this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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Both cars support oppressive dictators, but one is cheaper, supports CarPlay / Android auto, and has actually buttons for things.
BYD cars don't have very many buttons either. See here. They're tablets on wheels too. I quite dislike BYD interiors.
True, but that thing is like a fighter jet compared to Telsa’s void of emptiness. 14 controls on the wheel (and they’re labeled), real controls for drive modes, there are basic climate controls on the center console, you can manually adjust fan orientation, etc.
It’s still overly reliant on touch, but I’d easily take that over a Telsa.
Meh. I would not take either. In fact I actually didn't. I went to a showroom and got inside their EVs and PHEVs while looking for a car. My immediate reaction after sitting in the driver's seat of their PHEV was "I don't want to drive this". Same thing with the pure EV. I'll give you the wheel, but those A/C controls next to the "shifter" are touch surfaces instead of actual buttons, and they're just as annoying and worthless as touchscreen controls. Which is sad because those cars have fantastic stats on paper and very competitive prices. Unfortunately most EVs on the market have fucking stupid interior designs. Very often you have to choose between affordable and well designed. Not very many that are both.
In the end I decided not to buy a new car at all. Still got my 2015 Leon.
I am not sure you can say BYD supports a dictator per se, more like it exists in a state capitalist country where you exist at the behest of the dictator.
Elon actively pushed and spent money to get trump elected.
Well played sir, well played.
Pooh bear is actually starting to look less oppressive in comparison these last 7 months tbh
To be fair, the CCP has already done a lot of armed crackdowns and disappearing. They’re in the phase where people are too scared to resist.
Also quite true. They no longer need to use the threat of violence because of the implication
The worrying part is that they kinda seem to be implementing good policies for (at least some of) their people.
There's a lot of disturbing stuff, and probably a whole lot more that we don't even know about, but social security, education, healthcare - my impression is that they're going the right way, while the US looks eager to go back to the Dark ages.
Just with STEM degrees, they're producing almost 5x more graduates than the US, and they've surpassed the number of doctorates a long time ago too.
The current world balance won't hold one more generation.
I think part of it is that they can actually do anything long-term. Even the most altruistic president in for example the US will get four, at most eight years to do what they're planning. That's not enough time to do anything meaningful, all the while they're dealing with flak from the consequences of the last presidency, and their successor will at best take credit for their achievements, at worst destroy them before they succeed. And that's assuming the citizens didn't elect a self-serving megalomaniac.
Winnie the pooh, I'm pretty sure, actually cares about his country. He's by no means benevolent, but he has the power, resources, and time to build proper infrastructure and reshape the country as he sees fit.
Socially they're way behind from what I, as an outsider, can tell. Women's rights at least seem somewhat acceptable with definite room for improvement, but queer rights are even worse. Oh and there's a literal genocide of Uyghurs so that's pretty fucking bad.
But the benefits of China's dictatorship lie in the fact that they can actually think in the long-term and not just until the next election (the politician's equivalent of the next financial quarter) so they can wield their powers and resources to achieve these goals. The glorious leader must be praised for centuries to come, that can't happen if the earth becomes uninhabitable due to climate change or the country crumbles in on itself due to failing education and a failing economy.
Now if only that applied to citizen's rights...
Source?
Over 90% of Chinese agree that “democracy is important” and 80% agree that their country is democratic? Was this survey conducted in Taiwan and signed as “China” complying with “one China policy”?
I’ve never met any Chinese believing that their country is democratic nor that democracy is important. Quite the opposite - they usually say that China grew thanks to the lack of democracy (never calling it a dictatorship though)
Even the CCP propaganda doesn’t claim that China is the democracy but instead they show the negative sides of the democracies so that people don’t even think that it may be a good idea if China was democratic
Again, asking for any type of source or statistic over anecdotes. Your "observations" go against reputable polling and statistics of people in China.
No.... in fact this was a Harvard study that started off with "Given how China is an authoritarian nightmare, how widespread is support for the government?"
https://rajawali.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/07/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf
Well, I must have been super unlucky then as I have talked about it with like 5 different Chinese met at 5 different circumstances
Yes... that is not only possible, but likely when n=5....
Please, the original claim was "Chinese people feel coerced", which is wrong by every metric, and there is no evidence to support this claim.
https://rajawali.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/07/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf
Let me guess: Harvard is tankie?
Did you actually read what you quote? It aligns with what I said - Chinese feel mostly satisfied with their government and don’t want the democracy, and don’t feel that their government is democratic. Claiming that Chinese believe that their country is democratic is not what Harvard did in the document that you’ve provided.
Regarding “not only possible but likely”: please do the math. If the share of population believing in X is 90%, the chance that none of the five selected people do X is (1 - 0.9)^5 = 0.001% (i.e., 1 in 100,000), assuming independence across people. That’s what you call likely?
PS. Why is this always the .ml instance 😀
If a country is not a divisive hellscape of anger, it must be because they are too afraid to answer surveys honestly? If fear motivated answers then "democracy is impotant" might score low if "there wasn't a genuine feeling that people are heard in China".
Look at the massive gap in west between democracy is important and the 40% of people too distracted to understand that their governments don't serve them. Think hard of what a nightmarish dystopia that is for a second, and then realize that part of that divisiveness is politicians telling you (and you repeating their propaganda as absolute) we need a path to war against China that will make it all better.
Trump is definitely headed in China's direction, but MSNBC is still allowed to exist.
This is what I hate. One is owned by a fuck cunt. The other is owned by china. Neither one are actually good options if you are not buying one because of their beliefs
Other options exist; you don't have to buy either. Volkswagen Group, Audi, Renault, BMW, Fiat etc all make EVs in Europe. Hyundai & Kia also both make excellent EVs.
Buying a Tesla is a choice these days. Nobody trips and falls into Tesla ownership. And although those cheap Chinese manufacturers look mighty tempting, they're not the only alternative out there.
Though, you don’t want to buy German either if you want to support “good”. VW, Audi, BMW, all German car mafia.
On a side note, Audi and VW are both under the same owner.
Why are German cars a bad choice? I'd rather buy German than get another Citroen tbh.
Well, Germany is still actively supporting a genocide, and their car industry is probably supplying a not-insignificant amount of funds for that.
So does a lot of countries, and I am not sure if a car company has anything to do with decisions of politicians.
It'll probably be based on some silly WW2-era grudge, which I find stupid.
Or Dieselgate, which while awful, despite what the headlines would have you believe, the VW group was far from the only manufacturer with illegally high diesel emissions, in fact, they were far from being the worst.
There are of course other things, VW has started trying to get into the DLC for cars bullshit that others have, but IMO that pales in comparison to Elon's bullshit or China literally using slave labour.
E: oops, there's some transparency issues on that Wikipedia graph. Dark mode users may struggle. Here's the link: Diesel Emissions Scandal