I wanted to know how you formed your opinion, and I also had never heard of Xiaohongshu before (I just now made the connection that it’s RedNote). So, cool.
I’m not confident of what’s happening in Xinjiang. I know I’m surrounded by US/Western propaganda, and I’m trying to cut through it without succumbing to anyone else’s propaganda.
I grew up in a liberal society, and sometimes ML Theory seems like a really strange way of looking at the world. So I’m not building any opinions based on what I guess someone’s motivations are (especially the CCP).
I’ve been given to believe that genocide is a liberal idea, because it’s couched in false consciousness ideas about race and ethnicity. So a hypothetical AES state could commit mass murder, but not necessarily genocide. What do you think?
On 1. yeah I should have clarified sorry. After the TikTok exodus I got curious and had a look
On 2. I think it was this comment that had a lot of vital background information, like e.g. that the sufi terrorist attacks that started this whole ordeal were US-backed and orchestrated. That they were doing in Xinjiang what they had previously done in Afghanistan with the mujaheddin. Other links are compiled by davel for instance here.
On 3. I had the exact opposite reaction lol. When reading Marx and Lenin I thought it such a natural way of looking at the world. I remember reading “Wagelabor and capital” I thinking that the individual observation weren’t a great new insight (when demand down then price go down as well who knew?) but put together they formed a new understanding of the world. Looking at stuff like the reserve army of labor gave me a whole new perspective of the world how I relate to society etc.
Part of that is because being christian with a protestant upbringing I had to repeatedly synthesize contradictions. Evolution vs creationism being one of the bigger ones. Lately I’m on veganism vs carnism and speciesm practiced by Jesus himself which might be the one that does it in if I’m to be honest. It’s of course not helped by the fact that all the churches around here are turbozionist so I feel completely estranged from what I used to consider my community. But the whole idea of holding two contradictory concepts and instead of rejecting one or the other marrying them and forming a new understanding of both was something I had already done pretty much all my life.
It completely reshaped my understanding of nazi germany for instance, from one where the nazis were evil because they just hated minorities and people who thought different, to the nazis were the evil expression of the capitalists. The reason the nazis were able to gain power is because they got bankrolled by the industry leaders and the reason the industry leaders bankrolled them is because they were reeling from the aftermath of world war 1 and because they were deathly afraid of a communist revolution in Germany akin to the ones in the soviet states. Taking it further and seeing that the holocaust was basically capitalism at work, that it was animal agriculture applied to humans, made me go vegan in a snap. It all was a smooth transition once I had to break with western media which started with the Xinjiang propaganda campaign until I was a vocal vegan marxist.
On 4. I don’t know where you got that from, genocide is a material act. The liberal classifications of race and ethnicity are idealist of course but the result, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine for instance, is material reality. A hypothetical AES (emphasis on the A) state wouldn’t classify people by race and ethnicity since they are idealist constructs. However people being part of different cultures is also material reality. That some people will identify as “Uyghur” while others won’t and that this shapes their actions and how they relate to themselves and others is also real. There of course are genocides by states that purport to be socialist. E.g. the khmer rouge, Luna Oi has a great video about them here, but I would say that a state that takes their socialism seriously wouldn’t commit a genocide, there is no incentive to.
Thanks for sharing all that. I think you and I have a lot in common, actually. I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness, and never really felt close to that community. I’ve always felt like an outsider as well, but I think we diverge in that I identify with my outsider-ness and appreciate the freedom of individuality. But I also identify as an introvert, happier on my own or with close friends than with large groups or strangers. I wonder if there’s some overlap there? Do you consider yourself introverted or extroverted?
On 1. yeah I should have clarified sorry. After the TikTok exodus I got curious and had a look
On 2. I think it was this comment that had a lot of vital background information, like e.g. that the sufi terrorist attacks that started this whole ordeal were US-backed and orchestrated. That they were doing in Xinjiang what they had previously done in Afghanistan with the mujaheddin. Other links are compiled by davel for instance here.
On 3. I had the exact opposite reaction lol. When reading Marx and Lenin I thought it such a natural way of looking at the world. I remember reading “Wagelabor and capital” I thinking that the individual observation weren’t a great new insight (when demand down then price go down as well who knew?) but put together they formed a new understanding of the world. Looking at stuff like the reserve army of labor gave me a whole new perspective of the world how I relate to society etc.
Part of that is because being christian with a protestant upbringing I had to repeatedly synthesize contradictions. Evolution vs creationism being one of the bigger ones. Lately I’m on veganism vs carnism and speciesm practiced by Jesus himself which might be the one that does it in if I’m to be honest. It’s of course not helped by the fact that all the churches around here are turbozionist so I feel completely estranged from what I used to consider my community. But the whole idea of holding two contradictory concepts and instead of rejecting one or the other marrying them and forming a new understanding of both was something I had already done pretty much all my life.
It completely reshaped my understanding of nazi germany for instance, from one where the nazis were evil because they just hated minorities and people who thought different, to the nazis were the evil expression of the capitalists. The reason the nazis were able to gain power is because they got bankrolled by the industry leaders and the reason the industry leaders bankrolled them is because they were reeling from the aftermath of world war 1 and because they were deathly afraid of a communist revolution in Germany akin to the ones in the soviet states. Taking it further and seeing that the holocaust was basically capitalism at work, that it was animal agriculture applied to humans, made me go vegan in a snap. It all was a smooth transition once I had to break with western media which started with the Xinjiang propaganda campaign until I was a vocal vegan marxist.
On 4. I don’t know where you got that from, genocide is a material act. The liberal classifications of race and ethnicity are idealist of course but the result, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine for instance, is material reality. A hypothetical AES (emphasis on the A) state wouldn’t classify people by race and ethnicity since they are idealist constructs. However people being part of different cultures is also material reality. That some people will identify as “Uyghur” while others won’t and that this shapes their actions and how they relate to themselves and others is also real. There of course are genocides by states that purport to be socialist. E.g. the khmer rouge, Luna Oi has a great video about them here, but I would say that a state that takes their socialism seriously wouldn’t commit a genocide, there is no incentive to.
Thanks for sharing all that. I think you and I have a lot in common, actually. I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness, and never really felt close to that community. I’ve always felt like an outsider as well, but I think we diverge in that I identify with my outsider-ness and appreciate the freedom of individuality. But I also identify as an introvert, happier on my own or with close friends than with large groups or strangers. I wonder if there’s some overlap there? Do you consider yourself introverted or extroverted?