approach, and a return to the essence of socialism. This transformation will wash away all the dust: capital markets will no longer be a paradise for get-rich-quick capitalists, cultural markets will no longer be heaven for sissy-boy stars, and news and public opinion will no longer be in the position of worshipping western culture. It is a return to the revolutionary spirit, a return to heroism, a return to courage and righteousness. We need to bring all forms of cultural chaos under control and build a vibrant, healthy, virile, intrepid, and people-oriented culture. We need to combat the manipulation of capital markets by big capital, fight platform-based monopolies, prevent bad money from driving out the good, and ensure the flow of capital to high-tech companies, manufacturers, and companies operating in the real economy. The ongoing restructuring of private tutoring organizations and school districts will clean up the chaos in the educational system, bring about a true return to accessibility and fairness, and give ordinary people room for upward mobility. In the future, we must also bring high housing prices and exorbitant medical expenses under control, and completely level the “three great mountains” of education, medical care, and housing. Although we are not trying to “kill the rich to aid the poor,” we need to find a practical solution to a worsening income gap that allows the rich to keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. Common prosperity means allowing ordinary workers to enjoy a larger share of the social distribution of wealth. This transformation will bring a breath of fresh air to our society. Current efforts to crack down on the arts, entertainment, film, and television spheres are not nearly robust enough. We must use all the means at our disposal to strike down various forms of celebrity worship and fan culture, stamp out “pretty-boy” and “sissy-boy” tendencies in our national character, and ensure that our arts, entertainment, film, and television spheres are truly upright and upstanding. Those working in the arts, entertainment, film, and television must go down to the grassroots and allow ordinary workers and citizens to become the protagonists, to play the leading roles in our literature and art. China faces an increasingly fraught and complex international landscape as the United States menaces China with worsening military threats, economic and technological blockades, attacks on our financial system, and attempts at political and diplomatic isolation. The U.S. is waging biological warfare, cyber warfare, space warfare, and public opinion battles against China, and is ramping up efforts to foment a “color revolution” by mobilizing the fifth column within China. If we rely on the barons of capitalism to battle the forces of imperialism and hegemony, if we continue our obeisance to American “tittytainment” tactics, if we allow this generation of young people to lose their mettle and masculinity, then who needs an enemy—we will have brought destruction upon ourselves, much like the Soviet Union back in the day, when it allowed the nation to disintegrate, its wealth to be looted, and its population to sink into calamity. The profound transformations now taking place in China are a direct response to an increasingly fraught and complex international landscape and a direct response to the savage and violent attacks that the U.S. has already begun to launch against China. Every one of us can sense that a profound social transformation is underway, and it is not limited to the realm of capital or entertainment. It is not enough to make superficial changes, to tear down what is already rotten; we must go deeper, and scrape the poison from the bone. We must clean the house and clear the air to make our society a healthier one and to make all members of our society happy in body and mind.'' [Chinese] Introduction by Joseph Brouwer; translation by Alex Yu and Cindy Carter. Source: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/08/translation-everyone-can-sense-that-a-profound-transformation-is-underway/

@Stovo @DocWatts The New Chinese Cultural Revolution against Western liberal globalism and global speculator and financialized capitalism. Personal Note: My aim is not to simp for China but to inform people in this post on the official Chinese perspective on things. ''Li Guangman, a columnist for the now-defunct website Chawang and former editor of the trade publication Central China Electric Power, first published his opinion piece, “Everyone Can Sense That a Profound Transformation is Underway!,” to his public WeChat account @李光满冰点时评. People’s Daily, Xinhua, Guangming Daily, and other prominent state media platforms promptly picked up the piece. While it is unclear whether the move was coordinated with Li beforehand, it is not unprecedented for state media to elevate nationalistic bloggers who echo, or even foreshadow national policy. In 2014, Xi Jinping promoted Zhou Xiaoping, an ultra-nationalist blogger with a particular distaste for the U.S., as a model for other writers at the Beijing Forum on Literature and Art, in a speech evocative of Mao Zedong’s 1942 “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art.” Li’s sweeping, impassioned essay used an ongoing celebrity culture “clean up” campaign as a launching point to argue that the United States “is waging biological warfare, cyberwarfare, space warfare and public opinion battles against China, and is ramping up efforts to foment a ‘color revolution’ by mobilizing a fifth column within China.” In his vigorous conclusion, Li dismisses recent reforms as superficial, arguing that it is time for a more radical transformation: China’s entertainment industry has never lacked for scandals that stink to high heaven. Taken together, the recent back-to-back scandals involving Kris Wu and Henry Huo, Zhang Zhehan’s “devil worship” at Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine, and now the rape allegation against Hunan TV host Qian Feng have made people feel that the Chinese entertainment industry is rotten to the core. Without a swift crackdown, entertainment will not be the only thing that rots—the arts, literature, culture, performance, film, and television spheres will all follow suit. What sort of feeling do we get, just by looking at the events of the last two days—the crackdown on fan groups, Zheng Shuang being fined, and works by Zhao Wei and Gao Xiaosong being banned and de-platformed? If we take a broader political perspective on this series of events, we can discern a historical and developmental trend. Consider the suspension of Ant Group’s IPO, the central government’s antitrust policies and reorganization of the economic order, the 18.2 billion yuan fine levied on Alibaba and the investigation of Didi Global, the grand commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the proposed path to common prosperity, and the recent series of actions to clean up the mess in the entertainment industry. What these events tell us is that a monumental change is taking place in China and that the economic, financial, cultural, and political spheres are undergoing a profound transformation—or, one could say, a profound revolution. It marks a return from “capitalist cliques” to the People, a shift from “capital-centered” to “people-centered.” It is, therefore, a political transformation in which the People will once again be front and center, and all those who obstruct this people-centered transformation will be left behind. This profound transformation also marks a return to the original intent of the Chinese Communist Party, a return to a people-centered approach, and a return to the essence of socialism. This transformation will wash away all the dust: capital markets will no longer be a paradise for get-rich-quick capitalists, cultural markets will no longer be heaven for sissy-boy stars, and news and public opinion will no longer be in the position of worshipping western culture. It is a return to the revolutionary spirit, a return to heroism, a return to courage and righteousness. We need to bring all forms of cultural chaos under control and build a vibrant, healthy, virile, intrepid, and people-oriented culture. We need to combat the manipulation of capital markets by big capital, fight platform-based monopolies, prevent bad money from driving out the good, and ensure the flow of capital to high-tech companies, manufacturers, and companies operating in the real economy. The ongoing restructuring of private tutoring organizations and school districts will clean up the chaos in the educational system, bring about a true return to accessibility and fairness, and give ordinary people room for upward mobility. In the future, we must also bring high housing prices and exorbitant medical expenses under control, and completely level the “three great mountains” of education, medical care, and housing. Although we are not trying to “kill the rich to aid the poor,” we need to find a practical solution to a worsening income gap that allows the rich to keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. Common prosperity means allowing ordinary workers to enjoy a larger share of the social distribution of wealth. This transformation will bring a breath of fresh air to our society. Current efforts to crack down on the arts, entertainment, film, and television spheres are not nearly robust enough. We must use all the means at our disposal to strike down various forms of celebrity worship and fan culture, stamp out “pretty-boy” and “sissy-boy” tendencies in our national character, and ensure that our arts, entertainment, film, and television spheres are truly upright and upstanding. Those working in the arts, entertainment, film, and television must go down to the grassroots and allow ordinary workers and citizens to become the protagonists, to play the leading roles in our literature and art. China faces an increasingly fraught and complex international landscape as the United States menaces China with worsening military threats, economic and technological blockades, attacks on our financial system, and attempts at political and diplomatic isolation. The U.S. is waging biological warfare, cyber warfare, space warfare, and public opinion battles against China, and is ramping up efforts to foment a “color revolution” by mobilizing the fifth column within China. If we rely on the barons of capitalism to battle the forces of imperialism and hegemony, if we continue our obeisance to American “tittytainment” tactics, if we allow this generation of young people to lose their mettle and masculinity, then who needs an enemy—we will have brought destruction upon ourselves, much like the Soviet Union back in the day, when it allowed the nation to disintegrate, its wealth to be looted, and its population to sink into calamity. The profound transformations now taking place in China are a direct response to an increasingly fraught and complex international landscape and a direct response to the savage and violent attacks that the U.S. has already begun to launch against China. Every one of us can sense that a profound social transformation is underway, and it is not limited to the realm of capital or entertainment. It is not enough to make superficial changes, to tear down what is already rotten; we must go deeper, and scrape the poison from the bone. We must clean the house and clear the air to make our society a healthier one and to make all members of our society happy in body and mind.'' [Chinese] Introduction by Joseph Brouwer; translation by Alex Yu and Cindy Carter. Source:https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/08/translation-everyone-can-sense-that-a-profound-transformation-is-underway/

I've answered it for myself on the trajectory on which I must go in the response to @impulse9 in the aforementioned response above your post. I think it was a legitimate mental exercise as in the context where such evil is not seen as evil at all to convince and see for yourself that it is, in fact, evil and that people around you are unconsciously engaging in that activity since they were programmed by society and culture to find it enjoyable and to do so. A social determines much of your individual proclivities, opinions, attitudes, and habits, the sociologist Emil Durkheim called that a social fact - something that constrains and determines the possibilities and options of individual agency. When something becomes a stigma or taboo in society it becomes much easier to drop that activity, habit, or attitude for the sake of adopting and accommodating to the changing social environment and culture in order to survive and prosper in it. So the social is a kind of individual and vice versa, for most people Recognize that it is hurting me and causing me suffering individually and broadly socially to society in the long run by having this practice that is embedded in hurting and exploiting other beings for the benefit of my survival and the survival of my environment. Seeing that having that sort of diet is making me more happy and conscious and therefore reducing my suffering and unhappiness and that developing abstract compassion and care for such beings and acting upon them is making me more conscious and holistic towards my environment and the broader world. Extended ahimsa of sorts to the non-human world, giving a deeper appreciation and care for the world and reality as a whole. That is my answer to your question of how to motivate myself to drop this habit. Answer: To see for myself and experience that it will actually make me happier and satisfied with myself and life in general in the long run if I drop its self-gratification and survival coping and benefits in day-to-day life and survival. That is why suspect humans do anything and are motivated by anything, they counter-intuitively realize it will actually make their lives better and make them more satisfied and happier with their own lives and more at peace with it.

Yes, I agree with your points and assessment regarding these historical territorial disputes and issues as well.

I've adored eating meat since early childhood and would gag at eating fruit for some time. Eventually, I overcame this to more or less extent but still don't enjoy and sometimes still up until this day I even avoid eating fruit if I don't have to or don't really feel like it or feel disgusted by some of it. I had periods where eating meat wasn't so enticing and would prefer just eating some raw vegetables but those were rare and that at the time a 4-5 years ago when I attempted to go on a pseudo-vegan diet of sorts but wasn't ready for such a drastic commitment or transition at that time and I encountered resistance from getting support in this from my social environment, financial aid or advice how to make it cheap so I wouldn't buy meals that would exceed my meat consumption cost and adjusting this diet with meals I would eat together with my dad whom I still live with as well as my grandmother in a different apartment. I don't know I haven't experienced anything even close when it comes to my taste of meat during this period or in my lifetime though I occasionally had slight feelings of disgust when looking at meat during this pseudo attempt period. What you are basically describing for me is literally for me to go full circle from the beginnings of my early childhood inclinations and conditionings, where I would gag at fruit following unconsciously the pattern of my deceased mother who also loved to eat meat and not fruits so much and during her last days, would almost only exclusively eat meat when I was a kid and around here at that time, and to basically re-condition myself to start gaging at meat and not fruit. That would be quite a challenge and drastic lifestyle change and not to mention the social skepticism and stigma that it comes within a majority society like mine, where you need to justify and rationalize this to people on a personal level as to why you made the decision and not a social one or environmental one that they would see as you implicitly guilting them and advocating a certain lifestyle to them as a form of virtue signaling and moral superiority which would hurt their vanity, so you need to tread carefully there in order not to make enemies of them. I don't know will never know I hadn't tried it and experimented with the diet that you are speaking about thoroughly and committedly of really wanting to become my lifestyle and a part of my identity of living. I guess I need to drop my meat taste addiction and lifestyle if I ever want to truly know how it tastes and feels like. Though it seems like psychological happiness and gratification deficiency and denial if I don't have my sandwiches in the morning. I don't know perhaps I will give this diet a go when I fix some of the other personal, family, and health problems that are pressing me and making me unhappy that I see as more prescient to my wellbeing and see later how many financial costs can I manage of such a diet. Meat addiction weaning off is not my priority in regards to my wellbeing and would have to wait on my list until I fixed these or slightly alleviated these other aforementioned problems. Yeah its something like that for most people in the society that I live in inherited from their parents and their grandparent's traditions and habits that existed for bare survival purposes and had stuck with it, but this country is not nearly as industrial in its food production, export or import as some developed ones so people still here in rural areas rely on meat for survival purposes. And the space age is perhaps a phenomenon in America and some developed Western countries but not so much in Serbia in the Second still industrializing World. Anyways thanks for your advice, analogies, and encouragement about the process of weaning off the meat diet and transitioning to a vegan one. Greatly appreciate it and the kind, detailed response, and support.

Just wanted to share this since I found it kinda cute and funny regarding the aforementioned US, EU and British media narrative about anything that China does or is involved with:

Puerto Rico colonization, Cuban War and colonization (American war with Spain and later the Cubans themselves over Cuba's status the 1900s), Philipines colonization 1900s, Hawaii Kingdom colonization and other Pacific island nations, Mexico and Mexican Revolution 1910s, Nicaragua coup 1910s, Guatemala coup 1910s, US and Spanish War over the southern and south-western part of the future US 1848s, Honduras coup 1910s beg to differ. I don't know, I can't tell if their intervention in the country that recognizes their country in the constitution to be part of their country actually will be as destructive as Iraq or Afghanistan or in Xinjiang. I sincerely hope not, they have no good reason to, but we shall wait and see. I see a very similar global counterbalance scenario playing out in the future within the context of the era of globalization, we will see how other Eurasian bloc countries such as Russia, North Korea, and Iran or non-Western aligned such as Venezuela or Bolivia, or BRIC will play into that global equation. I imagine it seeing it as something closely or slightly similar though not nearly certain or identical as the three great global power blocs like in Orwell's work Oceania - West, Eurasia -East, and Eastasia - Non-aligned or something out of Samuel Hantigtons work 'Clash of Civilizations' civilizations blocs.

What if 98.5% of my environment are pedophiles and the sexual molestation of children is a culturally accepted norm and is even practiced in a boisterous manner, similar to some Afghan tribes in rural areas of Afghanistan practicing bacha baozi* (sorry in advance if this is not the correct way to spell this practice) i.e. sexual relations and intimacy with young underage boys and something also practiced in some parts of the Afghan National Army under US Army watch, a practice which the Taliban vow to eliminate altogether. What can I say to them if pedophilia is such a culturally programmed and self-evident norm that is so normal it isn't even questioned and is intertwined with their survival, approval, and validation in society so much that wouldn't come off as me lecturing them as a vocal minority trying to impose something that directly contradicts and threatens their basic lifestyle that is so intertwined with their survival and the survival of the whole societies recognizable culture as whole that they would literally lose a part of their culture and their society won't be the same at all from that point on and thoroughly unrecognizable to their former members? If other abuses that are even more heinous already rampant in that society that are abusing and minimizing and hurting the survival chances and wellbeing chances of other beings why single out this as the most urgent one when there are things that are even more heinous happening in that society, that are heinous enough that they warrant the awareness and consciousness of that society as actually being something so heinous enough that needs to be overcome and fixed while they don't recognize this as being heinous and I ram their heads of this to them not so heinous issue being more heinous than by their consciousness standards much more heinous issues such as for example murder, war, poverty, famine, rape, natural disasters, demographic decline, diseases, etc. What if alleviating human suffering and poverty is their first priority that needs to be raised to a sufficient enough recognition and alleviation level to realize animal suffering is part of that equation in some aspects since humans in society firstly and foremostly care about eliminating the suffering that plagues them and the society that they live in in order for them to develop enough compassion to consider the suffering of other beings that they inflict upon and/or benefit from to reduce their own suffering. That is the anthropocentric mind of most people.

What about human rights in other countries that you target with economic sanctions and intervene to destabilize governments of other countries with national agencies in order to secure loan repayment of those countries with interests by military means and to help your countries business interests by undermining and destroying those countries own? What is that called from the perspective of the country that you are intervening in? Do you mean the wrong kind of dictatorship, while the good ones get a free pass? What about the human rights under the US duopoly political system of investigative journalists Julian Assange, John Kiriakou, and whistleblowers Daniel Hale and Edward Snowden? What about the human rights of the largest prison population per countries capita in the world that does slave labour for for-profit companies and ends up in prison for non-violent drug offences and sometimes more likely because of their skin colour? What about the human rights of blacks murdered by cops with impunity that face no prosecution or criminal charges afterwards under the veil of the law? Evil is relative from the point one is looking at it or from being on the receiving end of it. I would guess that for some African countries China seems less evil than the US given their expereince with the meddling and deals with the former and its proxies. It's all perspective my dude.

How can you free someone like me who loves the smell and taste of meat and doesn't get nearly the same taste bud enjoyment and pleasure when eating vegetables and fruits? Honestly asking I've been preferring and enjoying meat more since I was a kid and would sometimes even vomit when eating some fruit. I don't know what would have to happen in my head and senses to let go needing the taste of meat at least once a day or two.

I think the author of the clip mostly refers to the impact and results of Chinese intervention in these countries specifically or other developing countries versus the US and proxy results in the past. US intervention would aim if their investment or loan with interest repayment was under threat to destabilize the political and economic systems of these countries and to export their system in them in order to make sure that the returns with interests or profits happen and would subsequently go to such lengths in achieving this to internally destabilize those countries fomenting war and conflict. China only has a history of this in Vietnam and North Korea though because it felt its territory and sovereignty were under threat from other great power interests in those countries bordering them. It doesn't aim to change the system and attempt to destabilize countries it's dealing business with or use coercive measures like sanctioning them to keep them in their sphere of influence and have power over them like the US does to Venezuela and Cuba. This is why he considers China to be the lesser evil in terms of its own imperialism when dealing with those countries compared to the total of US history in this area, that is what I think he mostly refers to when he says a 'lesser evil'. Here is an interesting historical example I found of why the U.S. multinationals and government were so eager to support the overthrow of Allende in Chile and willing to fund the right-wing death squads and fascist opposition against him and the government. Sorry, it's in Serbian I forgot, My bad I will see if I can maybe translate it in Google Translate so you can understand what it is saying.

I agree I had this insight in my head a few times when thinking about history and some historical events and comparing it to now, but I think this is even more especially true when it comes to massive collective ego formations and mass mental constructions such as the population living in countries and particulary the state and those in charge of it who's identity survival is often most at stake when leading a country since it is reflection, more often than not, of the sum total of the stage of the development of the whole of the population of the country in the way they govern it and maintain their positions and identity survival as leaders of this mass collective ego formation However, determining how evil something is in terms of relations between mass complex collectives that threaten the survival of the perspective of one or both is a tricky endeavor, since one of those perspectives in this instance contains within itself various spectrums of development in spheres such as culture, economy, religion, and politics, etc. that can be threatened in terms of survival of the identity reflecting that level of their development by another perspective higher or lower in those fields that by its existence undermines the survival and legitimacy of the first one. I thought about it and as you can see am not yet until the point where I can clearly express it in words and clarify these ideas about this survival of identities perspectives interaction on a massive complex scale such as entire countries. Yes, but to gain them you have to undergo a lot of suffering in deconstructing them a lot and experiencing the death and transformation of each of them while each fiber in your ego is intuitively against this and resisting this with all its emotional backslash and homeostasis to willingly muster the willpower and determination to undergo through this suffering willingly and through a prolonged period. It's very counter-intuitive since every fiber in your mind/body is heavily resisting this and trying to convince and fool you to not attempt this emotionally and psychically risky endeavor and sticking with what you know and adapted and got used to ensure maximum certainty, comfort, and prosperous surviving without a lot of pains and risks.