It’s impossible to tell these days
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Meanwhile…
What a coincidence! Remind me, where did the pandemic originate?
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The Chinese lock-down was nothing like the lock-down you have seen in Europe though. They welded the doors of poor people breaking quarantine, forcing their quarantine, and they used these draconian solutions very early and with zero oversight or care for Human Rights. Totalitarianism has some positive traits compared to Democracy. Notably in war and crisis, they are much more effective systems of governance and can mobilise resources that democratic regimes can only dream of.
Naturally, their lock-down was much more effective than anything seen in democracies to supress infection.
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Further on, I said that they welded the doors of those who broke quarantine. That was not actually correct, they welded entire apartment complexes, bolting them shut because a few people in them had infection. So with a massive collateral. Would we ever accept that without violent riots ? I don’t think so. They also tested millions early on when the infection was yet low. It is really different I would argue. Regimes like China, probably Nazi-Germany and Stalinist Soviet, they can do incredibly effective stuff with zero regard for human rights.
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Maybe so, but how they deal with it, is not my point. I don’t trust China, we’ll never get to the truth of how the pandemic started, the WHO will only be allowed to see what China want them to see.
My opinion is, the virus came from the laboratory in Wuhan. But that’s just my opinion.
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Fair enough, not going to argue that. I am just saying the measures they took were incredibly much more severe than anything we in the West have seen and therefore also logically more effective.
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Just doesn’t seem that likely - we already knew that there were ~500 coronavirus variants located in one cave complex in that area of China (discovered tracing SARS) that were previously unknown. The work to categorize and understand them has barely moved in the intervening 15 years.
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You mean just like the UK variant originated in a laboratory in Surrey.
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I doubt that the Chinese deliberately infected the world with Covid 19. It’s an uncontrollable type of weapon to use, and there are plenty of other ways to disrupt the world economy, presuming that was the aim. However, as Magnus states, totalitarian regimes do handle this kind of situation more efficiently and I have met Chinese people who have used this argument to support their government and it’s policies. The rest of this century will be dominated by an ideological battle between totalitarianism and democracy, and at the moment, democracy is losing. This is the most serious threat to freedom since the second world war.
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South Africa actually.
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Just the 1st step on our inexorable path to world domination.
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Sarcasm eh! I’m leaving this China fan club now.
Was more ‘tongue in cheek so have a laugh’, mate.
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I really think it was a joke and not a sarcastic stab at you, since he is from South Africa. Everyone who has commented has been careful not to ridicule your opinion thus far.
And for what it is worth, I am light years from being starry eyed at China, hope you didn’t read my comment as if I was praising them. I just argued that totalitarian regimes are more efficient in large scale crisis management, and much more so as well, since they have a lot less to consider than Democratic regimes and can and will use far more heavy handed solutions to various problems. They don’t have to weight liberty versus the common good, they can ignore the former and do exactly what they think is the most efficient, individuals doesn’t matter to them. Democracies are much more difficult to manage and they have far less tools in the tool box.
Still, I think most of us would choose to live in a democracy despite all of it’s faults. I think most of us would and will, accept higher collateral and death rate in from for instance an epidemic, if the option is to trade away the freedoms most of us, certainly I, value very high.
The more difficult question is, would we do that if the death rate was akin to the Black Death ? Probably not I think, I think then we would accept dictatorial rule if it could save our very “people” easier. Thankfully, the Corona virus is nothing like that though. But Black Death death rate would be a bit Post-Apocalyptic anyway with lots of unknown factors.
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With regard to ‘efficiency’, a totalitarian regime definitely has the edge, but their efficient squashing of the pandemic might just as easily be their efficient squashing of the Uighurs. In both instances the strong arm of authoritarian leadership can largely do what it wants to do, while remaining unchecked by the pesky populace.
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Official GOP state accounts continues to post these idol-paintings.
Very, very low quality compared to the much more aesthetic paintings of Hitler and Mussolini. This is kind of the trashy kitch-version of those.
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Yeah, wasn’t going into ethics, morality or philosophy at all, just cold efficiency in for instance suppressing infection. My point was never to praise China, I just sought to explain why they have an easier time than democracies in suppressing the virus and so on since, someone thought them getting control of the epidemic was good indicator of a biological lab made weapon etc.
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Seems to be wincing in pain. Probably the fake bone spurs that helped him dodge Vietnam.
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Like the parody president that we’ve sat through for the last 4 years?
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