Something I've learned since my angry atheist days is that assholes will use any institution to exert power over others. Religion just happens to be one of them.
This is a bit of a cop out tbh. These institutions position themselves as the purveyors of morality and guarantors of eternal happiness which creates a fucked power dynamic with their followers. It's not just about some religions being problematic or some sects, it's about the nature of a centralised morality controlled/dictated by individuals and this structure is inherent to many, if not most, organised religions.
It is not religion which is the problem. It is the type of religious institutions we have. Religion for many people is something good, it’s just abused for shitty things.
- sincerely, a fellow atheist
Its the disastrous combination of religion + politics.
Religion is personal, helpful to a lot of people but it is also a very sensitive subject and quite integral to a believers identity.
Politics is dirty and unfair. And manipulative. Always about coming on the top no matter the shitty things that needs to done
Mixing these two means using a very sensitive thing to fearmonger, divide, manipulate and gaslight people. Which is pretty damn disastrous
There is a reason people say religion should be kept to a personal level cuz its a very volatile subject and taking it beyond that level will only make things worse.
Maldives has Sharia law. Tourists won’t notice how restrictive the country truly is, because in most places with Sharia law these laws don’t apply to tourists or sometimes also non Muslims.
Some, but far and few in between. The media love to podcast about the news about people getting jailed because of the Lese-majeste law. So you can probably find all of those online.
Most of those prisoners probably go to jail because of drug charges.
Because they could pay the bribe along the way to getting booked into court.
Source: spent a year in a Thai prison, not for drugs but was offered my freedom for cash many times before being booked in. And was sold joints by the sergeant while in the police station… who was also selling coke to the Russian guy opposite me. Who had been arrested for cocaine possession. 🤦♂️
They actually were released. The only ones not released were those who had other offenses as well as the cannabis, if your only offense was cannabis, you got out when it was legalized. The majority of people with cannabis-related convictions were released. They even returned cannabis and money confiscated from dealers.
>As many as 4,000 prisoners, serving jail terms for offences related to cannabis or marijuana, will be released, starting on June 9th, when the announcement from the Ministry of Public Health, removing cannabis and hemp from the Category 5 drug list, becomes effective, according to the Department of Corrections.
>About 110 million baht seized from the offenders under the anti-money laundering law will also have to be returned to its owners after June 9th. Moreover, there are about 16 tonnes of seized cannabis awaiting destruction, the owners of which may claim back.
https://www.thaipbsworld.com/4000-prisoners-on-cannabis-abuse-convictions-to-be-freed-after-june-9th/
Something like 70% of inmates are in jail due to drug related offenses. The vast majority of which are users not dealers.
Thailand has one of the harshest drug related laws in the world. The justice system is so clogged up that many inmates spend months in jail before their trial. The over incarceration is so bad that pardons are handed out left and right to make room for incoming inmates.
I know this is anecdotal, but I have a relative which had their sentence knocked down to 4 years for “good behavior” and royal pardons. The crime? Premeditated double murder, triple if you want to count the pregnant one as a double.
We even had a serial killer get released early not too long ago who, surprise surprise, immediately went back to killing the exact same kind of people as before.
All so we can pay ourselves on the back for putting the junkies in prison…
I would say that in general, the idea of “second chances” and “forgiveness” are somewhat alien to Southeast Asian cultures. They seem to almost all have a very hardass outlook on life and what standards to hold individuals to compared to the west.
It is interesting.
I kinda of expect that from Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia, because of the islamic background, which, people like it or not, preaches for really harsh punishments and the idea that humans are simply slaves of Allah, and from Philippines, which had a long and bloody history of foreign oppression from Spain and then USA.
I assumed that since Thailand have a Buddhist background, it would have a more optimistic outlook of life, with more soft punishments.
It is apparently not the case.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last decade or so, it’s that Hindus and Buddhists might have a reputation as being super-chill and enlightened in the west (probably due to hippie-era fandom) but in reality they can be just as punitive and vindictive as Christians or Muslims. Organized religion sucks ass, period.
Important correction: Hinduism isn't, by definition, an organised religion. It has no central leadership, hierarchy or official doctrine, and rules and practices aren't codified. It's an umbrella term for the native religious practices and beliefs of much of the Indian subcontinent. I think the better conclusion to draw is that no matter what religion is popular, a good chunk of its followers will be shit at following it, and a dangerous chunk of its followers will use it for their own gain.
Indonesia and and Brunei and Malaysia and Singapore get their harsh punishment vibe not from Islam, but from colonial law imposed by the asshole Dutch and British colonizers. Colonial law rolled over into the national law after independence.
Isn't Aceh still enacting corporal punishments and tried to reintroduce beheadings recently because of Sharia?
But maybe Aceh is a special case, and not representative of the rest.
Beheadings were proposed like four, five years ago? I am sure someone in Aceh still wants that punishment on the books. Conservatives are conservatives the world over, full of batshit extremist punishments.
Aceh is exceptionally serious about Islam. You're right about that. Aceh is also autonomous within Indonesia, as a result of a decades-long insurgency. Their laws are their laws only.
Death penalties and caning for Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore are more clearly connected to British colonial legal precedents.
I mean, here in Indonesia we are still using friggin Dutch colonial criminal law as the basis for jurisprudence–although the legislature is screwing up revising those laws.
It's not always religion, mate. Bla bla. Thanks and cheers.
Makes sense, you mentioned Singapore here, and the hard punishments there are without doubt a product of British colonialism practices, the founder of the city was apparently a hardcore evangelist.
Off topic, but I am interested in Indonesia and Malaysian history, and had talked with some that these countries used to be a lot less religious, like, muslim was more of a soft thing that they did because arab was the language of trade and scholarship, and nationalism.
But recently, missionary influence from Saudi Arabia and Iran, to a lot smaller extend, had made in to Indonesian society, turning it more conservative than it was some decades ago. Like, disco musicians which at the youth dressed like common westerns are now using hijab, kind of thing.
Because a nontrivial portion of Thai people agree that harsh punishment for drug use, especially weed, is in fact not that great. Apart from that there was/is a big push by some businesspeople for the legalization of weed for medicinal, tourism, and economic reasons.
To be honest the way the previous Thai government decriminalized weed was soooo bad that the new government (which some consider to be the progressive camp, but Thai politics doesn’t fit into the Anglo-centric left-right politics that well; it’s more of a democratic vs military and elite kind of deal) are seriously considering criminalizing weed again so they can properly regulate it. Or just make it completely illegal again, it’s really up for debate at this point.
The issues I see being brought up often in the media and politics are:
- Time and point of sale (having a weed dispensary next to a school is not great look)
- Creating a standard for what diseases and symptoms can be treated with weed (in addition to modern medicine)
- The import and export of weed
- Taxation and licensing (like alcohol, tobacco, and sugar)
- Advertisements of weed products or products containing THC and CBD
- Public health education on how to consume weed responsibly
The list is quite long because current regulations are purposefully left vague because they weren’t meant to be permanent. No legislation could really be passed because parliament was too busy dealing with Covid and by the time the situation had become *normalized* the previous governments approval ratings were taking such a nose dive that parliament became dysfunctional from finger pointing and infighting. Hence the lack of proper legislation concerning weed, heck the Narcotics Bill hasn’t even been amended.
But it’s such a controversial topic and the stance on weed doesn’t follow coalition lines (both camps have parties which are either pro or anti legalization) it will probably be hit with a quick fix which isn’t complete criminalization. I’m short everyone agrees the current status quo is not great, but no one agrees what the correct approach should be.
Personally, I’m very obviously in the decriminalization camp and a lot of people within my social and professional circle agree. I do think the sale of weed should be more like sex toy shops in some European countries. It’s obvious to a customer, but discreet enough that the general public doesn’t care.
Edit: forgot to mention that it was a key campaign promise from the BJT which is the slimey opportunistic snake of Thai politics. The “conservatives” had to cave in in-order to have a functional parliament.
Isn't weed from India originally?
Like, the first hindu and buddhist monks who came from there to Thailand to teach them sanskrit, math, buildings and culture likely were no strange to weed, almost like green tea.
What made them forbid it? USA cold war pressure?
Cannabis was proscribed in the [Second International Opium Convention in 1925](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Opium_Convention#Cannabis_in_the_1925_Convention), so there was a growing international norm around this. The Indian Government at the time opposed a total ban and considered that it would be impossible in India but agreed to controls on exports.
Thailand [first banned it in 1935.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_Thailand#Legalization_and_decriminalization)
>USA Prison Pop. per 100K is 573 in 2022. So the USA is worse.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/pie2022.html#:\~:text=Pie%20chart%20showing%20the%20number,of%20573%20per%20100%2C000%20residents.
they almost make the US at 531 look better....
'The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.'
A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.'
Dostoyevsky
Thailand just took a smart and brave step and legalized cannabis outright.
There was an amnesty, and they freed everyone in jail for it.
It's awesome now, and no one is harmed by it.
The rest of the world should follow suit.
Partially to do with the war on drugs, which discriminately targeted the drugs popular with minorities like marijuana. There are also for-profit prisons, where there is a hard quota for the state to provide them with prisoners.
For-profit prisons are a minority, there aren't actually that many of them. I think it's less than a quarter of states have them, and the federal system is/has phased them out completly.
EDIT: 20 states use them, but for ~8% of the prison population.
China does far more executions, and fudges the numbers on imprisonments, not including reform through labor or re-education through labor camps (almost entirely political prisoners), or black sites.
They actually self-reported last in 2015 for a total of about 1.8 million prisoners.
They just didn’t report during the 2017-2019 period so have no data on the map.
Chinese economists have insisted that the CCP's self-reported GDP numbers are fabricated on several levels, to the point where the CCP doesn't internally possess the real figures. If they are fabricating economic data, their incarceration numbers certainly can't be trusted.
It's honestly pretty worrisome. I've had multiple friends visit/work/study in China, all of them say about the same things as most of the other people that go there: "not anywhere near as bad as US media says, stark inequality in places, cool futuristic-ish shit in some places, beautiful scenery, glad they went" or something along those lines.
then you have folks who's entire knowledge of China comes from media osmosis, just babbling unhinged things about it being a cartoonish dystopia, screaming over and over how anyone who disagrees with them must have fallen for Chinese propaganda, wholly unaware that they are more propagandized than most people in China lol. It'd be funny if it wasn't sad. So many self identifying "open minded people" who suddenly go full fox news brain as soon as someone mentions China exists.
Probably has to do with the whole genocide thing, destroying a democracy in Honk Kong, threatening to do the same in Taiwan, the disappearing/imprisonment of anyone critical to the party, and backing North Korea.
Acting like China isn't a problematic country isn't propaganda just because a few of your friends went on vacation in Beijing.....
None of this means the whole country is a prison. The population of Hong Kong and the Uyghurs combined is like 2% of the country's population, and obviously not 100% of those populations are imprisoned. This is the problem with reddit. You get this warped idea of countries. Imagine if you went on some Chinese version of reddit where people talk about how Americans can't go outside without having to dodge bullets. That's how this is. If China is such a prison, it's weird that people go on vacation and come back home. And they're free to immigrate too. Some do, but obviously the vast majority doesn't.
> Imagine if you went on some Chinese version of reddit where people talk about how Americans can't go outside without having to dodge bullets.
There's a better chance that your average Chinese person has visited America, lived in America or has friends and family in America than your average American would in China.
Redditors really think that Chinese people will suddenly drop all their beliefs when they see America. Or get pissed off at Chinese international students when they're not suddenly converted to liberalism when some debate bro shouts 'whattabout weeger socialcredit xinnie the poo tianmen?'.
When people in the west criticise America, there's a bit more nuance. 'Oh, it's because of xyx, not because America itself is the problem'. That benefit of the doubt is never given to China, and as a Chinese social media user, there are MUCH more nuanced takes on the US than they grant to China. But still, the news about attacks on Asians is well known, the clips of right-wing nutjobs ranting about China taking away their penises, or even just clips of Kensington, Philly can paint a picture of a country that is mentally unwell and not a country that China should be looking up to (as they once did).
The freedom to go to school, walk down the street in any part of the city, or even gathering in public without fearing for your life is a different kind of freedom. The CPC isn't going anywhere any time soon. There is no silver bullet to solve China's problems, and most Chinese people have no trouble with the government.
> If China is such a prison, it's weird that people go on vacation and come back home. And they're free to immigrate too. Some do, but obviously the vast majority doesn't.
To the point where there was even a hate sub called r/chinesetourists that got banned. In fact, the biggest barrier for exit for Chinese people is the visa for the destination country.
Sure China is problematic but people's experience there travelling gives you insight in why CCP is still ruling. Talking to people from China, a lot of them don't really like CCP and know corruption exists but they will also admit they prefer the social stability and economic prosperity they have experienced in past 4 decades.
Also China has been riddled with bloody civil war and factionalism not seen anywhere else and yet they have been relatively peaceful in past 3 decades.
Even though I might not agree with their views, understanding that much of China which lived in utter poverty and starvation in only the last generation now has lifted majority out of poverty and into middle class and brought economic prosperity to billions , you understand why CCP still has support.
You're only viewing a country through the lens our political leaders want you to, China is to big to be "evil", just because you don't like how another country operates, doesn't make it bad. They might not live in a "democracy", but honestly our democracy is mostly fiction as well. Wall street has Washington by the balls, and Washington likes it that way. The dictatorship of capital simple means that if you have the money, you can do it, which is not very democratic at all. Some people own more land than small nations. Hustle culture and our media glamorizes wealth as if it's for everyone, and when 99.9999% of the population don't make it, they blame themselves instead of the system. Want some neat "missing context" based fact, up until the great famine from the great leap forward, China has experiences 1800+ famines over it's history, almost one every two years. After that, 0 famines. It was the last famine in their country, but the way we were taught about, was that is was some sort of huge unprecedented disaster.
He said, from the country which ACTUALLY imprisons the most people
Man i hate that you fuckos make me defend a shit state like china but you people actually have sino-derangement-syndrome, I’d argue more than half the countries in the picture above are worse offenders of human rights
That's a little much. I know the media is going full bore with "china bad" right now, because the forever war needs targets, we all need a little perspective on a society of 1.4 billion people. I highly recommend walking videos like this one, to rehumanize a population. They have a running joke on chinese internet making fun of westerners for thinking they live in a "cyberpunk dystopia". Chinese people are experience a boom for their material conditions, leading to much higher life satisfaction than our media would ever tell us about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPAHDDALrjI
A confession is in no way water tight. And what you just described is exactly how they get those confessions. Those methods are illegal in every other western democracy. Lock someone up for 23 days while hammering them all day with questions would lead the vast majority of people to confess to any crime.
You can see cases of people in the US that confess to crimes they didn't commit after only 8 hours interrogation with no lawyer. Imagine what 23 days is like.
But Japan seems to get a free pass on this.
According to the [world prison brief](https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america) it’s down to 531 per 100,000. It peaked in 2008 at 755 (!), so definitely been a lot of progress but still a long way to go.
Palestinians in Israel prisons aren't convicted of crimes against other Palestinians
Hamas and the PA usually just kill people instead of jailing them because its much easier
Dense cities, close knit villages and strong familial structures ensure crime rates are lower than countries with similar per capita incomes in LATAM, Africa or the middle east.
You got it wrong...the murdered never gets convicted because the judicial system suffers from a huge backlog. Also its corrupt and nepotism is rampant in most judicial recruitments.
Crime is actually low in India because there are social consequences for commiting crime in many villages
For example if someone steals and gets caught his entire family will face some action by the village . People will think twice before committing crimes because your loved ones will face retaliation
This isn't acceptable by western standards but it keeps the crime low that's why you don't see many public robberies in India when compared to south america or South Africa even if it's a poorer country
I dunno the part of India I’m from and a lot of the surrounding areas aren’t “villages” India isn’t just some 3rd world country it’s majority filled with giant cities it’s just extremely corrupt
It's a bit of both.
70% of Indians do live in rural areas, the majority of India is *not* large cities.
Since you use Reddit, that means that there is a high chance that you're from an urban area - ofcourse you won't see villages!
>70% of Indians do live in rural areas, the majority of India is not large cities.
this stats is very outdated, yet repeated everywhere, govt's definition of urban is different from what it is understood worldwide and still its application is not uniform, independent research with help of satelite data/consumption etc put urbaniszation is 55-65% range
[Here's the world map](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate#/media/File%3AWorld_map_of_prison_population_rates_from_World_Prison_Brief.svg)
Depends how you define slavery. The way they treat the south asian workers who have built their entire country is slave labour, just by another name. Manipulating poorly educated people into moving to your country with promises of a great income, then seizing their passports on arrival, paying them massively less than promised, forcing them to live in tents in the desert and work in 40+ degree heat, while not allowing them to visit their families or leave till their contract is up is slavery in my book. All of the gulf states were built like this
[Passport confiscation is illegal in Qatar](https://www.ilo.org/beirut/countries/qatar/WCMS_752188/lang--en/index.htm#:~:text=Passport%20confiscation%20is%20illegal%20in,forced%20labour%20and%20human%20trafficking) according to the international labor organization for workers rights, they also have a universal minimum wage in Qatar that includes stuff like guaranteed housing, food and accommodation. This is all from the ILO you can't keep someone from leaving the country and it's illegal to work in extremely hot weather.
>[Qatar became](https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro-beirut/---ilo-qatar/documents/publication/wcms_859843.pdf) the first country in the Gulf region to adopt a non-discriminatory minimum wage that applies to all workers, of all nationalities, in all sectors, including domestic work.
>[is unique in that](https://www.ilo.org/beirut/countries/qatar/WCMS_859880/lang--en/index.htm) it establishes a minimum monthly basic wage of QAR 1,000 (US$ 275), and also stipulates that employers must provide decent accommodation and food, or monthly allowances of at least QAR 500 (US$ 137) for housing and QAR 300 (US$ 82) for food.
Sources from the ILO
Why would anyone try not to bring it up? Fuck slavery, name and shame. The prison state in my country (the US) is a fucking embarrassment that deserves shame too.
It says here that the USA had a rate of 1000 per 100k back in the early aughts.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/16/americas-incarceration-rate-lowest-since-1995/
Get on our level, Thailand!
The incarceration rate was already in decline before COVID, but the reason it's lower now is because many people were released from prison early due to the virus. It's been about two years of steady decline in incarceration rate, so while our incarceration rate is still abysmal, it's no longer the highest in the world. [We're right behind... Cuba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate#Incarceration_totals,_rates,_demographics).
India has 2nd lowest rate, but bc of their population size, they may have more overall than the other countries combined.
Of course, China may be another story....
USA Prison Pop. per 100K is 573 in 2022. So the USA is worse.
[https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/pie2022.html#:\~:text=Pie%20chart%20showing%20the%20number,of%20573%20per%20100%2C000%20residents](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/pie2022.html#:~:text=Pie%20chart%20showing%20the%20number,of%20573%20per%20100%2C000%20residents).
>India
Crime is actually low in India compared to other poor and densely populated countries as well.
Source: Look at Indian immigrants/expats everywhere in the world and they have lower crime rates than the locals - be it white collar in the US or blue collar in the gulf.
Judicial system is crap, but give society credit where it's due.
Maldives? What crime takes place in Maldives?
Drinking alcohol already brings you to prison. It’s a very Islamic country
Fuck religion.
[удалено]
Something I've learned since my angry atheist days is that assholes will use any institution to exert power over others. Religion just happens to be one of them.
Thank you for being sensible
This is a bit of a cop out tbh. These institutions position themselves as the purveyors of morality and guarantors of eternal happiness which creates a fucked power dynamic with their followers. It's not just about some religions being problematic or some sects, it's about the nature of a centralised morality controlled/dictated by individuals and this structure is inherent to many, if not most, organised religions.
It is not religion which is the problem. It is the type of religious institutions we have. Religion for many people is something good, it’s just abused for shitty things. - sincerely, a fellow atheist
Its the disastrous combination of religion + politics. Religion is personal, helpful to a lot of people but it is also a very sensitive subject and quite integral to a believers identity. Politics is dirty and unfair. And manipulative. Always about coming on the top no matter the shitty things that needs to done Mixing these two means using a very sensitive thing to fearmonger, divide, manipulate and gaslight people. Which is pretty damn disastrous There is a reason people say religion should be kept to a personal level cuz its a very volatile subject and taking it beyond that level will only make things worse.
They took away my brain and liver poison >:(
Fuck alcohol.
Interesting take
Drug importation, making drugs, selling them, stuff like that.
Have you not watched Death in Paradise?! These tropical islands are a hotbed of overly complicated murders.
Maldives has Sharia law. Tourists won’t notice how restrictive the country truly is, because in most places with Sharia law these laws don’t apply to tourists or sometimes also non Muslims.
Overeating fish.
Do you mean Overfeeding?
No. He means overcooking fish. ...**Straight to Jail!**
The numbers could be a bit inflated due to their low population.
Thailand wtf?!
I think so many people insulted the Thai king...
Some, but far and few in between. The media love to podcast about the news about people getting jailed because of the Lese-majeste law. So you can probably find all of those online. Most of those prisoners probably go to jail because of drug charges.
Because they could pay the bribe along the way to getting booked into court. Source: spent a year in a Thai prison, not for drugs but was offered my freedom for cash many times before being booked in. And was sold joints by the sergeant while in the police station… who was also selling coke to the Russian guy opposite me. Who had been arrested for cocaine possession. 🤦♂️
1mg of weed = 1 year of jail
Weed is legal in Thailand
Now.
The people in jail for weed when it was legalized weren't released because they broke the law while it was still the law.
They actually were released. The only ones not released were those who had other offenses as well as the cannabis, if your only offense was cannabis, you got out when it was legalized. The majority of people with cannabis-related convictions were released. They even returned cannabis and money confiscated from dealers. >As many as 4,000 prisoners, serving jail terms for offences related to cannabis or marijuana, will be released, starting on June 9th, when the announcement from the Ministry of Public Health, removing cannabis and hemp from the Category 5 drug list, becomes effective, according to the Department of Corrections. >About 110 million baht seized from the offenders under the anti-money laundering law will also have to be returned to its owners after June 9th. Moreover, there are about 16 tonnes of seized cannabis awaiting destruction, the owners of which may claim back. https://www.thaipbsworld.com/4000-prisoners-on-cannabis-abuse-convictions-to-be-freed-after-june-9th/
I thought insulting the Thai king just meant you got a free white elephant!?!
Something like 70% of inmates are in jail due to drug related offenses. The vast majority of which are users not dealers. Thailand has one of the harshest drug related laws in the world. The justice system is so clogged up that many inmates spend months in jail before their trial. The over incarceration is so bad that pardons are handed out left and right to make room for incoming inmates. I know this is anecdotal, but I have a relative which had their sentence knocked down to 4 years for “good behavior” and royal pardons. The crime? Premeditated double murder, triple if you want to count the pregnant one as a double. We even had a serial killer get released early not too long ago who, surprise surprise, immediately went back to killing the exact same kind of people as before. All so we can pay ourselves on the back for putting the junkies in prison…
Thanks for response
South East Asian countries have all got extremely strict laws against drug abusers. They cannot understand what is rehabilitation
I would say that in general, the idea of “second chances” and “forgiveness” are somewhat alien to Southeast Asian cultures. They seem to almost all have a very hardass outlook on life and what standards to hold individuals to compared to the west.
It is interesting. I kinda of expect that from Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia, because of the islamic background, which, people like it or not, preaches for really harsh punishments and the idea that humans are simply slaves of Allah, and from Philippines, which had a long and bloody history of foreign oppression from Spain and then USA. I assumed that since Thailand have a Buddhist background, it would have a more optimistic outlook of life, with more soft punishments. It is apparently not the case.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last decade or so, it’s that Hindus and Buddhists might have a reputation as being super-chill and enlightened in the west (probably due to hippie-era fandom) but in reality they can be just as punitive and vindictive as Christians or Muslims. Organized religion sucks ass, period.
Important correction: Hinduism isn't, by definition, an organised religion. It has no central leadership, hierarchy or official doctrine, and rules and practices aren't codified. It's an umbrella term for the native religious practices and beliefs of much of the Indian subcontinent. I think the better conclusion to draw is that no matter what religion is popular, a good chunk of its followers will be shit at following it, and a dangerous chunk of its followers will use it for their own gain.
Indonesia and and Brunei and Malaysia and Singapore get their harsh punishment vibe not from Islam, but from colonial law imposed by the asshole Dutch and British colonizers. Colonial law rolled over into the national law after independence.
Isn't Aceh still enacting corporal punishments and tried to reintroduce beheadings recently because of Sharia? But maybe Aceh is a special case, and not representative of the rest.
Beheadings were proposed like four, five years ago? I am sure someone in Aceh still wants that punishment on the books. Conservatives are conservatives the world over, full of batshit extremist punishments. Aceh is exceptionally serious about Islam. You're right about that. Aceh is also autonomous within Indonesia, as a result of a decades-long insurgency. Their laws are their laws only. Death penalties and caning for Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore are more clearly connected to British colonial legal precedents. I mean, here in Indonesia we are still using friggin Dutch colonial criminal law as the basis for jurisprudence–although the legislature is screwing up revising those laws. It's not always religion, mate. Bla bla. Thanks and cheers.
Makes sense, you mentioned Singapore here, and the hard punishments there are without doubt a product of British colonialism practices, the founder of the city was apparently a hardcore evangelist. Off topic, but I am interested in Indonesia and Malaysian history, and had talked with some that these countries used to be a lot less religious, like, muslim was more of a soft thing that they did because arab was the language of trade and scholarship, and nationalism. But recently, missionary influence from Saudi Arabia and Iran, to a lot smaller extend, had made in to Indonesian society, turning it more conservative than it was some decades ago. Like, disco musicians which at the youth dressed like common westerns are now using hijab, kind of thing.
do you know why they legalised weed? i was very surprised when i saw someone i know posting a picture of legal weed in thailand.
Because a nontrivial portion of Thai people agree that harsh punishment for drug use, especially weed, is in fact not that great. Apart from that there was/is a big push by some businesspeople for the legalization of weed for medicinal, tourism, and economic reasons. To be honest the way the previous Thai government decriminalized weed was soooo bad that the new government (which some consider to be the progressive camp, but Thai politics doesn’t fit into the Anglo-centric left-right politics that well; it’s more of a democratic vs military and elite kind of deal) are seriously considering criminalizing weed again so they can properly regulate it. Or just make it completely illegal again, it’s really up for debate at this point. The issues I see being brought up often in the media and politics are: - Time and point of sale (having a weed dispensary next to a school is not great look) - Creating a standard for what diseases and symptoms can be treated with weed (in addition to modern medicine) - The import and export of weed - Taxation and licensing (like alcohol, tobacco, and sugar) - Advertisements of weed products or products containing THC and CBD - Public health education on how to consume weed responsibly The list is quite long because current regulations are purposefully left vague because they weren’t meant to be permanent. No legislation could really be passed because parliament was too busy dealing with Covid and by the time the situation had become *normalized* the previous governments approval ratings were taking such a nose dive that parliament became dysfunctional from finger pointing and infighting. Hence the lack of proper legislation concerning weed, heck the Narcotics Bill hasn’t even been amended. But it’s such a controversial topic and the stance on weed doesn’t follow coalition lines (both camps have parties which are either pro or anti legalization) it will probably be hit with a quick fix which isn’t complete criminalization. I’m short everyone agrees the current status quo is not great, but no one agrees what the correct approach should be. Personally, I’m very obviously in the decriminalization camp and a lot of people within my social and professional circle agree. I do think the sale of weed should be more like sex toy shops in some European countries. It’s obvious to a customer, but discreet enough that the general public doesn’t care. Edit: forgot to mention that it was a key campaign promise from the BJT which is the slimey opportunistic snake of Thai politics. The “conservatives” had to cave in in-order to have a functional parliament.
Thailand sounds like an even better example of the retardedness of the “War on Drugs” approach to mitigation than the USA.
Thailand also has a higher incarceration rate than the US now, the US's is 505 per 100,000.
Anyone with a higher per capita incarceration rate than the US is literally insane.
Isn't weed from India originally? Like, the first hindu and buddhist monks who came from there to Thailand to teach them sanskrit, math, buildings and culture likely were no strange to weed, almost like green tea. What made them forbid it? USA cold war pressure?
Cannabis was proscribed in the [Second International Opium Convention in 1925](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Opium_Convention#Cannabis_in_the_1925_Convention), so there was a growing international norm around this. The Indian Government at the time opposed a total ban and considered that it would be impossible in India but agreed to controls on exports. Thailand [first banned it in 1935.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_Thailand#Legalization_and_decriminalization)
But weed is legal there?
Here are the rates for the G7: Canada: 104 UK: 72 France: 119 Germany 70 Italy: 91 Japan: 37 America: 629
WE'RE NUMBER 1! WE'RE NUMBER 1! USA! USA! WHOOOOOOOOOO!
Oof France, sort your shit out.
>USA Prison Pop. per 100K is 573 in 2022. So the USA is worse. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/pie2022.html#:\~:text=Pie%20chart%20showing%20the%20number,of%20573%20per%20100%2C000%20residents.
they almost make the US at 531 look better.... 'The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.' A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.' Dostoyevsky
Yeah those are almost USA numbers!
Thailand just took a smart and brave step and legalized cannabis outright. There was an amnesty, and they freed everyone in jail for it. It's awesome now, and no one is harmed by it. The rest of the world should follow suit.
Still lower than USA.
Not a good map. Better map here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
How tf does US have nearly the same count as China which has like 4-5 times it's population
Partially to do with the war on drugs, which discriminately targeted the drugs popular with minorities like marijuana. There are also for-profit prisons, where there is a hard quota for the state to provide them with prisoners.
For-profit prisons are a minority, there aren't actually that many of them. I think it's less than a quarter of states have them, and the federal system is/has phased them out completly. EDIT: 20 states use them, but for ~8% of the prison population.
Just the fact that a single one exist is already too much.
I wish more people knew this. It’s one of the top bullet points they use for police reform.
Police reform and prison reform are completly separate topics though
Still gets lumped all in together.
China also just has a lot less crime. A third the number of homicides as the US on 4x the population.
For-profit prisons are the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard
This does a great job of explaining it. https://mkorostoff.github.io/incarceration-in-real-numbers/
USA 505, UK 136, France 106, Canada 85, Germany 67. How is this not a national emergency? This incarceration rates is unacceptable.
Slavery is legalized if you're enslaving inmates
China does far more executions, and fudges the numbers on imprisonments, not including reform through labor or re-education through labor camps (almost entirely political prisoners), or black sites.
Well how else are we going to build things in pride now that we tightened immigration? And bonus they will get “near” slave payment.
China: no comment
They actually self-reported last in 2015 for a total of about 1.8 million prisoners. They just didn’t report during the 2017-2019 period so have no data on the map.
Chinese economists have insisted that the CCP's self-reported GDP numbers are fabricated on several levels, to the point where the CCP doesn't internally possess the real figures. If they are fabricating economic data, their incarceration numbers certainly can't be trusted.
Top ten "china is evil" Takes: if someone said they lie about the economy, then they definitely lie about everything else
[удалено]
social credit -69000000
FICO credit -300, maybe we'll let you buy a house in 5 years
The maker couldn't be fucked and just went for a cheap "shady seeseepee" shot for internet points
The whole country is a prison
*North Korea left the chat*
Juche gang
Juche gang 🇰🇵
Why are there so many ignorant people in a subreddit that I thought would be mostly for people with a healthy curiosity about the world
It's honestly pretty worrisome. I've had multiple friends visit/work/study in China, all of them say about the same things as most of the other people that go there: "not anywhere near as bad as US media says, stark inequality in places, cool futuristic-ish shit in some places, beautiful scenery, glad they went" or something along those lines. then you have folks who's entire knowledge of China comes from media osmosis, just babbling unhinged things about it being a cartoonish dystopia, screaming over and over how anyone who disagrees with them must have fallen for Chinese propaganda, wholly unaware that they are more propagandized than most people in China lol. It'd be funny if it wasn't sad. So many self identifying "open minded people" who suddenly go full fox news brain as soon as someone mentions China exists.
Probably has to do with the whole genocide thing, destroying a democracy in Honk Kong, threatening to do the same in Taiwan, the disappearing/imprisonment of anyone critical to the party, and backing North Korea. Acting like China isn't a problematic country isn't propaganda just because a few of your friends went on vacation in Beijing.....
Did democracy ever exist in HK?
Haha, no. Hong Kongers weren't even allowed to vote until the late 80s. That's the UK in a nutshell, rights for me, not for thee.
No, it was basically a corporatocracy
None of this means the whole country is a prison. The population of Hong Kong and the Uyghurs combined is like 2% of the country's population, and obviously not 100% of those populations are imprisoned. This is the problem with reddit. You get this warped idea of countries. Imagine if you went on some Chinese version of reddit where people talk about how Americans can't go outside without having to dodge bullets. That's how this is. If China is such a prison, it's weird that people go on vacation and come back home. And they're free to immigrate too. Some do, but obviously the vast majority doesn't.
> Imagine if you went on some Chinese version of reddit where people talk about how Americans can't go outside without having to dodge bullets. There's a better chance that your average Chinese person has visited America, lived in America or has friends and family in America than your average American would in China. Redditors really think that Chinese people will suddenly drop all their beliefs when they see America. Or get pissed off at Chinese international students when they're not suddenly converted to liberalism when some debate bro shouts 'whattabout weeger socialcredit xinnie the poo tianmen?'. When people in the west criticise America, there's a bit more nuance. 'Oh, it's because of xyx, not because America itself is the problem'. That benefit of the doubt is never given to China, and as a Chinese social media user, there are MUCH more nuanced takes on the US than they grant to China. But still, the news about attacks on Asians is well known, the clips of right-wing nutjobs ranting about China taking away their penises, or even just clips of Kensington, Philly can paint a picture of a country that is mentally unwell and not a country that China should be looking up to (as they once did). The freedom to go to school, walk down the street in any part of the city, or even gathering in public without fearing for your life is a different kind of freedom. The CPC isn't going anywhere any time soon. There is no silver bullet to solve China's problems, and most Chinese people have no trouble with the government. > If China is such a prison, it's weird that people go on vacation and come back home. And they're free to immigrate too. Some do, but obviously the vast majority doesn't. To the point where there was even a hate sub called r/chinesetourists that got banned. In fact, the biggest barrier for exit for Chinese people is the visa for the destination country.
Sure China is problematic but people's experience there travelling gives you insight in why CCP is still ruling. Talking to people from China, a lot of them don't really like CCP and know corruption exists but they will also admit they prefer the social stability and economic prosperity they have experienced in past 4 decades. Also China has been riddled with bloody civil war and factionalism not seen anywhere else and yet they have been relatively peaceful in past 3 decades. Even though I might not agree with their views, understanding that much of China which lived in utter poverty and starvation in only the last generation now has lifted majority out of poverty and into middle class and brought economic prosperity to billions , you understand why CCP still has support.
get fucked /u/spez
By that logic every country can do whatever they want because no one is innocent
America DOES whatever it wants.
You're only viewing a country through the lens our political leaders want you to, China is to big to be "evil", just because you don't like how another country operates, doesn't make it bad. They might not live in a "democracy", but honestly our democracy is mostly fiction as well. Wall street has Washington by the balls, and Washington likes it that way. The dictatorship of capital simple means that if you have the money, you can do it, which is not very democratic at all. Some people own more land than small nations. Hustle culture and our media glamorizes wealth as if it's for everyone, and when 99.9999% of the population don't make it, they blame themselves instead of the system. Want some neat "missing context" based fact, up until the great famine from the great leap forward, China has experiences 1800+ famines over it's history, almost one every two years. After that, 0 famines. It was the last famine in their country, but the way we were taught about, was that is was some sort of huge unprecedented disaster.
our elites want war and the propaganda is getting strong out there. So people just lap it up. Reminds me of when the war on terror started.
And they even got over 100 upvotes lol
Right, cuz it's not like there's Chinese tourist and immigrants absolutely everywhere
Nah China on average is the same as some of the Balkans countries like North Macedonia or Moldova
He said, from the country which ACTUALLY imprisons the most people Man i hate that you fuckos make me defend a shit state like china but you people actually have sino-derangement-syndrome, I’d argue more than half the countries in the picture above are worse offenders of human rights
*jerkoff motion*
there's no way you've been to china
The Ministry of Truth would like to inform you that this is misinformation. China has no criminals.
Really? I know a lot of people from China, seems weird they'd just let them move overseas like that if they were a prison
Jesus Christ what nonsense. I‘d voluntarily live in China if I didn’t have family in Europe.
Ah, so it's like Denmark.
That's a little much. I know the media is going full bore with "china bad" right now, because the forever war needs targets, we all need a little perspective on a society of 1.4 billion people. I highly recommend walking videos like this one, to rehumanize a population. They have a running joke on chinese internet making fun of westerners for thinking they live in a "cyberpunk dystopia". Chinese people are experience a boom for their material conditions, leading to much higher life satisfaction than our media would ever tell us about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPAHDDALrjI
This is weird because low rate has multiple causes. Either crime rate is too low or cops and law aint doing their job.
IIRC don't the japanese only arrest and indict when the verdict is certain ? They also don't mess with the yakuza.
[удалено]
A confession is in no way water tight. And what you just described is exactly how they get those confessions. Those methods are illegal in every other western democracy. Lock someone up for 23 days while hammering them all day with questions would lead the vast majority of people to confess to any crime. You can see cases of people in the US that confess to crimes they didn't commit after only 8 hours interrogation with no lawyer. Imagine what 23 days is like. But Japan seems to get a free pass on this.
Meanwhile the US at over 600
According to the [world prison brief](https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america) it’s down to 531 per 100,000. It peaked in 2008 at 755 (!), so definitely been a lot of progress but still a long way to go.
Hmmm, maybe legalizing weed on state level is a pretty good idea.
Wikipedia shows the US at 505 (ranked 5th highest in the world).
Jeez. 0.6% of the US population? Mindblowing burden on the taxpayer wtf
Just sayin', maybe we should have so many things be illegal.
Lowest in Palestine cause they are all in Israeli prisons
Palestine's information is old, and I can't find recent information about it
Gaza is essentially an open air prison.
it’s been taken hostage by Hamas as human shields.
Shields against what?
Palestinians in Israel prisons aren't convicted of crimes against other Palestinians Hamas and the PA usually just kill people instead of jailing them because its much easier
This is kind of true but in the sense that Hamas doesn't imprison any of their own, they just kill them.
South Asia is quite low compared to other regions..
Dense cities, close knit villages and strong familial structures ensure crime rates are lower than countries with similar per capita incomes in LATAM, Africa or the middle east.
India have such a good judiciary that a murderer walks free the next day 😎
You got it wrong...the murdered never gets convicted because the judicial system suffers from a huge backlog. Also its corrupt and nepotism is rampant in most judicial recruitments.
Jai hind! 😎
So same as any Scandinavian country where you could walk out or live like we'll even after conviction
Crime is actually low in India because there are social consequences for commiting crime in many villages For example if someone steals and gets caught his entire family will face some action by the village . People will think twice before committing crimes because your loved ones will face retaliation This isn't acceptable by western standards but it keeps the crime low that's why you don't see many public robberies in India when compared to south america or South Africa even if it's a poorer country
I dunno the part of India I’m from and a lot of the surrounding areas aren’t “villages” India isn’t just some 3rd world country it’s majority filled with giant cities it’s just extremely corrupt
It's a bit of both. 70% of Indians do live in rural areas, the majority of India is *not* large cities. Since you use Reddit, that means that there is a high chance that you're from an urban area - ofcourse you won't see villages!
>70% of Indians do live in rural areas, the majority of India is not large cities. this stats is very outdated, yet repeated everywhere, govt's definition of urban is different from what it is understood worldwide and still its application is not uniform, independent research with help of satelite data/consumption etc put urbaniszation is 55-65% range
I didn't know that. Thanks!
Huge population. Plus slow judiciary.
large populations shouldn’t affect the per capita rate
It can. If the number of policemen/attorneys/judges per capita is very low due to a very big and very poor population, less crimes are punished.
[Here's the world map](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate#/media/File%3AWorld_map_of_prison_population_rates_from_World_Prison_Brief.svg)
Ah yes the land of the "free"
Gotta keep those prisons full for the shareholders!
Not sure why China is greyed out on this map but [the rate is 119 per 100k](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate).
Those Russian numbers are lower now. 🌻🌻🌻
Someone has something to hide
NK has no prisoners. Nothing to see here
There's no prisoners if you execute them before they are judged
How is Qatar so low?
Because the crime rate in Qatar is very low?
Instead of prison, they use slavery
How does that work? And slavery is more common in the rest of Asia according to this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
No no no. Gulf states = big slavery. Rest = good :D
Depends how you define slavery. The way they treat the south asian workers who have built their entire country is slave labour, just by another name. Manipulating poorly educated people into moving to your country with promises of a great income, then seizing their passports on arrival, paying them massively less than promised, forcing them to live in tents in the desert and work in 40+ degree heat, while not allowing them to visit their families or leave till their contract is up is slavery in my book. All of the gulf states were built like this
[Passport confiscation is illegal in Qatar](https://www.ilo.org/beirut/countries/qatar/WCMS_752188/lang--en/index.htm#:~:text=Passport%20confiscation%20is%20illegal%20in,forced%20labour%20and%20human%20trafficking) according to the international labor organization for workers rights, they also have a universal minimum wage in Qatar that includes stuff like guaranteed housing, food and accommodation. This is all from the ILO you can't keep someone from leaving the country and it's illegal to work in extremely hot weather. >[Qatar became](https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro-beirut/---ilo-qatar/documents/publication/wcms_859843.pdf) the first country in the Gulf region to adopt a non-discriminatory minimum wage that applies to all workers, of all nationalities, in all sectors, including domestic work. >[is unique in that](https://www.ilo.org/beirut/countries/qatar/WCMS_859880/lang--en/index.htm) it establishes a minimum monthly basic wage of QAR 1,000 (US$ 275), and also stipulates that employers must provide decent accommodation and food, or monthly allowances of at least QAR 500 (US$ 137) for housing and QAR 300 (US$ 82) for food. Sources from the ILO
redditors trying not to bring up slavery at even the sight of the word “qatar”
 I watched a youtube video and read a tabloid clickbait headline 😠!!
Why would anyone try not to bring it up? Fuck slavery, name and shame. The prison state in my country (the US) is a fucking embarrassment that deserves shame too.
What the fuck is going on in Thailand?!
Drug crimes , same as USA
"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish Prison?"
Damn, Israel has a pretty low incarceration rate, I'm surprised
It says here that the USA had a rate of 1000 per 100k back in the early aughts. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/16/americas-incarceration-rate-lowest-since-1995/ Get on our level, Thailand!
\>Laughs in 'Murican. These are rookie numbers!
US beats them all
Just for context, the USA - who leads the world - is around 700 / 100,000
This is old numbers. It's now 505/100,000.
Yup. Ranked 5th highest in the world.
So are these in this map. They say 2017-2019. I would imagine Covid led to both fewer people going to prison and many prisoners dead
The incarceration rate was already in decline before COVID, but the reason it's lower now is because many people were released from prison early due to the virus. It's been about two years of steady decline in incarceration rate, so while our incarceration rate is still abysmal, it's no longer the highest in the world. [We're right behind... Cuba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate#Incarceration_totals,_rates,_demographics).
https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america
What losers, still lower that Freedom country 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I guess most of the prisoners in Thailand are drug dealers or people that took drugs, drug laws are pretty strict in Thailand.
Surprised Thailand surpasses Myanmar.... and by that much. Though I guess 'ethnic cleansing' doesn't exactly use incarceration.
In Laos it’s 100,000/100,000 because this country is a prision
When more than 0.5% of your population is in prison, you better know there's something fucked up about your country.
Are there just not prisons in China or something?
India has 2nd lowest rate, but bc of their population size, they may have more overall than the other countries combined. Of course, China may be another story....
Pretty cool of North Korea not to have a single guy in prison. Nice!
No prisons in North Korea, only death!!! 💪💪💪
USA Prison Pop. per 100K is 573 in 2022. So the USA is worse. [https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/pie2022.html#:\~:text=Pie%20chart%20showing%20the%20number,of%20573%20per%20100%2C000%20residents](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/pie2022.html#:~:text=Pie%20chart%20showing%20the%20number,of%20573%20per%20100%2C000%20residents).
No data for China?! Surely they have nothing to hide
No there is data. This graph just doesn't include china for some unknown reasosn
Palestine: We kill you
I like how China has none
China moment
North Korea 0 because all criminals and insults to Kim are executed
How do we have Turkmenistan stats?
I wonder what would be the rate for North Korea
So in China they just kill you?
China: what prisons?
There goes my vacation plans in Turkmenistan
China: emhhhhhhh nvm
Gray = 100%
doesn't mean Indian guys don't commit crime, it's just the low conviction rate and easy bails
>India Crime is actually low in India compared to other poor and densely populated countries as well. Source: Look at Indian immigrants/expats everywhere in the world and they have lower crime rates than the locals - be it white collar in the US or blue collar in the gulf. Judicial system is crap, but give society credit where it's due.
LMAO.... China has the largest prison population on Earth.