Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "We Interviewed A Shanghai Resident Under COVID Lockdown | Stay Curious" video.

  1. There was an estimate that the true COVID death toll in China before the Winter Olympics was closer to 2 million, conveniently not reported (or misreported as death by something else) out of fear of political reprisal from Běijīng and likely still happening with the unusually low death toll in Shànghǎi now. So while still more effective at combating the spread, without effective immunization it's overall strategically more flawed without a resolution.
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  2. It stems from the government's discouragement of proactiveness and experimentation, as authoritarians are hypersensitive to perceived dissent and failures. There's a lot of complacency since the official authorities are expected to provide for everything, and underlying fear of repercussions when things don't go as the authorities expect.
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  3. Dissent is considered poisonous in an authoritarian regime, especially one that pitches itself as centralized and competent like the CPC. Even something as mild as "The Sounds of April" have to be stamped out because it disproves this narrative, one that drives continued tolerance for the Party's unchallenged rule over China.
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  4. Sadly I think without true competition to the political groupthink that is a one-Party system, accountability is going to fall well short of what the people deserve from its government. "Meritocracy" is a farce because technical prowess alone can't resolve what humans truly care about, which are more storybook than statistical.
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