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rumblebumble22 · 2 years

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Modern stereotypes

Humanity has always been misled by bias: racism, superiority of wealth and privilege, patriarchy, and other prejudices have made vulnerable parts of societies suffer for centuries. Throughout history, there have been cruel religions, ruthless leaders, terror and wars. We may think that in today’s world we have become more civil and humane, but it is not true. We still have prejudices: about us, others and the world.

In this article I will point out some of the most popular biases which make people deluded about many things. Since we live in the information world, it is crucial to know, what is real and what is not. We shouldn’t be misguided by stereotypes, otherwise, we will have a poor mind and narrow view of the most significant things.

Stereotype 1. You can achieve anything in your life if you work enough

That’s a popular claim in today’s world. Many of us think if we work hard enough we will get all we want. It’s common belief that our future depends only on us and since we are not famous or rich, it’s our fault.

There are endless books in the bookshops that offer you clear and quick recipes on how to achieve your dreams. However, did you notice that the advice in them never worked? Just a small percentage of people in our world are celebrities, famous actresses and millionaires. I don’t think these people read these self-help books or visit professional couches with the question ‘’How to become rich and famous?’’

The reality is that these people just have sources: money, wealthy family members, needed acquittances and so on. The reason for their fame, wealth, and success is their destiny, not their efforts. If you are born into a rich family, you will automatically become rich, and if you are not.. Well, you know.

It’s a dangerous myth that anyone can achieve anything today. As a result of this delusion, many people become despairing and exhausted if after years of arduous work they still struggle with daily expenses or even live in poverty. It’s extremely rare for someone from a poor African village to become a wealthy businessman, whereas for a son of a millionaire it’s hardly an achievement. The rights and opportunities in our society are not equal, and we must be aware of this.

Stereotype 2. Old people are unhappy and ugly

This is another prejudice which damages the self-esteem and confidence of aged people. Today’s world dictates to us from billboards and TVs that only youth, energy and smooth skin are a treasure. It’s almost impossible to see representations of old people in journals and on the Internet.

Beauty industry make an enormous amount of money on the concept of youth: they sell anti-aging products, face massage courses, etc. In addition, they shamelessly claim our wrinkles and strips are ugly. Thus, the concept of youth becomes ours. We buy anti-age stuff and our frustration is growing with every year. We age, and we are scared of becoming ugly and old. We are sure that nobody will love us and care about us.

Companies sell us the idea that youth is the only thing which should be cherished, but it’s bullshit. Old people are beautiful, but they are also wise and elegant. They can tell you a lot more about life and choices than any 18 year old. They have dignity and majesty, and we should treat these people in a better way than the greedy beauty industry suggests. Old people are a trove of knowledge and experience. Don’t be this anxious person who worries about every wrinkle for years — that’s your lifeview that torments you, not your age.

Stereotype 3. It’s great that today we have big malls and online shopping platforms

Yes, it may seem convenient that today we can just click on the site and buy anything we like, from a toster to a new pair of shoes. But in fact, the modern apparel industry is more deceptive than you might think. We don’t think about anything except shopping delight when we order something on Amazon. However, consumption and overproduction of goods destroy nature at an alarming rate.

Do you know how many things people throw away every day? There are huge junkyards in many countries, which no one cares about. There are teenagers who buy a new shirt, wear it once and then throw it out. There are women who have closets with enormous amounts of clothes, but still don’t know what to wear. We are diligent consumers and the more we consume, the more we pollute the world.

If you don’t know the term ‘’consumerism’’, google and read some books, because it’ll help you to see, how our purchases impact the Earth. For instance, you might read about Nike fabrics made using child labour, the lack of rights for the Amazon’s workers or pollution from factories. These facts might seem harsh, but they will change your opinion about the ''convenience'' of malls and online-markets. We are a ''buy and throw'' society, and in order to become someone else, we need to become aware of who we are.

In the next part of this article I’ll reveal more modern stereotypes of society. I plan to talk about the news as ‘’the most reliable'' way to get information, women’s rights and so on. If you have an idea what I can talk about, please share in comments.

#stereotypes #aging process #psychology #culture #society #non fiction #aging well #old age #economic #consumerism #lifestyle #slowdown #produce #cultural #civilization

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lkinews · 2 years

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Fed to unveil another large rate hike as signs of economic slowdown grow

WASHINGTON on July 27 2022 (lki news) The Federal Reserve expected to hike its key interest rate by three-quarters of percent this Wednesday in order to fight high inflation, attention will be on how much the signs of a possible slowdown in the economy have been noticed by the Fed’s policymakers. The new information However, it’s not all negative. It’s good news that the Commerce Department on…

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#Fed to unveil another large rate hike as signs of economic slowdown grow

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bharatlivenewsmedia · 2 years

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Startup founders must brace for economic slowdown: Zoho's Sridhar Vembu

Startup founders must brace for economic slowdown: Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu

Startup founders must brace for economic slowdown: Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu Startup founders have to realise that the funding winter is here and it is time to brace for the worst with controlling cash burn and investing only in meaningful activities, says Sridhar Vembu, CEO and Co-Founder of tech company Zoho Corporation.As startups face the wrath of global macro-economic factors like the…

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#brace #economic #for #founders #india #must #news #slowdown #sridhar #startup #vembu #zoho&8217;s

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mengjue · 1 year

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What's Happening in China? The November 2022 Protests

Hello! I know that there's so much going on in the world right now, so not everyone may be aware of what is happening in China right now. I thought that I would try to write a brief explainer, because the current wave of protests is truly unprecedented in the past 30+ years, and there is a lot of fear over what may happen next. For context, I'm doing this as someone who has a PhD in Asian Studies specialising in contemporary Chinese politics, so I don't know everything but I have researched China for many years.

I'll post some decent links at the end along with some China specialists & journalists I follow on Twitter (yeah I know, but it's still the place for the stuff at the moment). Here are the bullet points for those who just want a brief update:

Xi Jinping's government is still enacting a strict Zero Covid policy enforced by state surveillance and strict lockdowns.

On 24 November a fire in an apartment in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, killed 10. Many blamed strict quarantine policies on preventing evacuation.

Protests followed and have since spread nationwide.

Protesters are taking steps not seen since Tiananmen in 1989, including public chants for Xi and the CCP to step down.

Everyone is currently unsure how the government will respond.

More in-depth discussion and links under the cut:

First a caveat: this is my own analysis/explanation as a Chinese politics specialist. I will include links to read further from other experts and journalists. Also, this will be quite long, so sorry about that!

China's (aka Xi Jinping's) Covid Policy:

The first and most important context: Xi has committed to a strict Zero Covid policy in China, and has refused to change course. Now, other countries have had similar approaches and they undoubtedly saved lives - I was fortunate to live in New Zealand until this year, and Prime Minister Ardern's Zero Covid approach in 2020-2021 helped protect many. The difference is in the style/scope of enforcement, the use of vaccines, and the variant at play. China has stepped up its control on public life over the past 10 years, and has used this to enforce strict quarantine measures without full regard to the impact on people's lives - stories of people not getting food were common. Quarantine has also become a feared situation, as China moves people to facilities often little better than prisons and allegedly without much protection from catching Covid within. A personal friend in Zhengzhou went through national, then provincial, then local quarantines when moving back from NZ, and she has since done her best to avoid going back for her own mental and physical health. Xi has also committed China to its two home-grown vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, both of which have low/dubious efficacy and are considered ineffective against new variants. Finally, with delta and then omicron most of the Zero-Covid countries have modified their approach due to the inability to maintain zero cases. China remains the only country still enacting whole-city eradication lockdowns, and they have become more frequent to the point that several are happening at any given time. The result is a population that is incredibly frustrated and losing hope amidst endless lockdowns and perceived ineffectiveness to address the pandemic.

Other Issues at Play:

Beyond the Covid situation, China is also wrestling with the continued slowdown in its economic growth. While its economic rise and annual GDP growth was nigh meteoric from the 80s to the 00s, it has been slowing over the past ten years, and the government is attempting to manage the transition away from an export-oriented economy to a more fully developed one. However, things are still uncertain, and Covid has taken its toll as it has elsewhere the past couple of years. Youth unemployment in particular is reaching new highs at around 20%, and Xi largely ignored this in his speech at the Party Congress in October (where he entered an unprecedented third term). As a result of the perceived uselessness of China's harsh work culture and its failure to result in a better life, many young Chinese have been promoting 躺平 tǎng píng or "lying flat", aka doing the bare minimum just to get by (similar to the English "quiet quitting"). The combination of economic issues and a botched Covid approach is important, as these directly affect the lives of ordinary middle-class Chinese, and historical it has only been when this occurred that mass movements really took off. The most famous, Tiananmen in 1989, followed China's opening up economic reforms and the dismantling of many economic safety nets allowing for growing inequality. While movements in China often grow to include other topics, having a foundation in something negatively impacting the average Han Chinese person's livelihood is important.

The Spark - 24 Nov 2022 Urumqi Apartment Fire:

The current protests were sparked by a recent fire that broke out in a flat in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province. (This is the same Xinjiang that is home to the Uighur people, against whom China has enacted a campaign of genocide and cultural destruction.) The fire occurred in the evening and resulted in 10 deaths, which many online blamed on the strict lockdown measures imposed by officials, who prevented people from leaving their homes. It even resulted in a rare public apology by city officials. However, with anger being so high nationwide, in addition to many smaller protests that have occurred over the past two years, this incident has ignited a nationwide movement.

The Protests and Their Significance:

The protests that have broken out over the past couple of days representing the largest and most significant challenge to the leadership since the 1989 Tiananmen movement. Similar to that movement, these protests have occurred at universities and cities across the country, with many students taking part openly. This scale is almost unseen in China, particularly for an anti-government protest. Other than Tiananmen in 1989, the most widespread movements that have occurred have been incidents such as the protest of the 1999 Belgrade bombings or the 2005 and then 2012 anti-Japanese protests, all of which were about anger toward a foreign country.

Beyond the scale the protests are hugely significant in their message as well. Protesters are publicly shouting the phrases "习近平下台 Xí Jìnpíng xiàtái!" and "共产党下台 Gòngchǎndǎng xiàtái!", which mean "Xi Jinping, step down/resign!" and "CCP, step down/resign!" respectively. To shout a direct slogan for the government to resign is unheard of in China, particularly as Xi has tightened control of civil society. And people are doing this across the country in the thousands, openly and in front of police. This is a major challenge for a leader and party who have prioritised regime stability as a core interest for the majority of their history.

Looking Ahead:

Right now, as of 15:00 Australian Eastern time on Monday, 28 November 2022, the protests are only in their first couple of days and we are unsure as to how the government will respond. Police have already been seen beating protesters and journalists and dragging them away in vehicles. However, in many cases the protests have largely been monitored by police but still permitted to occur. There seems to be uncertainty as to how they want to respond just yet, and as such no unified approach.

Many potential outcomes exist, and I would warn everyone to be careful in overplaying what can be achieved. Most experts I have read are not really expecting this to result in Xi's resignation or regime change - these things are possible, surely, but it is a major task to achieve and the unity & scale of the protest movement remains to be fully seen. The government may retaliate with a hard crackdown as it has done with Tiananmen and other protests throughout the years. It may also quietly revamp some policies without publicly admitting a change in order to both pacify protesters and save face. The CCP often uses mixed tactics, both coopting and suppressing protest movements over the years depending on the situation. Changing from Zero Covid may prove more challenging though, given how much Xi has staked his political reputation on enforcing it.

What is important for everyone online, especially those of us abroad, is to watch out for the misinformation campaign the government will launch to counter these protests. Already twitter is reportedly seeing hundreds of Chinese bot accounts mass post escort advertisements using various city names in order to drown out protest results in the site's search engine. Chinese officials will also likely invoke the standard narrative of Western influence and CIA tactics as the reason behind the protests, as they did during the Hong Kong protests.

Finally, there will be a new surge of misinformation and bad takes from tankies, or leftists who uncritically support authoritarian regimes so long as they are anti-US. An infamous one, the Qiao Collective, has already worked to shift the narrative away from the protests and onto debating the merits of Zero Covid. This is largely similar to pro-Putin leftists attempting the justify his invasion of Ukraine. Always remember that the same values that you use to criticise Western countries should be used to criticise authoritarian regimes as well - opposing US militarism and racism, for example, is not incompatible with opposing China's acts of genocide and state suppression. If you want further info (and some good sardonic humour) on the absurd takes and misinfo from pro-China tankies, I would recommend checking out Brian Hioe in the links below.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a grass-roots protest made by people in China, who are putting their own lives at risk to demonstrate openly like this. There have already been so many acts of bravery by those who just want a better future for themselves and their country, and it is belittling and disingenuous to wave away everything they are doing as being just a "Western front" or a few "fringe extremists".

Links:

BBC live coverage page with links to analysis and articles

ABC (Australia) analysis

South China Morning Post analysis

Experts & Journalists to Check Out:

Brian Hioe - Journalist & China writer, New Bloom Magazine

Bonnie Glaser - China scholar, German Marshall Fund

Vicky Xu - Journalist & researcher, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Stephen McDonnell - Journalist, BBC

M Taylor Fravel - China scholar, MIT

New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre - NZ's hub of China scholarship (I was fortunate to attend their conferences during my PhD there, they do great work!)

If you've reached the end I hope this helps with understanding what's going on right now! A lot of us who know friends and whanau in China are worried for their safety, so please spread the word and let's hope that there is something of a positive outcome ahead.

#孟珏’s china corner #中国 #上海 #习近平 #习近平下台 #共产党下台 #China #Shanghai #China protests #China protests 2022 #Xi Jinping #Xi Jinping step down #CCP step down #Xi Jinping resign #CCP resign #乌鲁木齐 #Urumqi #Urumqi fire #Urumqi apartment fire

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zvaigzdelasas · 2 months

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Inflation has pulled back significantly from its pandemic-era peak. In fact, some categories have fallen into outright deflation, meaning consumers are seeing the prices decline instead of rise.[...]

Demand for goods soared early in the Covid-19 pandemic, as consumers were confined to their homes and couldn't spend on things such as travel or concerts. The health crisis also snarled global supply chains, meaning volume couldn't keep pace with demand for those goods. Such supply-and-demand dynamics drove up prices.

Now, they're falling back to earth.[...]

"Supply chains are going back to normal," said Jay Bryson, chief economist for Wells Fargo Economics. "And on the demand side, there's been somewhat of a rotation from goods spending back toward services spending."

"We're kind of reverting back to the pre-Covid era," he added.[...]

14 Feb 24

Deflation may soon start biting into Chinese growth, as Beijing looks at another three to six months of a "very painful economy," according to one analyst who covers the country.

"This is something investors need to be cautious of. The economy here is bad, it's pretty ... it's really bad. I've been in China for 27 years, and this is probably the lowest confidence I've ever seen," Shaun Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday.

“So deflation is starting to wield its ugly head[sic]. Consumers are waiting for discounts. They’re very nervous.”

Linked to a decline in the prices of goods and services, deflation is generally associated with an economic slowdown — raising questions over the growth outlook for China, whose post-Covid-19 recovery has already fallen short of some expectations in 2023. In December, depressed prices for pork — which makes up around a fifth of China’s CPI basket — heralded the possible advent of deflation.

“Deflation is a serious issue, I know the Chinese government doesn’t want me saying it, but it’s an issue that we need to be worried about,” Rein stressed. [...]

Economic slowdown is widely seen as a potential threat to Xi Jinping, whose Chinese Community Party has cultivated national political legitimacy through rapid growth.[...]

″[Buyers] think housing prices might continue to drop, so even if there’s pent-up demand for housing, a lot of home buyers are telling us, we’re not going to buy this month, we’re not going to buy this quarter, because we’re scared prices are going to drop another couple [of] percent in the coming months,” Rein said Monday.

22 Jan 24

Curious 🤔

#deflation (good) vs deflation (bad comma chinese)

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saywhat-politics · 3 months

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One of Donald Trump’s leading economic advisers now admits he was wrong about the predictions he made for the economy under President Joe Biden.

“Mea culpa,” Fox Business host Larry Kudlow said on the air Thursday. “I was wrong about the slowdown and the recession, so was the entire forecasting fraternity.”

#fox business #larry kudlow #former trump adviser #president joe biden #u.s. economy

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collapsedsquid · 2 months

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China’s state-owned enterprises have begun setting up in-house reserve military units, a legacy of the Mao Zedong era, in a sign of authorities’ increasing concern about social and political instability amid the country’s economic slowdown, according to analysts.

We cannot allow the Chinese to beat us, we must form the Walmart people's militias

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saddayfordemocracy · 9 months

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August 2 is Earth overshoot day 2023 !

Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) marks when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate during that year.

Today is Earth Overshoot Day 2023, the Earth Overshoot Day calculated every year by Global Footprint Network using data from National Footprint and Biocapacity Accountswhich indicates the official depletion of renewable resources that the planet is able to offer within a year.

This means that today, August 2, humanity has already “finished” all the resources that Nature produces in an entire year and is starting to go into debt. Humanity, with its over 8 billion inhabitants, consumes in excessive quantities, beyond the natural regeneration (and reabsorption) capacities of the planet.

In 1973 Overshoot Day fell on December 3: we were just a few days over our annual budget. In 2003, September 12, in 2013, August 3. The date has always been getting ahead and our ecological debt has grown.

Globally we are consuming the equivalent of 1.7 Planets a year, an ominous figure that is expected to rise to two planets by 2030, based on current trends. In the last 5 years the trend seems to have stabilized, but it is difficult to establish whether this is due to the slowdown of the economy or to decarbonisation efforts. However, the reduction of our “debt” to the planet is still too slow. To achieve the United Nations IPCC goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 (compared to 2010) it would be necessary to move Earth Overshoot Day forward by 19 days per year for next seven years.

According to the WWF there are many solutions that can be adopted at the community level or individually to have a significant impact on the type of future we invest in: for example if we used energy from 75% renewable sources we could move the Overshhot day by 26 days ; halving food waste would save 13 days.

“If up until the 1960s humanity was more or less in balance, the date has moved from year to year up the calendar, to arrive today at the beginning of August. This means that humanity has been in ecological overshoot for over 50 years and the debt we have accumulated amounts to 19 years of planetary production, i.e. what Earth’s ecosystems can regenerate in 19 years. The burden of this debt, which is set to increase, is starting to reduce economic options. The loss of biodiversity, the growing unpredictability of the weather and the depletion of groundwater are just a few symptoms. But overcoming itself is not inevitable. Constantly living beyond the physical possibilities of our planet is a limited possibility in time, we risk an ecological disaster: the goods and services that are the basis of our societies and economies are all produced by functioning and healthy ecosystems. We now have many targeted solutions to reverse the overexploitation of resources and support the regeneration of the biosphere in which we live”.

#human rights #humanity #global footprint #footprint #earth #overshootday #ressources #climate change #climate emergency #ecology #sustainability #sustainable

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