I think we agree - I don’t feel attacked or that you are hostile. I’m not a complete anti China person. As I said, I’m very interested in Marx, Frankfurt School, Zizek, dialectics, “etc”. But I will never glaze dictatorship, suspension of free speak etc. At work (high school who need more students to be sustainable) I’m “that guy” who often point out that on many accounts, we in the western countries aren’t any better, probably worse, than China. Often comes up when the talk falls on surveillance. E.g. management don’t allow promotion through TikTok but are all OK with Meta platforms. I have to explain that the meta platforms are probably worse offenders of privacy and surveillance. If it was up to me, we shouldn’t use either of the platforms but management wants reach so can I understand why they use them - despite having no evidence or data that points towards their efforts actually create value/higher uptake of students.

I also agree with you on the reflexive shouting on what I would consider quite large communities.