Chinese cities are not really "cities". They are closer to counties and in some instances like Chongqing, a literal province. The bigger cities are a administratively half a level above counties.
The biggest value for me is that it helped me breakdown my moral positions so I figured out what I truly cared about. I had previously held many culturally influenced moral positions which I found little to no grounding when seriously considered.
"Objective morals" are extremely religious, culty, hivemind-like because they are passed on as matter-of-fact truths that don't need to be examined, regardless of whether it comes from a region or your favorite insta influencer. They get repeated as mantras by many who cant back up their beliefs.
I think you can still have morals - I'm just saying that your morality is a product of you personally interacting with the world. There's no fountain of moral knowledge that we collectively drink from. So.. don't be surprised when your morals diverge from another person.
Everything is arbitrary. What's even more arbitrary than descriptive truths are moral truths - like - don't kill the innocent. The sooner we reconcile our differences and realize that society is only possible through tethered connections biologically programmed into us, the better we will all be. The alternative is groups of people feuding over "moral truths" that are IMPOSSIBLE to reconcile because "moral truths" are inaccessible.
This thread reminds of facebook comments of people saying AWS is dumb because you can just put 10 CPUs and 5 sticks of ram for a quarter of the price. I don't get what's so hard to understand here, it just glamping for rich people who aren't very outdoorsy.
I don't know why we can't just force everyone to show post tax/fees price upfront. It's complete bullshit that every restaurant bill comes with 3 different taxes.
It's sad, I think there's a negative feedback loop of, supermarkets only selling the most common produce, and people only learning recipes that use the produce supermarkets sell.
> Luddism stood not against technology per se but for the rights of workers above the inequitable profitability of machines
Being against the inequitable profitability of machines is just as dumb as being against technology, especially outside of a socialist context which this definitely was. It's basically crying that someone else is doing something better than you. In fact, I think being against technology wholesale is a much more defensible position since it creates an arms race, its unpredictable, it forces everyone into a lifestyle, etc.
Yea we desperately need land reform. What Japan did after WW2 should set an example [0]. Also, investment properties should be heavily taxed to disincentivize this behavior.