The “ethnocentric” in the title is coded language¹. It was triggered by a paper² I just stumbled over but is the product of by now over two decades of observation (and, to be fair, festering resentment).
I bring attention to a key phrase in the conclusion of this otherwise meandering and unclear paper:
Thus, we suggest that policymakers in China consider emphasizing more on the reciprocity benefits and build a collaborative effort across the scientific community.
What. A. Coincidence.
A study published in the (western) journal³ Humanities and Social Sciences Communications comes to the conclusion that the Chinese government needs to emphasize the benefits of open data sharing.
Yet the very same culture that preaches loudly “open data sharing” and other such nigh-utopian ideals, in a stunning example of “do what I say, not what I do” also practices the precise opposite. For example the Chinese are specifically barred from cooperation in space ventures⁴ with anything that NASA is affiliated with (which is, essentially, all space ventures and most such conferences).
This is not, however, just the USA and just China. Canada (my nation of citizenship), for example, routinely issues thundering condemnation of any nation that treats indigenous peoples badly (unless that nation is aligned with Canada, in which case Japan’s treatment of the Ainu and Taiwan’s treatment of their assorted indigenous groups gets passed over with an embarrassed cough) while it treats its own indigenous peoples in ways that are positively shocking even to this day, despite the facade of rapprochement. (Keep in mind that the last of Canada’s horrific residential schools was closed in 1997—I was 31 years old at the time!—and that in Canada being a native means you are not a “visible minority”, a term fraught with its own weird baggage.)
And you’ll find similar ethnocentric, hypocritical bullshit all over the west, even down to all the (well-deserved!) official condemnation of Hamas over the October 2023 attacks while standing by in embarrassed silence as Israel commits open genocide both in and out of Gaza starting well before October 2023 and continuing to this day.
So… My current view is that western powers are a large collection of hypocritical twats whose views can and should be safely ignored by other peoples of the world as far as is possible when so many (chiefly) American guns and bombs are pointed at them threateningly.
Change my view.
¹ Decoding it: “white supremacist”.
² https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-03570-9
³ Yes the primary authors are Chinese in Chinese universities. There are reasons for this.
⁴ The fact that this has backfired, both directly and indirectly, on the USA multiple times is a never-ending source of amusement to me.
To some extent, sure. But “The West” is demonstrably less ethnocentric than China. I have literally been told that I cannot check into a hotel *in Shanghai* unless my Chinese wife is with me. This is not a one-off occurrence, and it gets way worse the farther you get from urban China.
I’ve lived in China since 2001. Let’s just say that I find your story “dubious” and leave it at that. There used to be a distinction between hotels for foreigners and hotels for locals, but this had nothing to do with ethnocentrism and everything to do with facility quality. These distinctions were removed well over a decade ago, so unless this purported incident happened, like, 15 years ago, I’m calling bullshit.
And I’m calling bullshit on your little party line. This practice of turning away foreigners is rampant and there is a ton written about it all over the internet.
Can’t really call it an ethnic thing when all the ethnicities of Europe seem to be in on it
Can’t really call it a white supremacist thing when they include India
OP accuses others of being “ethnocentric” themselves, yet uses phrases like “west” and “white supremacist” to refer to them and rants many paragraphs long instead of letting the Uyghurs out of the concentration camps. Shame on you, OP.
I’d say only about 20% of white Americans are white supremacists, the problem is that’s a large voting bloc that will only support one party, so they get catered to.
I can’t change your mind, you’re mostly right.
Lets get the repugnicunts out of office forever and change that.
Now this is going to be largely anecdotal as many of the places I’m speaking about don’t allow studies for things like this, but… Having now lived in over a dozen countries and been on scores of ExPat compounds the world over, I can safely say that every country and race on the planet has those that think they are superior to everyone else. This isn’t an exclusive thing about the West. Heck, Canada and the US aren’t even in the top 3 worst examples I can think of. I’ve seen it in a much stronger form in Saudi Arabia. We’re talking US slavery-era levels of racism there, and that’s currently.
Oh I certainly agree, last year I passed some time lurking the forums of unironic Mongol Supremacists and their rancidness was very similar to what we see on MAGA darkweb forums.
And also I have personal experience that you are right about SA in specific, and a good chunk of the Middle East in general.
I’m not saying the U.S. is the worst, but white supremacists have actively been trying to overthrow our government so I’m more focused on them right now.
So… a few things in order to actually change your view. Some of these may sound like snark, but I promise they aren’t. I love CMV threads and sometimes the best way to do that is to show a weak or broken logic chain and I know those can look like an attack.
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This may be a “politicians” thing, and not a “the West” thing. Every political leader denounces things that other countries shouldn’t do and turns a blind eye to things their friendlier countries do. Hell, every religion does it too. So do political parties. And friend groups. And marriages. No country is innocent because humans can be fucking monsters and can excuse things from the devil they know.
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Somewhat conversely, I don’t know how much you can hold current people accountable for previous regimes. If you can, how far back? Is Biden responsible for things Trump did? How about for Nixon? How about for Taft? How about the Native tribes who were at war and trying to genocide other tribes and take slaves long before white settlers arrived? I bring this up because I’ve known a good number of diplomats and many of these political deals (one of which being providing weapons to Israel currently) was a previous regime. Breaking those agreements make you a bad “partner country” to deal with. Breaking a treaty deal is… bad news internationally. The country you broke that deal with may also have leverage on you to make sure you keep it as well. Maybe things the public doesn’t know about. You also can’t come out and say that the only reason you’re abiding by the treaty is so as to not piss off other people because it makes you seem weak internationally.
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Data sharing in astronomy seems like a universal win and NASA does share date with China. The US shared data and samples from lunar missions past at the time. China is just barred from joint-ops missions from government-funded agencies without FBI approval which is not the same thing. This was due to some suspicion of previous data requested that weren’t about space or a mission, but about rocket launching tech that was then put into use for armaments. “It was alleged that technical information provided by American commercial satellite manufacturers to China in connection with satellite launches could have been used to improve Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile technology.” Sharing ICBM information with a hostile foreign government is generally a poor move, defensively.
Are any of those seeming like something you’d like to discuss further?
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