wriggly3171does sh.itjust.works allow criticism of CCP?
The Chinese Communist Party is absolutely not above criticism, but I always found the China obsession on reddit to be odd. While I don't think it should be banned outright, I think y'all ought to consider what is motivating such a weird fetish (because frankly that is) for a specific government.
Yup, the flip side of the coin is that reddit really has a hate boner for China. The anti-CCP side has its own collection of nutty people, with a lot of the talking points tracing back to the ~~cult~~ nice people that send out all those Shen Yun flyers.
Shit's complicated. That said, banning all criticism of the Chinese government isn't the answer. We need to be smarter about the information that we digest.
GodYou're somehow implying that being an anti-ccp "fanatic" is basically crazy, and that people should reconsider their position... because... ? hate boner for china? what does disliking the CCP have to do with "hating china"?
nLuLukna I think he's talking about the people who don't do anything but look for hateable things about china etc
why should we look for likeable things about the ccp when they're committing genocide? lmao. and why should we spend effort looking for likeable things about the ccp when they have millions of genzedongers around the world (example: lemmygrad.ml) to do it for them?
No I'm not saying we should look for positives But aside from the big flashy stuff, you don't need to spend hours search for CCP raised taxes in Tibet at one point 5 years ago to know that the CCP is an awful government.
That sort of hatred I suppose leads to the sentiment that Washington is a perfect government etc, its a political view that's just as worthy of criticism as GZD, and also just as silly.
Now the CCP has done some horrible things and we SHOULD recognise them I think I've got my point across, there's a difference between hating the CCP and HATING the CCP I guess.
I don't HATE the ccp. I just hate reading support for it and for other communist tyrants. "oh but Marxism equality socialism ooh" sure commit genocide in the name of equality, get a Peace Nobel Price for eradicating an entire civilization, see if I'm gonna start thinking "oh but maybe I should be more lenient and think of the other side, I bet they also have good traits teehee".
I do hate the CCP, I don't need to spend every waking moment finding more evdience I already know they are awful. Between the on going genocide and the several of things they have done to retain power.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
I think instead we should balance it with posts appreciating Chinese culture. They have a long artistic and cultural history that goes way beyond the current gov.
Thing is, I'm not talking about China or the Chinese people. If I say "CCP is committing genocide" am I talking in any way about "The Chinese People"?? I'm not. Talking shit about basically Hitler2.0 has absolutely nothing to do with The Chinese People. Why should I go around randomly yelling good stories about the Chinese culture any time I wanna talk shit about Xi Jinping or his posse of evil? Makes no sense right?
You don't have to, and I probably won't either. It's just a nice idea. Too many crazies it too far into racism. (not you)
You can dislike the CCP without hating China, or being fanatical about it. There are people that have trouble with it, though. As an example you could say that the CCP sponsors campaigns of corporate espionage on a large scale to steal technology from other countries. That one is pretty uncontroversial. But some people have trouble preventing themselves from taking it further and making generalizations about how creative the country's citizens are, as an example.
I haven't seen that. First time I see a suggestion such as that you're mentioning, that the Chinese could be uncreative. I read lots of Chinese books all the time and if anything I'd say they're more creative than western authors in many respects.
Glad to hear, I've been meaning to pick up some Chinese sci-fi myself now that more of that stuff is getting translated.
novelupdates.com has a lot of translations, most terrible quality bc they're done by amateurs but some are great, and sometimes it doesn't matter cuz the stories themselves make up for the shitty translation.
nanoUFOWhat are your 5 favorite xianxia novels.
Actuall xianxia novels
More like a parody: My Disciple Died Yet Again
Western imitation: Cradle by Will Wright
A couple funny amateur western satires I enjoyed:
Coiling dragon is a classic. I forgot about Douluo Dalu that was a very interesting novel with the powers and assassination traps or whatever they were, pretty creative. I've always like Renegade Immoral more than ISSTH.
Mine are.
I read the first book or part of cradle and did not like it, I even got banned from novel translation because I said I found it mid because apparently Will was a "friend of the sub" 🙄. Guess the cringe mods aren't as bad as r/progressivefantasy which is run by a bunch of authors that just banned people from posting books with AI generated covers.
I remember when we were getting like 20 chapters a day+ of Martial God Asura on r/lightnovels. Those were the days. Good novels good discussion good sub, too bad all that fell apart with pateron chapters and wuxiaword turning to shit.
Douluo Dalu's protagonist's weapons were some throwable things, pretty much a Mary Sue who never failed a shot and never failed to surprise an opponent. Basically his reincarnation cheat. He also focused on poison a lot. I don't know why I liked it so much. I honestly have so much criticism for it hahah but at the same time the story was pretty cool.
One of my favorite things in Xianxia is not even the whole killing and fighting, although that's not bad either, but chiefly the literary tourism I can do. I love doing tourism as well and meeting different cultures and perspectives, different landscapes, it feels very rewarding.
I haven't been able to start with Japanese literature, though. Their train of thought style prose is impossible for me.
I tried Reverend Insanity (is that the Gu guy who's notoriously evil?). I've tried a few times. I think I get the same problem as with Japanese novels, trying to stick my head into the character's drive and not really "clicking".
Lord of the Mysteries, was that the guy that was kind of integrated with a tree and was like a mind beside a city and was farming Bleach-style minions to do his bidding and govern his ever-expanding domain? I don't know if that's the one or if it was a other one that I recall had more of a punkish urban fantasy vibe.
And yeah, I used to read everything on wuxiaworld. Their shenanigans turned me toward doing a bit more piracy. I was very poor when I started and literally had no money to pay anything. Nowadays I do but I'm not as obsessive about it. I did pay like $70 for a yearly Viki subscription to watch more kdrama though. Nowadays my wallet seems to have a hole lmao. My software dev money is financing shitty startups around the world.
Yeah they were like these spring traps didn't make much sense but it was an original idea I never saw. I think that book was just very easy to read/well written along with having somewhat decent power system. But characters and world building weren't that amazing I agree.
For me I read them for the world building, I used to read them for the power fantasy but after your 3rd immortal god slayer infinite power overlord you get tired of it. I like when the world is very complex and the characters and their motives are interesting and smart. Then it just feels like a puzzle the author has to solve while making sure everything makes sense and isn't contrived. I like when the MC in RI was stuck, none of his plans could progress so he was like I'm just going to shake the table and hope some new paths open up. I also don't mind build armies / countries and go to war like in WOC reminds me of the expanse.
Lord of Mysteries was more guy in pre industrial/steam punk? world with esoteric monsters trying to figure out his environment. It basically is a detective novel for the first third or more.
I remember when they were asking for donations for translation of coiling dragon while I was a broke highschool/uni student. After I graduated I was like well I was willing to donate to help translation because it felt like a team effort but now it just feels like a commercial product with people running pateron pages where they don't disclose how much they make. Now I have absolutely no interest, maybe I would if they sold non kindle versions.
The only Korean shows I've watched was All of Us Are Dead and Hellbound
I don't remember spring traps in douluo dalu, mmm. I remember fighting, poison, building weapons and smithing, some spiritual hammer, and tons of superpowers. Maybe I just forgot them.
Agreed 100% on the worldbuilding. My most enjoyable books have enormous very complex worlds. The books I've been trading most recently try to have characters who are distinguishable among themselves. Some of the things I enjoy the most are when the character travels and suddenly everything is new again lmao, but with some stability because, well, they and their plot are still there.
The most recent book I read was like the most complex puzzle like you mention, and the author just kept piling on things and I was like, how are you even gonna untangle this mess lmao, sometimes he just goes and inserts a mood like "well no one even knows what happened but that's okay".
Aahhh so LoTM was that one. I tried to read it but it was so strange at first that I didn't get immersed quick enough for my ADHD to lock in. That's most things tbh. By the time I remember I was doing X, I already forgot what I was doing and I'm doing Y with great passion and I'm like, whelp, this is my life now. But it gets recommended so much that I will probably give it another try later on in life.
I hadn't watched a Korean show in like all my life. And suddenly this year I decided "why not watch one of these?" and I just watched the soapiest romance ever and I actually liked it, so I've now watched over 15 kdramas this year and more to come. It was a surprising development, to say the least. From almost hating it because of prejudice against romance, Korean stuff and things teenage women like, to obsessively binging them with zero period of transition.
"spring traps" aren't the correct definition it's apparently hidden weapons, https://soulland.fandom.com/wiki/Hidden_Weapons
Hah that travel thing reminds me of Warlock of the Magus World the MC gets strong enough to sneak into another "universe" and starts with nothing except a very clear understanding of the rules and is able to twist the world into doing impossible things after a while. All while trying not to attract attention from higher end beings that do not want his kind invading. One of the better novels I finished just in the creativity of the world including a whole esoteric dream world.
Yeah LoTM is very strange doesn't read like a classical xuanhuan novel if it can even be defined as that.
Damn you flipped on the kdrama's, I personally could never get into romance or drama's. Prefer horror and scifi in my television, preferably both at the same time along with lovecraftian elements. But as you can guess I am mostly disappointed, especially stuff that becomes mainstream and popular.
I tried reading Warlock of the Magus World. I love the way people describe his character. Somehow though reading it was much harder. There was something coarse stopping me all the while and ultimately it wasn't giving me the good feel I usually get. I don't know what it was, maybe the different kind of motivation the character has. Which reminds me of RI, similar characters probably.
Damn you flipped on the kdrama’s, I personally could never get into romance or drama
You know, it is so stupidly strange. As a kid, I was a snob metalhead, doing anything not to be "girly", I dressed black, carried a chain, wanted to be violent, read the "Bible of the Church of Satan" and I was like 10% is weird but the rest is awesome! And then I met the ideas of Stirner and was like "holy shit he's me!". My tastes in music are super aggressive and many claim it's not even music even though it's what I enjoy. And my tastes in literature are similarish to yours. These books have a lot of cool shit but they're pretty much aggression with sugar on top lmao.
So in my teenage ideas of superiority and manlihood I'd insult lgbt people, people who liked romantic stuff, any genre of music that was anything less than rock, and even tho I don't have that perspective anymore, my tastes in music and media have remained rather stable.
To switch from being all "waaaaar, weeaponnns, aggression is my music!" to watching soapy dramas. It's hard for me to understand how that happened but here we are.
I think it starts off kinda mid until he moves to like the central area next to his clan and the world opens up a bit more and he has more interesting things cooking. Yeah it's similar to RI, not evil characters but characters that will do evil things if it benefits them. Also the whole there are no eternal enemies just eternal benefits.
Yeah it is true that these books are basically that, though lots of more classic novels have tons of violence. Foundation was one where it was like "violence is the refuge of the incompetent" but then you realize that to avoid all violence you would literally need to have superhuman levels of intelligence and charisma like in the books with psycho history concept. So nowadays I like when there is conclits/battle/wars since it makes far more sense.
I'm more into Stoicism, derivation of your own ideas from first principles, plato's scholar warrior/athlete. Egoism doesn't really align with my values probably runs more contrary to them then anything. I listen to anything that helps put me in a flow state and that I personally find enjoyable. Metal and rock are a bit too much to play while working/studying I really didn't get into music much as a teenager.
Funny enough my tastes haven't really changed from a teenager more like hyper focused to into particular aspects that I like and things I don't.
Egoism isn't like hedonism for me. Sometimes maybe. It's more of a realization of priorities, when you realize that 99% of what people tell you is important is actually completely irrelevant. Serve God, your country, morality, your family, your property, etc. You end up sacrificing your well-being for others, to externalities and ideas, many of which couldn't even be less important to you some of which are actually harmful. Egoism for me was discovering that it was not my parents' first concern to protect me from bullying, because they had their own lives too, and that everyone's important things are what's directly around them, and what's important to me is external to others. Stoicism is not completely incompatible with egoism. I don't think they can be compared too well because I think they belong in different categories. I myself have taken a lot from stoicism. Egoism is more about prioritizing whatever you truly "want", "like" or "prefer" instead of what you "should" according to any one, thing or idea.
Ironically metal is what I use precisely for that purpose. If I'm too unfocused or anxious, I put on some black metal to calm down. It's like meditation that takes me right back to the basics.
Foundation was one where it was like "violence is the refuge of the incompetent"
I don't know which foundation you're talking about then. Maybe I just read it differently because I don't remember that. Then again it's been 15ish years since I read it.
Well the reason you care about those thing is because ingroup bias and psychological hard wiring to care about people that share the same genes as you. Also some of that sounds like I don't want to value those things just because it's popular to value those things. Though those things don't have to be and probably aren't independent from externalities of others. Seem to me a major fault with Egoism is thinking that people cannot share externalities. Though I don't really know much about it.
A part of Stoicism is also contributing positivity in some way to society. I'm not really a fan of anarchism as a whole, don't think it really solves anything and tries to state a solution to modern society by reducing it down to a more simplified form with less rules but doesn't prove to me that this leads to a better society/world.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9658-violence-is-the-last-refuge-of-the-incompetent
You almost made me believe that I read that quote from somewhere else 😅
A major part of egoism is actually a union of egoists. It's not like we aren't social beings, or that we are unaffected by others and are unaffected by our effect on others. Regardless of any person's beliefs, humans in general are empathetic and gregarious.
Egoists might align with anarchism but I don't think that most egoists even think much about how to improve "society" itself. To generalize egoists is, in general, a bad idea, though, because it's a very generic concept that can fit into many many thought currents. Regarding societym every hierarchy "claims" you in a way. You belong to a ruler, to your family, to society, to civilization, to humanity, etc., Each of those categories impose certain duties on you.
It's like muslims have women cover themselves. Does belonging to society mean that they should follow these rules? Then there's the "outer society", human civilization, which is idealized here in the west as having something to do with free will and such, but this is a minority thought, and most people don't agree. So which of all the outer societes' rules should they follow? I think most prescriptive philosophical currents claim to be the "one true best way of doing things", and then you have to look at an index of 1397 major currents to find it, and you see the dislike count for the one you like and there's 5.5 billion dislikes for being too *insert pejorative descriptor*.
In the end society as an observable organism is real, but as a collective deserving loyalty, I think that's way more subjective.
Downloading this Foundation 7 book bundle.
Also, my favorite kdrama actress just starred in a new drama that was just released. "See You In My 19th Life". Seems I will have to obsessively binge that too.
U got any recommended readings on stoicism that are from this century? I tried reading Marcus Aurelius. It doesn't really explain the why of anything.
I read the first book or part of cradle and did not like it, I even got banned from novel translation because I said I found it mid because apparently Will was a "friend of the sub" 🙄. Guess the cringe mods aren't as bad as r/progressivefantasy which is run by a bunch of authors that just banned people from posting books with AI generated covers.
I hadn't read this. Hilarious and ridiculous.
On the 1st one maaaaybe depending on how you phrased it, some people sound very aggressive like "author X is a dumbfuck and this is so mediocre, no effort went into this, my dog could write better by shitting onto a pigeon (he did this btw) so I'm not gonna buy the 2nd one and if you do you're a cuck", but then again some people are very sensitive.
The 2nd one is......... what? 👀 I can't. Been like 3 minutes looking at the screen thinking about it lmao. No words.
The thing is I wasn't planning on getting banned at worst I wrote that it was shit which really isn't too weird of a comment and I've seen people call other novels and readers worse on that sub. The mods just really bootlick the author. Since you would not get banned for saying similar things about other novels, I don't even think I went that far with my language.
The progressionfantasy mods are just preying on authors with less money and told people to just pay for artists. People in comments were VERY unhappy with that announcement. But ye good drama I couldn't believe it either.
Ooh it's progression fantasy and not progressive fantasy. Lmao when I read your first comment I was like "alright, to each their own" hahah
Ah fook my bad I was thinking like character progression OPS still bad mods are bad.
Yup bad mods bad. U wanna mod Chinese thing btw? I was thinking of adding some Xianxia memes and recommendations idk. Later tho cuz I have a lot of work till June 30ish due to some deadlines and contract dates
Yeah if you want I can also post some general guides, though I think that a community like that will never be as big and active as it was in the old days. At least it won't require much moderation.
Yeah I was thinking that. That's why I decided to not make it like r/MartialMemes or r/Xianxia. Too overly specific and we'll get like one post every 2 months and that's gonna be me any time I open a new book.
Yeah I think I read (mostly halfway to quarter way through) all the xianxia novels that I found interesting and wouldn't mind finding something new. Going to read the 3 body problem soon before it gets made into the netflix series.
My dad was reading that and I started seeing it everywhere. I'll download it then and see if it's interesting when I have free time.
Currently also rereading your much hated Cradle
💥😎👈
Lol I don't hate it well maybe that mod made me hate it but I did read the first book. Can't say I didn't try.
x) jk
And yeah. You did more than I would. I think I don't finish 9out of 10 shows I start. Triple that for books. Not sure I've finished a book I didn't like yet.
Think I finished 6 translated Chinese novels, 2 of those were under 1k chapters. Just took me a decade :). I think it's impossible to finish one of these novels without liking it, 2k chapters is a grind that's like 200+ hours per novel.
Super true. I was reading a novel when I lived in Venezuela, and I was astounded that months into my life in Spain, I was still reading it, and I'd get this feeling that it had been such a big part of my life at that point. Ironically I can't remember which novel that was. But yeah I usually spend weeks if not months to finish a normal one of these, sometimes even reading all day.
In contrast, a normal novel can be read in like 8 hours. Makes me think I've read the Xianxia equivalent of hundreds of normal novels. And it certainly has taken its toll in my fiction mind. I've been writing stories since I was a kid and my stories now tend to have these vast worlds filled with amoral god-like beings that tend to have a bit of a tendency to kill people like ants, and characters that just go around in some kind of cross-world chase for something infinitely far away. I should really learn to balance that a bit cuz it has stifled my will to write a bit.
Yo what if c/ChineseBooks or something
ahahha now ban any insults about your favorite authors and ai covers and you will have replicated reddit exactly 😂
The pfp and banner are with AI. I'd have to ban myself first! But hypocrisy is a spook, I can ban for any reason 😎😎 not that I will. Unless someone starts posting communist propaganda like "Books written by Mao on communism".
I would be more worried if lemmy.ml users came here and start talking about the book Unrestricted Warfare in depth while beach in some part of the world were being prepared.
Don't know that book. But it has exploding twin towers so it must be pretty epic!
I didn't understand the beach part
Taiwan and Chinese invasion 😰
Honestly, you've got some recommendations? I'm actually more into non-fiction, but I really gotta start practicing my Chinese more. I wish more books adhered to the traditional character set and the top to bottom format though.
Haha I can't read a drop of Chinese, but the one that everyone tends to recommend as a gateway is The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Haven't read it yet but I did watch Wandering Earth on netflix, which is based on a short story by the same author.
Can confirm The Three Body Problem is an absolutely incredible read, very immersive.
There are a couple xianxia novels. Reverend Insanity (incomplete banned by the ccp but has some of the best word building and intelligent writting), Lord of Mysteries (more western fantasy lovecraftian mystery) and Forty Millennium of Cultivation (has 40k elements in it). Non fiction isn't really popular probably because anything non fiction in China that has anything to do with history is at risk due to censors.
Reminds me of "I'm gonna kill him! (in Minecraft)".
I was trying to learn some Chinese the other day to read some of the raw wordings in Ascending, Do Not Disturb. The novel itself is not amazing, although I did like it a lot, but the translators left some terminology untranslated and I had some fun researching how to read that.
I can't recommend Chinese sci-fi or nonfiction, haven't read any, I only read fantasy novels. My favorites are Coiling Dragon and Douluo Dalu. If you can read Chinese then why not try those lmao. I wish I could read Chinese. I wouldn't spend so much time finding translations.
I will say that most Westerners will find Chinese much easier to learn than Japanese. You only need to learn about 100 characters to understand 70% and then 1000 to understand like 95% of stuff.
I mean you probably wrote like 50 words in your reply, how hard could 100 be right?