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@modmyth Yeah, a lot of Hong Konger and Taiwanese Chinese are actually racist against mainland Chinese. I think you really need to go to mainland China in order to see the dynamics more clearly. Collectivism is at the core of Chinese culture, and it’s the key to how they are able to survive as a civilization for 5000 years. I think learning Chinese history will give people a lot of perspective on everything. From ancient to modern times, every event had an impact on how China is now. Learning it, especially recent history on the founding of China as a nation has given me a better understanding of their perspective and motives. I think sinophobia is mainly caused by the lack of understanding of Chinese culture, history, and politics. Most people outside of China are not taught Chinese history in school (understandable since it’s really, really long), and they have never been to China. Most people don’t really know China. How and why it is the way it is today, and how it evolved over time. It’s a shame because I think it can help prevent a lot of conflicts if people did know. I think people wouldn’t be afraid of it if they did know. From my experience, only some of the older generations are a bit xenophobic due to war traumas. But most middle and younger generations are not at all xenophobic. In fact, they admired the west until recent years. A lot of the middle and younger generations now know how to access the internet without restrictions, so they are constantly learning about the west and the world in general. The speed of change in China is mind-boggling. Almost every year, it is changing dramatically. What is true a few years ago might not be now, and what’s true now might not be within a few years. I disagree with the claim that Chinese people don’t have individual will or opinion. From my experience, most have a clear and intelligent opinion on politics. Most people are aware of what is going on around the world and what the world thinks of China. I think just because we are living in an individualist society where individualism/freedom/democracy serves our survival and gives us power. We shouldn’t count all opinions from the Chinese to be brainwashed or untrue. I think that will only create more misunderstandings and conflicts since we are ignoring anything they say. But if you actually listen and try to think about things from their perspective. I think it’s not hard to see why most mainland Chinese support the Chinese government and think it is has a better system than democracy. Because their survival was completely built upon it (their system is actually quite similar to democracy as a concept but modified to pervert internal conflicts and divisions). I think until both sides can see and understand this main difference, there will always be conflicts. But the truth is both sides actually want the same thing. I think we are just too selfish to see it. I also feel like sharing what I learned about the workings of the Chinese political system through my own study and my times in China to shed more light on it. So here it is: China's current political system consists of three main bodies. The Chinese government/communist party, The people's representative, and The people. They are three separate bodies that govern in three different abstractions. The mechanics of this system loops between the three bodies. First, the people vote for a representative from their city and town. The representative can be any adult regardless of gender, race (must be a Chinese citizen), or status. Anyone can run to become the representative of their city/town, and they will ask people to vote for them. Anyone who is over 18 has the right to vote, and the majority vote wins. The representatives are voted every five years, and during their time as a representative, they will observe problems/issues/complains the people have and create proposals for policies that solve those problems. Then once every year, there is an annual meeting for all representatives across the country (around 3000 in total). At the meeting, every representative will go over their proposals, and then everyone will discuss and then vote to pass it or not. They also have the power to vote and impeach the president and all higher officials in the government. Once the proposals are passed, they are then implemented by the government/party on all levels (province, city, town). The government is its own body. In order to get into the party/government, you need to have a good education and then pass a writing test to prove that you are educated and have a deep understanding of politics (it's supposed to be pretty hard from what I hear, the party and government are also separate tests, you need to pass the party one first, then you can enter the government one). Once you passed, you are basically hired by the government, and it depends on what you specialize in, and you will be sent to the city with problems that your skill can help solve. You will start at the bottom, and as you solve problems and create merit in your ability. Your higher-ups will vote to promote you. If you repeat this process, you will climb higher and higher up the ladder and end up as the president (in 10 - 20 years). As the government implements the policies, the people will experience the benefits/consequences of them. Then they will give feedback to their representative, and then the cycle repeats. I was the same as most people who lived in the west and believed (before I went to China) that this system doesn't work, and the Chinese government is full of corruption. However, if you examine the mechanics of the system, you will realize that it is designed (ionically) to prevent corruption and maximize merit and result. This goes into all levels. First, the government is actually not the most powerful body out of the three. The people actually have the most power. Since their vote for representatives can directly impact all the levels of the government. But at the same time, the people are not engaged in the actual decision making of politics. They simply live their life and complain when they have problems. They don't need to try to solve the problem. Thus they are also not accountable if something goes wrong. In this system, the more decision-making power you have, the more accountability and responsibility you have. If you mess up really badly and the people are not happy (Corruption/crimes), You will go to jail for life, and someone better will replace you. This also prevents partisanship/internal conflict/bad decisions. Since all of the people's problems are filtered through the system, and bad decisions are being minimized. The people don't have to figure out the problem, so they don't have the need to fight with each other. And since there is only one party in the government, they can fight internally but will never be enemies, and they can make long-term plans since the party never changes. This also allows anyone to give feedback to the system and proposals. Since you don't need to find the solution, no matter how educated or uneducated you are, all you need to do is voice your problems. But still, the problems are being heard by the representatives and then pushed to the governmental level. On the government side, the power is distributed through merits, and the people are holding them accountable. So if the government is not solving the problems, the people can replace them at any time. This decreases the corruption since the result is the only thing that counts. So most of the governmental bodies are not super corrupt, and the less corrupt you are, the higher you go. Since the process of climbing this power ladder is so hard, it filters out people who are only doing it for power/money. For example, the current president lived in some of the poorest areas in China for over 10 years to help alleviate poverty to climb this high, and most people can't do it. The system is also acknowledging the fact that you can't prevent corruption completely. Because no one is completely selfless, but since the system encourages merit, even corruption can lead to results since competition within the government is so strong. In this sense, the system suggests that some level of corruption is healthy for government and society as long as it serves the people. Of course, the system changed a lot over time, and there where actually a lot of corruption over the years. But ever since Xi's presidency, they have passed policies that make major corruption almost impossible (so they say). Things such as increased jail time, they created a system that allows anyone to report corruption, making the promotion process harder, etc. I think there is still a lot of corruption in the government, but the amount of merit and result the system creates is far greater and undeniable. Still, all of these sounds good on paper. Is it actually how the system works? We don't know for sure, and you will need to become a part of it to know for sure. But not looking at how it works, just looking at the result it creates, it is undeniable that it's working, especially if you have been to China many times in the past 10 years. The sheer amount of progress and speed at which things are developing and improving in China is insane. You can believe that its government is corrupt and the system is a fraud. But I think it's pretty hard to create the result they have without an extremely efficient government. The things they were able to achieve in the past 30 years is unprecedented in human history. The fact is that they have developed a system (whatever it might be) that works very well for them, and their people are living happier lives every day, and isn't that the end goal of any government/politics? If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it either. But if you just look at this system as a concept, I think it fits very well with Chinese culture and society when it was created. For example, the concept of having a test for people to become government officials and enter the government as an individual body that makes decisions for the people but without the people have existed long ago before modern times. (back in 621AD to be specific, so it's been there for over 1000 years) At the time of China's founding as a nation, the whole group of people was actually called The People's Liberation Army (The irony since most of the world consider China the opposite of liberty). But you need to understand that China has always been a monarchy with one person overpowering everyone else, with no equality or freedom for most of its history. When the ruler at the time is good, the country rises and prospers, but when they are corrupt, the country split, fight, and overthrow. So The People's Liberation Army's goal was to create a society for the peasants and the working class, to rebalance the scale and take back power from the royal and the rich. (Sounds familiar?) So naturally, all the people joined forces and gathered up their rage of inequality and humiliation from The century of humiliation in the hope of building a new kind of society that is equal and free (They later tried communism and failed, so now they are socialists). So they fought in a war against the Japanese and the ROC (fled to Taiwan) and won in the end. Also, Tibet was a slave/feudal state with huge inequalities (According to the Chinese), so naturally, the slaves and peasants joined The People's Liberation Army and overthrew the state. (If you want to believe this, it's debatable, most people who are living in Tibet now are saying that this is true and their grandparents were slaves/servants, but most people who are rich and fled the country back when it happened says they are not true and the CCP is evil and killed so many people) You can actually go to Tibet today and see places where they claimed the slaves lived. So I would say just make your own judgment. Anyway, so the system is designed to allow people of any education to give feedback since most of the people with the Army are peasants who are illiterate/uneducated. This allows them to have a voice without giving them too much power. Most of them can't even read, so Democracy was not a good idea at the time. But present-day, as the younger generation all becomes educated, they are more active in politics, and I think they are part of the reason for a lot of the system changes now. (The people are harder to fool now) Also, I think the founding fathers of this system knew that it would take generations before it can really start to work (industrialization, technological advancement, education, etc.), so I think in the early stages, there were many party controlled (authoritarian) decisions to maintain stability and development to keep it on track. They made many mistakes along the way, but overall the country stayed stable and focused on development. So now and in the future, as the older generation passes and the younger generation takes over, the country will keep accelerating on its current trajectory, with the end goal of maintaining a stable and peaceful society. It is not likely that they will start wars since they have learned from its long history of separation and unification that no one wins in wars; it only slows down progress. Instead, it wants to keep developing on its own while collaborating with other countries around the world. (Belt and road) Most Chinese hate wars because their grandparents were victims and told them horror stories. If you walk around any city, you often see peace in Chinese characters on walls with other values to remind people, and you can call it brainwashing lol. Since its founding as a nation, China has not started a single war. It achieved everything it has today, all through peaceful means. I really hope the west and China can understand our differences, work together, and help each other live better lives instead of fighting for wars, because we are really not that different... But I guess we'll see. Here is also a video from Chinese media about Xinjiang, most of us will probably call it propaganda and not even bother watching it. But I think that's a dangerous mindset and we should be more open-minded and at least learn about the other perspective before making any judgment. That's why I'm posting this just to balance the perspectives. Believe this or not, I think we should at least hear them out and examine the facts before believing anything.

I realize was off-topic on the last post. After thinking about it more, and I think it is possible that it can be true. They could have done it in order to find the terrorists, which is horrible and wrong. But I also think there is the possibility of it being false. The woman could have lied to get support so she can go to the US from Kazakhstan (and she is staying). Of course, I am biased from my experience of China. For me, for the most part, China is not the dystopian and evil world that many believe to be. It's a very stable and peaceful country with mostly good and kind people like everyone else I've met around the world. Despite the government being perceived as evil, it has done a lot of good for its people and is continuing to do so. So I'm inclined to believe that they wouldn't go to the extreme of mass rape in this case. China and the Chinese government have changed so much in the past 50 years I personally look at it for what it is now. Eventually, the truth will come out. I think despite the differences, we all just want to live a happy and peaceful life. I just hope we can reach a better understanding and learn to love each other. I really hope the US and China don't go to war in the future. But in the end, it's all moving towards love and unity, even if it means having wars and deaths. I really think people should travel to China more and see for themselves what kind of place it is.

Yes and no.

@somegirl You can get them on Amazon.

The most fundamental idea from this work is the idea of wholeness and centers. Centers create wholeness, and centers themselves are made of more centers, and each center has a degree of wholeness based on the wholeness/structure of centers that it is made of. It is a self-similar infinite strange loop/framework. So when describing a thing, you no longer think of it as something separate from the whole, like a "part". But instead, think of them as centers within centers that generate wholeness/love/self-similarity. For example, you are a center within the whole of existence, and you consist of many many centers on different levels of abstraction that all generate wholeness to some degree. The degree of wholeness you have can directly affect the degree of the wholeness of the entire existence. By intensifying the wholeness/love of the centers you have, you will also intensify the wholeness of existence as a whole. By adopting this system of thinking, you naturally start to observe existence as a center of the whole instead of separate from it. Thus embody the ultimate truth in your moment-to-moment existence and create more wholeness within the whole, whether creating art or just living life.

@Leo Gura I think you will really like it!

@Preety_India The work goes into many different subjects and fields. The central ideas are so fundamental that they can be applied to anything. It is a set of philosophy on life and existence, An academic piece on art, science, and spirituality, A generative process of creating love/self-similar things(life), A set of design principles that create life and beauty, A method of observation and a system of thinking or experiencing existence, A detailed architecture manuscript for building a holistic structure, A spiritual piece about the ultimate truth and how to apply it in life... He is really trying to convey the ultimate truth by observing all levels of abstraction in existence. You can apply all the principles in this work to create a wholesome life and intensify love. Life is an art.

Here is a quote from the book I love: "Relatedness. "I" 1. It is personal. 2. There is only one of it 3. It is suffused with relatedness All great art hinges on the formation of I in things I experience nature as if everything in me and without me is made of the same stuff. It connects me to god, and connects me to me. What it touches is beyond reason and before reason. It may be a connection to some realm, where I no longer am, and where I shall always be. "

@peanutspathtotruth Yes, I have. They are life-changing for me. Well worth the price. You might also find them at libraries depends on where you live. The books themselves are beautiful works of art that just make you want to keep reading. The texture of the cover and the pages are all created with love and care.

@somegirl All exotic animals are banned now after covid in China, and you go to jail if you sell them. China is not the only country that used to sell or eat exotic animals tho, plenty of other countries eat weird stuff. Most Chinese people don't eat exotic animals and are disgusted by them. Only a very small number of rich people do. The sheer size of the population increases the chance of the virus developing and mutating. Covid actually most likely started in Europe in early 2019, then it mutated to a much more dangerous version when it got to China. We don't know for sure if the virus came from bats sold in wet market in China. It is still being researched. https://www.darkdaily.com/studies-finding-remnants-of-sars-cov-2-in-sewage-suggest-covid-19-may-not-have-originated-at-wuhan-market-some-scientists-dispute-the-findings/ https://twitter.com/shaniben_ezra/status/1333605065026887682?s=21 https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-likely-in-u-s-in-mid-december-2019-cdc-scientists-report-11606782449?mod=e2tw

No. Read this thread.

Yes, with practice, you can reach a point where you have full control over your mind. Shut it off or turn it on like a switch.

@March They are on amazon I think

@Raptorsin7 They can heal you. It goes both ways. But everyone is different. It is easy to see psychedelic as a short cut tho. What it can show you and what it will heal totally depends on how much you are willing to let go. With a high enough dose, it can definitely shock you open. However, as I said, unless the awakening is total, you will go back to before if you don't do work after it to integrate the insights. To see a change in your life, you need to integrate all the insights as soon as you finish the trip and continue to do so every day. You need to have behavior change and stick to them. Just gaining insight is not enough. You need to embody and live them.

Psychedelic is like an amplifier for your consciousness. The more conscious you are without it, the deeper you can go with it. It can definitely permanently change you, you just need to go deep enough. This means it's best to become more conscious without it first, then use it to ground your awakening. So do the work in life first, heal all your emotional wounds, build a good and stable life, overcome all your fears, and continue to do practice to reach a state of pure beingness. Then you can use psychedelic to go all the way and awaken, anything before can only be glimpses, they are useful but won't last. Follow your heart and love.

Truth I have suffered for eternity To see myself more clearly To remember what I am And love, unconditionally I am all of it That great empty void of love Existing beyond time and space Where words can not phrase And voice can not reach I am... The never-changing truth I shall remember that Whenever I’m lost

Follow your heart.