In public, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says his country’s growing friendship with China is unshakable — a strategic military and economic collaboration that has entered a golden era.
But in the corridors of Lubyanka, the headquarters of Russia’s domestic security agency, known as the F.S.B., a secretive intelligence unit refers to the Chinese as “the enemy.”
…
Politics isn’t what it seems? what are we, 12? How is this news¿
I mean I appreciate you posting to give room for conversation but like… Did anyone really not assume this by now?
edit: Also, I tried reading but it paywalled me.
Entirely seriously:
The average American has a literacy level of a 6th grader. That’s the mean literacy level of the entire adult (meaning 18 years old or older) population.
So… yes.
Yes, the average American is essentially a 12 year old, that is generally how old a 6th grader is in our education system.
Americans are shockingly stupid compared to most other developed countries.
Despite something like 38% of our population having a 4 year degree or higher… only somewhere around 10% or less are capable of objectively comparing and contrasting multiple news articles about the same story, highlight the differences in phrasing, framing, and identify information and context that is or is not present, and also have a general background knowledge of the publication itself, as well as general background knowledge pertaining to the story itself.
Our education system has collapsed, after 30 years of the Republicans working toward that goal, knowing that idiots are easier to manipulate.
Yeah, I’m aware. It’s like that in most of the americas, possibly excuding uruguay, surinam and canada. Even in countries with great education, 50% will be below average by definition, leaving lots of room for the sneaky people, and we are living in post truth.
Even when what gets reported is verifiable, the tools of manipulation and manufacture of consent that are available nowadays are unprecedented.
With social media we invented the most state of the art, effective brainwashing machines to date and quickly started using them to start wars (of course).
Yeah, we are now at about 30ish % of the adult population with reading skills under 2nd grade level, ie, functionally illiterate.
… And that metric is almost 10% worse than it was 10 years ago.
We’ve gone from about 20% illiterate to about 30% illiterate in 10 years.
Normally you only see a decline like that in a country that is an active warzone, or a smaller country has been utterly devestated by an immense disaster.
If you go by ranking of countries by literacy rate, we dropped from somewhere in the top 20 to 30… to between the top 80 and 90… in ten years.
It is an utter disaster.
It goes beyond literacy and education, the reality that people experience is completely manufactured. Hypernormalization of everything. Governments manipulating public perception of events and history has rendered most of the population incapable of even interpreting their own experiences much less the world around them. This is a problem much larger than reading levels or education, people are sleep walking.
Edit: russia being part of this conversation is not a coincidence
The sad truth is it doesn’t matter how true or fabricated whatever it is people believe, as long as it keeps them coordinated and united as a nation… Or else the other nations that really like your stuff and land might make their people all believe the same thing and they can gain advantage over time.
No one likes hearing this cute little opinion I have but I think the greatest enemy the USA has today is not the right wing nut jobs nor the left wing jobs, it’s division itself.
Believe it or not, american citizens today are experimenting two things history is very familiar with:
- religious wars and
- slave revolts.
Sorry, sorry, I mean:
- fundamentally incompatible world views about what people should aspire to be, what they should aspire to become as a collective identity and how to get there and
- society’s most vulnerable people engaging in violence against the armed forces who follow the orders of those who have societal power…
Cause those are totally different.
Either way, when things get this polarized, fights get ugly. Pushing and shoving cannot be unpushed or unshoved… trust and good faith are lost, and they don’t fix themselves.
Only thing that can possibly unite the US with the current level of polarization is nothing short of an atrocity within borders.
Sorry if it’s insensitive to talk about these kinds of opinions out loud. just sharing my honest perspective.
That’s brutal. I’m sorry.
I appreciate the sentiment, on a human level, but on another, the grand scheme of things, the historical level… we deserve it, but the rest of the world doesn’t deserve what will happen because of our self-imposed stupidity.
We are a dying empire, going supernova in spectacular fashion.
I can only hope that we as a country do not lash out further… but we probably will.
As I am from los Estados Unidos, I am the one that should be apologizing to the rest of the world.
When, not if, the US Dollar collapses, it will have an exaggerated effect on South American and Central American countries in particular, many of whom have largely tied their economy to its stability.
I agree with all your predictions and the geopolitical risks you mention, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re cool. All around the world, everyone is ruled and bossed around by horrible people. Yours just happen to have bigger guns and the gold standard for central bank reserve currencies. I don’t think it’s fair to consider every single person that lives in a country/empire/whatever a bad human being or someone who deserves bad things, no matter how horrible the empire in its collective efforts.
You guys have good valuable people. I’ve had the fortune to meet a few and stay friends with them. I’m sure this is true for even the most perverse organizations. Some people are just there cause they didn’t have any better alternatives.
The value of someone is a case by case basis thing as far as I’m concerned. There’s no passport that skips the line to condemnation or salvation.
I figure it’s just like in poker, you know? The cards we have, we got dealt. The question isn’t why didn’t we get the hand we wanted, or how could we redesign the game in order for everyone to get good cards… The game will be over by then. Only thing that matters is how we play what we’re dealt.
And yes, I realize the cards both of us might get very soon might be very bad, but I guess i’d rather see if I can make some kind of play with whatever I have and have fun with the other people around me than endlessly grieve about the ones I wanted or the people that stopped me from getting em.
Much love, my friend. It’s not your fault and nothing is the end of the world (believe it or not, not even the end of the world). You have nothing to apologize for that you didn’t personally do freely and knowingly, and even if you have those, everyone does and most are less reflexive about it. Stay strong.
Why does Uruguai stand out?
idk they used to have really high literacy rate a while ago and their country is regionally famous for having functional government services, or at least it was until recently. They seem to be doing well economically too, so I think they might have better average education than the rest of us in this god forsaken hellscape of a continent.
Huh, so that is why in speech writing you are advised to speak at 6th grade level and not to “overcomplicate” things? Then it is no wonder that if people don’t read and just watch public speaking/advertising they’d revert back to that equilibrium level that allows you to participate in society, but just as a consumer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch–Kincaid_readability_tests e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20160712094308/http://www.mang.canterbury.ac.nz/writing_guide/writing/flesch.shtml seem to deliberately dumb English down for practical purposes.
Do you have any sources at hand for this information?
Thank you!
the differences in phrasing, framing, and identify information and context that is or is not present, and also have a general background knowledge of the publication itself, as well as general background knowledge pertaining to the story itself.
This is the most damning part. I’ve tried talking to people to tell them about this but ever time I get the same braindead “it’s not that deep bruh” response. These idiots don’t even understand how or why this kind of information is important.
Literally sleep walking through life.
The headline is a cold take but the article goes in-depth into all the ways the FSB is aware of how China is probing Russia (for example, approaching disillusioned Russian scientists with access to classified tech, and employing academics to study cultural links between current regions of Russia and historic China, such as Outer Manchuria) as well as discussing long-term strategic considerations for all sides like how climate change will make Russia’s northern coast an attractive option for China to transport goods to sell in Europe, and old quotes by Trump about how his priority is to court Russia to “un-unite” it from China. There’s a lot in it, honestly, as the document (which the NYT received from hackers and consulted various intelligence agencies as to its veracity) is pretty detailed, apparently. It also mentions that China is studying the war in Ukraine as it figures out what would best counter Western military tech in the 21st century.
Sounds interesting. Can you copypaste it or smth?
Thanks so much! Will read when i get a coffee. Glanced through and looks really interesting
In China, especially after the rise of Chinese nationalism in the 1920s,[citation needed] the treaty has been denounced as an unequal treaty.[7]
In September 2024, the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Lai Ching-te claimed that if China’s claims on Taiwan are about territorial integrity then it should also take back land from Russia signed over by the last Chinese dynasty in the 19th century, mentioning the treaty.[8]
Eheh
