The Capital in the North

"At a time when international concern about Tibet and Xinjiang seems to have waned, the recent passing of the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress managed to briefly bring global attention back to the topic of minorities in China." Link below:

@justcallmempum1 @Kozzist @StayGadot "ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their own land and selling it to Jewish bidders worldwide" This is also a complete misunderstanding. Most Jews didn't arrive there as "bidders", but as poor refugees. And they never intended to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians.

@justcallmempum1 @Kozzist @StayGadot It's constant Arab aggression and hostility that fuels Israel's expansionism, which is seen as defensive within Israel, and not without reason.

@justcallmempum1 @Kozzist @StayGadot What results in conflict is the ridiculous idea that millions of Palestinians should be granted a right of return after 80 years, something that has never happened in history. Israel can decide on its own immigration policies.

@GodfreeTrh @_alice_evans And you know this because....

@GabrielCor54922 @_alice_evans It's incomparably different

Thailand: 0.76 This is a great illustration of why comparativism is so important. Many blamed East Asia's rapid fall in fertility on intensive parenting and an education arms race, but that is less plausible for Thailand, where you do not see the same dynamics.

@GabrielCor54922 @Kozzist @StayGadot So Jews around the world have a right to return to Israel, become Israelis, and therefore have more of a right to stay on land they illegally occupy than Palestinians who actually own it? A ridiculous and deplorable reasoning that just results in conflict, Zionism personified

I'm still trying to figure out what these people expect Palestinians to do besides lay down and die

@GodfreeTrh @_alice_evans Why compare the whole of Thailand only to urban China? Compare Bangkok to urban China then, and it probably isn't that different.

@_alice_evans Thailand has all the ingredients except national IQ, which remains more that one SD below ours and two below urban China's. And that's fine. I've lived in Thailand for 15 years and am a huge fan of how they've adapted to their limitations and kept their culture intact.

@AArbaal82183 @Sarahjdublin I agree, I just mean people who live in Gaza.

@GabrielCor54922 @Sarahjdublin No such thing as "Gazans". They are Palestinians.

What some people refuse to understand is that I hate Israel because of Israel’s actions. If any other country was committing genocide and ethnic cleansing while claiming self defence and being shielded by world powers, I’d hate them just as much regardless of who they were.

@justcallmempum1 @Kozzist @StayGadot Lots of refugees were created all over the world in the 20th century. Most of their descendants can't go back. That's life. Living where your grandparents did is not a basic human right. It certainly doesn't take precedence over 10 million Israelis' right to stay in their country

@GabrielCor54922 @Kozzist @StayGadot Distantly descended? in the span of 80 yrs. What a laughable statement Ur response reflects the history of Palestinians. Difference is their return will be to land that was rightfully theirs, land their GRANDPARENTS lived on and if justice means the end of Israel, its only right

@KevinGo54401921 @ExposingHamas Atheists aren't at all rare in Israel...

@ExposingHamas Ask the rare Israeli atheist how they feel about Israeli aggression and expansion

This submission by a rare Arab atheist says something Western media almost never admits: In Arabic, ordinary Arabs barely even discuss the “two-state solution.” Not as a serious option. Not as a public debate. Not even as something to reject. It mostly exists in official speeches aimed at Western audiences. I used to believe in that two state delusion too. Then Israel offered, in the 2000s, almost everything Westerners keep saying the Palestinians want: all of Gaza, roughly 96% of the West Bank, a road connecting them under their control, and even parts of Jerusalem. The answer was not peace. The answer was the Second Intifada. Years of suicide bombings, shootings, buses exploding, cafés blown up, and Israeli civilians murdered in the streets. At some point people need to ask the obvious question: How can so many Westerners still be this detached from reality? Even after October 7? And why is their media constantly lying to them about what Arab societies actually believe?

@river_is_nice I think the benefits of travel are exaggerated, but if you already have a good level of knowledge and an open mind, it can be enlightening. If you know little and have a closed mind, then you will learn little by going to other countries.

If people want to travel because they think it would be cool to see this or that thing, that’s fine, but the idea that people are learning anything novel or valuable from these experiences is absurd. In order to learn anything that isn’t already on Wikipedia or repeated on a thousand travel blogs you’d actually have to go some place that’s incredibly remote, dangerous or unpleasant and almost nobody is interested in doing that.

Sorry, and RIP, but we have had Instagram and cheap airfare for a decade. Globetrotting is a mid-wit hobby that enlightens no one. There is nobody more shallow and incurious than the well travelled.

This cartoon by Badiucao is pure genius!

@michaelturton None of this, of course, means that Taiwan should be ruled by China today, against the wishes of its people. But this narrative that Taiwan was never ruled by China is frankly unconvincing to outsiders, especially when most Taiwanese originally got to the island from China.

@michaelturton While I very much sympathise with Taiwan's struggle for independence, I find this line unconvincing. Taiwan was ruled by the Qing. The Manchu may have not been Chinese to begin with, but their dynasty was based in Beijing after all. Calling the Qing "non-Chinese" is questionable.

"permanent separation" is a pro-Beijing code term. Taiwan is not and never has been part of China.

@phl43 Arnaud is a propagandist and should not be taken too seriously. The problem is many do, so it's important do debunk his narratives. You've done a good job of that here.

Not that I want to deny Europe needs to get its shit together, we definitely do, but this is a silly comparison. The reason why China declined in the 19th century is that European countries became industrial economies and were the first of any countries to move into a sustained growth regime. The reason why Europe is now declining in relative terms is that China and other non-Western countries have become industrial economies and started to catch up with the West. In other words, Europe's decline today, measured by how fast its share of world GDP is falling, is just a consequence of the fact that the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe first. This left most of the world behind and now it's finally catching up, which mechanically results in a fall of Europe's share of world GDP, because the rest of the world contains a very large share of the population. This isn't a particularly interesting or deep observation and doesn't mean that we are going to be dominated in the way China was during the "century of humiliation". It matters a lot whether one's share of world GDP declines because you're leaving others behind or because others are finally catching up. I know it's a bit more complicated because the US's share of world GDP hasn't declined in the same way, let's not revisit the recent debate about US vs. Europe here, but this catching up is still what's behind this statistic for the most part.

Apparently it's impossible to send sums of 64 or 89 yuan on WeChat today. The CCP may give an impression of confidence nowadays, but the paranoia never changes.

@LaalJhanday @sinaigross @StayGadot @bigmate_otw @Kozzist The Israelis think exactly the same, no one is killing Palestinians in a vacuum, it's a response to what they do. Both sides truly believe they're defending themselves, and both sides in fact are. That's the tragedy of this sort of conflict.

@sinaigross @StayGadot @bigmate_otw @GabrielCor54922 @Kozzist No one is killing you in a vacuum. All the attacks against you are in response to 7+ decades of ethnic cleansing, land theft, and killings. You're not the victim

@justcallmempum1 @Kozzist @StayGadot Yeah, Israel is not about to allow some mass "right of return" for millions of Palestinians distantly descended from one of the hundreds of thousands of refugees from 1948. That would be the end of them. Who would?

@GabrielCor54922 @Kozzist @StayGadot The facts r that any deal since Israel's "establishment" fell through due to the fundamental aspects of sovereignty, land ownership and refugee rights. In the eyes of Zionists, it's Jews who have never been to the ME that have a right to return, not Palestinians they stole from

@paroriksi @Kozzist @StayGadot You really believe that?

@GabrielCor54922 @Kozzist @StayGadot Israel has already vowed to kill everyone between Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. Allowing it's existence is not the logical option

@LaalJhanday @leesparky @StayGadot @bigmate_otw @Kozzist As a matter of fact I hate Netanyahu and favour ending the occupation of the West Bank. But to you it doesn't matter, people are either for or against Israel, friends or enemies. Terrible mentality.

@LaalJhanday @leesparky @StayGadot @bigmate_otw @Kozzist You people are such horrible fanatics. You see anyone who disagrees with you on Israel as genocidal murderers. There will never be peace as long as there are people like you in this world.