> No amount of media can paper over the fact that your life sucks.

Of course it can:

  1. A Chinese citizen experiences rising living costs.
  2. Their social media feed is filled with videos of Americans struggling with medical bills, homelessness and housing costs.
  3. They start feeling like they're better off by comparison.
  4. Their satisfaction with their own country may increase even without any improvement in their personal circumstances.

This has been well observed with Fox News and its impact on the perceptions of poor rural Americans. One-sided media diet can strengthen support for the ruling party even when living standard deteriorate, provided that the people are constantly bombarded with how much worse off everyone else is.

If media ownership was meaningless, governments and oligarchs wouldn't spend so much effort controlling it.

Anybody who's actually been to China knows that Chinese media spends practically no time talking about the US. Meanwhile, what Chinese people do experience is the following. People in China have experienced a rise in living standards that's completely unprecedented in human history.

90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-peop...

Chinese household savings hit another record high in 2024 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jone...

Social mobility in China being far better than in the US https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/ch...

The typical Chinese adult is now richer than the typical European adult https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-chinese-adult-now-ri...

The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w231...

From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growt...

From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019...

And your whole narrative falls apart when we look at how MAGA actively voted against Trump once the war hit them in the wallet. Also, look at the riots happening all across Europe where the media tells people things are going great.

A country being democratic is not the same as being a great place to live, though there is a lot of overlap between the two. My point regarding the mexican standoff between parties is STRICTLY about the VOTING SYSTEM. The competing interests of multiple parties ensure a mostly FAIR election. A benevolent dictator surrounded by an exceptionally intelligent court will always produce better results, it's just that on average, dictators are not that benevolent.

China's rise has been nothing short of meteoric, and I applaud them for it. I'm certain that their average standard of living is very high by most metrics, quite comparable and maybe even better than western countries. IT IS STILL NOT A DEMOCRACY!

At any rate, I'm going to stop arguing because you seem way too invested in praising the dragon, and not just in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50386836

By definition, a democratic country will be a place where the government works in the interest of the majority. That's literally what democracy is. Voting, the way it's done in western democracies, is just one attempt at implementing this contract. Democratic Centralism is a different approach to this idea, that's showing far better tangible results right now.

You appear to have an infantile understanding of democracy equating it with simply having the ability to vote.

It's also hilarious that you think you understand Chinese system better than people who actually live in China and call their system a democracy. The sheer amount of chauvinism required to hold such beliefs is astounding.

At any rate, stick to subjects you have a clue about in the future as to avoid making a clown of yourself in public.

fyi, I was born in a "democratic centralist" country

it shows

> By definition, a democratic country will be a place where the government works in the interest of the majority.

No, its not. Democracy means rule by the people. A benevolent dictatorship is not a democracy.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/democra...

> People in China have experienced a rise in living standards that's completely unprecedented in human history.

largely because their living standards had fallen massively in the previous decades. Of course living standards are far higher than they used to be, because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

> 90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world.

Only slightly higher than India, lower than Kazakhstan

> The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015,

What was the same number for 1949 to 1978?

You got it backwards my friend, horrific living standards were the result of Western subjugation and continued to rise steadily after the revolution https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25495509

> Only slightly higher than India, lower than Kazakhstan

This India? https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/abs/pii/S1...

One has to have utter lack of intellectual integrity to pretend that there is any comparison in standards between China and India.

> What was the same number for 1949 to 1978?

See the first link I provided.

> One has to have utter lack of intellectual integrity to pretend that there is any comparison in standards between China and India.

That is sooooo close to my point but you missed it. High house ownership is not a sign of economic development, quite the opposite.

> See the first link I provided.

You think infant mortality and inflation adjusted incomes are the same number?

That is completely out of touch with reality. Infant mortality fell EVERYWHERE in that period which flatters the numbers.

Now provide the actual number I asked for for the period I asked for. It debunks your argument?

I didn't say high house ownership was the single metric. That's just a straw man you're using lacking even a shred of intellectual integrity. In fact, I posted a whole bunch of sources showing how people in China have high income savings, and a standard of living that now surpasses Europe.

I think that you're an artless troll, and it's frankly pathetic that you think you've debunked something here.

But you keep on doing you, if the clown shoes fit might as well embrace the act.

you are arguing with a LLM

> No amount of media can paper over the fact that your life sucks.

The definition of "sucks" varies wildly. People whose country experienced a terrible famine, followed by chaos and brutality, in living memory will have a very different idea of their life sucking from people who have had decades of wealth.

> Meanwhile, the distinction between state media and oligarch owned media is completely meaningless.

Its a massive difference. It means different media will have different view points. It means no one monopoly view. It means access to foreign media for other viewpoints. It means some media that is structured or owned differently (the BBC, The Guardian, Reuters.....). It means the government is criticised from many points of view.