this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
191 points (86.9% liked)

GenZedong

4186 readers
25 users here now

This is a Dengist community in favor of Bashar al-Assad with no information that can lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton, our fellow liberal and queen. This community is not ironic. We are Marxists-Leninists.

This community is for posts about Marxism and geopolitics (including shitposts to some extent). Serious posts can be posted here or in /c/GenZhou. Reactionary or ultra-leftist cringe posts belong in /c/shitreactionariessay or /c/shitultrassay respectively.

We have a Matrix homeserver and a Matrix space. See this thread for more information. If you believe the server may be down, check the status on status.elara.ws.

Rules:

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] CARCOSA@hexbear.net 63 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Now do homeownership, maternal mortality, hospital satisfaction, murder rates, suicide rates, reforestation efforts, wind/solar/water energy generation, and green technology development!

[–] GarfieldYaoi@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago

frothingfash: Yeah but....this system allows some "unworthy" people to not die, so it's clearly an authoritarian failure.

[–] CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Clearly this means the evil see see pee is stealing our literacy.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's worse, they're forcing people to be literate. This is cultural genocide on an industrial scale with see see pee wiping out the culture of illiteracy!

[–] GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

they just keep genociding slow trains and poverty and illiteracy, when will their evil regime stop

[–] rigor@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago

Small aside, China hasan extensive regular speed train network. Trains are still rather fast, but obviously slower than HSR. It is very beneficial to have both, as the slower trains are quite a bit cheaper. China has a large population, and many people take the regular train, even with standing tickets. These trains move a lot of people and are an important part of the transit system. Sometimes it feels like an inter-city metro since you can take trains at any time to any city.

[–] Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 1 year ago

You’re welcome

[–] plumbercraic@lemmy.sdf.org 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ok i thought for sure this is bullshit, but apparently not:

Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks (figure 1). This translates into 43.0 million U.S. adults who possess low literacy skills

Source: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp

[–] booty@hexbear.net 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I didn't believe it until I started working. Now if you asked me what the literacy rate is I'd say sub-50%. I've met so many people who literally cannot read. As in, they've clearly been taught what the letters are and how to sound them out, but following a list of instructions based on those letters is completely impossible for them.

[–] Trudge@lemmygrad.ml 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your assessment is probably closer to the truth. 54% of American adults have a literacy below sixth grade level link and some of the people you've met probably are considered barely literate yet counts towards the 79%.

A curious statistic I've found while reading up on this is that 77% of African Americans have moderate or high reading proficiency while only 65% of white Americans qualify as such. A statistic that you'll never see racists mention (and libs for those that somehow fit outside the venn diagram)

[–] axont@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I haven't done any research on this, but my gut says it's because black people are more likely to live in urban areas with at least the basics of public education. Whereas white people comprise more rural areas. Not saying living in a rural area makes you illiterate, like I grew up in a small town in the woods, but it does mean there's just less of everything, including education. More homeschooling too among white people.

Could also be that white people take education less seriously because they don't feel threatened by a hostile job market. Did your readings say why there's a disparity between demographics?

[–] Trudge@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

It was just a cute factoid that I noted, so I didn't look further into the claims.

Your theory could be correct. Another reason I suspect is that due to racial biases and different job market situation arising from the urban/rural divide, black Americans are forced to be more literate in order to survive compared to the average white American.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] purahna@lemmygrad.ml 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I hate to rain on y'all's parade, but the US measure of literacy is much more stringent than China's. America is counting literacy as the ability to use print materials like brochures and manuals fluently, the rest of the world just bases literacy on the ability to read a handful of test sentences in a controlled testing context. That's the reason that America appears to have gone down as well, they switched literacy measures. The 79% measure is people who are "at or below level 1 literacy", meaning it counts people who met level 1, people who didn't meet level 1, and people who couldn't even take the test at all because of a language barrier or disability. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf

I'm all for dunking on America but the apples to apples here would be comparing America's 96% (just excluding those below level 1) to China's 97%. Historical materialism requires a true material basis to work.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Sickos@hexbear.net 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Fuckass@hexbear.net 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Fun fact: the world bank prevented Cuba’s literacy program from being widely adopted because they feared it would be a gateway for people to start reading socialist literature and start revolutions

The US attempted their own program, but it was plagued with inefficiency because it was run by a bunch of NGOs with little collaboration with each other or the people they were supposed to teach (compared to Cuba which made students and workers of all financial and literacy backgrounds teach each other).

Later on the capitalist program was examined and the people in charge of it admitted that had they just gone with Cuba’s model, most of the inefficiencies wouldn’t have existed and their goals would’ve been met much faster.

[–] dinklesplein@hexbear.net 40 points 1 year ago (3 children)

well the stats come from the chinese government, are you just going to trust their stats? they're probably lying about the numbers, don't be so gullible!1!!11

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is the final refuge of the person that uses Chinese stat's to prove Uigher genocide through some sort of numerology

[–] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 1 year ago

It's the ultimate response. "Everyone who disagrees with me is lying" is a perfect way to always be right about everything, after all, if someone else disagrees, that's just because they're pretending to.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

final refuge

Very often the first and only one.

[–] AmerikaLosesWW3@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

west good east bad. you can see that i'm very intelligent.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ApexHunter@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 year ago (9 children)

There is no way US literacy in the 1950s was anywhere near 90% unless you excluded marginalized and minority populations.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 42 points 1 year ago

Excellent point, and that's likely exactly how they counted it.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Fewer then 97% of China are fluent in English.

I rate this 5 Pinocchios.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago
[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmygrad.ml 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Also, Chinese script, even simplified Chinese, is significantly harder to master than English. I for example can speak Mandarin fluently (as a Chinese person in Canada) but can barely read or write it, and no you don't just "pick it up" if you can speak it because there is zero correlation between the spoken language and written script, it's all memorization of every single character. I would have to actually take classes or something to learn to read and write Chinese, which I am definitely considering doing.

Actually, English is technically my second language since I was born in China (long story, left as a young child so wasn't my choice), and after having learned English and become fluent in both reading and writing it, I keep asking myself "how the hell can you be fluent in speaking English and not be fluent in writing it? If you know how to say a word you know 90% of how to write it unlike Chinese."

So, sorry anglophones, even if China had the same literacy rate as the US, it would still be more impressive (not of the intellect of Chinese people or any racial bullshit like that, but the effectiveness of their education system and socialist ideology, which English speakers are fully capable of implementing as well with no excuse not to.)

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] Drinvictus@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 1 year ago

That actually explains so much about the US

[–] HiImThomasPynchon@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] HaSch@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

By linear extrapolation, one may conclude that China will reach its goal in 2025, while the US will only reach its goal in 2539

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] jimmyjohnsandwich3@hexbear.net 19 points 1 year ago

Jesus Christ, those stats for the US are just depressing deeper-sadness

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Can someone fill me on the terms "homeless" vs. "unhoused"? Why is the latter being used more now?

[–] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 year ago

Standard lib response of "We won't actually change anything but we will change a word and act like it is a bigger deal than actually helping with your problems."

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

iirc the term "homeless" imply being a complete social outcast, while those people are in fact part of society often with jobs, families, friends etc. The only thing they lack is the physical house, therefore unhoused.

But as other posters noticed, the shift is also a liberal platitutide instead of action.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ChestRockwell@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My take is it really doesn't actually do much (except perhaps reduce the sense of blame in the term homeless - i.e. unhoused implies they should be housed).

However chuds hate it because of that implication, therefore critical support for the semantic shift.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)

For a couple of years now I have been working at a shop in a very, very impoverished and rough part of my city that is predominately occupied by low income minorities. I hope this doesn’t come off condescending but it took me a while to realize that a not insignificant number of our customers struggled to read the menu and price, info ect about products we had. I feel bad even for being a bit frustrated in the past by this, and we do our best to accommodate everyone and make them feel welcomed now I like to think anyway. But this is certainly a widespread issue that is rarely discussed or understood especially by those who reside only in wealthier areas or what not.

load more comments
view more: next ›