• Yliaster@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Hmm, that reads the same as British East India Company-era colonialism tbh.

    On the sale of weapons: doesn’t china sell weapons, too, though? A brief answer will do.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      China sells weapons, selling weapons is not imperialism inherently. It matters to whom weapons are sold, for what purposes and ends. Scandinavian countries largely sell weapons the same way the rest of the west does, in service of retaining imperialism (such as selling to Israel).

      Regarding colonialism, it’s in many ways similar to imperialism as a stage of capitalism. They are often linked.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          China trades with them, but actually blocks the sale of weapons and things that can be used in weapons for countries like the US and Israel.

              • Yliaster@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

                I can move to the other point I wanted to go over if you’re still interested.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  5 days ago

                  I gave you the source, and I’m always interested in a good discussion. I just feel that this conversation has generally been a bit imbalanced, that’s all. It seems like you’re coming from this with a permanent skepticism that even light googling can help solve.

                  • Yliaster@lemmy.world
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                    5 days ago

                    That is fair. I don’t have sources ready on me to provide on these topics, I’d have to look for them first. I guess when I’m not referring to sources/facts etc I am usually coming from less of a position of “demonstrating why X is true” and more of “this is what I know and I’m just trying to pull what information you have”, if that makes sense.

                    Regarding the point on queer rights I wanted to go over:

                    I listed some significant progress for queer rights earlier but it seems like you just glossed over them as being “just some legal benefits”, because discrimination still exists?

                    I’d like to ask you:

                    • Is marriage equality insignificant to you?
                    • Is protection against discrimination in work and housing insignificant to you?
                    • Are hate crime protections insignificant to you?
                    • Is the right to adopt insignificant?

                    Are these things not significant?

                    I view them as life-changing protections. Please don’t shrug them off as if they are nothing. These are massive, massive improvements in quality of life, and they deserve to be acknowledged as such.

                    I cannot see you as being truly concerned for queer populations if these things just evoke a “meh, whatever” from you.

                    The phenomenon that younger generations are more progressive is more-or-less universally applicable, it isnt unique to China. While it is true that discrimination sadly occurs everywhere, it is significantly lower in Scandinavia. Compare any of those countries on Equaldex.com to China and you can see an in-depth breakdown of just how far ahead they are.

                    Is significantly less discrimination a good thing to you? Or does it not matter because it’s not completely gone yet, and having more discrimination is thus preferable?

                    Furthermore, you said that socialist countries do better in queer rights than peer capitalist countries, when this is demonstrably false. Compare Thailand and Taiwan to China. Both perform better in terms of queer rights than China, but neither are socialist.

                    Incidentally I have actually read the prolewiki’s entry on queer rights in socialist countries. I have read everything they cover on queer issues. There is a glaringly unbalanced coverage of queer issues, with everything being clearly cherry-picked. Not a single one of the countries’ flaws or setbacks are mentioned, none of the lacking protections or rights are mentioned. It came off as very dishonest to me and was a big part of my reason to not engage with that wiki again. I have already seen these countries through a reliable source that documents queer rights that I prefer to use (equaldex).

                    It strikes me as strange that any real negative or lack in China/socialist countries will always be downplayed and glossed over at best and simply not covered at all at worst. I wonder if this is just a Marxist-Leninist tendency or if it is shared by all Communists.

                    I will grant that free GAC in the past was amazing, and Cuba. There’s nothing really to say wrt to queer rights in Cuba as it’s already ideal in that regard, but Cuba is very much the exception in currently socialist countries (not a single of the other countries today are anything like it in that regard).

                    I am not “pinkwashed”, I routinely criticize the west and imperialism myself. I criticize everything.

                    Though it’s weird, isn’t pinkwashing basically a subtype of brainwashing? I thought you didn’t believe in “brainwashing”, in favour of moral licensing, according to your guide.