Tell me it's a joke!

I would say that it's a shitty people... I'm sorry, but in all other parts of the world, I believe anyone who had happened to pass by would have immediately called an ambulance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQvvzzixLik

This is an experiment they did in Finland if I'm not mistaken, and it was a child who hadn't ended up bleeding under a car, but was "only" cold.

There are peoples who have no regard for morality and human rights. I am sorry to say it, but I believe that the Chinese are one of these peoples.

Open content (youtube)

TheSimon wrote:

in all other parts of the world I believe that anyone (...) would have immediately called an
ambulance.

But, you know... I don't quite agree...

I say this because I remember watching, in the past, videos of this kind set in other countries (including Italy) in which situations of needy people, even serious ones (or fake-serious), were shown and they received no type of help.

But I also say this because I am convinced of the fact that it is impossible to completely judge a nation, a culture, a people solely from videos. These are episodes that really happened, certainly, but they remain only one part of reality.

There is black and white in every nation. We may want to talk about "cultures", about "majorities", but we all remain human and everyone has their own sensitivity, their own conscience...

I have also seen videos of people who, instead, gave their help to others in difficulty... and we are even talking about the Chinese. Chinese people who were not the same ones appearing in the video linked above, evidently...

Changing the subject of discussion, I saw the same thing when talking about doctors...: doctors who offered their help to a disabled woman and to the person accompanying her, and doctors who, to start doing their job, sat waiting without doing anything while the elderly and always disabled patient was being laid on the bed despite the visible difficulties of the person who was alone in accompanying her; so, ordinary people, not doctors, with greater sensitivity and a greater desire to help than certain doctors.

It is that we live in a varied reality, because we ourselves are varied; each of us is a world...

and regarding certain opinions that are too generic: it is one thing to venture them on "light topics" (e.g., Italy = pizza, spaghetti, mandolin; they are all jokers! - Japan = sushi; they are alllll graaaat workers) but it is another to judge very important values and the respect for the lives of others, for compassion.

It is a bad part of reality that should be commented on, certainly; only, in my opinion, it is better that we start shouting "what kind of people... those there are" rather than "what a people of...".

I hope there is no need to link a video of Chinese people helping each other ;P

for the rest, on this planet there is everything, for better or for worse

Lapushka, I fully agree. A beautiful intervention. I avoid commenting on what might anyway be a media setup. There are also people who enjoy spreading these montages for a sort of free "pornography" that gives power and psychological strength to those who carry it out and enjoy the negative attention of everyone. I agree on the feeling of compassion which has deeper meanings, as I know you well understand, compared to the literal meaning. The ugly part of reality must not cancel out the best parts, and the cloak of indignation must not be an alibi for cursing the difficult World in which we live, choosing to isolate ourselves. Bye

In fact, I was NOT distrustful of the nation itself, but of the fact that human beings can behave in this way.

I want to make it clear that I know very well that one shouldn't generalize, and I also want to emphasize that I have absolutely no racist ideals, especially given the fact that my girlfriend is a foreigner and that I have Chinese friends. But people also need to stop always using moralism and false politeness and start saying things as they are. If China is the nation with the highest number of accusations for human rights violations, I believe there must be a reason. Certainly, there will also be good people there, but I don't expect anything good from a nation where 90% of the population is practically enslaved by 12 to 15 working hours a day inside factories. I don't expect anything good from those who, solely for the purpose of undermining competition, market products made with toxic components. To see, for example, nail technician materials (seized in droves, they caused nail fungus and skin tumors), beauty creams and perfumes (they cause skin tumors), knitwear containing toxic dyes (skin tumors), unsafe children's toys made with toxic materials (skin and lung tumors), etc. etc.

Since they began to industrialize, they have polluted the environment more than all the other countries in the world have since industry was invented, with the only difference being that in the mid-1800s, during the era of the Industrial Revolution, the technologies used today to limit the production of harmful gases that determine the greenhouse effect did not yet exist; therefore, in the Kyoto Protocol, China was stubborn, saying that if other nations were the main responsible parties for greenhouse gas pollution, they also had the right to pollute and therefore should recover the years of non-pollution by polluting the planet... What kind of reasoning is that? We breathe shitty air because until today there were no technologies to reduce harmful gas emissions from industries; now that there are, you don't want to invest because you also appeal to the fact that you must produce the tons of harmful gases that others have produced? Absurd!
To summarize, it is a people that doesn't give a damn about people's health, doesn't give a damn about human rights, and doesn't give a damn about nature and planet Earth, and I am supposed to even use polite words for these people?? No thanks, not me...

We must also remember that China has a great history behind it, a history of great national heroes who brought back the respect that had been, at the time, unjustly trampled by Americans and Japanese, and sincerely, I don't understand how a people once so glorious and so law-abiding and committed to human norms could have sunk so low and met this end, trampling every form of morality in favor of the God of money.

Someone might say that these things happen here in Italy too... Neapolitans copy brand products and put them on the market. Okay, but they are exposed and arrested. In Italy everything works poorly, we know that, but Italian quality is always Italian quality, this is known all over the world, and anything that does not pass quality control is removed from the market and those responsible are arrested. Chinese products are not only toxic, but they are shipped by the tons here to Italy and in the rest of the countries of the world almost undisturbed. The Guardia di Finanza can do nothing but seize them when they notice. Chinese food warehouses with half-meter long rats walking over packages of rice spaghetti (this is what was reported to me by a friend in the GDF) - It's not dangerous for health because viruses transmitted by rats, such as leptospirosis, for example, have only a few hours of life when in contact with air, but I don't know about you; even if they won't kill me, they would absolutely disgust me; dangerous New Year's firecrackers (tons are seized every year) and in this case it must be said, the more the merrier... The list would still be long, but I don't want to waste any more space on the database, anyway, it won't be me changing anyone's mind and above all, I don't want to change anyone's mind, I am just telling you what I think.

Now, I respect all your opinions, but I tell you in all honesty and with full intellectual awareness: in such a context, even if I try, I cannot find any words of politeness toward these people.

Ok Simone, I absolutely do not want to change your mind - also because I might probably be the last person able to do so - but if we reasoned using your weights and measures, what should we say of the German people who provoked the Second World War and perpetrated the greatest genocide known to human history?

If we disregarded - as we unfortunately often do in our judgments - historical, social, cultural, economic contexts, and so on, we would condemn them without any mitigating circumstances. Right?

One cannot judge and condemn without knowing the history of a people, without fully understanding the why and how certain things happen.

I have never believed that for someone's faults, we can all be condemned and equated. There is good and there is bad everywhere. In certain historical contexts, the bad emerges more, in others not.

As for Italy, there would be many things to say, both bad and good!

Let us try to ensure that the good prevails. This is what is important!

@Lapuska

I agree with everything you say, but I will answer you with an analogy....

If I, who consider myself a decent person, were to go out with a group of delinquents, I don't think that someone observing from the outside would say: look at what a group of delinquents except for that one there. They would say: look at what a group of delinquents.

Saying that in all parts of the world there is black and white, good and evil, that one shouldn't generalize, that every country has its pros and cons, seem to me, phrases of a disarming banality (don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that your argument is banal, I am only referring to these rhetorical phrases) and I say this because I find it obvious that in a set of millions of elements (each element being different from the others, referring back to your phrase "every person is a world") by tracing two subsets Good and Bad, there are a good number of elements that also belong to the Good subset... But speaking of a people, we are those who show ourselves, and this depends on the majority subset. If there are many more elements in the Bad subset than in the Good one, we are bad, period... It is not a choice or something subjective, it is reality. In a family where everyone uses drugs except for one, that is a family of drug users!

I am not being demagogic, just to use a term that is fashionable today, I am only analyzing the data.

...and let's not even talk about when the Olympics took place.

@Daniele

I don't know about you, but I never evaluate something for what it was, but always for what it is, so on this point we are reasoning exactly the opposite way... I live in this time and I judge what happens in my time. I can have ideas about what was, and I can judge what was in the time that it was, not in my time. I mean: today I don't speak ill of Germans because in the 40s they were responsible for a genocide; if anything, I say: "in the 40s the Germans should have suffered the pains of hell for the extermination of the Jews etc. etc.". So why should I judge someone for what they were? I judge them for what they are today... That is why I also specified that the Chinese people have had a great history, therefore I do not disdain this people for what they were; I disdain them for what they are today for all the reasons I gave in the long post.

To find another analogy, referring back to the family of drug addicts in the reply post to Lapuska... If I frequent a family of good people whose ancestors were drug addicts, to me those are good people who had drug addict ancestors... I don't see the problem, I don't care at all who the ancestors were; I have to associate with those of today and I shouldn't watch my back against someone who died 30 years ago.

But if you allow me, now I will play with your example. Let's assume we are in 1945... What would you say today (1945) as an Italian about Germany?

I beg you to answer with the utmost sincerity.

TheSimon wrote:

But if you allow me, I will play with your example now. Let's assume we are in 1945... What would you say today (1945) as an Italian about Germany?

I beg you to answer with the utmost sincerity.

A rhetorical question; the consequent consideration would be whether that "saying" would correspond or not to the reality of the facts.

I prefer to give you the sincere answer, not that of a 1945 Italian, because there were many Italians alongside the Germans and they certainly didn't think they were doing wrong.

The sincere answer is that I would have hated them!

But then, since I am perfectly aware that there are no better or worse peoples, only peoples, I would have sought—I don't say to understand, for evil can never be understood—but to realize that unfortunately, everything happening around me is damnably human.

Today the Chinese have very questionable and condemnable behaviors, at least in their majority? True! But this happens, not because they are Chinese—just as back then it wasn't because those people were Germans—but because, excuse me if I repeat myself, certain historical conditions etc. make it so. Tomorrow, perhaps it will be others having wrong behaviors but, we hope not, obviously!

As for the example you give me about going out together with delinquents! I don't know what to tell you! Of course, I should ask you why you go out with delinquents, that much is true!

So you are coming to my point. But you are not considering it from the inside, while you continue to do so as an observer... I strongly doubt that if they had razed your house to the ground, killed your entire family just because they were Jewish and divided the little shoes and hair of your 5-year-old sister before killing her, you would have tried to understand that what is happening to you is "damn human," because you know well that this is a lie. Personally, I would have only wanted to have a button to make them explode and wipe them from the face of the earth, putting an end to that hell. It is not true that only peoples exist. There are worse peoples and better peoples. There would be much to say about us. The Italian people are a people of swindlers who kill each other for a football team but do nothing about rampant unemployment and all the other problems of politics and the economy, or at least that is what I think and a good average of people who see us from the outside, but I find it truly difficult to imagine an Italian who would not have provided aid, or even simply called an ambulance seeing a child hit by a car and bleeding, dying in the middle of the road; I apologize, but I just can't... The path a people takes was typically directed by the culture, uses, and customs of that people, but this was true until 50 years ago, when things were not known; when there was rampant ignorance and a very high percentage of illiteracy; in such cases it is easy to make others believe whatever you want. But now enough, this excuse no longer holds... Everyone knows that doing damage to the ecosystem is wrong; it is wrong for us and for our children. Once, these things were not known. This information is recent; it is recent research and science. In the 1800s, they didn't even know what the reaction products of a coal plant were, and if they had known, they wouldn't have been able to find alternatives to reduce carbon oxide emissions (a poison to human health). Today that it is known, there are no excuses. If you pollute, you don't do it because you don't know that what you produce pollutes; you are doing it fully aware of the damage you can cause to the environment but you don't give a damn because you only think about money. You don't build toys knowing that the dyes you use can cause lung cancer, but instead you know it because you minimize production costs by maximizing profits, highly disregarding the very serious damage to the health of millions of children in the world. So it is easy to say there is also good when speaking as an external observer. To judge, one must always put oneself in the worst position... And if your child had become ill with cancer because of a Chinese toy produced by a company that uses toxic substances, not caring about people's health just to maximize profits?

Regarding the example I gave you, please let's avoid sterile discussions; you understood perfectly the meaning of the speech, which has nothing to do with the question you asked me.

Yes, let's avoid sterile discussions.

And so I tell you that from people directly involved I can humanly understand the hatred, but from those who are not, no!

No, because one is not better by hating and condemning.

No, because when I say that something is "damn human," I mean to say that each of us could do it today, tomorrow...

And it's true, today we are aware of pollution and everything else. But it is also true that that pollution is the fruit of our enrichment - the enrichment of a few - compared to the impoverishment of others - many.

Now that the many want to enrich themselves like us, it is no longer acceptable. It is not acceptable because the Earth would not be able to withstand all that pollution, but they care little about that. From their point of view, we have always exploited them leaving them in poverty, and now they claim to be at least our equals.

And so you feel a strong urge to say - another example but very compatible with the discussion since you have broadened it - the Amazon rainforest is the lungs of the planet and must not be destroyed, when we destroyed everything to enrich ourselves.

That is the point!

TheSimon wrote:

@Lapuska

(...) I will answer you with a simile....

(...) someone observing from the outside would say: look at what a group of delinquents, except for that one there. They would say: look at what a group of delinquents.

(...) But speaking of people (...) If there are many more elements in the Bad subset than in the Good one, we are bad, period.

Yes,

I understood, and I had already understood before how you had framed the discussion, the "generalization" which is also inevitable to make in everyday life when speaking of nations: I myself have written that one can speak of "majority," of "culture," with everything you then explained in your subsequent posts.

I wanted to add to this that, anyway, besides that way of measuring things, I believe the addition of the little note saying "it is like this, always considering that..." is valid.

In short, I like to dot the i's with precision; more than just liking it, I care about it because I consider it important... especially when talking about people.

Mind you, I am not saying it wasn't already inherent in your response; I see it this way: in your case it was implied and I simply wanted to bring it more to light because, in my opinion, it deserves it.

But the discussion about generalization was perfectly understandable; it is part of our way of living and categorizing things; even linguistics teaches that categorization greatly influences our way of living, thinking, and speaking.

The general discussion brought another reflection to mind:

in general, I feel many people immediately shield themselves with the talk of "false politeness," "false moralism"... false, false, false. False. There is always this "false" that accompanies certain words too much, whose meaning also exists as True. But they are very much "playing it safe" in this way, perhaps because it seems to us we are referring to something too "good" to be true, too brilliant and, as we know, triumphant, glittering, and shining good is only in movies and cartoons. To many, the rest often seems too false, and it seems to me almost like a distrust in the world we live in; deserved too, yes, because the world is full of "beautiful but fictitious" things, but it is a distrust that should not prevail, because balance is almost always the best thing...

For this reason, I wanted to highlight both aspects with a small light also in the other direction, perhaps a small but significant side of the coin, without letting it remain implied.

I myself am a critic of many things, but when I have the opportunity to bring something beautiful to light, I want to do it.

Not all that glitters is gold, but not all gold is false.

To be precise: I don't mean to say that the Amazon rainforest shouldn't be saved. Absolutely it should

I mean to say that if they continue to destroy it well knowing that they are committing a very serious error, there are reasons etc etc....

Ludovica wrote:

Tell me it's a hoax!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=291952284167596&set=vb.100000584815222&type=2&theater

A shitty world. Excuse my profanity from the text.

Ludovica wrote:

In fact, I was NOT referring to the nation itself, but to the fact that human beings can behave in this way.

I reiterate, everything is more or less interesting. But motivations or no matter how plausible... a human being cannot behave like this

Ludovica wrote:

Renewal, everything more or less interesting. But motivations or no matter how implausible... a human being cannot behave like this

he can, he can; unfortunately he can and reality proves it ^^ he can do this and even more; but also for good

We humans have an incredible extension on the scale of "good" and "evil"... of the wonderful and the horrible

it is as if on the piano we had a hand capable of covering all the octaves... and beyond!

naturally I agree, such indifference is shameful

You, Daniele, maybe you don't feel directly involved, but I, a man of my time who evaluates and judges the things happening in the present, I feel directly involved. Because I also breathe this shitty air, and I didn't choose to breathe it. I feel directly involved because I do waste sorting, and if I have a plastic bottle in my car, I don't throw it in the middle of the road but wait until I find a plastic recycling bin. I feel directly involved because I love nature deeply and feel part of it; therefore, every harm done to nature is harm done directly to me. I feel involved because when the weather permits, I take my scooter instead of the car because it consumes less and produces fewer pollutants compared to a car. I feel involved because I choose to store my study books on a tablet and read them there instead of sacrificing trees when there is no need. I feel involved because when I have to study a score, I don't buy the entire book of Chopin's Nocturnes, but I download and print only what I want to study... I'm exaggerating!! I feel involved because since they told me that little birds die from eating American gum thrown away by us humans mistaking it for food, before throwing it in the bin, I wrap it inside a piece of paper. I too will have 2000 flaws and will make many mistakes, but one must discern what I do wrong because I don't know from what I err intentionally. If I do something that produces unintended disastrous effects, that is a mistake. If I do something fully conscious that will have disastrous repercussions only for money, it is an intention, and I am directly responsible and accountable for the choice I have made.

On a global level, all the peoples of the world are responsible for pollution from electricity production, and this is a fact. Where does the guilt arise?

50 years ago, the only way to produce electricity was mostly by polluting. Hydroelectric and wind power would never have met the demand. But now technology allows us to use alternative energies much more. This doesn't mean we will be able to meet the world's energy needs, but we will greatly limit other highly polluting methods (nuclear plants, coal-fired plants, etc., etc.). The truth, another banality, is that for the moment they do not want to invest for the good of the world, but only for economic interests... Until the last drop of oil is gone, there will not be adequate investment in alternative energies, hiding behind environmental impact. Another big load of bullshit. Practically speaking, installing a photovoltaic plant for the good of the environment has an environmental impact to consider because it's ugly to look at!

But they can go fuck themselves and start thinking about safeguarding this world... As far as I know, there aren't many other habitable ones unless you move 50 light-years from here.

Lapushka wrote:

such indifference is shameful

Am I wrong, or can one also make out a child in the video?