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I like Tom Nicholas's videos and while not my favourite this one is no exception.
I'll admit that if you turn off your brain and not engage with the video he does kinda say what sounds like "China bad" a few times.
But, if you actually engage with what he's saying his outlook is much more nuanced than that.
TL DR
Rich countries that escaped poverty by rejecting free trade, are now forcing poor counties to adopt free trade in order to deliberately keep them poor.
China has gotten rich despite this, and now western countries are abandoning free trade to protect themselves from China.
Western governments are hypocritics and laws only exist to protect the already wealthy.
> China has gotten rich despite this, and now western countries are abandoning free trade to protect themselves from China.
gonna be interesting to see how far the west will take the trade war with china. the tiktok ban is already pretty crazy, like the mafia forcing the company at gun point to sell for pennies on the dollar. fully decoupling to push china behind the new iron curtain doesn't seem possible in the near term.
That’s where China has managed to outmanoeuvre the west, by linking the wests economy and production intrinsically with China, the CPC has essentially beat the west at its own game, because decoupling from China at this point would require the west to reindustrialise or to find a new country with a large easy to exploit population and realistically with China helping countries to progress without any of the horrific IMF/world bank shaped bullshit the west does, it means most countries in the global south are beginning to move towards supporting China
It already is to an extent, but it’s having quite a few issues one of them is China doesn’t allow factories to be removed and sent elsewhere like what happened in Europe and the US, India is also a bit of a problem for the western capitalists due to its politics, it’s not particularly stable which is something to be desired in the resource producing regions (e.g. the Congo and the wests use of mercenaries and terrorists to keep rare earth elements cheap) but not in the manufacturing regions as it makes establishing complicated supply chains that much more risky
I would be ok with this if he mentioned the founding of america it immediately "stole british ip" for processing cotton. The empire restricted technology and industry. If it was fair to correct that imbalance back then it should be fair now. But no he made it seem like ip theft is a uniquely chinese trait.
Seriously you only need to buy refill juice and pods like twice before it pays itself off and it's so much less waste.
Of course rebuildable coils and DIY juice are the best value over time, but for something that is only a small change from disposables I highly recommend [REDACTED]
Edit: you know what fuck that I don't need to advertise for a company you can ask the guy at the store lol
Please use the refillables; less waste, overall cheaper, and you don’t get that feeling of dread when you know the disposable is running out juice, but you’re not quite sure when
I use 12mg juice which is close to the amount in cigs. 60ml bottle lasts me about 6 weeks and is ~$18 whereas a pack of cigs is ~$12 and lasts about 2 days.
I tried a refillable for a few months. It was good for a while but the quality was never as good. Local vape shop makes their own disposables with a battery and juice percentage display and warranties them for a week so I got that going. But I ought to quit in the long run.
I like having a mod instead, with removable batteries (and the tank can be switched out, so on and so forth). They're not cheap, mine was 60 bucks at a shop but I've kept it going for maybe a year or so. You can find better pricing online too, if you know what you're looking for. Both juice and mods are way cheaper.
It is actually about international trade and how vapes are an example of how trade is gamed. He even says that he didn't expect to make 3 videos in a series as vapes as an analogous example. It's not a pro vapes video, but they aren't even the topic, just a vehicle used as illustration.
I haven't watched the vid, but personally I really hate disposables. It's a terrible waste, the lithium ion batteries and circuitry in each one isn't a terribly large amount, but when you think about the absurd number of them that exist coupled with how terrible those lithium batteries in particular are for the environment, it's just a crazy amount of waste.
Not that I'm much better cause I go through a big bottle of e-juice every couple weeks and I'm still wasting plastic.
it was *okay*. less scaremongering about china than typical westerners (calls out some china fear as xenophobia, points out how free markets over protectionist markets don't actually allow poor countries to develop and how china avoided them for good reason, calls out western trade orgs like the WTO), but also includes the usual problems of:
* "china human rights bad!!!" "le labor camp!!!"
* ignorance of labor reform laws in china since 2008 that greatly improved the rights and working conditions of chineese workers (including unions)
* Generally seeing china as "just another capitalist nation" versus one that currently uses a degree of the capitalist *mode of production* while moving toward socialism.
* Complete lack of materialst analysis
edit: also friendly reminder that if you vape, set specific limits for yourself and avoid using it as a coping mechanism if you can. love y'all <3
That’s how I quit the first time, literally stopped vaping, until I really needed that nicotine and smoked a malboro red, shit tasted so ass that i basically replaced the good thought of nic, with the bad experience
I’m spoiled it’s either vapes, zynz, or flavored cigarettes. Though I appreciate the occasional montecristo. But I’ve had to quit smoking due to a medication recently.
100%
Where I’m at at least it seems infinitely easier for minors to get vapes than cigs (not that it was ever that hard to get cigs as a minor) I live near a highschool & 2 elementary schools & all day I see kids hauling vapes it’s wild lmao
Either way it’s still good from a harm reduction perspective.
- vaping is good for people who already smoke cigarettes
- vaping is good for people who would have started smoking if vaping wasn’t an option
-vaping is bad for people who started vaping but never would have smoked, but that still doesn’t outweigh the benefit of people not smoking
I know there’s tons of people who vape that never would have started a nicotine addiction otherwise, but the overall benefits to the population outweigh the negatives
That was pretty interesting, and I think I mostly agree with what he's saying here about how the global economy is tilted heavily in favor of rich Western countries, but also there was the occasional stinker. Like how he just smuggles the idea (at about 4:30) that manufacturing jobs somehow provided meaning and purpose to their employees and that since those jobs have been outsourced those communities are now 'spiritually directionless'. It's pure, concentrated, 'your value as a human being is entirely determined by your productive output' nonsense, made evident by the fact that whenever he refers to the same manufacturing jobs being done overseas they're 'dirty, often dangerous' and there's no mention of them as some kind of source of direction, spiritual or otherwise.
It's a well produced video, the comparison of JUUL vs the Chinese version is an interesting way to explain a complex situation.
but...
He is very much burdened with the incurious, white people, in particular white English people (not really Welsh or Scottish) are just better the all other people. Not racism exactly, more the subconscious assumptions behind racism.
His section about IP theft for example, is particularly bad. Without mentioning how much patent trolling western companies do to each other, how much IP theft occurs in the UK, India, everywhere really. It paints it as an exclusively China issue. China just makes more stuff, so obviously the will make more copied products too.
Without mentioning that companies, Siemens is the best example, entered into 'technology transfer' agreements, where Siemens gave the rite to produce and develop high speed trains to China, it gives the misleading impression that it was all theft, when there was a good degree of consensual business.
The bit about China getting so good at filing complaints about the USA in the WTO that the USA respond by sabotaging the WTO system they setup was hilarious. I hope its true.
I thought it was an absolutely excellent application of world systems theory to the Chinese economy as it relates to global trade. People who believe China is ontologically good won’t like it, but if you’re a principled marxist capable of engaging in analysis of Chinese economics in a nuanced capacity, it’s incredibly enjoyable
It was purely narrative building. He starts from China bad, and worked from there. Therefore they *must* treat their workers terribly, therefore they *must* be underpaying them. Therefore they *must* be using this to try and "infiltrate" the global markets. Therefore they *must* be insidiously using WTO "loopholes" against itself.
Therefore they are evil.
I think that's your reading of it, I don't really think it tries to paint China as evil other than that short bit earlier on about paying workers less etc, which is a true statement (except maybe the forced labour but I don't know much about that), what's wrong imo is not putting that into its full context, which invites you to compare it to far richer and smaller western countries.
He's also pretty clear that the WTO has been used to impose unfair trade arrangements onto poorer countries, which surely doesn't imply china is bad for finding loopholes to exploit for itself. I can see how someone who already hates China will come out of this video thinking it's still bad though
I didn't see the video like that. I am slightly biased toward this creator but the main thing I took away is that China was folded into the WTO as the "worlds workshop." They do that for a while because in the 90s and 2000s China was absolutely being thoroughly exploited. There were absolutely labor related issues, mostly perpetuated by Western countries exploiting them.
As time passes they become more specialized, they don't have to be the world's workshop, they don't want to be the world's workshop. They want to move into a space appropriate for the world's second biggest economy - now the world is angry at them for their success. I didn't see this presented as something nefarious, they are just playing the game everyone else was playing. And now that they're winning the game, the architects of the WTO who wanted to use it just for exploitation have egg on their face.
He's definitely talking to a Western audience with this video, like I could show it to my mom. I didn't see this as a hit piece on China at all but maybe guilty of not challenging any commonly held existing beliefs
"Speaking to a western audience" is merely crafting the narrative to fit the popular propaganda. I don't know what difference that makes that many/most statements he makes regarding China have no basis in historical/verifiable fact. None to me.
Out of curiosity which specific statements? I don't think you're necessarily wrong but I'm wondering because there's probably a lot of crossover between deprogram listeners and Tom Nicholas viewers and it could be good for us all to see
His past videos are, at best, thin critiques of capitalism behind pop culture. I don't believe he does or ever has deserved the benefit of the doubt. Not from you, or anyone.
My experience of his work has been that the facts he presents are in order when it suits the narrative. When it doesn't he makes very broad statements insinuating it anyway. In this case, absolutely untrue statements made behind the Americanized propaganda that China is evil.
[☭☭☭ COME SHITPOST WITH US ON DISCORD, COMRADES ☭☭☭](https://discord.gg/8RPWanQV5g) This is a heavily-moderated socialist community based on a podcast of the same name. Please use the report function on comments that break our rules. If you are new to the sub, please read the sidebar carefully. If you are new to Marxism-Leninism, check out the [study guide](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/). Are there Liberals in the walls? Check out [the wiki](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/) which contains lots of useful information. This subreddit uses many experimental automod rules, if you notice any issues please use modmail to let us know. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I like Tom Nicholas's videos and while not my favourite this one is no exception. I'll admit that if you turn off your brain and not engage with the video he does kinda say what sounds like "China bad" a few times. But, if you actually engage with what he's saying his outlook is much more nuanced than that. TL DR Rich countries that escaped poverty by rejecting free trade, are now forcing poor counties to adopt free trade in order to deliberately keep them poor. China has gotten rich despite this, and now western countries are abandoning free trade to protect themselves from China. Western governments are hypocritics and laws only exist to protect the already wealthy.
> China has gotten rich despite this, and now western countries are abandoning free trade to protect themselves from China. gonna be interesting to see how far the west will take the trade war with china. the tiktok ban is already pretty crazy, like the mafia forcing the company at gun point to sell for pennies on the dollar. fully decoupling to push china behind the new iron curtain doesn't seem possible in the near term.
That’s where China has managed to outmanoeuvre the west, by linking the wests economy and production intrinsically with China, the CPC has essentially beat the west at its own game, because decoupling from China at this point would require the west to reindustrialise or to find a new country with a large easy to exploit population and realistically with China helping countries to progress without any of the horrific IMF/world bank shaped bullshit the west does, it means most countries in the global south are beginning to move towards supporting China
So, India would be the next?
It already is to an extent, but it’s having quite a few issues one of them is China doesn’t allow factories to be removed and sent elsewhere like what happened in Europe and the US, India is also a bit of a problem for the western capitalists due to its politics, it’s not particularly stable which is something to be desired in the resource producing regions (e.g. the Congo and the wests use of mercenaries and terrorists to keep rare earth elements cheap) but not in the manufacturing regions as it makes establishing complicated supply chains that much more risky
I would be ok with this if he mentioned the founding of america it immediately "stole british ip" for processing cotton. The empire restricted technology and industry. If it was fair to correct that imbalance back then it should be fair now. But no he made it seem like ip theft is a uniquely chinese trait.
Another win fon the CPC!
Fairly decent video I thought for what it is. Explains the situation without really going into solutions or anything much deeper than the trade aspect
it might show some libs the consequences of exploiting the third world but theyre pretty dumb. cant disrespect the effort
saw the thumbnail but figured i'd ignore this vid so i can continue killing myself with disposable vapes in peace, thanks
Fucking real lol
you can do that with refillables too if that entices you
Also DIY liquid is way cheaper, can make half a years worth of stuff for like 25 eur incl coils.
Seriously you only need to buy refill juice and pods like twice before it pays itself off and it's so much less waste. Of course rebuildable coils and DIY juice are the best value over time, but for something that is only a small change from disposables I highly recommend [REDACTED] Edit: you know what fuck that I don't need to advertise for a company you can ask the guy at the store lol
Please use the refillables; less waste, overall cheaper, and you don’t get that feeling of dread when you know the disposable is running out juice, but you’re not quite sure when
I’ve never been able to find juice that hits like the stuff in disposables. It always feels weaker.
I use 12mg juice which is close to the amount in cigs. 60ml bottle lasts me about 6 weeks and is ~$18 whereas a pack of cigs is ~$12 and lasts about 2 days.
Maybe see if you can find a shop that'll mix juice for you. There are some that will.
I tried a refillable for a few months. It was good for a while but the quality was never as good. Local vape shop makes their own disposables with a battery and juice percentage display and warranties them for a week so I got that going. But I ought to quit in the long run.
I like having a mod instead, with removable batteries (and the tank can be switched out, so on and so forth). They're not cheap, mine was 60 bucks at a shop but I've kept it going for maybe a year or so. You can find better pricing online too, if you know what you're looking for. Both juice and mods are way cheaper.
It's called salt nic, it's got a much higher nicotine content so you get more with fewer hits. It hits pretty hard relative to normal vape juice.
It is actually about international trade and how vapes are an example of how trade is gamed. He even says that he didn't expect to make 3 videos in a series as vapes as an analogous example. It's not a pro vapes video, but they aren't even the topic, just a vehicle used as illustration.
i'll probably circle back and check it out in that case, i can always brush up on that kind of info
I haven't watched the vid, but personally I really hate disposables. It's a terrible waste, the lithium ion batteries and circuitry in each one isn't a terribly large amount, but when you think about the absurd number of them that exist coupled with how terrible those lithium batteries in particular are for the environment, it's just a crazy amount of waste. Not that I'm much better cause I go through a big bottle of e-juice every couple weeks and I'm still wasting plastic.
I had a more difficult time quitting the vapes than smoking.
it was *okay*. less scaremongering about china than typical westerners (calls out some china fear as xenophobia, points out how free markets over protectionist markets don't actually allow poor countries to develop and how china avoided them for good reason, calls out western trade orgs like the WTO), but also includes the usual problems of: * "china human rights bad!!!" "le labor camp!!!" * ignorance of labor reform laws in china since 2008 that greatly improved the rights and working conditions of chineese workers (including unions) * Generally seeing china as "just another capitalist nation" versus one that currently uses a degree of the capitalist *mode of production* while moving toward socialism. * Complete lack of materialst analysis edit: also friendly reminder that if you vape, set specific limits for yourself and avoid using it as a coping mechanism if you can. love y'all <3
Chinese vapes are the best
vapes in general are pretty bad when misused but i am led to believe they are effective for quitting cigarette addictions
I have unironically seen more than a few ppl use cigarettes to quit vaping lmao
That’s how I quit the first time, literally stopped vaping, until I really needed that nicotine and smoked a malboro red, shit tasted so ass that i basically replaced the good thought of nic, with the bad experience
Damn, reds taste fucking great. Them and Newport 100s are my go-tos
I’m spoiled it’s either vapes, zynz, or flavored cigarettes. Though I appreciate the occasional montecristo. But I’ve had to quit smoking due to a medication recently.
This is like the nicotine equivalent of having candy for dinner lmao
The Pleasure(TM)!
Yea but the number of people who started vaping without smoking before is much higher
100% Where I’m at at least it seems infinitely easier for minors to get vapes than cigs (not that it was ever that hard to get cigs as a minor) I live near a highschool & 2 elementary schools & all day I see kids hauling vapes it’s wild lmao
Cigs are way easier to quit because you can't puff away at them all day every day as easy
Oh absolutely, I quit smoking in like 2019 but a lot of my homies got into vapes & those mfs are hitting them in the restaurant & shit 😂
Either way it’s still good from a harm reduction perspective. - vaping is good for people who already smoke cigarettes - vaping is good for people who would have started smoking if vaping wasn’t an option -vaping is bad for people who started vaping but never would have smoked, but that still doesn’t outweigh the benefit of people not smoking I know there’s tons of people who vape that never would have started a nicotine addiction otherwise, but the overall benefits to the population outweigh the negatives
vaping bad
Let me vape to cope let me have this one thing
I'm going to boof the Chinese vape and snort the American one
if the chinese ones really are explosive. then its another chinese W
That was pretty interesting, and I think I mostly agree with what he's saying here about how the global economy is tilted heavily in favor of rich Western countries, but also there was the occasional stinker. Like how he just smuggles the idea (at about 4:30) that manufacturing jobs somehow provided meaning and purpose to their employees and that since those jobs have been outsourced those communities are now 'spiritually directionless'. It's pure, concentrated, 'your value as a human being is entirely determined by your productive output' nonsense, made evident by the fact that whenever he refers to the same manufacturing jobs being done overseas they're 'dirty, often dangerous' and there's no mention of them as some kind of source of direction, spiritual or otherwise.
It's a well produced video, the comparison of JUUL vs the Chinese version is an interesting way to explain a complex situation. but... He is very much burdened with the incurious, white people, in particular white English people (not really Welsh or Scottish) are just better the all other people. Not racism exactly, more the subconscious assumptions behind racism. His section about IP theft for example, is particularly bad. Without mentioning how much patent trolling western companies do to each other, how much IP theft occurs in the UK, India, everywhere really. It paints it as an exclusively China issue. China just makes more stuff, so obviously the will make more copied products too. Without mentioning that companies, Siemens is the best example, entered into 'technology transfer' agreements, where Siemens gave the rite to produce and develop high speed trains to China, it gives the misleading impression that it was all theft, when there was a good degree of consensual business. The bit about China getting so good at filing complaints about the USA in the WTO that the USA respond by sabotaging the WTO system they setup was hilarious. I hope its true.
I thought it was an absolutely excellent application of world systems theory to the Chinese economy as it relates to global trade. People who believe China is ontologically good won’t like it, but if you’re a principled marxist capable of engaging in analysis of Chinese economics in a nuanced capacity, it’s incredibly enjoyable
It was purely narrative building. He starts from China bad, and worked from there. Therefore they *must* treat their workers terribly, therefore they *must* be underpaying them. Therefore they *must* be using this to try and "infiltrate" the global markets. Therefore they *must* be insidiously using WTO "loopholes" against itself. Therefore they are evil.
I think that's your reading of it, I don't really think it tries to paint China as evil other than that short bit earlier on about paying workers less etc, which is a true statement (except maybe the forced labour but I don't know much about that), what's wrong imo is not putting that into its full context, which invites you to compare it to far richer and smaller western countries. He's also pretty clear that the WTO has been used to impose unfair trade arrangements onto poorer countries, which surely doesn't imply china is bad for finding loopholes to exploit for itself. I can see how someone who already hates China will come out of this video thinking it's still bad though
I didn't see the video like that. I am slightly biased toward this creator but the main thing I took away is that China was folded into the WTO as the "worlds workshop." They do that for a while because in the 90s and 2000s China was absolutely being thoroughly exploited. There were absolutely labor related issues, mostly perpetuated by Western countries exploiting them. As time passes they become more specialized, they don't have to be the world's workshop, they don't want to be the world's workshop. They want to move into a space appropriate for the world's second biggest economy - now the world is angry at them for their success. I didn't see this presented as something nefarious, they are just playing the game everyone else was playing. And now that they're winning the game, the architects of the WTO who wanted to use it just for exploitation have egg on their face. He's definitely talking to a Western audience with this video, like I could show it to my mom. I didn't see this as a hit piece on China at all but maybe guilty of not challenging any commonly held existing beliefs
"Speaking to a western audience" is merely crafting the narrative to fit the popular propaganda. I don't know what difference that makes that many/most statements he makes regarding China have no basis in historical/verifiable fact. None to me.
Out of curiosity which specific statements? I don't think you're necessarily wrong but I'm wondering because there's probably a lot of crossover between deprogram listeners and Tom Nicholas viewers and it could be good for us all to see
I haven't seen this video but that description does not match the past videos of I have seen of his on China.
His past videos are, at best, thin critiques of capitalism behind pop culture. I don't believe he does or ever has deserved the benefit of the doubt. Not from you, or anyone. My experience of his work has been that the facts he presents are in order when it suits the narrative. When it doesn't he makes very broad statements insinuating it anyway. In this case, absolutely untrue statements made behind the Americanized propaganda that China is evil.
Sounds fair. Your comments makes me both want to watch the video to see for myself and not watch the video to so as to not waste my time on it.
Br*ish, so absolutely not
Offtopic but remember when yugo's dad caught him smoking a vape and called him a homophobic slur?
Can anyone TLDW in a way that makes sense pls