Thank you for posting this. These are the kinds of comments that we need more of on the internet. Ones that aren’t afraid to push back on the errors of the hivemind, however justified the sentiment may be.

What is the unlikely scenario you’re referring to? As far as I can tell, his assessment of the situation is correct. I’m not sure why you’re so sure that the question was in bad faith.

This is interesting to me though. Didn’t most people (at least in developed countries) take tests in school? Get grades? I would think if you did below average on those you kind of…should know that you’re in the bottom half?

I get that it’s possible to make changes after schooling, and grades are only somewhat reliable (in that they also rely on effort) but still.

There may be other political parties but none of them have anywhere near the power of the CPC. They are all subordinate. For example, all election candidates must be approved by the CPC.

Also, the only direct elections in China are at the local level. At higher levels of government everything is chosen by local congresses. This results in a system where the people at the top are very removed from the votes of citizens.

Also, the national Congress largely exists to rubber-stamp whatever Xi Jinping wants. Any opposition would be swiftly stamped out.

China is effectively a dictatorship. It has one political party and Xi Jinping ended the two term limit so he could stay in power. What form of government would you say they have?

What makes it weird?

Maybe some well off black people wouldn’t use the word, but it certainly would not be acceptable for any white person to use it in any context. Even if they grew up in “the hood” it would, at the very least, be frowned upon for them to say it. In many places it would earn them an immediate beat down.

I don’t think you can really conclude that from the data.

fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q