One thing I found interesting is Australians always go for the underdogs Chinese people usually go for the favourites what about americans?
Generally, yes, it really comes down to effort. When people make an effort they can think in terms outside black and white, but in general, not everyone can think about things in depth 100% of the time. We are an efficient species, not a pensive one, we are hardwired to make split second decisions all the time based on societal norms and pressures without really deeply thinking about every thing we encounter. Already, your decision to assume that my opinion is based off what the TV tells me was made quickly, you have been taught in the past that television makes people think in black and white terms so you apply it to this scenario, but your criticism just sounds generic to me. You make a quick assumption, think that would sound intelligent to your peers, and execute. There is a whole science on how to get people to think and act a certain way depending on human interaction and the social environment you put them in. A lot comes down to simply effort and reward. When you are asked for an opinion, you are giving away something of little value, the anything that is worth anything to the individual is the opinion of the questioner and the peers. There are less negative connotations with being stalwart and unchanging, if your opinion never changed, it means you were right to begin with. There are stronger negative connotations if you do change your mind, its telling your peers that you were wrong and needed to reverse direction. You were going left, but now you need to go right. If you change the question, and ask the individual if they learned anything, that changes how one is hardwired to respond. We are encouraged to always learn, so in general people will say yes, they did learn something when exposure was high to something supposedly new and different. This is more of an up or down response. Of course you go up, everyone is always learning. Down to the roots, both questions are simply asking if the individual changed, but how you frame the question, based on sociallogical influences, can determine if change is considered negatively or positively. In one frame, "change" is loosely implied asking if the individual was "incorrectness," you are asking them if they went in the right direction. In another frame, "change" is loosely implied with "improvement," did the individual become better?
Yeah I thought so, it's apparent that a lot of the strangely paranoid and insecure Chinese commentary on the myriad of issues that have arisen from the Olympics aren't confined to this message board.
naw......it was actually meant to imply you didnt put much thought into your previous analysis and used generic characterizations that fit your world view of Americans being stupid and shallow. Honestly, I dont get motivated to actually put the effort into responses in here often and last night I was feeling froggy.....that feeling has passed and I dont care to give much explanation past what I have already done. I'll just say that in my experience people are ALOT more complicated than you seem to think. Group psychology is not a field that one should base their arguments off of in the real world since we are all indeed different and have motivations beyond the simple ones that most like to attribute to them.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6Ly7Btx0Stg&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6Ly7Btx0Stg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> We are clearly entering a new era of world history and describe it in two ways: First, End of the era of Western domination of world history (but not the end of the West lol, we shall remain the single strongest civilization for some time to come). Secondly you're finally seeing a return of Asia. But the return of Asia is important to remember is, the return of the norm. Because while the West has been very powerful in the last 200 years, if you look past the last 2000 years from the year 1 to the year 1820 the two largest economies in the world were consistently China and India. So only in the last 200 years the West has taken off. Now finally the Asian societies have figured out what they need to do to succeed; they have been implementing the Seven Pillars of Western Wisdom and you will see clearly by 2050 as Goldman Sachs study shows the four largest economies in the world will be 1.China, 2.USA, 3.India, 4.Japan. And not a single European economy will be among the top four and that's a huge shift of world history. The West had much to teach, Asia learned; and in some respects the West has ceased to learn. Whereas Asia has built on what it learned and is actually in some cases navigating a new course. Unfortunately the tragedy about the West is that the early generations, in the West, succeeded because they had open minds and they were willing to learn and experiment and be pragmatic. What you have today in the West, is a population that is on top of the mountain, but has never struggled to climb that mountain themselves. And they assume that their natural place is to be on the mountain. So they become arrogant, smug, condescending to the rest of the world. When they watch the rest of the world climbing up the mountain, they look down and say, "Why can't you become democratic over night?"... "What's wrong with you!?". Excuse me, even the United States when you look at it, it proposed the principle of "Equality of Man" in 1776. It took you 100 years to get rid of SLAVERY after that. It took you another 150 years to give the VOTE to the WOMEN. It took you 200 years to effectively give the vote to the BLACK people.... it took you so long to get to the top of the mountain. And yet expect other societies to change over-night. This is where the East and the West is going to change; because clearly now there is a remarkable degree of 'resentment' in the East, towards lectures by Westerners. Telling them, "this is how you should transform your societies". And the attitude of many in Asia is, "Go fix your own societies first, we're doing a reasonable job. Don't teach us what to do, look at what you are doing that is wrong in your societies". The other more controversial point I would like to make here is that, the Americans assume that they will remain 'Defenders of Freedom', no matter what. But if you look at what America did after 911... you look at the erosion of civilities in America, you look at the way Americans are prepared to accept the Patriot Act, it's clear that when Americans feel threatened they too walk away from many of the freedoms they celebrate. The most astounding and shocking that America did after 911 btw, was to practice 'torture'. This has come as a huge shock to the rest of the world. They said how can this land, the Beacon of Freedom, the Beacon of human rights so on and so forth. Take this major step backwards and begin to practice torture. It'ss almost as bad as America going back to re-implement slavery again. Because it was a move away from slavery, it was a move to delegitimize torture. These were great leaps forward in the battle for human rights and America the Leading Defenders of Human Rights suddenly began practicing torture; you can imagine how shocked the rest of the world is and the rest of the world is saying to America, "You no longer have any moral authority to give lectures to anybody on human rights questions because you have failed your own test". Before you export democracy, try having it at home. As for Big Bro, ever heard of Choice Point? BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MvRX-PQmLMQ&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MvRX-PQmLMQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LDodWOCFxeI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LDodWOCFxeI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> EXECUTIVE RESUME http://whitenoise.webnode.com
Is your name Kishore Mahbubani? If not, why are you plagiarizing him? <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zIaVB-k7QlY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zIaVB-k7QlY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
after 10 years living in the US, I think this is it: Follow CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX, or other media... China really need to develop some free, independent, trustworthy and popular media that is actually controlled by the government behind the scene. CCTV and china daily had never worked. I even don't remember when was the last time I checked news from them.
I found it hilariously hypocritical that this came from someone like you who had defended Muslim like your momma has been insulted whenever someone says anything negative about the religion. If anything, you are as paranoid and insecure as anyone can get in regards to defending Muslim. Do you see a hypocrite every time when you look in a mirror?
But seriously though. Reily isn't even respected in GARM. He's a hack who write sensational stories. I read a couple a couple of his articles back when I subscribed to SI, found them to be trash, and never bothered with him ever again. I strongly agree with your general opinion. However, I don't find this point useful for the purpose of this discussion. Why? Because westerners ARE NOT getting a better understanding of China through the Olympics. That's mainly because the news media don't know crap about China. I really cannot emphasize enough just how much the cultural difference makes on one's perception. And it's a huge gap between not just China and the US, but eastern/western cultures in general. As a result, what's being put out in the news is adjusted to the western audience, and loses much of its meaning. That, plus the media don't really care to educate the public. As it's not really "newsworthy" like underaged gymanists, dubbing of little girls' singing, etc. The same way they never deemed the public worthy enough to actually hear about the presidential candidates stances, and instead focus on crap like lapel pins.
It would... if more than 3/4 of the bullet points in the article ain't false. But as always, don't let facts get in the way of your bullsh1t.
Yup - still the same good ole China: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/sports/olympics/23protest.html
Nothing gets posted here without Chinese posters claiming the source as biased. The entire world's free press is biased but the state controlled Chinese media has it all right unless Chinese posters disagree with it, then it's just nonsense put out to sell newspapers. Furthermore, nobody knows anything about Tibet or China except the Chinese. And unless you've ever been to Tibet you have little right to even talk about it. On the other hand, any Chinese that's ever heard of John Wayne can talk about the US treatment of Native Americans without ever having met one, seen one, or ever having been to a reservation. The double standards of many of the Chinese posters here along with the shoot the messenger strategy are all well evident. Reily's article is spot on in my view. China bought the Olympics to put on a show so it could pretend to be this new, progressive society but it's the same same ole same ole, they just have skyscrapers, McDonald's, and cars everywhere now. Students, reporters, and little old ladies getting arrested? The IOC should be ashamed of itself.
China as the host of Olympics, has spent huge amount of money and put in tremendous amount of effort. You can claim this to be a show, but they are trying very hard to be a good host, and treat the guests well. Guests can choose to appreciate at least that hospitality, as many many athletes did, including many Americans. They are also free to ignore that. However, to call this a shame to IOC or China, because China isn't perfect, maybe you should re-think your position in the society. You shouldn't be near any other human beings, because none of them is perfect, except for yourself.
Outside of wanting China to win the most (I mean I'm American, I root for the USA) I feel the same way as you do here.
Ha - good point. Ya know, I don't think the Chinese gov't is doing anything other than to try to stay in power, and maintain that power. And from their perspective, anything that threatens that power is something they will come down hard on. And it's hard to see the Chinese people disagreeing with that - since they are seeing economic development and the gov't is giving them pride in being Chinese. So why should care about the world internationally?
You pretty much got it. Democracy and human rights don't improrve your standard of living by it self or feed your family (it's the economy stupid!)
