It's fine, of course, to disagree; we just want conversation to stay in the key of curiosity: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Of course that may just be me projecting my own perspective onto them, but I did get the feeling that there is a performative aspect to the culture described in this article, and that whatever lies underneath it is likely, as in so many places, not really accessible to anyone who was not born and raised in a place.

I think part of this bias is due to their not having any actual domestic, critical understanding and thus can't apply the same analytical tools they would use to analyze, for eg, why Youtube Shorts/IG Reels/etc took off here

for example, some of the claims the author makes are just silly:

> Chinese consumers already had a high tolerance for slop and AI content fit naturally into this ecosystem without ever triggering an uncanny-valley reflex.

yeah buddy, this isn't due to some inherent acceptance of unreality, the massive volume of low-budget vertical 微短剧 (weiduanju) on Douyin and Kuaishou is driven by economic factors like digital ad-arbitrage [0]. most of these studies spend the vast majority of their budget on advertising to get views with an incredibly small amount reserved for actual production. and so thus you get 1) over-saturation of ads for consumers displacing traditional media and 2) a race-to-the-bottom of the uncanny valley for output

plus, the CAC cracks down a lot more on cruddy micro-dramas than US regulators do on shitty TikTok/YShorts/IG Reels content (ie not at all, ever)

> This basic message is inculcated throughout Chinese upbringing: push through and ignore physical discomfort, but attend to and be subject to social censure. It's okay to be buffeted by the elements, but if your grades are bad, you'll be too ashamed to face your parents.

yeah, again, this is blaming individual psychological conditioning and not systemic forces. like here, managing reputation has to do with high-stakes institutional checkpoints, not an irrational preference for perception over physical reality. when the 高考 (gaokao) and your 户口 (hukou) literally dictate whether or not you have access to housing, schools, and healthcare, you would of course focus your attention on grades and social standing. if there were other gatekeepers, the 'culture' would shift to focus there too

> Dark World thinking sees all virtue and kindness as pretense. Among many such tropes, a common derogatory trope is of women who act nice and innocent 白莲花 (white lotus) while being deceitful and manipulative on the inside. Chinese media creates trapped priors that people acting kind, altruistic, and pure are more likely to be evil."

yeah, so this happened because they dismantled the 铁饭碗 (tiefanwan) [1]. the state basically dismantled the kind of sub-utopian socialist give-everything social programming (that certain propagandized Western leftists seem to believe are still in place) and let the market fully take over. when your universal safety net is gone, extending trust or finances to others who are economically incentivized to compete with you becomes a sub-optimal play. it's why 内卷 (neijuan or involution) is a widely discoursed about issue in Chinese society

also, it's very funny to see 白莲花 (white lotus) used... seriously here? in Chinese social media, that's a satirical term and positions the bailianhua as sanctimonious. it's not aspirational, it's like calling someone a Karen here

[0] https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1014167

[1] https://www.routledge.com/The-Individualization-of-Chinese-S...

Europeans feel exactly like this as well. And as an American who's lived in Europe for decades, I couldn't agree more.

This is largely correct across cultures.

“Trust is a luxury I can’t afford.” - Cormega

Your best friends will screw you over for fun.

Your friendly boss will lie to your face.

Family members have no issue with ripping each other off once money is on the line.

How many probate attorneys eat well because siblings need to sue each other ?

I don’t even think it’s a matter of capitalism or economics.

Something is off about humanity at a fundamental level.

All the authors observations ring true, and they all stem from one simple fact: China was a very poor country just forty years ago, and even today is only a middle income country.

The uncomfortable truth is a lot of the things westerners take for granted are, in fact, luxuries. Arts and creativity is a luxury. Freedom to pursue passion is a luxury. Compassion is a luxury. Self-esteem is a luxury. If you barely have enough food to feed your family, as a significant number of Chinese people were in the 60s and 70s, you cannot afford any of these.

China has grown richer at a remarkable rate, but the mentality shift can take generations.

No, most good characters in those books are chinese. I liked technical aspects of the book a lot, but on societal level there was quite a bit xenophobia up to including racism against white people.

Still interesting, maybe something akin to picking up some pulp novel from 1920s that had other races in stereotypical cartoon evil roles. Not something pleasant to read in 21st century for anybody with more modern values (where average typical Chinese stand on this I leave to them here, no idea).