Oh that’s just the normal effect of the alien mind control rays.

just trust me bro

I remember reading somewhere that while a western audience would perceive this as utterly farcical, a Chinese citizen is at least more likely to perceive it as the government taking their safety and security seriously enough to be thorough about it. While I’m sure there was some person somewhere in the chain of command who thought this was a good and important idea and that they needed to check the pigeon butts for explosives, there’s no way all of the people involved in doing those searches thought it was likely to uncover an actual weapon, but the cultural context makes it important to err in that direction. Meanwhile in the US, the government is more successful in hiding abuses by “protecting freedoms.” Powerful people all around the world have basically the same playbook, but a big part of that strategy is knowing their audience.

You can also utilize the somewhat covert bribery and diversion systems to this end. As long as everybody thinks everybody ELSE is following the guidelines, and that they’re the only ones really getting away with things / reporting that they’re following guidelines when they’re not, you can get the same result and all you have to do is not look too closely, which is probably what you’re doing with most other things already. In the US you don’t even need to bother doing that because aside from not culturally having enough shame to do so, actively hiding our idiocy in any way would be considered a restriction on freedoms. Around these parts its your god given right to be a dumbass and the gubmit can pry that from your cold dead hands.

We’re stupid, but at least we’re honest about it. They’re stupid, but at least they have the decency to not act like it out in broad daylight. Neither is better and both can easily be a tool of the bourgeoisie.

You forgot the anti-vaccine campaign they ran in countries near China saying their vaccine contained pig parts. Not the US state dept’s first anti-vax campaign btw.

US vaccines were made available first and foremost to Western citizens, and only then were made available to purchase. China released their vaccine worldwide, so countries without a vaccine program had access earlier and cheaper than they could acquire vaccines from the US. Their anti-vax campaign was meant to prevent other countries from accepting China’s offer, thus preventing goodwill towards China, protecting the profits of US companies, and leading to the deaths of millions who could have been saved in “US Allied” countries such as the Philippines.

If you were going to buy into one of these two conspiracy theories, first you should have some actual evidence, and then you should look at the behavior of these countries and ask yourself: which behavior is more consistent with releasing a virus that could act as an economic weapon meant to shut-down a country, but not kill everyone?

Where did I defend the CCP or communism?

You’re a Lemmygrad user, they’re going to assume that’s your intent by default

Thank you for answering.

I am not sure where to start, but let’s take the easy way: At the moment of writing, the wikipedia page “Persecution of Uyghurs in China” has 585 references.

They’re probably all written by seemingly independent institutions, journalists and scientists who somehow have a McCarthyist-like fear of communism that they’d risk their credibility just to add a bit of damage to communist China’s moral standing?

Or are they all factually incorrect through some other mechanism?

TIL, I did a project on this 10 or so years ago, so either I misremembered or new information came to light

I thought that you can still sell new props that need leaded fuel, is that not the case?

Note, since the 80s the vast, vast majority of piston driven aircraft engines have been able to operate on unleaded fuel. We know this because for decades GA pilots have been filling out the paperwork for an experimental fuel variance and then running these engines unmodified on the cheaper unleaded they got from the gas station down the street without any apparent issue or rise in engine maintenance/failures among pilots that do this. The main hurdles being the necessary and not insignificant paperwork as well as concern over insurance rates.

From my understanding there was a problem with one series of engine in the seventies that was suspected to be due to unleaded fuel among the more modern product line of a major manufacturer, and while the engine was modified to fix it neither Lycoming nor Continental, the two primary piston engine manufacturers who make up the vast majority of the market, saw significant pressure to drop the official recommendation for unleaded until relatively recently.

Since the US finally started to get serious about phasing out leaded avgas in the 2010s, and the aditude of its been fine so far so why risk any change has run up against said pressure, both have to my knowledge dropped the requirement retroactively with no modification necessary for the majority of their historical and current product line.

You might need to re-engine or more likely just get an exemption for flying history aircraft, but the benefit to the hundreds of thousands that live near GA airports in terms of reduced damage to children’s nervous systems far outweighs the nebulous cost of switching the default form of avgas.

Stop giving a shit about those limitations. Stop posing the question and expecting others to fix it for you. Leaded fuel is a much bigger problem than the cost of replacing or retrofitting those planes and if people don’t have an incentive to change, they won’t.

At the government level:

Subsidize the cost of retrofitting, set a hard deadline for no more leaded fuel, tax that fuel ridiculously starting yesterday…seriously, just invest in actual solutions instead of shrugging your fucking shoulders and saying, “but it’ll cost too much.”

Money ain’t shit compared to public health. Give the problem a reason and the means to be solved. It really isn’t that hard unless your government only cares about profits, not about improving the lives of its citizens.

Community level:

If this is your case, it’ll be harder, but you need to create circumstances where either the government’s or those continuing to use and produce leaded gas are punished for doing so. This is only possible through mass organizing. One of the simplest versions of this is through forming consumer unions. An even simpler method is to burn all of those little fucking planes down and burn every new one that pops up. Make it too expensive for people to buy and insurers to cover.

I think you can see where I reached the limits of my patience in writing this comment. I joke, but it is an effective means and should probably be The last resort. The point is nothing will change unless you take direct action which will involve organizing people who are affected by this problem to invoke positive change. Alone you are weak, together you are powerful. Power is what allows you to change the world.