I get that, too, and I can sympathize .  This is the tightrope we must walk upon to have this adult(-ish) discussion of this adult topic that is engulfing all our lives right now, though.  I would find it even more frustrating if we reached a point where Covid-19 was shut down as a forum topic completely, because we'd all be posting every day with this giant elephant in the room trumpeting and stomping around but nobody would be able to say anything about it (well, much like the "when guns are illegal only criminals will have guns" argument, trolls who don't care about being muted/banned would be the only ones able to talk about it, which would make it even worse because then it would devolve into gallows humor, racist and partisan jokes, and inane nonsense...about a subject as serious as it gets).

My worldview is much less legalistic. I don't derive morals from the law. The law is man made. I know what I can do before I'm muted or blocked, and so I choose to do that. It's not lack of self control, it's a different way of looking at things... which is the nice way of saying it. You see me as irresponsible, I see you as docile.

I have a feeling it's not a total lack of control, though.  I think Llama and a lot of people feel like they should not have to be diplomatic or hide things that should be okay to say openly, in their opinion. 

Whether I agree or not, my goal is to not have this thread closed down, so...that urge to buck the system in place is an obstacle.  It would be easy enough to "protest" using a less important and immediate test case.

It's like the Michigan protest...if you want to test your open carry laws and 2nd amendment rights by entering the capitol building (and guaranteed that was a primary goal of a subset of protestors)...do it using a less volatile situation, when everyone around you isn't stressed out by a much more important and immediate issue that makes your protest likely to explode out of control.

Funny, since so many trolls can't stand me .  I don't derive my morals or ethics from the law, either.  I just know how to play the game and confront people without triggering undesirable consequences.  Navigating the consensus of others' perceptions of your behavior vs. their decided norms while still doing what you want to do is a skill.

I also did not call you irresponsible...in fact, if you read my last post, I made it clear that I feel you have a reason for making the choice to be more political.  In this case, though, you are trading your own goals for mine.  Not entirely cool given that all you are risking at worst is making another new account, while I have to juggle a thread that pushes the envelope and posters that want to push it even more with/against the site policies and the mods who, while supportive, will have that much less work and hassle if this thread goes away.

You might ask yourself why I haven't blocked you, since it would make things easier for me as well ...

Yeah, that's fine. I know how it works. Elroch's blocked me a few times to keep his evolution topic going (he unblocks people after a few days). David's muted me. I don't hold it against them, and I wouldn't hold it against you.

Maybe you're implying you haven't blocked me because you agree with the things I say? I don't know. I don't think I'm a big risk to your topic, you can see I only talked about that stuff briefly, but do what you gotta do

I can agree or disagree with the things you say.  You have a viewpoint, though, and you can express it with insight (sometimes you have to wade through some volatility first ...).   I think people should hear you and make their own decisions, which might not sound like much...but it's something I would only say of a dozen or two regular posters here in 7 years.  Which is not to say that I am a raging elitist in my life as a whole...but this forum is fairly slim pickings as things stand.  Which is one reason threads like this one are islands in a sea of dreck.

If you make a vertical graph of worthwhile posters here it would look like I Dream of Jeannie's lamp with a teeny-tiny Batgirl blogging on top.

That makes you a pain in the neck .

My few posts about the situation in China didn't draw too much sympathy or attention but, anyway, here is a new batch of information:

-Schools from kindergarten to High Schools have mostly reopened countrywide. Very few colleges have opened however, in my city of Chengdu (roughly 15 million people) only one college has reopened so far, that is Sichuan University (Top 10 best in the country). It appears that some universities and colleges might reopen starting from the middle of this month and on a basis of students' free will to come back.

-People are starting not to wear facemasks anymore. We have had a Couple of hot days recently (35 degrees is no joke at the beginning of May)and  I guess people got fed up of wearing masks under those conditions. Anyway, it is not like there are nee cases anyway and authorities are not urging people to wear masks When they go outside. Nevertheless wearing a face mask is still mandatory when taking the Bus or the subway.

Haha thanks.

Ok ok, you're being so nice to me I feel bad, I'll only post boring stuff (no rants, or politics, etc) in this topic from now on

  There's been 2 cases of virus in the White House and now 11 Secret Service agents have it....   https://www.yahoo.com/news/secret-service-coronavirus-cases-white-house-concerns-221444492.html

Trump questions 'whole concept of tests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_Lw5MR5iQ

States paid millions for coronavirus supplies that never arrived:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xosJFxbrNi8

Cool...so if the US can actually follow restrictions, we might be good by, say, end of June...then again, people might keep spreading it around in the name of freedom and common sense, and we could go well into autumn and really screw up our economy big time ...

P.S. I have enjoyed your "on the ground" updates; I wish people posted more of them.  Not the "No cases in my state, enforced masks at Home Depot is unconstitutional, and lockdown is BS!" kind, but the "snapshot of a day in your neighborhood during the outbreak and how people are coping" kind.

Western Medias make a great job at reporting (and in a sensational and not very realistic way) everything that is wrong in China, but almost never report what is good.  The trade war has not helped.

Anyway, I am glad you like it, and I Must say it feels great to finally be able to get our heads out of the water. I wish that everything will get better in the US and other places where the virus is stricking!

I disagree the western media are by far the best in the world and i mean the US media CNN and MSNBC and the BBC and other in the UK and France24 and the one in Swiss! and many other that i do watch almost daily!

I give them a good 9/10 easily.

But the right wing one are pretty bad.

Western reporters from the usa IN  China knew what was going on there 4 months ago like the us secret service and the healthcare experts from the usa.

Well, to be fair, what other media could be the best?  Only first world countries even have any significant media that reports internationally, and the western world does not really avail itself of China's media, or even India's media, which is in English and ergo easy to digest/handle.

I think there's a lack of reporting on how China is changing overall, which is due both to China's regulation of media, but also to western media's desire to keep painting the portrait of their own shared narrative.  China's standard of living is changing, and while they definitely are changing Hong Kong as they absorb it, Hong Kong is also changing China as it is being absorbed (like a virus ).  The narrative used to be limited in scope to a communist regime ruling over masses of people wearing reed hats and working in rice paddies...and pretty much nothing in between, except children working in sweat shops.

The western world has outsourced a lot of manufacturing and technology to China, to exploit cheap labor.  That influx of expertise is changing China's capabilities, their outlook, and the daily lives of their citizens.  There's still a strict regime in power, but if you go back several decades, the Soviet Union was the same...telling its citizens to hate the west.  But the Soviet Union collapsed, not with a bang, but with a whimper, and even with all the state run media and the school education trying to keep it all out, people got information anyway, and ultimately they wanted the freedom to wear Levi's and go to music concerts, not what the Soviet Union offered them.

Some people credit Reagan and the arms race for running the Soviet economy out of steam, but it was Hollywood and the simple spread of information showing a better kind of life being possible that killed off the Soviet Union.  That same process is happening in China...and maybe the regime will be smarter and adapt, or maybe it will also collapse.  Meanwhile, though, the west has to actually live up to the story and the ideals it has been telling about itself for decades.

People are smart...they know when they are being oppressed.  They know when they are being indoctrinated.  They know when the truth is being obscured from the glimpses they get, you can never keep it 100% out.  It takes a hardcore confirmation, like say your country being invaded and occupied for dubious reasons, to make that "the west is pure evil" narrative hold up.

To bring this back around to the point I want to make...the outbreak is an inflection point in this evolution, and unfortunately, "the west" is playing right into it by giving China's regime a ton of useful fodder for telling all their citizens that (1) we hate them and are racist, (2) we blame them for everything without proof, and (3) that we are inept and we can't even stop the spread of a virus they already stopped. 

Try to put jingoistic nationalism aside and be more cosmopolitan (or tianxia..."all under heaven").  

Jingoism:  an attitude of belligerent nationalism, or a blind adherence to the rightness or virtue of one’s own nation, society, or group, simply because it is one’s own.

Sorry for springboarding off your post Marie, I don't think you are practicing jingoistic nationalism .

Trump Claims Without Evidence COVID-19 Will Go Away Without A Vaccine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bskJ9hqaYt8

There are many bad things to say of China, for sure, but the way they handled the break was undoubtedly successful. Yesterday one new case, No deaths since several days. Maybe we can learn something from them.

The thing is, in the mind of too many westerners China is the same as it was in the 80s, and medias do not make a great job at making people See how things changed. The western Medias You cherish, doesn't matter If they are left wing or right wing medias, actually have their own agenda as well. I am not saying Chinese Medias are better, I once was interviewed and Everything that was published afterwards was completely different from what I said, but, keep an open mind about the fact that western Medias are not flawless either.

I have had the opportunity to meet many foreigners here, and You know, we almost all have a shared feeling which is that we do not want to leave China. So many foreigners are telling me that their one single dream is to stay here, because the people are the nicest they've met, they feel free (I even had a french girl telling me she feels more free in China than in France), Because we have great opportunities to find well paid jobs and so many things. Chinese people have gotten richer, and there are no beggars in the street. Also they have received the influence of the west and now most people actually have the same kind of life we can in occidental countries. Interestingly enough, what we See on the papers on the west is that the average Chinese guy is forced into working 24/24 in some company, they get their IDs taken away, they can't See their families etc... but really If You'd been living here You'd realise how happy Chinese people are, and that those "extreme workers" are nowhere to be seen.

You can chose to think that's propaganda and live in the bubble that was created by the so called best western Medias, or You can chose to trust me, Just a little bit, since I live here, am fluent in the language.

ps: I am sorry for the rant, that was unrelated to COVID19. But, it is really saddening to see how wrong most westerners are concerning the actual situation in modern China.

I do not have to trust you because here we have dozens of medias with dozens of journalists that live in China and that show us the very bad side of China out side of the big cities and it's pretty bad.

More freedom in China than in France are you kidding me?

It's like comparing hell to heaven.

Don't even start because i'm going to link you so much info from western journalists that lived in China for 15 + years and they did make hundreds of video on the whole country not just the big cities!

You still think we are in 1980 here but we are in 2020 and i get access to so many great media from France and the U.K and Swiss and the USA and H.K. etc etc...

Just go outside the big cities in China and the health care system ia at best 3/10 in France it's 8.5/10

Just talk about the discrimination against the millions of  the Uyghur minority. Since 2015, it has been estimated that over a million Uyghurs (approximately 1 in 10) have been detained in Xinjiang re-education camps.